Alchemists Through The Ages

Alchemy-the word itself conjures up images of charlatans mixing potions and concocting remedies during the Middle Ages in a futile quest to transform lead into gold. But the roots of alchemy can be traced back more than 2,500 years to locales as disparate as Egypt, India, and China, and it was considered serious science until as recently as the 16th century. In this highly regarded volume first published in 1888, Arthur E. Waite examines the lives and works of more than fifty alchemists, from the year 850 through the end of the 18th century. Readers will learn about such renowned figures as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Pope John XXII, and decide for themselves whether alchemy was the true precursor to modern chemistry or a pseudo-science populated by quacks. American-born British author ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE (1857-1942) was co-creator of the famous 1910 Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Among his numerous books are Book of Ceremonial Magic, Devil Worship in France, and New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1800's Edition.

All the many personalities who have immortalized themselves in alchemical research through the centuries are introduced in this very readable, compact presentation for today's interest in this fascinating, age-old quest in the metamorphosis of the human being. Mr Waite shows that the real alchemist quest was no the goal of turning base metals into gold, but rather the unfolding of the human being, the releasing and manifesting of the higher self. Seen in this light, alchemy is of profound interest and vital concern to awakened interests in development of spiritual powers and potentialities. Throughought the book are beautiful, historically significant illustrations.

The present volume owes its ongm to a Colloquium on "Alchemy and Chemistry in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries", held at the Warburg Institute on 26th and 27th July 1989. The Colloquium focused on a number of selected themes during a closely defined chronological interval: on the relation of alchemy and chemistry to medicine, philosophy, religion, and to the corpuscular philosophy, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The relations between Medicina and alchemy in the Lullian treatises were examined in the opening paper by Michela Pereira, based on researches on unpublished manuscript sources in the period between the 14th and 17th centuries. It is several decades since the researches of R.F. Multhauf gave a prominent role to Johannes de Rupescissa in linking medicine and alchemy through the concept of a quinta essentia. Michela Pereira explores the significance of the Lullian tradition in this development and draws attention to the fact that the early Paracelsians had themselves recognized a family resemblance between the works of Paracelsus and Roger Bacon's scientia experimentalis and, indeed, a continuity with the Lullian tradition.

A provocative history of the people behind the greatest discoveries in chemistry

A 400-year history of the development of alchemy in England that brings to light the evolution of the practice. In medieval and early modern Europe, the practice of alchemy promised extraordinary physical transformations. Who would not be amazed to see base metals turned into silver and gold, hard iron into soft water, and deadly poison into elixirs that could heal the human body? To defend such claims, alchemists turned to the past, scouring ancient books for evidence of a lost alchemical heritage and seeking to translate their secret language and obscure imagery into replicable, practical effects. Tracing the development of alchemy in England over four hundred years, from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, Jennifer M. Rampling illuminates the role of alchemical reading and experimental practice in the broader context of national and scientific history. Using new manuscript sources, she shows how practitioners like George Ripley, John Dee, and Edward Kelley, as well as many previously unknown alchemists, devised new practical approaches to alchemy while seeking the support of English monarchs. By reconstructing their alchemical ideas, practices, and disputes, Rampling reveals how English alchemy was continually reinvented over the space of four centuries, resulting in changes to the science itself. In so doing, The Experimental Fire bridges the intellectual history of chemistry and the wider worlds of early modern patronage, medicine, and science.

According to the author, alchemy was the belief that "all the metals (and, indeed, all forms of matter) are one in origin, and are produced by an evolutionary process. The Soul of them all is one and the same; it is only the Soul that is permanent..." Redgrove offers a detailed account of alchemy's controversial history, treating both the theoretical and physical approaches to the field. Alchemy: Ancient and Modern has long been viewed as a significant introductory text to the subject. Herbert Stanley Redgrove (1887-1943) wrote several texts on similar topics, including A Mathematical Theory of Spirit, Bygone Beliefs and Purpose and Transcendentalism. He was a chemist and a founder of the Alchemical Society in London. This edition is dedicated to Adam Kendall, in his distinctive way an authority on the mysteries of the past.