Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy,a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China,India,the Muslim world,and Europe. In its Western form,alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.
The classical elements typically refer to earth,water,air,fire,and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece,Tibet,and India had similar lists which sometimes referred,in local languages,to "air" as "wind" and the fifth element as "void".
In Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion,Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory and the mother of the nine Muses by her nephew Zeus. In the Greek tradition,Mnemosyne is one of the Titans,the twelve divine children of the earth-goddess Gaia and the sky-god Uranus. The term Mnemosyne is derived from the same source as the word mnemonic,that being the Greek word mnēmē,which means "remembrance,memory".
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author. She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century.
The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris,the messenger of Hera. The short staff is entwined by two serpents,sometimes surmounted by wings. In Roman iconography,it was depicted being carried in the left hand of Mercury,the messenger of the gods.
Ada Sara Adler was a Danish classical scholar and librarian.
The Hermetica are texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus,a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These texts may vary widely in content and purpose,but by modern convention are usually subdivided into two main categories,the "technical" and "religio-philosophical" Hermetica.
The word chthonic,or chthonian,is derived from the Ancient Greek word χθών,"khthon",meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιοςor "in,under,or beneath the earth" which can be differentiated from Γῆ,or "ge",which speaks to the living surface of land on the earth. In Greek,chthonic is a descriptive word for things relating to the underworld and can be used in the context of chthonic gods,chthonic rituals,chthonic cults,and more. This is as compared to the more commonly referred-to Olympic gods and their associated rites and cults. Olympic gods are understood to reference that which exists above the earth,particularly in the sky. Gods that are related to agriculture are also considered to have chthonic associations as planting and growing take place in part under the earth.
The so-called Emerald Tablet or Tabula Smaragdina is a one paragraph long Hermetic text. It was a highly regarded foundational text for many Islamic and European alchemists. Though attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus,the text of the Emerald Tablet first appears in a number of early medieval Arabic sources,the oldest of which dates to the late eighth or early ninth century. It was translated into Latin several times in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Numerous interpretations and commentaries followed.
Mary or Maria the Jewess,also known as Mary the Prophetess or Maria the Copt,was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panopolis and other authors in the Greek alchemical tradition. On the basis of Zosimos's comments,she lived between the first and third centuries A.D. in Alexandria. French,Taylor and Lippmann list her as one of the first alchemical writers,dating her works at no later than the first century.
Friedrich W. Solmsen was a philologist and professor of classical studies. He published nearly 150 books,monographs,scholarly articles,and reviews from the 1930s through the 1980s. Solmsen's work is characterized by a prevailing interest in the history of ideas. He was an influential scholar in the areas of Greek tragedy,particularly for his work on Aeschylus,and the philosophy of the physical world and its relation to the soul,especially the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
The body of light,sometimes called the 'astral body' or the 'subtle body,' is a "quasi material" aspect of the human body,being neither solely physical nor solely spiritual,posited by a number of philosophers,and elaborated on according to various esoteric,occult,and mystical teachings. Other terms used for this body include body of glory,spirit-body,luciform body,augoeides,astroeides,and celestial body.
Atomism is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
Johan Ludvig Heiberg was a Danish philologist and historian. He is best known for his discovery of previously unknown texts in the Archimedes Palimpsest,and for his edition of Euclid's Elements that T. L. Heath translated into English. He also published an edition of Ptolemy's Almagest.
Kathleen Freeman was a British classical scholar and author of detective novels. Her detective fiction was published under the pseudonym Mary Fitt. Freeman was a lecturer in Greek at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire,Cardiff,between 1919 and 1946.
Olga Freidenberg was a Russian and Soviet classical philologist,one of the pioneers of cultural studies in Russia. She is also known as the cousin of the famous writer Boris Pasternak;their correspondence has been published and studied.
Carl Otto Lagercrantz was a Swedish classical philologist and rector of Uppsala University.
Medieval aesthetics refers to the general philosophy of beauty during the Medieval period. Although Aesthetics did not exist as a field of study during the Middle Ages,influential thinkers active during the period did discuss the nature of beauty and thus an understanding of medieval aesthetics can be obtained from their writings.
Erna Lesky was an Austrian pediatrician and historian of medicine. She was the first woman on the medical faculty of the University of Vienna,and was named as "one of the most illustrious medical historians of the twentieth century" by Owen Harding Wangensteen.
Ove Jørgensen was a Danish scholar of classics,literature and ballet. He is known for formulating Jørgensen's law,which describes the narrative conventions used in Homeric poetry when relating the actions of the gods.
