This study traces the history of Jewish alchemy from antiquity to the 19th century. It draws on a wide range of previously unexplored sources, revealing that Jews were major players in what was for centuries one of humanity's most compelling intellectual obsessions. Among the myriad subjects treated in the book is the close relationship between alchemy and medicine as practised by Jewish adepts. Other Jewish alchemists combined alchemy with magic or with kabbalistic practices. Still others became, through their alchemical ...
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This study traces the history of Jewish alchemy from antiquity to the 19th century. It draws on a wide range of previously unexplored sources, revealing that Jews were major players in what was for centuries one of humanity's most compelling intellectual obsessions. Among the myriad subjects treated in the book is the close relationship between alchemy and medicine as practised by Jewish adepts. Other Jewish alchemists combined alchemy with magic or with kabbalistic practices. Still others became, through their alchemical efforts, the forerunners of modern chemistry. The author demonstrates that alchemy was much more than the attempt at transmuting base metals into gold: it was a powerful world view that assumed an essential unity underlying all of nature - and the power of humans to intervene, with God's help, in nature's course.
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