Minor in Esoteric and Occult Traditions - Distilling Nature's Secrets: The Ancient Alchemists
HSTC 3120 Distilling Nature's Secrets: The Ancient Alchemists
CREDIT HOURS: 3
This course explores the scientific and esoteric currents which contributed to the rise of alchemy in the late Ancient World. This 'sacred science' of transmutation was a cultural synthesis of Greek natural philosophy, late pagan mysticism, and Near Eastern metallurgic technologies. The physical processes enacted in the alchemical laboratory -where metals were decomposed, purified and transformed - were experienced inwardly by the alchemist himself as a spiritual drama of death and resurrection, analogous to the rites of initiation in the mystery cults. Alchemy was thus a form of ritual technology, aimed simultaneously at the purification of self and cosmos. The texts studied in the course range from technical manuals preserved on papyrus, to the highly esoteric and visionary works of the Hermetic philosopher Zosimos (circa 300CE). The relation between these technical and occult dimensions will be of central concern.
FORMAT:
CROSS-LISTING:
CLAS 3120.03