Divination

The most ancient uses of spices appear to be therapeutic in nature. The use of spices was common in China but tittle, if any, authentic Chinese records exist to confirm this. According to Chinese myths and legends, Shen Nung, the Divine Cultivator, founded Chinese medicine and discovered the curative powers of many herbs. He is said to have described more than 100 plants in a treatise reportedly written in 2700 BC. It has been shown, however, that no written language was available in China at that time. Although some of the herbal uses in the treatise go back several centuries BC, the work seems to have been produced by unknown authors in the first century AD. Other records on the use of cassia and ginger are known to have been written in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, in the latter case by Confucius. 

A simple way of finding the roots of an equation, other than by divine inspiration, symmetry or guesswork is afforded by the Newton method. We start at some point denoted x l along the x-axis, and calculate the tangent to the curve at... 

Wiinschelrute, /. divining (or dowsing) rod. wiinschen, v.t. wish, wish for, desire, wunschenswert, a. desirable, wurbe, pret. aubj. of werben. wurde, pret. (of werden) became was. 

The next day the Times ot London carried an article headlined Revolution in Science/New Theory of the Universe/Newtonian Ideas Overthrown. Einstein had triumphed over Newton (who, of course, remains a stellar figure in science). The drama of that moment was enhanced by the contrast with the recently concluded World War I, which had caused millions to die, empires to fall, and the future to be uncertain. At that time Einstein emerges, bringing newlaw and order. From that time on the world press made him into an icon, the divine man, of the twentieth centui y. 

Tesla died in 1943. His funeral seiMce was held in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. As during his lifetime, controversy was not far away. The Serb and Croat mourners sat on opposite sides of the cathedral. 

Nikolaas J. van derMerwe Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA... 

A scientist s credo might be One measurement is no measurement. Thus, take a few measurements and divine the truth This is an invitation for discussions, worse yet, even disputes among scientists. Science thrives on hypotheses that are either disproven or left to stand in the natural sciences that essentially means experiments are re-mn. Any insufficiency of a model results in a refinement of the existing theory it is rare that a theory completely fails (the nineteenth-century luminiferous ether theory of electromagnetic waves was one such, and cold fusion was a more shortlived case). 

Some Paracelsian alchemists, especially Heinrich Khun rath (ca. 1560-1605) and Stefan Michelspacher (active ca. 1615-23), were objects of persecution on the part of hoth Lutheran and Catholic authorities. Khunrath was an alchemist from Saxony, the heartland of the Reformation, but his theological stance was characteristic of the second generation of Protestants who felt that Luther s work had been left incomplete and that another religious reform was essential. In Khunrath s ideas this would take the form of a Lutheranism that could accommodate an autonomous personal piety. To express their Lutheran piety intellectually the alchemists employed the terms of Paracelsian theosophy, while they found an emotive outlet in the mystical experience of the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. They felt themselves to be inspired (literally breathed ) by the Spirit, a force that they identified with alchemical pneuma. Khunrath called himself an enthusiast, hlled with the presence of the divine. 

The concept of a Cosmic Man, the All, the soul of both the universe and humanity, was a significant factor in the theosophy of Paracelsus (1493-1541). The first visual depiction of this Being in the form of Christ-Anthropos, the Son of Man, appeared in Khunrath s alchemical treatise in 1595 (fig. 3). It was developed into the image of the Macrocosmic Man by Robert Fludd who was a prolihc encyclopaedist of Hermetic, medical and mechanical knowledge. In his Philosophia Sacra (1626), Fludd recalled texts in the Hermetic corpus (ca. second century AD) which recounted how Man ( Anthropos ), the divine Son of God, had created the world by uniting with Nature ( Physis ). ... 

Fludd always organised his theoretical discourse into two distinctive types of knowledge, that of lower mechanical and that of divine theosophical. The hrst part of the Macrocosm, accordingly, was devoted to divine science, while the second part, the Naturae Simla ( the ape of Nature ) dealt with practical skills of every kind. In this division of knowledge, he was following Dee s system of classihcation and both Hermeticists were basing themselves on the Platonic distinction between conceptual knowledge and the mechanical crafts. 

The ecstatic tenor of Khunrath s rhetoric is itself perhaps modelled on the spiritus rhetoricus of Erasmus early hermeneutics in which he had explored the spiritual sense of a text as being a force of divine grace that could spontaneously transform the reader. It was the personal experience of the sense of scripture that Erasmus had favoured in the Enchiridion Hence, also the outcries of Hallelujah and Lob Herr that punctuate, or conclude, Khunrath s writings. 

Coming." At this time eschatological discourse was co-opted into the service of the esoteric sciences, most especially into alchemical theory in the twelfth century Latin translation of the Turba philosophorum (Arabic original ca. 900 AD). Christian interpolations were added to this text referring to the death and resurrection of the chemicals in apocalyptic terms." The process of distillation in Christian alchemy symbolised death and resurrection, as well as the union of Macrocosm and Microcosm. To the alchemists the death and resurrection of the stone in the manner of a human being was the clearest indication that alchemy was a divine, not a human science. 

Christ in glory was the proto-type for perfected human flesh. This idea parallels the Galenic theory of balancing the bodily humours in a perfectly tempered body. Schwenckfeld, however, did not envisage perfection in these medical terms, but in that of an immortal body, divinely illuminated by Christ s sacrifice. The existence of Christ s glorified, but human body on earth testified that humans are not in essence natural bodies, but that their true form is that of Christ. In this argument, Schwenckfeld was relying on Paul s problematic account of the risen body. ... 

Michelspacher s title-page is not, in fact, a monument to empirical learning, but takes the form of a memento mori. Far from applauding the new Renaissance humanism, on the contrary, he employs the science of anatomy as a metaphor to demonstrate the futility of rational knowledge in the face of death and decay.The prospect of immortality is available only to those who seek an intuitive Gnosis, a divine epiphany concerning God s work in Nature. 

In the sixteenth century it was possible to understand the universe by means of anatomy. Plato in the Timaens had stated that the body of the Cosmos was harmonised by proportion and brought into existence. At its central point was man, consisting of body and soul, material and immaterial substance. The higher soul consisted of mind and reason, the former shared with the Divine Intellect, although... 

Men have rejected the true, living, and inward knowledge of God, and his Anointed and also of his Holy Spirit... but have placed their Reason in the midst of the Temple of God, in place or stead of GOD, and his Divine Light ... 

Shall our Reason judge of the Divine Oracles which the Holy Ghost hath brought forth through the Mouth of the Saints, when as Men of God spoke them not in their own Wills, but as they were led by the Spirit.. . the Holy Ghost.. . the only worker of Regeneration ... 

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