The Alchemy Reader From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton [Paperback]

An introduction to a wide range of alchemical authors and works.The Alchemy Reader offers a convenient introduction to a wide range of alchemical authors and works, from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century. Organised chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernised versions. The selections and extensive apparatus aim to provide the reader with a solid point of entry to the field and to its interdisciplinary links with science and medicine, philosophy, religion, and literature and the arts.The Alchemy Reader offers a convenient introduction to a wide range of alchemical authors and works, from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century. Organised chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernised versions. The selections and extensive apparatus aim to provide the reader with a solid point of entry to the field and to its interdisciplinary links with science and medicine, philosophy, religion, and literature and the arts.Ranging from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century, this Reader covers a broad range of alchemical authors and works. Organized chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernized versions. The selections will provide the reader with a basic introduction to the field and its interdisciplinary links with science and medicine, philosophy, religion, and literature and the arts.Introduction; Part I. Ancient Texts: 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: OflÁ