what were the alchemists up to?

Originally posted by ivanhoe
what were the alchemists up to?

Whatever they were up to might still be a mystery, but I know one thing: the part of their legacy that is still valid will be labeled "Science" by the modernists and the part that is utter nonsense will be labeled "religion".

Actually, it's the other way around. From a modern scientific viewpoint, the part that is science will be labelled 'valid' and the rest will be labelled 'nonsense'. That's tautological though, and it isn't sensible to draw conclusions about the scientific viewpoint from it.

Originally posted by royalchicken
Actually, it's the other way around. From a modern scientific viewpoint, the part that is science will be labelled 'valid' and the rest will be labelled 'nonsense'. That's tautological though, and it isn't sensible to draw conclusions about the scientific viewpoint from it.

Royalchicken, you do not know the corrupt minds of politicians and other ideologists. That speaks in your favour though ...... 😉

Originally posted by skywalker red
yes, thats true they provided the rudimentary foundation , so , i guess they were the precursors to modern chemisty.

"The beginnings of the arts we call chemical are lost to us in the buried civilizations that have left no records sufficiently decipherable to afford us definite knowledge, but so far as records and remains of the oldest civilizations exist they give evidence of the great antiquity of the chemical arts."----Stillman

http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~rbg/anc.html

Originally posted by royalchicken
One of the alchemists was, in his spare time, developing the calculus and systematising much of classical physics.

Cue the Neal Stephenson discussion....

Originally posted by skywalker red
does anyone know what the term squaring the circle meant for an alchemist?

Found this, which covers it pretty good.

Squaring the Circle

Quadrature or squaring the circle is an ancient, unsolvable geometry problem. (Famously, there are three such problems, and all have been given mystical interpretations.) It is also a metaphor for any humanly impossible task. As such, Dante used it to illustrate the impossibility of achieving the Beatific Vision by dint of human efforts alone—God’s saving grace is required, a gift of love. This metaphor for that which is unattainable (except as a gift from God) is used in the final lines of the Commedia.

"Like a geometer wholly dedicated
to squaring the circle, but who cannot find
think as he may, the principle indicated—
so did I study the supernal face.
I yearned to know just how our image merges
into that circle, and how it there finds place;
but mine were not the wings for such a flight.
Yet, as I wished, the truth I wished for came
cleaving my mind in a great flash of light.
Here my powers rest from their high fantasy,
but already I could feel my being turned—
instinct and intellect balanced equally
as in a wheel whose motion nothing jars—
by the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars."

(John Ciardi translation.)

Thus in Dante, squaring the circle is not merely symbolic of the impossible, but more specifically of mystical union with God as a human impossibility which may nonetheless be achieved. The expression is even richer than merely being a math problem with no solution, because of the symbolism entailed in the two geometric forms it relates. Squaring the circle very neatly expresses the desire to reconcile unity with multiplicity, the One with the many, (multiplicity often being analyzed according to a fourfold scheme.) In her 1980 book, Jung and Tarot, Sallie Nichols compared this squaring of the circle in Dante to the World card in the Tarot de Marseille style of deck, which she argued was emblematic of squaring the circle.

The idea that spirit and flesh, heaven and earth, belong together as equal parts of a unified whole is reiterated pictorially in the four corners of The World. In the upper corners appear two winged beings and in the lower corners, two beasts of the earth.... Together they form a square which contains within it the mandorla. The overall design of this card, which is essentially a circle encompassed by a square, brings together earthly and heavenly reality, present development and future potential, in a beautiful way. In the words of Walt Whitman:

"I am an acme of things accomplished
And I am an enclosure of things to be."

In alchemy, the miracle of self-realization, the harmonious union of earthly and heavenly truth, was called “the squaring of the circle”.


Hope that helps.

SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/7rgb3

Originally posted by ravenswood
Found this, which covers it pretty good.

Squaring the Circle

Quadrature or squaring the circle is an ancient, unsolvable geometry problem. (Famously, there are three such problems, and all have been given mystical interpretations.) It is also a metaphor for any humanly impossible task. As such, Dante used it to illustrate the impossibility of achiev ...[text shortened]... s called “the squaring of the circle”.


Hope that helps.

SOURCE: http://tinyurl.com/7rgb3

thank you for that, that was a very good piece..my understanding is that squaring the circle meant the union of opposites and the synthesis of the four elements into a unity.

Originally posted by skywalker red
thank you for that, that was a very good piece..my understanding is that squaring the circle meant the union of opposites and the synthesis of the four elements into a unity.

the sqaure represents the quarternio of hostile elements and also imperfection, because any thing angular is imperfect, but the circle is perfect and also a unity. so, the square being transformed into the circle represents the union of opposites;namely the union of the unconscious with consciousness.

Originally posted by mmanuel
Cue the Neal Stephenson discussion....

Agreed!

Erm, the Baroque c

Originally posted by royalchicken
Agreed!

Erm, the Baroque c

what forum is that in?

Originally posted by skywalker red
thank you for that, that was a very good piece..my understanding is that squaring the circle meant the union of opposites and the synthesis of the four elements into a unity.

Yes. Found it as "The Rose Cross Symbol." and at a 'Jungian' site:

"The mandala in Tibetan Buddhism is called a Yantra and aids in meditation and concentration; in alchemy, it represents the synthesis of the four elements"

Originally posted by ravenswood
Yes. Found it as "The Rose Cross Symbol." and at a 'Jungian' site:

"The mandala in Tibetan Buddhism is called a Yantra and aids in meditation and concentration; in alchemy, it represents the synthesis of the four elements"

A few Rosicrucian site.

http://www.rosecrossonline.org/history.htm

http://www.crcsite.org/faq.htm#q3

http://www.rosicrucian-order.com/saludo.html

Originally posted by ivanhoe
what were the alchemists up to?

Whatever they were up to might still be a mystery, but I know one thing: the part of their legacy that is still valid will be labeled "Science" by the modernists and the part that is utter nonsense will be labeled "religion".

"...Concerned above all else that their names should appear in the Book of Life, the brothers were to consider the making of gold as unimportant-although for the true philosophers (Occultists) this was an easy matter and a parergon. They must apply themselves zealously and in the deepest secrecy to the study of Nature in her hidden forces, and to making their discoveries and inventions known to the order and profitable to the needs of humanity. ...

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13193b.htm

"Many clerics were alchemists. To Albertus Magnus, a prominent Dominican and Bishop of Ratisbon, is attributed the work "De Alchimia", though this is of doubtful authenticity. Several treatises on alchemy are attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas. He investigated theologically the question of whether gold produced by alchemy could be sold as real gold, and decided that it could, if it really possess the properties of gold ....." ....(Sum. Theol., II-II:77:2)
If however real gold were to be produced by alchemy, it would not be unlawful to sell it for the genuine article, for nothing prevents art from employing certain natural causes for the production of natural and true effects, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8) of things produced by the art of the demons.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01272b.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/307702.htm

Is that about what the RCC says about alchemy?

Originally posted by frogstomp
"...Concerned above all else that their names should appear in the Book of Life, the brothers were to consider the making of gold as unimportant-although for the true philosophers (Occultists) this was an easy matter and a parergon. They must apply themselves zealously and in the deepest secrecy to the study of Nature in her hidden forces, and to making t ...[text shortened]... ww.newadvent.org/summa/307702.htm

Is that about what the RCC says about alchemy?

you mentioned Thomas Aquinas, he reportedly was the author of "aurora consurgens" or dawn rising being interpreted. this was an alchemical treatise in which St. Thomas tried to amalgamate the views of both alchemy and the christian church.

One of the interesting things about alchemy was that for the vast majority of the alchemists, alchemy was not a substitute or replacement of Christianity but it was almost a duplication of the creation process because the "lapis" or stone of the philosophers was to be created much like the world was created by God and it was well known to any alchemist that he could not produce the lapis unless he was given the wisdom and ability by God himself. Basically , it took divine intervention to complete the work and produce the lapis. Actually, alchemy was in a complementary relationship to the religious views of the alchemists in the sense that alchemy provided the femine aspect of the Deity in the form of the Queen of heaven who within the framework of the opus would unite with Sol, the king, or the masculine aspect and their union would produce the androgynous perfect son. And this perfect son was considered to be the end product of the work, psychologically, this son represented the self, the totality of the psyche.