The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton

by Edited by Stanton J. Linden

• ISBN13: 9780521796620
• ISBN10: 0521796628
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-15
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Alchemy Reader is a collection of primary source readings on alchemy and hermeticism, which offers readers an informed introduction and background to a complex field through the works of important ancient, medieval and early modern alchemical authors. Including selections from the legendary Hermes Trimegistus to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton, the book illustrates basic definitions, conceptions, and varied interests and emphases; and it also illustrates the highly interdisciplinary character of alchemical thought and its links with science and medicine, philosophical and religious currents, the visual arts and iconography and, especially, literary discourse. Like the notable anthologies of alchemical writings published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it seeks to counter the problem of an acute lack of reliable primary texts and to provide a convenient and accessible point of entry to the field.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Ancient: 1. Hermes Trismegistus: The Emerald Table (Tabula smaragdina)

2. Plato: from the Timaeus

3. Aristotle: from the Meteorology

4. Pseudo-Democritus: from the Treatise of Democritus on Things Natural and Mystical

5. Anonymous: Dialogue of Cleopatra and the Philosophers

6. Anonymous: from Leiden Papyrus X and the Stockholm Papyrus

7. Zosimos of Panopolis: Of Virtue, Lesson 1-3

8. Stephanos of Alexandria: from The Great and Sacred Art of the Making of Gold

9. Anonymous: The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastos upon the Sacred Art

Islamic and Medieval: 10. Khalid ibn Yazid: from Secreta Alchymiae

11. Pseudo-Geber: from Of the Investigation or Search of Perfection

Of the Sum of Perfection

and His Book of Furnaces

12. Avicenna: De Congelatione et Conglutinatione Lapidum

13. Albertus Magnus: from the Libellus de Alchimia

14. Roger Bacon: from the Radix Mundi

15. Nicolas Flamel: from His Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures

16. Bernard, Earl of Trevisan: A Treatise of the Philosophers Stone

17. George Ripley: The Epistle of George Ripley written to King Edward the 4

Renaissance and Seventeenth Century: 18. Paracelsus: from Of the Nature of Things

Paracelsus His Aurora

19. Francis Anthony: Aurum-Potabile: or the Receit of Dr. Fr. Antonie

20. Michael Sendivogius: from A New Light of Alchymie

A Dialogue between Mercury, the Alchymist and Nature

21. Robert Fludd: from Mosaicall Philosophy

22. Gabriel Plattes: A Caveat for Alchymists

23. John French: preface to The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trimegistus in XVII Books

24. George Starkey/Eirenaeus Philalethes: The Admirable Efficacy, and almost incredible Virtue of true Oyl

from An Exposition Upon Sir George Ripley's Epistle to King Edward IV

25. Elias Ashmole: Prolegomena to the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum

26. Robert Boyle: from An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold Made by an Anti-Elixir: A Strange Chymical Narrative

27. Isaac Newton: The Key (Keynes MS 18)

The Commentary on the Emerald Tablet (Keynes MS 28), King's College, Cambridge.