Macrocosm

An approach that has gained attention recently is the use of model ecosystems microcosms, mesocosms, and macrocosms for testing chemicals (Chapter 4,... 

Microcosm, mesocosm, and macrocosm Small, medium, or large multispecies system in which effects of chemicals can be studied. 

In a manner comparable to Christian eschatology, alchemical literature insisted on its own purificatory rituals that involved the preliminary torture, death and dismemberment of the prima materia. The canonical Catholic depiction of Christ s sacrificed body was a primary source for sixteenth and seventeenth century illustrations of the tortured body in anatomical and alchemical publications. In eflfect, the practice of Paracelsian alchemical medicine and surgery had a sacramental connotation, since the physician acted on the human body in the same manner as God worked on the great universal Macrocosmic Body. In like manner, the Paracelsian physician introduced the universal panacea, a liquid form of the philosopher s stone, into the alchemical alembic that was the Microcosmic human body. This alchemical medicine was permeated with the starry virtues of the heavens and the grace of Christ s Spirit, redeeming the body and soul of the patient by granting him not only an extended life on earth, but even eternal salvation. 

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 had achieved notoriety for his early support of the Rosicmcian Manifestos in his Apoloipa (1616), expanded into the Tractatus Apobgetims (1617). He claimed a precocious intellectual ability for himself, stating that he had already composed the greater part of his enormous work, the Macrocosm [Utriusque Cosmi.. . Historia, 1, 1617), during... 

Robert Fludd s theosophical system is centred on this same Hermetic concept of the Macrocosmic Body which he illustrates profusely in a variety of forms throughout his treatises, commencing in 1617 in... 

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. 

Khunrath s engraving of Christ-Anthropos, the Archetype of the universe (fig. 3), initiated many of the elements later found in Fludd s prolific illustrations of the Macrocosmic Man. These included the use of the male nude, kabbalistic inscriptions, geographical compass-points, the diagrammatic structure of the Macrocosm and the motif of the dove of the Holy Spirit. The apocalyptic context of these images and their role in the Protestant Reformation of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries will be considered in the following chapter. 

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. 

Diagram of the Divine, Cosmic and Human Minds, Macrocosm," Utriusque CostniHistoria (Oppenheim J. T. de Bry, 1617), 217. With the permission of the British Library, London. 

Madathanus, Hinricus. Cosmology, or universal science. Cabala. Alchemy. Containing the mysteries of the universe, regarding God Nature Man, the macrocosm and microcosm, eternity and time explained according to the religion of Christ, by means of The secret symbols of the Rosicrucians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van. The paradoxal discourses... concerning the macrocosm and microcosm, or the greater and lesser world, and their union. Set down in writing by J.B. and now published. London Printed by J.C. and Freeman Collins, for Robert Kettlewel, at the Hand and Scepter near S. Dunstan s church in Fleetstreet, 1685. 127, 215p. 

Bai wen pian = [Bai wen pian], or, The hundred questions a dialogue between two Taoists on the macrocosmic and microcosmic system of correspondences / translated by RolfHomann. Translated by RolfHomann. Leiden Brill, 1976. x, 109 p... 

Titley, A.F. Report of discussion upon chemical and alchemical symbolism the macrocosm and microcosm in mediaeval alchemy. Ambix 1, no. 1 (May 1937) 67-69. 

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