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Early modern paper, formed from the fibers of recycled linen rags, captured the imagination of early modern writers, translators, and readers. Drawing on paper's material properties and history, seventeenth‐century chymists — including Thomas Tymme, Michael Maier, and Otto Tachenius — repeatedly imagine papermaking as a chymical purification in order to claim paper as a chymical invention. In doing so, these chymists seek to demonstrate their art's centrality to early modern knowledge production, circulation, and preservation. At the same time, by imagining papermaking as chymistry, these writers probe the boundaries of art and nature, the mechanical and liberal arts, and the ordinary and alchemical. Further, because of readers' familiarity and proximity to linen and paper, the material book offered proof of chymistry's usefulness, grounded in the tacit knowledge of daily experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the efforts of Matthew Parker and his scholarly circle to understand the medieval books that he collected as archbishop of Canterbury. It argues that Parker made sense of his books by connecting them to what amounted to an emerging history of the book. That is, Parker began to piece together the formal features of different medieval books into a rough but increasingly refined timeline of the history of book production in order to contextualize any given manuscript. The evidence can be found scattered throughout Parker's library, in the form of annotations, transcripts of passages, copied illustrations, and printed books that offer a wealth of information about how Parker's team understood the books they handled. This documentation reveals how they combined scribal knowledge with textual information, to powerful ends. By connecting Parker's practices to contemporary developments in other areas of knowledge production, from alchemy to conjectural emendation, this article offers a new way forward for scholarly analysis of the early modern study of older books, especially for our analysis of early modern practices and paradigms that do not fit modern definitions of paleography and codicology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the "signs and tokens" described in alchemical texts relate to colour, from the Crow's Bill signifying putrefaction to the philosophical solvents disguised as Green Lions, Red Dragons, and Grey Wolves. While the process of yellowing, or citrination, often appears in medieval recipes, it seems to have interested commentators less than the more familiar processes of blackening, whitening, or reddening. Yet beyond these canonical colours, yellowness turns out to be ubiquitous in alchemy and its associated craft practices, both in Latin texts and vernacular translations. This paper uses source criticism and experimental reconstruction to interrogate the role of yellowness at the beginning, middle, and end of practice, focusing on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England. As starting ingredients, yellow vitriol and litharge offered the potential for transmutation but also posed problems for identification and preparation. As an intermediate stage, yellowness offered promising signs of future success, in the form of dramatic colour changes and unexpected products. But yellowness also offered an end in itself, as appears from the many citrination processes attested in recipe collections which aimed to imitate the properties of gold – suggesting that yellowing was prized as a significant indicator of chemical change across diverse areas of craft practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

17 th century chemistry was concerned largely with iatrochemistry (medicinal chemistry) and the transmutation of metals, especially with the purpose of making gold. Thus, Johann Rudolph Glauber made a living making and selling chemicals such as nitric acid and medicaments such as aurum potabile (drinkable gold), but he also believed in the transmutation or "improvement" of metals and the "augmentation" of gold, and he sold recipes for such processes. This perspective aims to provide a snapshot of the range of 17 th century chemistry by analysis of the efforts of four representatives to make drugs, chemicals, and gold. It will be concluded that early modern chemists were unable to break out from the conceptual doctrines imposed by Aristotle and Paracelsus, which made transmutation perfectly logical. No further scientific advance could be made until the idea that all things are composed of the same basic constituents was abandoned in favour of the atomic theory., (© 2022 The Authors. ChemPlusChem published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

In the paper, I examine the concept of "cruelty" (kaumai) of physical substances in the Tamil siddha alchemical literature, by taking as the starting point an analysis of the selected texts ascribed to Siddhar Yākōpu alias Rāmatēvar (ca. 17th-18th c.), a prominent author of the Tamil siddha alchemical tradition. The alchemical works of Yākōpu repeatedly describe certain alchemical operations, the names of which allude to acts of violence, such as "binding" (kautal) and "killing" (kollutal). Such operations, according to the texts, should be mastered and performed by alchemists on various material substances. In the paper, I analyze passages that shed light on the purpose and character of such operations in the alchemical tradition of the Siddhars. I also address the issue of the non-human material agency related to the perspective of material ecocriticism as presented in the Tamil siddha texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to observe, contextualize, and analyze the multifaceted religious fungal foundations of Moscow Conceptualism within the context of Slavic and European esoteric mythological praxis. By unveiling the thematic basis of their transgressive spiritual endeavors, this study seeks to enhance our comprehension of this artistic and literary movement in the Western world. Besides exploring the erotic aesthetics associated with mushrooms, significant attention is devoted to various flies, as the biological vitality of the mukhomor ('fly agaric' or amanita muscaria) is inconceivable without them. Moscow Conceptualist visionaries, including Andrey Monastyrsky, Ilia Kabakov, Elagina and Makarevich, and the Mukhomor Moscow collectives, along with their no less famous colleague from Leningrad, Sergey Kuriokhin, emerge not only as artists but also as literary innovators. They seamlessly integrate advancements from the realm of art, giving rise to a novel form of religiously symbiotic semiosis. Consequently, the traditional boundaries between diverse art forms become blurred, marking a distinctive characteristic that aligns with international contemporary avant-garde aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account that, in Antonin Artaud’s vision, theatre, in order to be revived, has to enter a play of the double, the present paper aims at discussing, succinctly, the notion of the Artaudian double, putting high emphasis on dream. So, theatre is dream, plague, cruelty, alchemical operation, ritual, exorcism, experiment. The link between the physical and the spiritual, in Artaudian metaphors, involves a transfer / transport of the actor and spectator from the lower levels of understanding to higher levels or from the lower energies of the body to subtle energies. When referring to the plague, Christopher Innes calls it a tired metaphor; moreover, he finds that Artaudian metaphors seem to be confusing or to generate confusion in the actor or spectator. Nonetheless, Artaud’s metaphors are revelatory, metaphysical, not asking for a horizontal, rational understanding, but for a vertical, speculative understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show how in recent years a comparatively little-known period of Newton's life, his work as the Warden and then Master of the Royal Mint, has entered the popular imagination. Analyzing Philip Kerr's detective novel set in the 17th century, Dark Matter: The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton, I discuss his depiction of the Great Re-Coinage and the criminal world of cockney counterfeiters and 'clippers' whom Newton so successfully prosecuted. Additionally, the paper demonstrates how the "Britishness" of Newton and of old London becomes commodified; Kerr sells the myth of British history, Britain's greatest minds, and British urban folklore for the global market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically Black communities are frequently depicted as victims of urban conditions. However, a rich tradition of placemaking, place keeping, and community care, often led and stewarded by Black women, exists. Drawing from theories that name macrosystems that contribute to the fracturing and disruption of urban Black communities (e.g. ‘root shock‘), and strategies that attempt to heal and redress these processes (e.g. ‘urban alchemy‘), this paper examines the (re)making of place through the lens of Black older women living in lower-income, urban neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using previously neglected manuscript sources, this paper sheds light on a puzzling episode in the later life of Robert Boyle and the early career of his laboratory assistant Ambrose Godfrey. Currently, the only account of their disappointing encounter with an unnamed German adept derives from Godfrey's lost manuscript treatise 'An Apology and Letter touching a Crosey- Crucian', excerpts of which were published in 1858. Based on a comparison between that source and the papers of the virtually forgotten chymical practitioner and convicted heretic Peter Moritz (1638-ca. 1700), the authors argue that Godfrey's anonymous 'Crosey- Crucian' was none other than Moritz himself. The first part establishes that various significant and seemingly insignificant details agree precisely and thus corroborate this identification. The second part focuses on those passages among Moritz's papers that contain explicit evidence of his dealings with both Boyle and Godfrey, a sheet of notes and a lengthy epistolary 'Memorial' to an unnamed addressee. The authors contend that Moritz's 'Memorial' is a version of the same document that the adept sought to deliver to Boyle who refused to accept it, according to Godfrey's 'Apology'. For this reason, and on the basis of strong internal evidence, Boyle is identified as the intended recipient of Moritz's 'Memorial'. Taken together, these two identifications solve a long-standing riddle in Boyle scholarship and introduce a significant addition to his extant correspondence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art Therapists have long been aware of the intersubjective complexities that are evoked in art therapy in relation to images, art-making and their attendant processes. These have often been understood with reference to the psychodynamic concepts of transference and countertransference. In this paper we ask, what happens to these processes when art therapy moves online and becomes digitally-mediated? How do the dynamics of 'the Virtual' affect the image and art-making, and the therapeutic relationship? Drawing on Schaverien and Jung's ideas about transference and countertransference, we propose a new model or 'map' of Art Therapy which helps to think about these questions, which we call a 'Hexagonal Relationship'. To date, published literature has tended to foreground the logistics and practicalities of moving art therapy online, with consideration of complex interpersonal dynamics occupying less of a central space in emerging narratives about digitally-mediated art therapy. We suggest that applying our model to practice could potentially support art therapists to access deeper, less conscious and perhaps more symbolic levels of material in online work, in service of the client's process. We invite art therapists and clients to consider our model with reference to their own experiences of digitally-mediated art therapy, and to test out our questions and hypotheses in their own contexts. Art Therapists work with the idea that the images made in art therapy are affected by the relationship between the person making the image (often known as 'the client'), the art therapist, and the environment in which the art therapy session takes place. Making and reflecting on images is a way of understanding and working with whatever is going on for the client, both in their 'external' life and also in their 'internal world' (for example, their thoughts, feelings, imaginings and beliefs). A lot of art therapy now happens online, particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are all part of the digital world in terms of how we communicate and relate with others. We think it is helpful to consider how art therapy (including the therapeutic relationship, art-making processes and the images made) might be affected by the digital environment and so we have written this paper to explore these ideas. We show readers a diagram of what we call the 'Hexagonal Relationship' to help explain what we mean. We think this will help us to understand more of what happens in art therapy in the digital world, making this kind of therapeutic help more effective and meaningful for clients and their art therapists. We hope that clients and art therapists will test out these ideas for themselves and come into a conversation with us (perhaps through papers like this one, published in art therapy journals) about how well our ideas stand up to actual experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores insight and the development of the thinking voice in the psychoanalytic process. It begins with music and images, narrating an important Australian historical event. The composers have created a dreaming space, and for this paper, a metaphor for the analytic space and the creative process. At once physical, aural and visual, it also exists within and reflects the patient's and analyst's shared historical and cultural frame. It is a liminal space, for exploration, crossing, and a product of the alchemy created between patient and analyst. Pickering's (2016) and Grier's (2019) consideration of musicality as an essential part of the analytic experience assists recognition of the multidimensional nature of the space created between patient and analyst. Ferro and Civitarese's (2015) conceptualization of the space where patient and analyst dream one another, and Baranger and Baranger's (2008) discussion of the bi personal field are pertinent here. Symington's idea of insight as an essential 'thing in itself', within the individual patient helps articulation of insight as a product of an internalized linking, or parental intercourse, enabling movement to a separate third position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will argue how Paracelsus's concept of the universal ensoulment of nature may relate to his understanding of the self-healing capacity of the body, as shown in his Grosse Wundartzney (1536). Here, his new approach to medicine is visible, focusing not on retaining or restoring the balance of bodily humours but on strengthening the inner "essence" of life (the so-called "balsam," "mummy," "astral spirit," etc.). This is possible by means of life-endowed essences of healing substances which can affect the body's vital principle by means of inner sympathies. Here, a link is established to medical alchemy as a way to produce more subtle medicines, the "essences" of things. Such an undertaking is possible only in the framework of the natural magic concept with its underlying microcosm-macrocosm analogy. It is my aim to show not only the principles of Paracelsus's new medicine, alchemy, and his worldview in general, but also how his theories may relate to his predecessors, including Marsilio Ficino, one of the few authors who escaped Paracelsus's harsh critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty and Entrepreneurship provides a critical review of the uncertainty research, with implications for a field that has had an existential relationship with it ever since Knight's clear delineation of the term as an essential wedge for new entry. We take a two-step approach in our literature review – where the objective facts are separated from the subjective interpretations – setting the new standard for such work. First, we provide the raw data taken directly from the hundreds of papers reviewed. This data is contextualized with definitions of key terms, the foundations of key concepts, and the limitations involved. Second, we provide our subjective analysis of that raw data. We assess the past research on uncertainty and its lack of evolution, discussing the theoretical and managerial implications. We find that much uncertainty-related alchemy exists – i.e., where a paper defines uncertainty as a condition that renders a focal decision unoptimizable, prior to it then suggesting a "new" optimization path. We make a clear and evidence-based case that the recent surge of such alchemy falls squarely on journal editors. We explain how this kind of misrepresentation of uncertainty has tarnished most of the recent theorizing in the field. As a result, we recommend significant changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what it might mean to think about ontological change in our quest for sustainability transformations. To do so, it attempts to paint a picture of the vanished world of esoteric thinking in Western Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The paper pays particular attention to the alchemical tradition of the times and describes key ontological concepts that would derive from an alchemical framework of understanding and experience. The paper goes on to discuss briefly the critical role that such approaches played in the development of modern science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, by contributing to a "re-orientation of the will" towards an active human role in modifying the world. It is suggested that this alchemically inflected world did indeed come to an end after the sixteenth century, in all its spiritual but also material richness, in precisely the spiritual terms feared by many at the time. The "Modernist" world that emerged in the seventeenth century in Europe, and has become increasingly influential globally, was fundamentally philosophically materialist in orientation, relegating spiritual understanding to subjective experience (along with all the other secondary qualities), and thereby perpetuating a fundamental split between subject and object, self and world, humanity and nature, fact and value, etc. The paper suggests that a re-imagination of an alchemical world might have some relevance to an anthropocenic planet ravaged, both socially and ecologically, by the single-minded materialism, empiricism and utilitarian rationality of the Modernist era. It offers evidence of the existence and attributes of a very different kind of world that perhaps speaks to some of the challenges we face today and shows that a fundamental metamorphosis of the world itself is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of Deleuzian philosophy in fintech projects which operate 'in the wild', i.e. far from the major institutional settings of fintech development, and which speculate towards an alternative financial economy, building upon algorithms, blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and crypto-assets. Based on ethnographic data collected with three different projects, I discuss the process of earmarking financial operations by means of philosophical concepts or theories, which enable the re-interpretation of the process of financialisation of everyday life. I further analyse the conceptual socialization of these technological endeavours with the wider-reaching theme of accelerating the capitalist process with the objective to overturn its excessive powers. The paper concludes by suggesting that fintech experiments which are socialized with accelerationist narratives re-interpret the process of financialisation as a path of liberation instead of exploitation, offering an escape from the capitalist crisis through machinic alchemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses responses to Drawing Down the Moon by Shannon Grimes, James Davila, Gregory Shaw, and Naomi Janowitz, using the cues of extraordinary efficacy, performance, social location, and ends to determine whether something is labeled magic and by whom. In each of the papers, the cue of social location appears as the most significant, even though the others each play a role as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a hitherto unpublished account of a magical séance conducted by the virtuoso Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700), later Fellow of the Royal Society, while travelling in Venice ca 1648. The episode had previously been known through an account of it given by Robert Boyle, but in Boyle's version its protagonist was unclear. It is now for the first time revealed as Henshaw on the basis of a further record of it among the papers of John Sharp, Archbishop of York (1645?–1714). The discrepancies between the 'new' version of the story and that given by Boyle are here elucidated and the opportunity is taken to outline the background to the séance in terms of the history of magic in early modern Venice. In addition, broader comments are included on the implications of the episode for attitudes towards alchemy and magic in the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sulphur is a highly reactive element, and is therefore able to enter into a great variety of chemical combinations, resulting in the formation of compounds of widely differing properties. Reactions involving sulphur, and the compounds which they produce, have stimulated and inspired people throughout the ages. Sulphur has always been associated with volcanoes, fires and smells. However, its story goes much further. Sulphur is present in thousands of products of the chemical industry, which are in everyday use. These include car batteries, car tyres, matches, paints, paper, textiles, food, detergents and pharmaceuticals. In part 1 of this essay, the evolution of the role of sulphur in the history of mankind is explained, through the eyes of etymology, geology, literature, art, and chemistry. In part 2 the role of sulphur in biochemistry and chemical technology is reviewed. In so doing, a case is established, to show that sulphur is the most extraordinary substance known to Man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review summarises the long period in which man has approached nature to understand its powers, and has tried to control it through physical and chemical, and also magical, practices. From the attempt to manage nature to the development of primordial drugs and medical practices and later to achieve modern biomedical science, laboratory practices always played a pivotal role. Over the years and centuries, the laboratory has acquired more and more importance in the improvement of health.In addition to the well-known importance of laboratory medicine in the early diagnosis and appropriateness, the discoveries of the last 50 years have also given the Laboratory a decisive role in regenerative and personalised medicine.This paper examines the evolution of the laboratory and is not meant to be a treatise on the history of medicine. The goal is to highlight the moments of the transition from magic and alchemy to laboratory science.-------------------------------Roberto Verna is President of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and President of the Academy for Health and Clinical Research., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Samuel Richardson’s use of the motif of the ouroboros in Clarissa (1747–1748), his masterpiece, has continued to baffle both his readership and his critics for 275 years now. The surprise and the puzzle derive from the sharp difference between the two traditions that have thus been forced to meet: Richardson’s conservative Anglican Christianity (of the Puritan kind) and the pagan tradition of Hermetic alchemy of Egyptian extraction. The following paper explores dimensions that the ouroboric symbol has from the perspective of alchemy, myth and science, as well as the reasons Richardson may have had in making such a bold choice in his famous million-word novel. Special reference is made to Clarissa’s Paper X and letter to Lovelace (Volume 5), in which she sketches something like a bill of indictment and list of last wishes before execution. We conclude that: 1) the Ouroboros, a cultural legacy of immeasurably old origins, is a versatile symbol of possibly quite advanced knowledge of various transformations; 2) Clarissa is a female embodiment of the Ouroboros (or transmutation matrix); 3) the novel partakes of the nature of the alchemical Ouroboros, by becoming similar to a “time capsule,” meant by Richardson to be repeatedly “unburied” by future generations, who will in their minds resurrect Clarissa and reopen her “horizons,” again and again. The fascination with Clarissa is thus perhaps to grow as time goes by, because every new generation will likely rediscover anew what it describes: the fierce battle between the head and the heart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Yuan dynasty Daoist Huang Gongwang's 黃公望 (1269–1354) painting Clearing after Sudden Snow resonates with the principles of inner alchemy (neidan, 內丹), particularly the stage known as the resurgence of yang force. Within this painting, four prominent visual elements—the sun, the spirit room, the cliff, and the snowy mountains—come together to imbue the painting with a rich tapestry of inner alchemical connotations. They collectively portray the sequential stages of cultivation, refinement, and transformation in the context of inner alchemy. The painting not only captures the moment of transition where the snow-covered terrain is gradually transforming into a fresh and awakened state, but it also embodies a visual metaphor for the inner alchemical transformative journey. Furthermore, each individual who engages with the painting may undergo their own personal transformation through the act of contemplation and reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are Arabic and Islamic philosophy and sciences? How and where did they come about? I am trying in this preface to provide a short and brief answer to those two questions. Having done this, I sketch the contents of five papers trying to study Arabic and Islamic philosophy and sciences from its perspective to method and truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most residents of Europe, war is a new experience in which they find themselves both as witnesses and participants. In this paper the war in Ukraine serves as an illustration and case example. Like any unfamiliar experience, war elicits profound emotional responses which can be so overwhelming that an individual may be unable to fully process them and to create mental representations of the reality of war. When the psyche becomes entrapped in an unprocessed state, without the capacity to derive meaning from it, this results in the "fossilization" of the psyche akin to what McGinley and Segal describes as a totalitarian state of mind. Subjectivity and individual differences come under collective or personal attack, or both. This state of being prioritizes the needs of the collective psyche over the individual psyche. The image of Gorgon Medusa, who transformed living people into "fossilized" ones, is presented as a metaphor of total identification with the collective dimension. In contrast, the psyche can reveal a creative approach to resolving war‐induced trauma. This is depicted in the concept of the Alchemical Stone and its creation, which symbolizes a harmonious connection between the external and internal realms, the subjective and objective experiences, and the real and the imaginal dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the primary ingredient in gunpowder, saltpeter was an extraordinarily important commodity in the early modern world. Historians of science and technology have long studied its military applications but have rarely focused on its uses outside of warfare. Due to its potential effectiveness as a fertilizer, saltpeter was also an integral component of experimental agricultural reform movements in the early modern period and particularly in seventeenth-century England. This became possible for several reasons: the creation of a thriving domestic saltpeter production industry in the second half of the sixteenth century; the development of vitalist alchemical theories that sought a unified explanation for the "growth" of minerals, metals, and plants; the rise of experimental natural philosophy; and the mid-seventeenth-century dominance of the English East India Company in the saltpeter trade, which allowed agricultural reformers to repurpose domestically produced saltpeter in agriculturally productive ways. This paper argues that the Hartlib Circle - a loose network of natural philosophers and social reformers - adopted vitalist matter theories and the practical, experimental techniques of alchemists to transform agriculture into a more productive enterprise. Though their grandiose plans never came to fruition, their experimental trials to develop artificial fertilizers played an early role in the origins and development of saline chemistry, agronomy, and the British Agricultural Revolution.

This paper explores the teachings of Wang Dongting 汪東亭 (1839–1917), a leading master of the Western school (xipai 西派) of internal alchemy (neidan 內丹), who developed an innovative method of alchemical cultivation that focused on creating the immortal body in the external space outside of the physical body. Wang developed a concept of two Heavens and four yin-yangs, presenting the perfect immortal and corrupted ordinary worlds as two parallel universes existing simultaneously. The two Heavens express themselves as humans' two selves, an ordinary self and its physical body given to us by our parents, and the eternal "body of law." Wang maintained that alchemists must abandon the ordinary self and exclusively cultivate the body of law, achieving immortality by separating the body of law from the physical body and "teaching" the latter to exist on its own. According to Wang's method, alchemists form a new immortal body by unifying their genuine selves with external space. To do it, practitioners first focus on breathing outside the physical body, then naturally follow breathing, then forget about it and go into deep concentration, oblivion, and even sleep. They finally awaken in an actual dream of this new immortal reality. Practitioners not only create a new immortal body outside the physical one, but also make a choice between the ordinary world of death and the immortal world of life, aiming to leave our fallen world entirely, forget about it, and never return. 本文探討內丹西派大宗師汪東亭（1839–1917）的內丹思想與實際修練方法。汪東亭開發了一種全新的"身外虛空"內丹修練方法，專注於在色身外進行心息相依，煉形易身等功夫。汪氏提出兩重天地四個陰陽的概念，將仙界和凡界視為同時存在的兩個平行宇宙。兩種天地四個陰陽表現為人的兩個自我，即父母給我們的色身，以及永恆的"法身"。汪東亭認為，內丹修煉者必須捨棄色身，專修法身，將法身與肉身分離，"教"法身自身存在，從而達到長生不老的目的。根據汪氏的丹法，修煉者需要將神氣在外面合一，逐漸形成一個新的不死之身。為此，內丹修煉者首先凝神於鼻外寸勁，在外面虛空裡心息相依，然後神氣相忘，入定，甚至入睡。入定之後， 修煉者先沒有夢， 後來他們突然有夢，叫真夢。然後他們在真夢中醒來，出陽神，進入仙界。內丹修行者不僅要在外面虛空裡創造陽神，還要在有死亡的凡界和永恆的仙界之間做出選擇，力求徹底離開凡界，忘掉它，再也不回來。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most baojuan (precious scrolls), predominantly religious-oriented prosimetric texts in the vernacular language, in the late period of their development (late 19th–early 20th centuries) lost connection with heterodox religious teachings. Notwithstanding this several newly emerged religious traditions in the 19th century continued to use the baojuan form to propagate their teachings. This paper analyses specific religious ideas in the Complete Recension of the Scroll of Mulian, first printed in Hangzhou in 1877. This text still has not been translated into any foreign language and is rarely discussed in research work, although it is considerably different from the more widespread recensions of this baojuan. The Complete Recension includes many additional entertaining episodes from the voluminous Mulian dramas of southern China. We can also find ideas of syncretic religious teachings, including references to the inner alchemy technique, which is especially characteristic of the Former Heaven Religion (Xiantiandao) groups. I also compare this text with other recensions of the Mulian Baojuan still recited in China in order to demonstrate the interplay of various beliefs and practices in the late baojuan texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how Lucy Hutchinson used alchemical imagery to illustrate her evolving grief in her Elegies. An early form of chemistry, alchemy was thought to be not only purifying and healing but also deceptive and harmful. Hutchinson's grief is similarly mutable, she suggests, as she traces her fluctuating emotions in the wake of her husband's death. Even as she stresses the isolating nature of her mourning, her alchemical language highlights her engagement with other writers, including John Donne. She adapts Donne's lyrics to suit her own poetic aims, echoing his alchemical language to add nuance to her depictions of her grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, I examine the concept of “cruelty” (kaṭumai) of physical substances in the Tamil siddha alchemical literature, by taking as the starting point an analysis of the selected texts ascribed to Siddhar Yākōpu alias Rāmatēvar (ca. 17th–18th c.), a prominent author of the Tamil siddha alchemical tradition. The alchemical works of Yākōpu repeatedly describe certain alchemical operations, the names of which allude to acts of violence, such as “binding” (kaṭṭutal) and “killing” (kollutal). Such operations, according to the texts, should be mastered and performed by alchemists on various material substances. In the paper, I analyze passages that shed light on the purpose and character of such operations in the alchemical tradition of the Siddhars. I also address the issue of the non-human material agency related to the perspective of material ecocriticism as presented in the Tamil siddha texts.

Copyright of Journal of Analytical Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Analytical Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper uses alchemical metaphor to examine the psychological challenges United States military veterans face as they attempt to reintegrate into civilian society. The arc of the research tracks a military member's progression from Basic Training to the transition back into civilian life. In particular, it pinpoints the psychological harm inflicted by the military's collective consciousness on the individual psyche. Examining the process of military training from the perspective of a Jungian understanding of the psychological stages of alchemy, the paper illuminates a process that presents each military member with profound difficulties related to identity, the ability to engage in a vibrant relationship with the Self, and the ability to reenter civilian life. In conclusion, it highlights the need for civilians, elected officials, and the mental healthcare community to help military veterans address the psychological pain of their service through practices that support their adjustment to civilian life from a holistic perspective that includes image, soul, and conscious connection fostered between the ego and archetypal forces that animate human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion that the Earth might be hollow or at least cavernous inside and filled with numberless underground worlds (like volcanic and tectonic caves, sea caves, glacier caves, eolian caves, granite and other bedrock shelters, etc.) has fascinated humanity perhaps from times immemorial. The Hollow-Earth model, however, was formulated more clearly only in rather recent times (at best, it is only a few centuries old). John Cleves Symmes, in his science-fictional novel Symzonia: a voyage of discovery (1820), proposed such a model of Hollow Earth as inhabited inside by Symzonians (citizens of inner-Earth Symzonia) and Belzubians (degenerate Symzonians, living as exiles both in the inner-Earth Belzubia and on the outer Earth). The present paper presents a larger context in which Symmes's Symzonia came to life, by tracing a few romantic, alchemical, and philosophical sources (that may have been more or less its foundations) and echoes (that it may have more or less generated). Although generally underrated and neglected, Symmes's novel remains today relevant in science-fiction studies at least because it constitutes the first American SF novel, which saw the light of print only two years after the publication of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The modern Prometheus (1818), which is currently widely considered to be the first work of science fiction (see Aldiss & Wingrove 1988). What seems undoubtful is that the Hollow-Earth model of Symzonia deeply influenced E. A. Poe, who is now acknowledged as one of the initiators of the SF genre (see at least Beaver's 1976 edition of Poe's science fiction; and Tresch 2004). Also, it appears Symmes took his science-fiction notion of Hollow Earth to be a true reality, which is why Symzonia (1820) can be seen as a precursor for Willis George Emerson's equally mysterious (and perhaps equally neglected) narrative entitled The Smoky God, or A voyage to the Inner World (1908), which is hereby also briefly presented for comparative purposes as proto-science fiction. Interestingly, the first Superman movie (Superman and the Mole Man, 1951) is a Hollow-Earth narrative. In itself this constitutes yet another element that shows just how perennial and attractive this idea has continued to be. In this context, it becomes plausible to regard Symzonia (1820) as a groundbreaking American proto-SF narrative that initiated in literature a fictionary paradigm, later leading to Poe's mystery science fictions, Emerson's fantastic Hollow-Earth narrative, and the entire SF "school" of Hollow-Earth and underground stories (for an extended list of contributors to this significant SF genre, see Clute & Nicholls 1993). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the surprising influence of sacramental theology on the reception of John Law's campaign to reform public finances and colonial trade during the regency of Philippe d'Orléans (1715-23). Allusions to the mysteries of transubstantiation and transmutation abounded in the cultural productions of the period, which depicted Law's banknotes and company shares as giving rise to previously unfathomable riches. The essay argues that a Eucharistic-alchemical complex lent itself to describing these instruments and their myriad effects. Like the consecrated host and the philosopher's stone, paper's efficacy followed from its dual nature as both visible and transparent, that is, as a means of exchange that not only passively reflected wealth but also brought it into being. The spiritual desideratum of boundlessness underwrote participation in Law's "System," emboldening investors to place their faith in accumulation without limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the chemistry of mercury as described in ancient alchemical literature. Alchemy's focus on the knowledge and manipulation of natural substances is not so different from modern chemistry's purposes. The great divide between the two is marked by the way of conceptualizing and recording their practices. Our interdisciplinary research group, composed of chemists and historians of science, has set off to explore the cold and hot extraction of mercury from cinnabar. The ancient written records have been perused in order to devise laboratory experiments that could shed light on the material reality behind the alchemical narratives and interpret textual details in a unique perspective. In this way, it became possible to translate the technical lore of ancient alchemy into the modern language of chemistry. Thanks to the replication of alchemical practices, chemistry can regain its centuries-long history that has fallen into oblivion.

The Scottish doctor Robert Erskine (1677–1718) became Chief Doctor of Russia and personal physician to Tsar Peter the Great. Extensive archival material documents his remarkable career. From schooling in the village of Alva and apprenticeship to an Edinburgh apothecary, he went on to study medicine in Paris and Utrecht and was admitted to the Royal Society in London. Recruited into the service of the Tsar, to whom he became a trusted friend and counsellor, Erskine played a central role in the modernisation of Russian medicine, pharmacy and natural science in the early 18th century. His untimely death at age 41 was marked with a state funeral in St Petersburg. Some historians in Russia assert that in their country, the development of medicine and the natural sciences took place without the transitional stages of iatrochemistry and iatrophysics which characterised the shift in scientific thinking throughout Europe in the early modern period. This study of archival records shows that Erskine held iatrophysical and iatrochemical views in common with his European contemporaries. His influence ensured that Russia was thoroughly involved in European developments in science and medicine in the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastics have increasingly dominated our material landscape due to their widespread use. With the surge in the production and distribution of plastic products, the threat of global plastic pollution has escalated. This issue has increasingly alarmed environmental researchers due to the pronounced negative impacts on flora and fauna. As research efforts intensify worldwide, there is encouraging advancement in pinpointing and comprehending microorganisms capable of breaking down these plastics. The recent studies depicted microbial entities for their remarkable capabilities in tackling plastic waste. Among these are bacteria from the genera Ideonella, Pseudomonas, Enterobacter and Brevibacillus, as well as fungi, especially those from the genera Aspergillus and Penicillium which have showcased promising results in degrading plastics This scholarly review aims to clarify the lasting understanding concerning the biodegradation of polymeric materials. We delve into the different roles of specific microorganisms adept at plastic degradation, highlighting the enzymatic capabilities they employ. Additionally, we explore the environmental implications of leveraging microbial degradation as a sustainable approach to mitigating plastic pollution, offering insights into future research directions and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With due interpretative caution and trying not to fall into simplification or cliché, it could be stated that the “rational” mind learns with “pure concepts” based mainly on the understanding of the essence and attributes of their objects of knowledge. The “logical” mind, on the other hand, learns to unravel the theoretical consequences of a formula within an abstract language. On its side, the “creative” mind of the designer acquires and achieves the object of knowledge—creativity—through a deep understanding of already completed designs. This paper aims to delve into the process of analysis of design examples, a process that could somehow resemble Alchemy, in which the alembic could be the pencil. Drawing is the analytical tool that allows the designer to distil the essence of the studied references departing from the overflow of images that arrive to the eye. With the gathering of different successful design examples, the designers build up a repository stocked in their memory that enlarges their creative capacity when facing new challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the "invisible body in shanshui paintings" by redefining the correlation between shanshui and the human body in the Daoist context. I argue that the human body is not invisible in shanshui painting—it is ever-present through the agency of the shanshui. The correlation will be unpacked in two aspects. Firstly, shanshui is ontologically connected and shares a "corporeal" affinity with the bodies of human beings. Secondly and more importantly, with the development of inner alchemy (neidan 內丹), shanshui and the human body are identified as representative of one another. Shanshui becomes the body through the lens of the unique concept of neijing 內景 (inner landscape). As the powerful and redemptive mediation between human beings and the Dao, shanshui reveals not only the inner body but also the mechanism of inner energies. Furthermore, it offers a solution to solve the Daoist anxiety over the body's physical limitations by breaking down the constant confrontation and opposition between the "I" and the cosmos and reactivating one's primordial dependency on nature. Shanshui painting, in this vein, transcends the mundane body and provides access to the sacred truth and reality of the Dao. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015 Dhruv Raina published Needham's Indian Network: The Search for a Home for the History of Science in India (1950-1970), bringing to light the long-range networks that institutionalized the disciplinary history of science in post-colonial India, and demonstrating the intellectual and infrastructural contributions of Joseph Needham (1900-1995) in this endeavour. This paper takes a different approach and turns to the way that Needham perceived Indian vis-à-vis Chinese civilization, and the role India played in Needham's historiography of science. It turns out that Needham's most sustained engagement with India could be found in his histories of medicine, bodily practices and alchemical traditions. In the first section of the paper, I outline the key concepts of 'Grand Titration' and 'oecumenical science' that animated Needham's historiography, which clarifies why Chinese medicine, especially acupuncture, occupies a privileged status. The second section elaborates on Needham's scholarship and vision of acupuncture, involving the verification of acupuncture's reality and efficacy via Western biomedicine. He thought acupuncture would be China's unique contribution to a new 'universal medicine' in the modern age, but by contrast Needham saw little worth refurbishing in Indian medicine, arguing via an investigation in yoga that Indian practices were generally less 'materialist' and less 'proto-scientific'. In the third section, I turn my attention to Needham's preoccupation with the history of alchemy around the world, and discuss his theorization on transmission and circulation of scientific knowledge. I comment on Needham's commitment to the thesis that European alchemy was a melting pot of Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arabic, Greek, Egyptian and Roman ideas and practices. While Needham reserved his 'deepest love' and 'profoundest desire' for Chinese civilization, India on the other hand often occupied a secondary status in his historical accounts, and in the conclusion I move from a critique of Needham's preconceptions to reflect on the writing of the history of non-Western science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the influence of eschatology on the alchemical imagery of Thomas Vaughan, Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell, who wrote their works in an apocalyptic period in mid-seventeenth-century England. In the works of the Vaughan brothers, the imagery of eschatological alchemy not only reflects the contemporary political situation of national crisis but also reveals their anti-Presbyterian belief that creatures other than mankind can be saved. Writing in the Presbyterian household of Lord Fairfax, Marvell employs the chiliastic and alchemical imagery in a much more distanced, nonpartisan way. He uses the image of vitrification to introduce the Fairfaxes' daughter into "Upon Appleton House" to comfort his afflicted employer, and to encourage him to create his private golden age. By collecting circumstantial evidence, the paper further suggests the possibility that Fairfax's poet took upon himself a positive responsibility for arranging the marriage between his old friend, George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham and his employer's daughter, Mary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alchemical language has been addressed in several lexicographical studies, historically and recently. This paper discusses the current state of the field and proposes a digital distant-reading approach to the issue of decoding alchemical Decknamen . This paper presents an algorithm for the digital analysis of alchemical language using the corpus of printed works by Michael Maier (1568-1622). Alchemical language was used as a medium for negotiating authority, inclusion, and exclusion in alchemical and chymical communities and also as a tool for social and scholarly knowledge-making. This paper addresses the historical problem of understanding early modern alchemical language by computational analysis. Previous studies have applied close reading methodologies to decode Decknamen ; however, this paper offers a machine reasoning approach to analyse patterns in alchemical language.

Copyright of Journal of Analytical Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)