Transmutation 32-33 Paracelsus

This copy bound with a work as follows Paracelsus of the transmutation of metals pp. 1-41 Of the genealogy and generation of metals pp. 42-45 Urim and Thummim shewed to be made by Art... pp. 46-71 An appendix of the vertues and use of an excellent essential water made and approved by Stephen Twigge. .. pp. 72-78 The second part of the mumial treatise of Tentzelius being a natural account of the tree of life. .. pp. 79-96 Philosophical and chymical experiments of... Raymund Lully pp. 103-166. (Cf. with Paracelsus entry, item 390.)... 

Paracelsus. Paracelsus Of the chymical transmutation, genealogy and generation of metals minerals. Translated by Robert Turner. London Printed for R. Moon [etc.], 1657. 4 pi, 166 p. 

London, printed by James Cottrel, 1657." In Of the chymical transmutation, ed. Paracelsus, 97-166.. ... 

In the early years of Theosophy during Blavatsky s lifetime, the modem science that most occupied the movement was, without doubt, the theory of evolution rather than Victorian discoveries in physics and chemistry.4 While Blavatksy in Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine grappled in a limited way with modem physics and chemistry, she engaged much more fully with the work of alchemists, especially that of Paracelsus. Her defense of alchemical transmutation was based not upon contemporary science—though she asked of transmutation, Is the idea so absurd as to be totally unworthy of consideration in this age of chemical discovery (Isis 1 503)—but rather upon the exalted reputation of medieval and early modem scientists and alchemists who claimed to have witnessed transmutation (1 503-504). Moreover, the major events that launched modem particle physics—the discoveries of X-rays, the electron, radiation, radium, and radioactive decay—all occurred after Blavatsky died in 1891. 

Andreas Libavius was bom at Halle in Germany in 1540, where he studied medicine and practised for a short time as a physician. He accepted the fundamental iatro-chemical doctrines, at the same time, however, criticising certain of the more extravagant views expressed by Paracelsus. He was a firm believer in the transmutation of the metals, but his own activities were chiefly directed to the preparation of new and better medicines. He enriched the science of Chemistry by many valuable discoveries, and tin tetrachloride, which he was the first to prepare, is still known by the name of spiritus fumans Libavii. Libavius was a man possessed of keen powers of observation and his work on Chemistry, which contains a fidl account of the knowledge of the science of his time, may be... 

Giordano, Michael. Reverse Transmutations Bdroalde de Verville s Parody of Paracelsus in Le Moyen de parvenir. An Alchemical Language of Skepticism in the French Baroque. Renaissance Quarterly 56 (2003) 88—137. 

While Paracelsus often maintained that attempting to transmute base metals into gold was a waste of time, he nevertheless attempted the transmutation himself. He accepted the then-common idea that metals grew inside the Earth and that, given enough time, all of them would eventually become gold. If other metals transformed themselves into gold naturally, then it seemed only reasonable that the transformation could be made to happen by artificial means. 

When Robert Boyle began his work, alchemy was alive and well. It was widely although far from universally used in medicine. The search for the philosophers stone was still taken seriously by leading natural philosophers, and many kings and princes were keen to have their own alchemists. Corpuscularianism was also alive and well, and Boyle was able to combine the latest brand of corpuscularianism with alchemy, to powerful effect. He did not accept Paracelsus s element theory, nor was he keen on Van Helmont s and he was not much impressed by the way in which seventeenth-century iatrochemists had added phlegm and earth to Paracelsus s tria prima. But he did believe that transmutation was possible and that the alchemical production of gold by multiplica-... 

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