Thinking about Chemistry in Byzantium and the Islamic World

Archaeology International, 2012

The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, 2006

The main concern of this paper will be with the problems raised by the reception of ancient alchemy in Byzantium. After a brief introduction, I will start from the study of a pre-Byzantine author, Zosimos of Panopolis, and deal with the following questions : How, from a purely material viewpoint, were Zosimos' writings handed down during the Byzantine period? Did Byzantine alchemists have access to his works and did they resort to them? Was Zosimos known outside the alchemical Corpus; in other words, did Graeco-Egyptian alchemists exert any kind of influence outside strictly alchemical circles? When and how was the alchemical Corpus put together? In a more general way, what evidence do we have, whether in the Corpus itself or in non-alchemical literature, that alchemy was practised in Byzantium? Answers (or at least partial answers) to these questions should help us to understand and define to some extent the place held by the 'sacred art' in Byzantium.

in: Ε. Nicolaidis (ed.), Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity [De Diversis Artibus 104], Brepols, Turnhout 2018, 11-43.

2021

From prehistoric metal extraction to medieval alchemy to modern industry, chemistry has been central to our understanding and use of the physical world as well as to trade, warfare and medicine. In its turn, chemistry has been shaped by changing technologies, institutions and cultural beliefs. A Cultural History of Chemistry presents the first detailed and authoritative survey from antiquity to today, focusing on the West but integrating key developments in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Arabic-Islamic and Byzantine empires.

Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, 2023

Alexandre Roberts is a Byzantinist, Graeco-Arabist, and intellectual historian. He is Associate Professor of Classics and History at the University of Southern California. Currently, he is working on a monograph entitled Chemistry and Its Consequences in Byzantium and the Islamic World. His first book, Reason and Revelation in Byzantine Antioch (2020), was on the eleventh-century scholar Abdallah ibn al-Fadl of Antioch as a window onto engagement with ancient Greek, Byzantine, and Islamicate thought during the pivotal century of Byzantine rule over Northern Syria.

Ambix, 1994

2013

Spanning the world’s artistic, scientific and religious traditions, alchemy has embraced and continues to embrace the complete spectrum of existence. From metallurgy to metaphysics, alchemy engages the technical, fine and hieratic arts in order to provide a living phenomenology of the one, single, elusive process that acts through all things. Ultimately—in its guise as « ars transmutationis »—alchemy penetrates to the heart of the transfiguring spiritual intensity that underpins the perfection of life, from mineral to human. Despite this profoundly all-embracing purview, however, alchemy continues to be conceived as either proto-chemistry or proto-psychology. The present volume seeks to redress this false dichotomy by exploring alchemy as a quintessentially integral phenomenon. Opening wide the full spectrum of alchemy—from east to west, in history and practice, from antiquity to the avant garde—our aim is to penetrate as deeply as possible, within the limits of a single volume, into the rich practical and experiential traditions of the alchemical mysterium. Featuring both well-established scholars and emerging, cutting-edge researchers, this book synthesises a quintessentially high caliber of academic authorities on the vast and baroque heritage of the alchemical world. As a whole, the volume seeks to strike the perfect balance—the golden mean—between strict, historical objectivity and empathic, phenomenological insight. Drawn from international ranks (Europe, the Antipodes, the Americas) and cutting across disciplinary boundaries (Egyptology, Classics, Sinology, Indology, Tibetology, philosophy, religious studies, Renaissance studies, history of science, art history, critical theory, media studies), the contributors to this volume include some of the most gifted investigators into the world’s esoteric lineages." Featuring Aaron CHEAK ∙ Algis UŽDAVINYS ∙ Rodney BLACKHIRST ∙ David Gordon WHITE ∙ Kim LAI ∙ Sabrina DALLA VALLE ∙ Christopher A. PLAISANCE ∙ Hereward TILTON ∙ Angela VOSS ∙ Paul SCARPARI ∙ Leon MARVELL ∙ Mirco MANNUCCI ∙ Dan MELLAMPHY Egyptian alchemy ∙ Greek alchemy ∙ Hellenistic alchemy ∙ Taoist alchemy ∙ Hindu Tantric alchemy ∙ Tibetan Buddhist alchemy ∙ Islamicate alchemy ∙ European alchemy ∙ Surrealist alchemy ∙ Erotic alchemy ∙ Laboratory alchemy ∙ Alchemy of the word ∙ Alchemy of the body ∙ Alchemy of the spirit ∙ and more. CONTENTS Acknowledgements Peer Reviewers List of Illustrations PART I—CORNERSTONES: Ancient Alchemies, East and West Introduction to Part One: Circumambulating the Alchemical Mysterium —Aaron Cheak 1. The Perfect Black: Egypt and Alchemy —Aaron Cheak 2. Telestic Transformation and Philosophical Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism —Algis Uždavinys 3. Metallurgy and Demiurgy: The Roots of Greek Alchemy in the Mythology of Hephaestos (Discussions) —Rod Blackhirst 4. Taking from Water to Fill in Fire: The History and Dynamics of Taoist Alchemy —Aaron Cheak 5. Mercury and Immortality: The Hindu Alchemical Tradition —David Gordon White 6. Iatrochemistry, Metaphysiology, Gnōsis: Tibetan Alchemy in the Kālacakra Tantra —Kim Lai PART II: TRANSFORMATIONS: Alchemies of the Spirit, Body and Word Introduction to Part Two: Interzone: On the Origins and Nature of European Alchemy —Aaron Cheak 7. The Alchemical Khiasmos: Counter-Stretched Harmony and Divine Self-Perception —Aaron Cheak & Sabrina Dalla Valle 8. Altus’ Ominous Aphorism: Reading as Alchemical Process —Mirco Mannucci 9. Turris Philosophorum: On the Alchemical Iconography of the Tower —Christopher A. Plaisance 10. Of Ether, Entheogens and Colloidal Gold: Heinrich Khunrath and the Making of a Philosophers’ Stone —Hereward Tilton 11. Becoming an Angel: The Mundus Imaginalis of Henry Corbin and the Platonic Path of Self-Knowledge —Angela Voss 12. The Kiss of Death: Amor, Corpus Resurrectionis and the Alchemical Transfiguration of Eros —Paul Scarpari 13. Agent of All Mutations: Metallurgical, Biological and Spiritual Evolution in the Alchemy of René Schwaller de Lubicz —Aaron Cheak 14. Take Two Emerald Tablets in the Morning: Surrealism and the Alchemical Transubstantiation of the World —Leon Marvell 15. Incredible Lunatic of the Future: The Alchemical Horticulture of Alan Chadwick —Rod Blackhirst 16. Alchemical Endgame: ‘Checkmate’ in Beckett and Eliot —Dan Mellamphy End matter: Abbreviations Bibliography Author Biographies

Isis, 2011

This essay considers the implications of a shift in focus from ideas to practices in the history of alchemy. On the one hand, it is argued, this new attention to practice highlights the diversity of ways that early modern Europeans engaged alchemy, ranging from the literary to the entrepreneurial and artisanal, as well as the broad range of social and cultural spaces that alchemists inhabited. At the same time, however, recent work has demonstrated what most alchemists shared-namely, a penchant for reading, writing, making, and doing, all at the same time. Any history of early modern alchemy, therefore, must attend to all of these practices, as well as the interplay among them. In this sense, alchemy offers a model for thinking and writing about early modern science more generally, particularly in light of recent work that has explored the intersection of scholarly, artisanal, and entrepreneurial forms of knowledge in the early modem period.

in: A. Pellettieri (ed.), Identità euromediterranea e paesaggi culturali del vino e dell’olio, Foggia 2014, 249-259.

Illinois Classical Studies, 1990

"Alchemy" is the anglicised Byzantine name given to what its practitioners referred to as "the Art" (τἐχνη) or "Knowledge" (ἐπιστήμη), often characterised as divine (θεία), sacred (ἱερά) or mystic (μυστική). While this "techne" underwent many changes in the course of its life of over two thousand years (and there are traces of it even in modern times, as I will discuss), a recognisable common denominator in all the writings is the search for a method of transforming base metals (copper, iron, lead, tin) into noble (electrum, gold or silver). There is unfortunately no modern critical edition of any of these writings (the extant editions being old or uncritical or both), though the Budé has begun the process. In this essay I sketch the background and origins of the ancient alchemy, as well as its later transmutation into a mystical art of personal transformation. Finally I turn to the modern period and briefly examine the influence of this mystical tradition in our own world-picture.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1987

ORE ATTENTION has been paid in the past to the study of the history of M Islamic alchemy than to chemical technology. But even in alchemy our knowledge has not advanced much beyond the results of such eminent scholars as Ruska, Wiedemann, and Holmyard. Researchers who may be attracted to these subjects in the future will find at their disposal abundant medieval Arabic sources, with the biobibliographic studies of F. Sezgin and M. Ullmann

Ambix, 2009

Ambix, 2018