@johedesan
historian of alchemy of early modern world, currently obsessed with applying digital humanities in history of science and intellectual history. Lecturing in Oxford on #histsci and #dh and working in two different #dh projects.
We need to talk about AI, research and greedy academic publishing. According to Springer Nature, “Eventually [academic] papers will all be written by an AI agent and then another AI agent will actually read them, analyse them and produce a summary for humans.” www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Hopefully KULeuven will also make it available online for the benefit of everyone
👍 Looking forward 👍
Sure, but but there was no difference between alchemy and chemistry up to 1750...same matter theories, same approaches, same people. Some prefer the term chymistry, but practical work in alchemy is as long as its history. Separating alchemy and chemistry is 19th C, new scholarship has shown this
Great to hear this, but Fludd was not a chemist. Chemistry wasn't born yet for another 100 years+...
Excellent article. We know nobody's listening though.
The message is that it's always the woman's fault when men turn out bad.
Interesting theory. Celsus does mean high, lofty, elevated. But para- ? Usually above or near... It would fit the habit of latinizing one's name in the epoch. It took me a while to figure they called him 'the Hermit' because he was from Einsiedeln, known for the monastery and its hermit patron...
The passivity of the gov and media in this matter is shocking. I mean, we are talking about an attack on a national institution, and it's been more than a month. Hopefully they are working behind the scenes, but I don't like the silence and time it's taking to solve this.
For me it's the Paracelsian obsession of using skulls for medicine - distilling skulls, using skull moss for the weapon salve...
This is really good news: you can now search for manuscripts and archives in all of Oxford's libraries: marco.ox.ac.uk
Napier seemed ok to me. But I don't know him that well to be fair. But seemed very open minded - certainly he kind of adopted this German guy Gravius/ Graw and left him in charge of his parish. Graw was one of the luckier émigrés I think.
Hmmm ... I think this was a thing. Van Helmont did it too. Part of the Hippocratic medical ethos I guess ('prognosis'), mixed in with astrology and divination... Interesting topic!
Oh, nice!!! Don't know much about Boydell and Brewer, are they expensive etc?
TG had an a beautiful handwriting, didn't he? I presume you know Will Poole's article. I am fascinated by Graw's alchemy and its mixture of Paracelsus and Severinus (acquired at Marburg, no doubt in my mind), plus a good dose of Jacob Boehme on top. He's going spiritual and practical alchemy at once
Next year coming out, presumably? I look forward to the announcement!
Onomantic divination sounds fascinating, and I don't know the first thing about it. Some link to Kabbalah or not?
What is this book about? Is there any mention of Theodoricus Gravius in there? I'm currently having a bit of a weird obsession with him...