Alchemist European

Rady, Martyn. A Transylvanian alchemist in seventeenth-century London. Slavonic East European Review 72, no. 1 (1994) 140-151. 

Extracted from his Alchemy rediscovered and restored (1940). Contents The alchemists Chinese alchemy Egyptian alchemy Arabian alchemy European alchemy The English alchemists Alchemy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries... 

Mahdihassan, S. Symbols designed by European alchemists incorporating elements of Chinese origin. Amer J Chinese Med 15, no. 1-2 (1987) 3-12. 

Alchemical theories are central to the middle ages and the Renaissance. Chaucer and Shakespeare were heavily steeped in the subject, and it still exerts a fascination today. This is a scholarly and accessible introduction to Western European alchemy, and to the iconography of Alchemical works from antiquity to the rise of chemistry. It includes an illustrated glossary of Alchemical terms and biographies of major alchemists. It is intended for students of medieval and Renaissance art, literature and history art historians and anyone with a general interest in the history and principles of alchemy or medieval culture... 

Discovered" in the Middle East. The European "Iron Age" began in 750 BC. The alchemists assigned iron to Mars. Iron stands out above all other elements as determining the history of mankind owing to its use in tools and weapons. 

My purpose in comparing Alchemy and Tibetan Buddhist Yoga is twofold. First, the old European alchemists refered to their melancholia, meaning the depression that besets till spiritual practitioners from time to time. In Alchemy this depression is pronounced and common, because its practitioners, more often than not, work in isolation and in a nonsupportive culture. Tibetan Buddhism on the other hand, has a continuous lineage of practitioners who have attained signs of accomplishment, thereby giving assurance to others that the Goal is attainable. Tibet also has a culture where the fruits of the spirit are valued above all else. 

Figure 4.4 European alchemists believed that Hermes Trismegistus was the first alchemist. Behind Hermes in this engraving a phoenix is reborn from a fire, a symbol of the regenerative power of the Philosopher s Stone. (Johann Daniel Mylius, Antidotarium [1620])...

Arabic alchemy was unknown in the west until the eleventh century when the first translations from Arabic into Latin were made. Two Arab alchemists were especially well known and widely read Jabir ibn Hayyan, known to Europeans as Geber, and Abu Bakr ibn Zakariyya al-Razi, known as Rhazes. Of more than 2,000 pieces of writing attributed to Jabir, most were compiled by a Muslim religious sect called the Faithful Brethren or Brethren of Purity after he died. The works are written in different styles, which would indicate that they were penned by different authors. The compilation was completed around the year 1000, more than a hundred years after Jabir died. However, it has been established that the work translated into Latin under the title Summa Perfectionis was based on translations of Jabir s writing. Thus, although little is known about his life, we know something about the role Jabir played in the evolution of alchemical theory. 

Jabir introduced a theory, which was to influence much of later alchemy, that metals were mixtures of sulfur, mercury, and arsenic, except for gold, which was made up of sulfur and mercury alone. The sulfur and mercury of which Jabir spoke were not the substances found in nature. They were purified essences which European alchemists later called philosophical sulfur and philosophical mercury. They were supposed to be quite unlike the common substances. For example, it was said that philosophical sulfur didn t burn. According to Jabir, of all the metals, gold contained the most mercury and the least sulfur. Thus other metals could be transformed into gold if ways were found to increase their mercury content. 

The appearance of Arabic alchemical works in Latin translation launched European alchemy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Although the European alchemists never succeeded in making... 

But of course discoveries such as these were only incidental to the quest for the Philosopher s Stone, which was often described by European alchemists in paradoxical ways. For example, according to the sixteenth-century work on alchemy, the Gloria Mundi, the Philosopher s Stone is... 

Several Europeans, while not alchemists themselves, contributed to setting the stage for modern chemistry. Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), also known as Albert the Great, played an important role in intro-... 

Based upon Taoist philosophy, alchemy in China developed. Although there is not any literature concerning atomism among the ancient Chinese alchemists, five elements (Wu Xing) were acknowledged in the twelfth century BCE. These elements were water, fire, wood, gold or metal, and earth. The elements were frequently associated or matched with other sets of five, such as virtues, tastes, colors, tones, and the like (P). In about 1910, modem atomism probably came to China when Sim Yat Sen introduced modem European education. 

Opium has been used medicinally throughout history. Writings of ancient physicians in many cultures espoused the virtues of opium as a remedy for all types of ailments including pain relief, cough suppression, and diarrhea. Remedies prepared by alchemists and ancient physicians often contained opium. Galen (131-200) prescribed opium for headaches, deafness, melancholy, epilepsy, asthma, and colic. The famous European physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) produced an alcoholic potion containing opium called laudanum. Varieties of laudanum were used for several hundred years as medicinal drinks and were readily available in apothecaries. 

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