Pre-travel Alchemy Explorations

As mentioned in my introductory post, a goal I have in my research is to study the work (and lives and ideas) of these mathematicians on their terms.  Keep in mind as you read, though, that I am a math professor digging into history that I'm passionate about and that I am not a history professor trained in methods of historical research.  So I will study my Renaissance mathematicians on their terms as best I can.  In my previous sabbatical most of the mathematicians I researched lived in the 19th century; in this sabbatical I'm focused on the 16th century, and that makes QUITE a difference!

To put this in perspective, my great-grandfather, whom I knew and interacted with, was born in 1877.  Also, my "first best friend," our next door neighbor when I was a little kid, was born in 1890.  She was part of my life for 20 years.  So it feels to me like the 19th century is within my reach, so to speak.  This is not even close to being the case with the 16th century - a time before the industrial revolution and before the Age of Enlightenment - a time when there was no distinction between alchemy and chemistry nor between astrology and astronomy.  The New World had been "discovered" by Europeans only 9 years prior to the birth of Girolamo Cardano.  This was an era of cataclysmic change -- an era of Renaissance and of Reformation. Europeans had only known One World and One Church for over a thousand years prior to this, and suddenly there were two worlds and multiple churches.  Trying to truly get my head into a 16th-century mindset feels like traveling to an utterly different universe.

Egyptian Rosicrucian Museum (front entrance), San Jose, California

As a professor of mathematics I teach math -- seems obvious, right?  But in the 16th century a mathematics professor would have primarily taught astronomy and astrology; the math would have been seen mainly as preparation for those other, more important topics.  Among other things, astrology was considered an important part of the practice of medicine.  Part of diagnosing a patient involved determining the impact of the heavens on their health and life.  Many scholars of the time were also alchemists, as was Sir Isaac Newton a full century later!  Yet today we consider astrology and alchemy to be pseudoscience at best, and perhaps even demonic at worst.  And yet I know Cardano, Dee and Napier to have been not only intellectual giants but also devout Christians.  If I am to try to understand these scholars and their work on their terms -- at least to the degree that I can, I need to work on wrapping my mind around alchemy and astrology as used and seen in their world, in their time.  And so, as a start, I set off for the nearby Egyptian Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, California in order to see their newly installed alchemical exhibition.

Reproduction of an Alchemists Workshop

Reproduction of an Alchemists Workshop

Mathematician John Dee studied the works of the English Augustinian canon and alchemist George Ripley (1415-1490).  This Rosicrucian museum has a replica of a Ripley Scroll, an alchemical document with references to the philosopher's stone.  None of the 23 original such scrolls in existence were created by Ripley himself, but many do contain poetry associated with him and are therefore named for him.

Reproduction of a Ripley Scroll, Egyptian Rosicrucian Museum (2020)

I was privileged last summer to have seen one of the 23 originals still in existence.  It was being displayed publicly for the first time and was at Edinburgh's Royal College of Physicians.

A Ripley Scroll, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh (2019)

I made this trip to San Jose about a month ago and had at that time written a lot of words in what remains of this post.  Since that trip I have done a great deal of reading, and I have found even more deeply the truth of the maxim "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know!"

A sample of the eclectic collection of books I've been reading on the alchemy and astrology of my mathematicians.

As Alexander Pope so wisely writes:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

So I have cut most of the rest of my words - will leave this mainly to pictures - and will leave it simply as evidence of my first foray into this area of study.

Alchemical Mandala: Azoth of the Philosophers

Prayer Chamber and Work Area of an Alchemical Laboratory

Replica of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismigestus

So, given that my studies involve the Renaissance Era, why was I at a museum focused on ancient Egypt?  Well, the word alchemy itself comes from the Arabic word "al-khemiyah," which literally means, "the black soil of Egypt."  The Emerald Tablet (replica pictured above), written using the Phoenecian alphabet, is the core text of alchemy and is said to have been written by the Egyptian priest Hermes Trismigestus ("Thrice Greatest Hermes"), who is associated with the Thoth, the Egyptian god of science.  Alchemy goes back at least as far as Greco-Roman Egypt, and it spread throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.  It differed by varying degrees in different times and different places, but the Renaissance was a time of looking back to ancient sources, and so its Hermetic and Platonic foundations (which also became mixed with Christianity -- Hermes' writings being seen as priscia theologia) were honored above changes in alchemical practice and thought that had come about in medieval times.

I'll close here with other images from the Egyptian Rosicrucian Museum and am looking forward to the European part of my explorations.

Note the x-ray of the Mummy below the Mummy

Post Scipt: I should be leaving in 6 days for my Europe travels and studies, but things are still up in the air as the new coronavirus COVID-19 situation continues to develop.  It's very weird to be gearing up as much as I am and to be so close to my departure date and to not be sure if it's going to happen or not.