Alchemists

"Perhaps the greatest freethinker in the whole of Islam was al-Razi."

"Or from Muhammad ibn Zakariyyab al-Razi, who meddles in metaphysics and exceeds his competence. He should have remained confined to surgery and to urine and stool testing—indeed he exposed himself and showed his ignorance in these matters."

"I prayed to God to direct and lead me to the truth in writing this book. It grieves me to oppose and criticize the man Galen from whose sea of knowledge I have drawn much. Indeed, he is the Master and I am the disciple. Although this reverence and appreciation will and should not prevent me from doubting, as I did, what is erroneous in his theories. I imagine and feel deeply in my heart that Galen has chosen me to undertake this task, and if he were alive, he would have congratulated me on what I am doing. I say this because Galen's aim was to seek and find the truth and bring light out of darkness. I wish indeed he were alive to read what I have published."

"Rhazes was the greatest physician of Islam and the Medieval Ages."

"The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies."

"Scant had he thus spoken: when that from mountenus hil toppe Al wee see the giaunt, with his hole flock lowbylyke hagling. Namde the shepeherd Polyphem, to the wel knowne sea syd aproching. A fowle fog monster, great swad, deprived of eyesight: His fists and stalcking are propt with trunck of a pynetree. His flock him doe folow, this charge him chieflye rejoyceth. In grief al his coomfort on neck his whistle is hanged. When that to the seasyde the swayne Longolius hobbled, Hee rinst in the water the drosse from his late bored eyelyd. His tusk grimly gnashing, in seas far waltred, he groyleth; Scantly doo the water surmounting reache to the shoulders. But we being feared, from that coast hastly remooved, And with us embarcked the Greekish suitur, as amply His due request merited, wee chopt off softly the cables. Swift wee sweepe the sea froth with nimble lustilad oare striefe. The noise he perceaved then he turning warily lifteth. But when he consider’d that wee prevented his handling, And that from foloing our ships the fluds hye revockt him, Loud the lowbie brayed with belling monsterous eccho; The water hee shaketh, with his out cryes Italie trembleth, And with a thick thundring the fyerde forge Aetna rebounded. Then runs from mountayns and woods the rowncival helswarme Of Cyclopan lurdens to the shoars in coompanie clustring. Far we se them distaunt, us grimly and vainely beholding. Up to the sky reatching, the breetherne swish swash of Aetna. A folck moaste fulsoom, for sight most fitlye resembling Trees of loftye cipers, with thickned multitud oak rowes; Or Joves great forest, or woods of mightye Diana. Feare thear us enforced with forcing speediness headlong To swap off our cables, and fal to the seas at aventure."

"A wind fane changabil huf puffe Always is a woomman."

"Wee leave Creete Country; and our sayls unwrapped uphoysing, With woodden vessel thee rough seas deepelye we furrowe. When we fro land harbours too mayne seas gyddye dyd enter Voyded of al coast sight with wild fluds roundly bebayed, A watrye clowd gloomming, ful above mee clampred, apeered, A sharp storme menacing, from sight beams soonye rejecting: Thee flaws with rumbling, thee wroght fluds angrye doe jumble: Up swel thee surges, in chauffe sea plasshye we tumble: With the rayn, is daylight through darcknesse mostye bewrapped, And thundring lightbolts from torneclowds fyrye be flasshing. Wee doe mis oure passadge through fel fluds boysterus erring, Oure pilot eke, Palinure, through dymnesse clowdye bedusked In poinccts of coompasse dooth stray with palpabil erroure. Three dayes in darcknesse from bright beams soony repealed, And three nights parted from lightning starrye we wandered, The fourth day foloing thee shoare, neere setled, apeered And hils uppeaking; and smoak swift steamed to the skyward. Oure sayls are strucken, we roa Furth with speedines hastye, And the sea by our mariners with the oars cleene canted is harrowd On shoars of strophades from storme escaped I landed, For those plats Strophades in languadge Greekish ar highted, With the sea coucht Islands. Where foule bird foggye Celaeno And Harpy is nestled: sence franckling Phines his housroume From theym was sunderd, and fragments plentye remooved. No plage more perilous, no monster grislye more ouglye, No stigian vengaunce lyke too theese carmoran haggards. Theese fouls lyke maydens are pynde with phisnomye palish; With ramd cramd garbadge, thire gorges draftye be gulled, With tallants prowling, theire face wan withred in hunger, With famin upsoaken."

"Now manhood and garbroyls I chaunt, and martial horror. I blaze thee captayne first from Troy cittye repairing, Lyke wandring pilgrim too famosed Italie trudging, And coast of Lavyn: soust wyth tempestuus hurlwynd, On land and sayling, bi Gods predestinat order: But chiefe through Junoes long fostred deadlye revengment. Martyred in battayls, ere towne could statelye be buylded, Or Gods theare setled: thence flitted thee Latin ofspring, Thee mote of old Alban: thence was Rome peereles inhaunced. My muse shew the reason, what grudge or what furye kendled Of Gods thee Princesse, through so cursd mischevus hatred, Wyth sharp sundrye perils too tugge so famus a captayne. Such festred rancoure doo Sayncts celestial harbour? A long buylt citty theare stood, Carthago so named, From the mouth of Tybris, from land eke of Italye seaverd, Possest wyth Tyrians, in streingh and ritches abounding. Theare Juno, thee Princes her Empyre wholye reposed, Her Samos owtcasting, heere shee dyd her armonye settle, And warlick chariots, heere chiefly her joylitye raigned. This towne shee labored too make thee gorgeus empresse, Of towns and regions, her drift yf destenye furthred. But this her hole meaning a southsayd mysterie letted That from thee Troians should branch a lineal ofspring, Which would thee Tyrian turrets quite batter a sunder, And Libye land likewise wyth warlick victorye conquoure."

"Knowledge of the Divine Attributes or Godhead is the most perfect knowledge since it is realized through the soul's communion with God."

"The gnostic is the knower without knowledge, without sight, without information without apprehension, without description, without manifestation and without veil. If they are in themselves at all, they exist but in God, Their actions are held by God and their words are the words of God uttered by their tongues and their sight is the sight of God penetrated into their eyes."

"Never think of anyone as inferior to you. Open the inner Eye and you will see the One Glory shining in all creatures."

"The Sufi's love to God goes with God's love towards him. Sufis are folk who have preferred God to everything, so that God has preferred them to everything."

"God gives his servant no source of strength more powerful for him than when He leads him to humiliate himself."

"Knowledge of God comprises three kind: Theological, philosophical and mystical. Theological knowledge concerns with tawhid or unification. Philosophical knowledge deals with the concept of Ultimate Truth, reached through reason. Mystical knowledge is the knowledge of the Essence of God. It is attained by the saints after mushahada or the contemplation on God in their illuminated hearts."

"The fundamental task which Bohme has set himself is to apprehend God, and in this light to apprehend the world. The God whom Bohme seeks to know is not any kind of a God, an unknown God, such as is sought after the fashion of earthly philosophers, without any presuppositions whatever, while the thinker, like Robinson Crusoe, speculates in perfect isolation, gazing out from the solitary island of his own thought into the abstract infinity of the ocean and horizon. The God, whom Bohme seeks to know, is the God of Christianity, the God of revelation and of the Church, in whom he believes, the God who is Holiness and Love, whose manifestation he is absolutely certain of, but whose depths he desires to explore."

"Boehme's teachings present the challenging tasks of a new Christian anthropology, of the surmounting of the slavery subjection of man under the Old Testament consciousness, in a bold attempt at discerning the mysteries of the creation within the light of Christ. Boehme is not a theologian, he is — a theosophist in the finest sense of the word, and his contemplations are not easily to be carried over into the traditional theological language. Least of all was Boehme an "heretic" as regards the condition of his heart, as regards his spiritual disposition, and the final resolution of this question does not belong to the academic school theological teachings. … Many of us, as Orthodox Russians of the XX Century, think otherwise, than might a German craftsman of genius from the late XVI and early XVII Centuries, but we can sense in him a brother after the spirit, his thought resonates for us, and we can find common issue with it beyond all the separate faith-confessions and nationalities, beyond all the separate times and places, just as we ought to find common cause with everything spiritually genuine that is lofty and high, even though it appear a foreign world for us."

"In water lives the fish, the plant in the ground, The bird in the sky, the sun in the firmament, The salamander must with fire be sustained, And God's Heart is Jacob Boehme's element."

"If thou wilt use these Words aright, and art in good Earnest, thou shalt certainly find the Benefit thereof. But I desire thou mayest be warned, if thou art not in Earnest, not to meddle with the dear Names of God, in and by which the most High Holiness is invoked, moved, and powerfully desired, lest they kindle the Anger of God in thy Soul. For we must not abuse the Holy Names of God. This little Book is only for those that would fain repent, and are in a Desire to begin. Such will find what Manner of Words therein, and whence they are born. Be you herewith commended to the Eternal Goodness and Mercy of God."

"And hereupon, Sir, I will declare unto you, out of my small gifts and knowledge: What a Christian is, and wherefore he is called a Christian. Namely, that he only is a Christian, who is become capable of this high title in himself, and hath resigned himself with his inward ground, mind, and will to the free grace in Christ Jesus, and is in the will of his soul become as a young child, that only longeth after the breasts of the mother, that sincerely panteth after the mother, and sucketh the breasts of the mother whereof it liveth."

"A real true Christian hath no controversy or contention with anybody; for, in the resignation in Christ, he dieth from all controversy and strife; he asketh no more after the way to God, but wholly surrenders himself to the mother, namely, unto the spirit of Christ; and whatsoever it doth with him it is all one to him; be it prosperity or adversity in this world — life or death — it is all alike unto him; no adversity or calamity reacheth the new man, but only the old man of this world. With the same the world may do what it pleaseth: it belongeth unto the world; but the new man belongeth to God."

"This is understood by none but the Children of Christ, who have known it by Experience. When Christ the Corner-stone stirreth himself in the extinguished Image of Man, in his hearty Conversion and Repentance, then Virgin Sophia appeareth in the Stirring of the Spirit of Christ in the extinguished Image, in her Virgin's Attire before the Soul; at which the Soul is so amazed and astonished in its Uncleanness, that all its Sins immediately awake in it, and it trembleth before her; for then the Judgement passeth upon the Sins of the Soul, so that it even goeth back in its Unworthiness, being ashamed in the Presence of its fair Love, and entereth into itself, feeling and acknowledging itself utterly unworthy to receive such a Jewel. This is understood by those who are of our Tribe, and have tasted of this Heavenly Gift, and by none else. But the noble Sophia draweth near in the Essence of the Soul, and kisseth it in friendly Manner, and tinctureth its dark Fire with her Rays of Love, and shineth through it with her bright and powerful Influence. Penetrated with the strong Sense and Feeling of which, the Soul skippeth in its Body for great Joy, and in the Strength of this Virgin Love exulteth, and praiseth the great God for his blessed Gift of Grace."

"I must tell you, sir, that yesterday the pharisaical devil was let loose, cursed me and my little book, and condemned the book to the fire. He charged me with shocking vices; with being a scorner of both Church and Sacraments, and with getting drunk daily on brandy, wine, and beer; all of which is untrue; while he himself is a drunken man."

"There are as many blasphemies in this shoemaker's book as there are lines; it smells of shoemaker's pitch and filthy blacking. May this insufferable stench be far from us. The Arian poison was not so deadly as this shoemaker's poison."

"The mystery of God's creation, the creative mystery of the creature involves not only the being saved from sin, but also of bearing within it the imprint of the Creator and being pervaded with Divine energies, this has remained hidden over time. Upon this mystery have touched only a few Christian mystics and genuine theosophists, gnostics, ahead of their time. The greatest of them was J. Boehme. But the thought of modern times has tended to naturalise Boehme's intuition about the mystery of the world-creation, the mystery of the creature, and it has become bereft, of what Boehme revealed."

"A man must come to the practice, effectual performance, and fruitfulness in Christianity, otherwise the new birth is not yet manifest in him, nor the noble branch yet born; no tickling or soothing, comforting with promises or Scripture evidences, and boasting of a faith, doth avail any man at all, if the faith make him not a child conformable to God in essence and will, which faith bringeth forth divine fruit."

"We men have one book in common which points to God. Each has it within himself, which is the priceless Name of God. Its letters are the flames of His love, which He out of His heart in the priceless Name of Jesus has revealed in us. Read these letters in your hearts and spirits and you have books enough. All the writings of the children of God direct you unto that one book, for therein lie all the treasures of wisdom. … This book is Christ in you."

"Jacob Boehme has to be termed the greatest of Christian gnostics. The word gnosis I employ here not in the sense of the heresies of the first centuries of Christianity, but in the sense of knowledge basic to revelation and dealing not with concepts, but with symbols and myths; contemplative knowledge, and not discursive knowledge. This is also a religious philosophy or theosophy. Characteristic for J. Boehme is that he had a great simplicity of heart, a child-like purity of soul."

"Pythagoras and Plato and Boehme and Paracelsus and Thomas Vaughan were men who bore their lamps amidst their fellowmen in life under a hail of nonunderstanding and abuse. Anyone could approach them, but only a few were able to discern the superearthly radiance behind the earthly face. It is possible to name great Servitors of East and West, North and South. It is possible to peruse their biographies; yet everywhere we feel that the superearthly radiance appears rarely in the course of centuries. One should learn from reality. (175)"

"Robert Boyle was a younger son of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, the next to last of his father's sixteen children, and the youngest surviving son. Boyle's father was... a self-made man... it is probable that his parents were of yeomen stock. Arriving in Dublin from England at age twenty-one... he launched a career whose ambition and acquisitiveness were matched only by its spectacular success. ...All this was not achieved without manking many enemies. In their view, and that of most Irish historians, Boyle was a robber baron of heroic stature, using his position to defraud Irish landowners... of their existing titles and and to pass title to himself at absurdly deflated prices. He then expelled the Irish tenants and replaced them with more pliable and profitable English settlers. ...Boyle was twice imprisoned, and he was obliged to use his considerable connections to obtain a royal pardon for... charges of fraud."

"The influence of the new spirit... infused into the science by Boyle is seen in the general style of chemical literature at the end of the seventeenth century, when compared with that of the close of the sixteenth. The mysticism and obscurity of the alchemists were no longer tolerated."

"In 1680, Robert Boyle published the Second Part of his Continuation of New Experiments Physico-mechanical, Touching the Spring and Weight of the Air. ...According to Boyle's preface, the experimental work... was mainly done by a remunerated technician... Denis Papin. The air-pump with which the experiments were performed was... of Papin's own design... At least some, and perhaps the greatest part, of the design of the experimental project was also owing to the technician. ...It seems also that the technician was partly, if not mainly, responsible for the composition of the experimental narratives."

"Boyle's greatest service to learning consisted in the new spirit he introduced into chemistry. Henceforward chemistry was no longer the mere helpmeet of medicine. She became an independent science, the principles of which were to be ascertained by experiment; a science to be studied with the object of discovering the laws regulating the phenomena with which it is concerned and hence elucidating truth for truth's sake."

"He contended that one of the main objects of the chemist was to ascertain the nature of compounds; and thereby he stimulated the application of analysis to chemistry. Boyle discovered a number of qualitative reactions, and applied them to the detection of substances, either free or in combination."

"The old philosophy of the Greeks had, as we have seen, become merged into the doctrine of the iatro-chemists; and this was now to be purified from the theosophical mysticism with which Paracelsus and his followers had enshrouded it. "The ical subtleties of the schoolmen much more," says Boyle, "declare the wit of him that uses them than increase the knowledge or remove the doubts of sober lovers of truth... For in such speculative inquiries where the naked knowledge of the truth is the thing principally aimed at, what does he teach me worth thanks, that does not, if he can, make his notion intelligible to me, but by mystical terms and ambiguous phrases darkens what he should clear up, and makes me add the trouble of guessing at the sense of what he equivocally expresses, to that of learning the truth of what he seems to deliver.""

"I have... hinted at the probability that Boyle himself was involved only in a very limited way in 'his' experimental manipulations. The device which became known as the machina Boyleana [air pump] was almost certainly constructed for him by remunerated assistants Ralph Greatorex and Robert Hooke, and even the extent of Boyle's rule in its evolving design remains unclear. The glass J-shaped tube that yielded his law of pressures and volumes was again almost certainly made for him and had to be manipulated by him in collaboration with assistants, if not solely by them. The furnaces in his laboratory, and the alembics in which long-term distillations were performed, were probably tended by assistants."

"Boyle was the first to formulate our present conception of an element in contradistinction to that of the Greeks and the schoolmen who influenced the theories of the iatro-chemists. In the sense understood by him, the Aristotelian elements were not true elements, nor were the salt, sulphur, and mercury of the school of Paracelsus."

"Some of the stock illustrations of our lecture-rooms were of his contrivance. Thus he illustrated the expansive power of freezing water by bursting a plugged gun-barrel filled with water by solidifying the water by means of a mixture of snow and salt a freezing mixture which he first introduced."

"He was... the first to define the relation of an element to a compound, and to draw the distinction we still make between compounds and s."

"He prepared by the distillation of the s of lead and lime; and he isolated methyl alcohol from the products of the of wood."

"His published works contain many well-authenticated chemical facts, which are commonly held to be the discovery of a later time."

"He was one of the earliest to insist on the necessity of studying the forms of crystals. He saw in their formation proof that the internal motions, configuration, and position of the integral parts are all that is necessary to account for alterations and diversities in outward character."

"He revived the atomic hypothesis, and explained chemical combination on the basis of affinity."

"Boyle's early endorsement of philosophical openness was soon compromised by, as he put it, the sordid requirements of trading with those who "need to make pecuniary advantage" of secret knowledge. By 1674 Boyle made no scruples about his distaste for necessary philosophical dealings with the artisan and trading classes."

"He concludes... that the Paracelsian elements—their "salt," "sulphur," and "mercury"—are not the first and most simple principles of bodies; but that these consist, at most, of concretions of corpuscles or particles more simple than they, and possessing the radical and universal properties of volume, shape, and motion."

"The words "element" and "principle" are used by him as equivalent terms, and signify those primitive and simple bodies of which compounds may be said to be composed, and into which these compounds are ultimately resolvable."

"He became a member of what was known as the , a small association of men interested in the new philosophy, who met at each other's houses in London, and occasionally at Gresham College, "to discourse and consider of philosophical inquiries and such as related thereunto." The meetings were subsequently held in , and Boyle took up his residence there in 1654. Here—in association with Wilkins; John Wallis and Seth Ward, the two Savilian Professors of Geometry and Astronomy; , the physician, then student of Christ Church; Christopher Wren, then Fellow of All Souls' College; Goddard, Warden of Merton; and , Fellow of Trinity, and afterwards its President—they sought to cultivate the new philosophy, "being satisfied that there was no certain way of arriving at any competent knowledge unless they made a variety of experiments upon natural bodies. In order to discover what phenomena they would produce, they pursued that method by themselves with great industry, and then communicated their discoveries to each other." The Invisible College eventually grew into the ..."

"The "Chemico-physical Doubts and Paradoxes" raised by Boyle "touching the experiments whereby vulgar Spagyrists are wont to endeavour to evince their Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury to be the true Principles of Things," eventually sealed the fate of the doctrine of the tria prima, and of the tenets of the school of Paracelsus."

"The supremacy of the old philosophy may be said to have been first distinctly challenged by Robert Boyle. The appearance in 1661 of his book, ', marks a turning-point in the history of chemistry."

"In this treatise Boyle sets out to prove that the number of the peripatetic elements or principles hitherto assumed by chemists is, to say the least, doubtful."