The First Alchemists
Inner Traditions Bear and Company (Verlag)
978-1-64411-683-8 (ISBN)
Lese- und Medienproben
Investigating the origins of alchemy and the legend of the Philosopher’s Stone, Tobias Churton explores the oldest surviving alchemical texts, the original purpose of the “Royal Art,” and the first alchemists themselves. He reveals the theories and philosophies behind the art and how early apparatus and methods were employed by alchemists through the ages.
Showing how women dominated early alchemy, Churton looks at the first known alchemist, the Jewess Maria the Prophetess, inventor of the bain marie, still in use worldwide today. He also looks at early alchemist Cleopatra (not the well-known Egyptian queen) and 3rd–4th century Egyptian female artisan Theosebeia, who had a guild of adepts working under her. He examines in depth the work of Zosimos of Panopolis and shows how Zosimos’s historic work inspired the medieval view of alchemy as an initiatory path whose stages follow the transmutation of base metals into gold.
Exploring the latest research on early practices in Upper Egypt, the author discusses the political and industrial realities facing the first alchemists. He examines the late antique “Stockholm” and “Leiden” papyri, which offer detailed knowledge of the first known Greco-Egyptian chemical recipes for gold and silver dyes for metal and stone, and purple dyes for wool. He emphasizes how changing color in early alchemy was misinterpreted to imply transmutation of one metal into another. He reveals how the alchemical secrets for working with the “living statues” of the Egyptian temples was jealously guarded by the priesthood and how secrecy helped to reinforce beliefs that alchemical knowledge came from forbidden, celestial sources. He also investigates the mysterious relation between alchemy, spiritual gnosis, Hermeticism, and the Book of Enoch.
Revealing the hidden legacy of the early alchemists, Churton shows how their secret workings provided a transmission line for ancient heretical doctrines to survive into the Renaissance and beyond.
Tobias Churton scholar, lecturer, composer, and religious TV director, is author of 27 published books, including biographies of William Blake, Aleister Crowley, G. I. Gurdjieff, and Elias Ashmole. A theology graduate of Brasenose College, Oxford, he was appointed Honorary Fellow in 2005 to lecture in Western Esotericism at Exeter University and is Britain’s leading scholar in the field, specializing in Gnostic, Hermetic, Rosicrucian, biblical, and Masonic studies. Invited to join Professor Boccaccini’s Enoch Seminar in 2019, his most recent books include Aleister Crowley in Paris and The Lost Pillars of Enoch.
FOREWORD
by Frank van Lamoen
Introduction
ONE
Ancient Recipes for Gold— and Other Things
Discoveries at Thebes
A Theban Magical Library?
The Leiden Papyrus
Papyrus V
Papyrus W
Papyrus X
The Stockholm Papyrus
Pseudo-Democritus
TWO
The Origins of Alchemy in Roman Egypt
Akkadian Origin of Chēmeu?
Heat and Glass
THREE
The Pioneers of Graeco-Egyptian- Jewish Alchemy
Cleopatra
Jewish Chemistry
Mary the “Prophetess”
FOUR
Zosimos I
Clearing the Decks
Was Zosimos an Egyptian Priest?
FIVE
Zosimos II
Alchemical Yoga
Practical Dreaming
SIX
Zosimos III
From Omega to the Final Quittance
On Destiny, Fate, Worldly Thought, and Noetic Understanding
The First Book of Zosimos the Theban’s Final Account
SEVEN
What Did the First Alchemists Do?
Making Talismans?
EIGHT
How Did They Do It?
Sulfur Water; Divine Water
Apparatus
Putting the First Alchemists to the Test
NINE
Where Did They Do It?
A Hermetic “Lodge”?
A Guild for Theosebeia?
Laboratories?
TEN
The Myth of Transmutation
Philosophical Background
The Stone
The Tome of Images
Myth and Reality
ELEVEN
Forbidden Knowledge
TWELVE
A Strange Relation
Alchemy and Gnosis
Mercury and Christ
THIRTEEN
Legacy
Arabic Alchemy
The Inheritance
“Good Health!”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 27.10.2023 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 47 b&w illustrations |
| Verlagsort | Rochester |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 515 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-64411-683-9 / 1644116839 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-64411-683-8 / 9781644116838 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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