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Author: William Scott Shelley
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 1628943149
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Author: William Scott Shelley
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 1628943149
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Author: James O'Hara
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900468736X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1091
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Book Description
Leibniz’s correspondence from his years spent in Paris (1672-1676) reflects his growth to mathematical maturity whereas that from the years 1676-1701 reveals his growth to maturity in science, technology and medicine in the course of which more than 2000 letters were exchanged with more than 200 correspondents. The remaining years until his death in 1716 witnessed above all the appearance of his major philosophical works. The focus of the present work is Leibniz's middle period and the core themes and core texts from his multilingual correspondence are presented in English from the following subject areas: mathematics, natural philosophy, physics (and cosmology), power technology (including mining and transport), engineering and engineering science, projects (scientific, technological and economic projects), alchemy and chemistry, geology, biology and medicine.
Author: William Scott Shelley
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 162894353X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
This is the first work to trace the origins of religion to the "Agricultural Revolution." It does so by identifying the enigmatic psychoactive drugs employed by the Indo-European religion. Through the ancient Vedic literature, the archaeological record, and through chemistry, this work identifies the ingredients and the method of preparation employed to produce the Soma of the Rig-Veda, Haoma, and the Kykeon. A contribution to both the history of science and the history of religion, Soma shows that the dawn of civilization was the product of the cultivation of cereals which enabled early man to exchange a nomadic life of hunting and gathering for a sedentary one, giving rise to settlements that would eventually become city-states and nations. The work reveals that this civilizing revolution was not only the origins of science, but also the origins of religion. The author presents literary evidence from the Vedas, Brahmanas, and Vedic ritual texts to identify the source of the ritual sacrament called Soma (or Madhu, "Mead"), and he describes the chemical processes that rendered it non-toxic. In addition, he shows that the ancient literature of the Greeks and the chemistry indicate a similar method was employed to produce the hallucinogenic kykeon of the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries, the center of Greek civilization. The work also explores the ethnographic relationship between the Indo-European priesthood (that included the priests of ancient Greece) and the Indo-Aryan priesthood, a branch of the Indo-Europeans that included the Soma-drinking Vedic priests of India. The identification of Soma is a solution to one of the greatest mysteries in the history of religion. The chemistry is consistent with the chemistry of the Greek kykeon, another important and unsolved question in the history of religion, which like Soma, has appeared to many as unsolvable. Finally, through the Greek and Roman classics the work demonstrates the relationship between the Indo-Aryans and Indo-Europeans as well as the similarities of traditions among the priesthoods extending throughout the great civilizations of the ancient world. The book also contains scientific evidence for the production of the 'Philosopher's Stone' briefly addressed in Shelley?s earlier book, Science, Alchemy and the Great Plague of London.
Author: Various Authors
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136191712
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 3305
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Book Description
Reissuing seminal works originally published between 1916 and 1995, Routledge Library Editions: Alchemy (7 volume set) offers a selection of scholarship covering various facets of alchemical traditions. Some texts examine alchemy itself while some offer insight into the motives for alchemical research and others outlay portraits of people such as Giordano Bruno and John Dee.
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Spectra
ISBN: 0553897608
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 777
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Book Description
With the same unique vision that brought his now classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. . . . “A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—The New York Times Book Review It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World. “Exceptional and engrossing.”—New York Post “Ambitious . . . ingenious.”—Newsday
Author: Ari Ben-Menahem
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540688315
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 6070
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Book Description
This 5,800-page encyclopedia surveys 100 generations of great thinkers, offering more than 2,000 detailed biographies of scientists, engineers, explorers and inventors who left their mark on the history of science and technology. This six-volume masterwork also includes 380 articles summarizing the time-line of ideas in the leading fields of science, technology, mathematics and philosophy.
Author: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Paracelsus
Publisher: Philaletheians UK
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 53
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Book Description
Materialism is moral and spiritual blindness. Shall we let the blind lead the blind? Before Alchemy existed as a Science, its quintessence alone acted in Nature’s correlations. The virtuous man can produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by invoking Kriyashakti, his own inherent power of creative thought, and become a co-worker with Nature in her higher departments. Like the lightning conductor that directs the electric fluid, the force of Kriyashakti conducts the quintessence of life and gives it direction; led haphazardly, it can kill; directed by the potency of human will and magnetic force, it can create according to a predetermined plan. Poor alchemy! Star of the morning, daughter of the dawn, how fallen from thine high estate! That which once was, still is and forever shall be, even to the end of time. Words change and their meaning becomes quickly disfigured. But eternal ideas remain, and shall not pass away. The ass’ skin is congenial to the tastes of today’s philosophicules and materialistic alchemists, who sacrifice the living soul for the dead form, than revering Princess-Nature in all her nakedness. With so many would-be alchemists around, even Hermes himself would lose his way. Only High Initiates are able to unravel the jargon of Hermetic philosophers and divulge their secrets pertaining to all seven realms of nature. To the practical alchemist, whose object is the production of wealth by the special rules of his art, studying their metaphysical basis was a secondary consideration; while the Sage, who had ascended to the plane of metaphysical contemplation, would reject the material objectives of these studies as unworthy of any further consideration. The origin of alchemy is lost in the remotest antiquity of the Far East. The Chaldeans were only the heirs, first to antediluvian and later to the alchemy of the Egyptians. The Wisdom of the East no longer exists in the West; it died with the three Magi. Hermes never was the name of a man, but a generic title, just as the term Neo-Platonist was used in former times, and Theosophist is being used in the present. Even in the time of Plato, Hermes was already identified with the Thoth of the Egyptians. Thoth-Hermes is simply the personification of the Voice of the sacerdotal caste of Egypt, the Voice of the Great Hierophants. Alchemy is as old as tradition itself. The Golden Fleece was a treatise written on animal skin, explaining how gold could be made by alchemical means. There still remain underground a large number of such alchemical works, written on papyrus and buried with mummies, ten millennia old. The whole secret lies in the ability to recognise in such works what appears to be only a fairy tale, as in the golden fleece and the “romances” of the earlier Pharaohs. Explicit instructions do not come from the sanctuaries of Egypt. Most are fractionally correct interpretations of the allegorical stories of the alchemical green, blue, and yellow dragons, and the rose tigers of the Chinese. Alchemy was imported to Europe from China, transformed into Hermetic writings which were then fabricated by the old Greeks and the Arabs, and refabricated in the Middle Ages — now jumbled up and distorted beyond recognition. The two objects of the Chinese system and the Hermetic Sciences, in making gold and prolonging life, are identical. But the Eastern Adept-Initiates, despising gold and having a profound indifference for life, care very little about such selfish pursuits which, in most cases, are acts black art. The third object of alchemy, i.e., transmutation, has been wholly neglected by Christian adepts who, being satisfied with their belief in the immortality of the soul, they never properly understood the meaning of this object. The transmutation of the real alchemist is the occult process by which his debased nature and brute energy are conquered; and thus, ennobled by his highest intellectual faculties, his soul is infused into the spiritual dynamics of the Divine Will. Woe to those who seek to obtain magical powers for selfish ends and money-making under the cloak of alchemy. Alchemy is a noble philosophy, purely metaphysical. The transmutation of base metals into gold was merely an allegory for freeing man of his ancestral evils and infirmities, by redeeming the flesh below and regenerating the soul above. It is incorrect to think that there exists any special “powder of projection,” or “philosopher’s stone,” or “elixir of life.” The latter lurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe: it is the ultimate essence of everything on its way to higher and higher evolution. And as there is no good or evil, so there is neither “elixir of life” nor “elixir of death,” nor poison as such, but all this is contained in one and the same Universal Essence, this or the other effect, or result, depending on the degree of its differentiations and various correlations. The light side of that Essence produces life, health, bliss, divine peace, and so forth; the dark side brings death, disease, sorrow, and strife. This is demonstrated by knowing the nature of the most deadly poisons; of some of them, even a large quantity will produce no ill effect, whereas a grain of the same poison will kill with the rapidity of lightning; yet, exactly the same grain, when altered by a certain combination, will heal. Seek not the secrets of nature in nature. Know your self, first and foremost. The treasure of treasures lies in the innermost chamber of your heart, where the sunlight of truth shines with unfading glory. How can those who are fools in nature, hope to profit from alchemical works — the timeless testimonies to creative powers of Nature? Let the seeker of Truth be wary of things that are readily understood, especially mystical names and secret operations, for Truth lies hid in obscurity. Pearls of Truth cannot be given to the profane; less so today than when the Apostles were advised not to cast pearls before swine. The chemist imitates nature, the alchemist surpasses nature herself. Chemistry decomposes and recombines material substances, it purifies simple substances of foreign elements, but leaves the primitive elements unchanged. Alchemy changes the character of things, and raises them up into higher states of existence. As all the powers of the universe are potentially contained in us, our body and its organs are the representatives of the powers of nature and a constellation of the same powers that formed the stars in the sky. The physician who knows nothing of alchemy can only be a servant of nature, but the alchemist is her lord.
Author: Joseph Needham
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521073790
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278
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Book Description
This assembly of lectures should appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of science and the nature of living things. Seven of the eight lectures are by eminent biochemists and describe the development of their own subject 'from the inside; the eighth is a more general one.
Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691174873
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 559
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Book Description
A book that finally demystifies Newton’s experiments in alchemy When Isaac Newton’s alchemical papers surfaced at a Sotheby’s auction in 1936, the quantity and seeming incoherence of the manuscripts were shocking. No longer the exemplar of Enlightenment rationality, the legendary physicist suddenly became “the last of the magicians.” Newton the Alchemist unlocks the secrets of Newton’s alchemical quest, providing a radically new understanding of the uncommon genius who probed nature at its deepest levels in pursuit of empirical knowledge. In this evocative and superbly written book, William Newman blends in-depth analysis of newly available texts with laboratory replications of Newton’s actual experiments in alchemy. He does not justify Newton’s alchemical research as part of a religious search for God in the physical world, nor does he argue that Newton studied alchemy to learn about gravitational attraction. Newman traces the evolution of Newton’s alchemical ideas and practices over a span of more than three decades, showing how they proved fruitful in diverse scientific fields. A precise experimenter in the realm of “chymistry,” Newton put the riddles of alchemy to the test in his lab. He also used ideas drawn from the alchemical texts to great effect in his optical experimentation. In his hands, alchemy was a tool for attaining the material benefits associated with the philosopher’s stone and an instrument for acquiring scientific knowledge of the most sophisticated kind. Newton the Alchemist provides rare insights into a man who was neither Enlightenment rationalist nor irrational magus, but rather an alchemist who sought through experiment and empiricism to alter nature at its very heart.
Author: Patricia Fara
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198841027
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
"Presents Newton as a wealthy, ambitious Londoner with international connections, challenging the prevailing view of Newton as a solitary, reclusive genius. A unique narrative structure based on a Hogarth's painting 'The Indian Emperor', incorporating iconographic evidence to identify Newton as a participant in aristocratic metropolitan circles. Relates Newton and his science to Britain's imperial networks and the African slave trade, exposing Britain's greatest scientific hero as a participant in global trading based on slavery"--Publisher's description
