Alchemy - Origins of Alchemy in Europe - First Alchemy Book - The Composition of Alchemy ( 1144 )

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

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[@beepboop204]

im trying to support you mostly with upside down smilie faces!

[@YouTubdotCub]

I know this is an older video, but if you see this comment: has there been any change with regard to newer academic translations than the Stavenhagen or McLean options since then, or are those still sort of the only options?

[@DefaultSeaTurtle]

An absolutely fascinating video! I'm in complete support of making February 11th Alchemy Day.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Glad you enjoyed it! But yeah, alchemy day! Why not start it here?

[@rfdc]

Did he start the translation that day or did he finish that day? 🤔

[@longcastle4863]

Another layman friendly presentation of graduate level university studies. Thank you _!_

[@magpieMOB]

HaHA! Joke's on YOU, Dr Sledge! I support this channel because I only discovered now, in my 30s, how undereducated and disconnected from learning I've been for most of my life! Without getting too far into it, a combination of undiagnosed Autism/ADHD and being educated almost entirely in Welsh despite none of my family speaking it...well anyway, I'm only now learning to reconnect with the part of me that feels safe and focused enough to learn, and your efforts to increase the accessibility of such a culturally and historically dense and subtle field are both an inspiration and a joy. So there.

[@KaiTakApproach]

I am flung back to the Presocratics by the way you described prima materia 'on the ground floor of alchemy' here, in juxtaposition with the primacy of Islamic alchemy in the Middle Ages. Between Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, and Democritus, the functional alchemical concepts were all there but scattered. Throw in Islamic classical scholarship and a fading grasp of the classics in Western Europe at the time, and it all comes together. The concepts were there but this phrasing really puts a bow on it for me. I was aware of the Islamic classical philosophy dynamo in places like Toledo, but never made the jump to it being the primordial soup of alchemy as a natural extension. Thanks.

[@MsChefChelle]

Happy Birthday @ESOTERICA. Love your channel keep em coming plz😄

[@tomnaughadie]

Happy belated birthday and a very merry belated Alchemy Day, Dr. Sledge. ⚒️

[@randallpetroelje3913]

Happy birthday!!🎂🎁. Alchemy has always been hidden with “flowery “ and symbolic language. I’m glad someone took it seriously, blew the dust off and sincerely put it right!!! Thanks 🙏

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Thanks! Alchemy doesn't need to be totally obscure on purpose - glad the content is helpful!

[@TheCutlerShoppe]

💯 % agree that February 11 should be a day of celebration for Alchemy. #alchemyday

[@jamesblobb7115]

Nice. One of your best videos yet. Also, I'm totally up for that alchemy day thing.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Def going to try to make it a thing starting 2021!

[@jamesblobb7115]

@@TheEsotericaChannel Looking forward to it! Hopefully the Corona restrictions will be looser by then as well.

[@bredmond812]

I've read a bit about both western alchemy and chinese alchemy. There are some peculiar similarities between the two traditions. Relevant to this video is the metaphor of mercury and cinnabar. In china, they want to merge mercury and cinnabar into an immortal pill, because mercury has the qualities of yin (or is it yang?), and cinnabar has the properties of yang (or is it yin?), so when you combine them, it forms an immortal pill. That approach didnt work and many people died from heavy metal poisoning, apparently the King of Qin was among them. He is the one that the word "China" comes from. Anyway, later alchemists kept the metaphor but decided that mercury and cinnabar are metals, and thus "not of the same kind" as people, so they strove to use the metaphor as a guide to create the desired effect inside people. I couldnt tell you what that entails though.

[@hedgehog3180]

I figure that mercury seemingly defying all intuition by being a liquid metal is what made people fixate on it so early. Also they did manage to create gunpowder in the process so the exact opposite of a potion a immortality, a powder of quick death.

[@gmccaughry]

Happy birthday once again! 🎉🎉🎉 Thanks for your awesome work!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Abs thank you for the awesome gift! Sending some unboxing pics your way soon !

[@gmccaughry]

@@TheEsotericaChannel A true pleasure really, any addition to your fine library is worth it. A gift from the heart :)

[@victoriaolson8985]

Happy Birthday Dr Sledge! 🎉🎂🥂🍾👏😎

[@boyscoutalchemist]

Thank you for shouting out Adam's work. Brilliant video as always.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Thanks and of course - I hope I always work to given credit when it's due and that's certainly the case for Adam's work.

[@DM-jb9qn]

Amazing Much appreciated Dhanyavaad

[@PKM25]

I am watching this on your birthday! Happy birthday!

[@explosivetwist]

Hi Dr. Sledge, I'm trying to find a scanned original copy of Robert's Latin translation. Is it made public on a website by whatever university or organization is that holds it? I can't track it down through an internet search. Thank you

[@Ron.47]

an allegorical internal process of each man and womans journey to find the spiritual gold within, which is unity in oneself (mind, Heart, soul) securely in themselves and under the most High...in my humble opinion much care

[@hedgehog3180]

18:58 I'm guessing this is also the origin of modern chemical naming conventions, specifically in organic chemistry. Syllables that I suspect have arabic origins like “al” “ol” “en” “on” “an” show up all over the place so similar to algebra I figure they have their origins in untranslated arabic words, there's probably even more but this is just what I'd suspect with my extremely limited knowledge of arabic.

[@gabrielplattes6253]

Perhaps a little episode introducing Manget (Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa), Ferguson (Bibliotheca Chemica), and Duveen? The Clefs... ;)

[@luckynumber2633]

Good video

[@3t3rnalsoul92]

You deserve alot more subscribers and views this content is Up there with spirit science and leak project . I appreciate you diving deep on these topics and it's variety

[@amypramuk7203]

Thank you for your work 🙏

[@christopher.saint.christopher]

Discovering this video on Feb 11 😎

[@hedgehog3180]

19:57 Lead sugar perhaps?

[@vatirhea]

Nice work my friend. Thank you.

[@tracyking4518]

The best part of candle magick is the perfect burn. Faithful patience indeed

[@SergioBecerraII]

February 11th should be Alchemy Day. This was very helpful. Thank you.

[@relaxbro5605]

I would love a video on the subject on the meaning of life in historic alchemistic works. If there is anything to be found about that.

[@robhuhges]

I'd like to see a presentation of the different developments of alchemy in the western and islamic traditions after the book from Robert of chester.

[@kilypayne5981]

Ok, a little off topic here. When every Paracelsus is mentioned, my mind jumps to alkastetlzer. My gut tells me there is a joke there but the audience for that joke is probably as fleeting as well... an alkaseltzer. Cant wait for the Winter class! I'll be joining the patreon come January!

[@Gardeningchristine]

Question. What is your symbol about? It looks like a bird in a hand. Is it an ancient glyph? Sorry if you’ve already explained, I haven’t found it yet.

[@hedgehog3180]

It's a Mayan glyph but I don't know anything else.

[@scorpiolafuega]

Also i think i'd love to hear much more about Robert of Chester...

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Mostly did translations - a few of which survive - not terribly interesting otherwise.

[@CosmicPsychonauts]

5:34 I have the same birthday as you! 😄🎉

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Happy soon b'day!

[@argee1340]

Yes…learned and wise, of course 🧐

[@davidbogaert4611]

Happy birthday!

[@سلمانقتل]

👍 good video

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Thanks 👍

[@giglegab]

Happy Birthday 🎂

[@johngavin1448]

Fellow Aquarian brother, nice. I think I've got you beat being born on the 6th, since it's the same birthday as Bob Marley. ^_^ great information!

[@luisacarvalho8719]

lol I was born on the 6th as well

[@changer1285]

I love this!!

[@clinstar3237]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY it's 2/13-14/2022 Fell asleep doing homework🤘😝🤘 ( Plug in to POWER UP to ROCKSTAR). Gold=79, Mercury= 80, Lead =82, Sulfur= 16, Silver =47 Periodic table of elements Sounds plausible. I'm working on a book called Science MAGCI/K and HUMAN POTENTIAL

[@BannanaOnFloor]

I am very learned and wise. Im totally not here to learn alchemy from you, I just want to make sure you knew about it lol

[@jesperandersson889]

15th minute is where the action is!!! Oh sorry forget about it, just drooling.

[@mageillus]

25:15 SMOOTH!!!

[@StevenSchoolAlchemy]

I am going to look for the book - The Book of the Composition of Alchemy (Liber de compositione alchemiae)

[@scorpiolafuega]

you share a birthday with my baby. its a very special day.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

And coming up soon!

[@dialecticalspectacle]

February 11th it is!

[@noblemagi]

My birthday is fed 11, noticed most deep thinking magicians are Aquarian. To make it fed 11 we just my say it and publish it everywhere

[@Xeinoz]

i associate it silver turn to gold with picatrix in one year exist 2 parts to create urelexir, the other is where is it impossible.

[@Xeinoz]

nearby its same hwo when say i can change silver to gold but its only work when this planet and fullmon is in exactly this position and when its rain its fail.

[@petiaivailova2563]

Everything is made up of electrons, neutrons and protons - so the alchemists were right. If they can rearrange them, they can create anything.

[@hedgehog3180]

Unfortunately doing so is very difficult and will probably give you cancer.

[@genghisgalahad8465]

Quintessence is the essence of reality itself?

[@dariusklein1043]

The source text for Robert of Chester's Liber de Compositione Alchemiae is Arabic language Epistle of Morienus to Khalid bin Yazid (رسالة مريانس الراهب الحكيم للامير خالد بن يزيد). Two manuscript copies of this text (Fatih 3227, fol. 8b-18b, and Sehit Alit Pasha 1749, fol. 61a-74b) are held at the Library of the Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Institute for the History of Science in Islam, Istanbul, Turkey. The Epistle of Morienus is part of a corpus of alchemical texts ascribed to the 7th-century Umayyad prince Khalid bin Yazid (Damascus); according to the work of Marion Dapsens (uclouvain.academia.edu/MarionDapsens), the Khalid texts were probably composed long after the death of the historical Khalid. I produced an English language translation of the Epistle of Morienus using photocopies of the aforementioned manuscripts, which was then published by J. Erik LaPort in Cracking the Philosopher's Stone: the Origins, Evolution and Chemistry of Gold-Making; the translation is now available as a stand-alone (www.amazon.com/gp/product/0990619869/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1). There are a number of divergences between the Epistle of Morienus and the Liber de Compositione Alchemiae, each containing material not found in the other. I strongly suspect that Robert of Chester partially authored the Liber, inasmuch as I noticed that precisely those passages of the Epistle I found most obscure or resistant to translation did not appear in the Liber, and other material, not occurring in the Epistle, could be found in its place. In other words, I suspect that when Robert of Chester encountered a thorny passage in the Epistle, rather than attempt to translate it, he replaced it with his own material. As far as I know, no manuscript has yet been discovered containing originals of the Liber material not found in the Epistle. I love Esoterica, keep up the great work!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Great comment - Al-Hassan mentions 15 different MSS of the text including the ones you mention. I didn't want to to go into the compositional history of the text in the episode because it gets too much in the weeds for most viewers but it does seem that Robert of Chester was doing as much creating (or at least mixing texts together to form a composite) as doing a 1:1 translation of a singular Arabic text. I wonder if that's true for this translation of al-Khwarizmi's text? I haven't consulted it actually but I know an edition exists. And I think you are right - the actual 'chemical' sections haven't been discovered in Arabic to my knowledge but certainly they existed. The section reads too much like other Geberian alchemy to be otherwise. Thanks for the thoughtful comment!

[@jesperandersson889]

Wow we should make an 'extended' version with commentary (I am woefully poor, but just another happy camper in esoterica)! Great input!

[@ladykristie22]

Happy birthday a day early

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

So kind! Thank so much!

[@Nebulouslystarlight]

I can definitely remember your birthmas. I would be in beeeeeeg trouble if I couldn't 😅 you share a birthmas with my wife.

[@justjac8028]

I always thought the practices of "Alchemy" were dated back in the Bronze age, just with a different name. Is it possible that the Christians knew of Alchemy from their own Jewish roots, rather than Mr. Chester? If Christ and his followers were Jewish and knew the historical beliefs, traditions, and lived as Jewish men, is it possible that they kept the tradition when converting? Mr. Chester sounds sus 🧐 . Im def gonna check him out. Thank you for another great video!!

[@SHAX516]

My guy if you havent seen Fullmetal Alchemist yet i am convinced you will get so hyped your magical beard will grow a beard. Go listen to lapis philosophorum ,i dare you.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

You're right I really need to watch that show - never got around to it. That and Cowboy Bebop.

[@whitefeather511]

my birthday is also feb 10th lol

[@jesperandersson889]

What would life be without lies??? Yes we need direly to redress the input of the East and of Islamic culture/tradition

[@jred3806]

Happy belated lol

[@stealthDC]

Xoxo

[@beepboop204]

🙃

[@kightsun]

Tbf the third largest Christian denomination(s) is native to the "Islamic" world.

[@jordanroffey8343]

I am certainly not wise I don’t know a damn thing

[@FreemanPresson]

Happy birthday!