- ELENA
CASTRO SOLER & JOSÉ RODRÍGUEZ GUERRERO,
"Luis de Centelles y las Coplas de la
Piedra Philosophal".
Abstract:
It is a critical introduction to a work entitled "Coplas
de la Piedra Philosophal". It is a poem of 27
stanzas which appears to be a popular alchemical text in
Spain an Italy during 16th and 17th
centuries.
The poem is an eight-line stanza in Spanish. It consists
of eight dodecasyllabic lines rhyming abbaacca. It
was composed by a Valencian gentleman called Lluís
Centelles i Carròs, Earl of Quirra, around 1550-1560.
The poem has a conventional theme of how to make the
Philosopher's Stone.
- JOSÉ
RODRÍGUEZ GUERRERO, "Censura
y Paracelsismo durante el Reinado de Felipe II".
Abstract:
In recent decades, some historians have argued that
Spanish paracelsianism was affected by the Reformation.
They think there was a delayed introduction of
Paracelsianism into Early Modern Spain (16th
century) caused by religious censorship. However, it is
false. The Philip II's effort to maintain Spain as a
Roman Catholic country do not affected the development of
Spanish paracelsianism. Concerning the Paracelsian
Movement, I compare the medical and theological conflicts
in and out Spain. The 1583 issues of the Spanish Index
had not been practical impact during the 16th
century. In 1591 the spanish paracelsianist Llorenç Coçar
(1540?-1592?) had created the first european Chair on
paracelsianism and chemical medicines at the University
of Valencia. Coçar had an extensive academic background
and he had good relations with the General Inquisitor
Gaspar de Quiroga.
- JOSÉ
RODRÍGUEZ GUERRERO & PEDRO ROJAS GARCÍA, "La Chymica
de Richard Stanihurst en la Corte de Felipe II".
Abstract:
Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618) was an Irish humanist
devoted to history, philosophy, literature, theology and
alchemy. He studied at Oxford University College and
graduated in 1568. During his abode at London he began
his alchemical studies. Becouse of his Roman Catholicism,
in 1581 he left for the Low Countries and he never
returned to Ireland. He lived in the bishopric of Liege,
where he get in touch with the paracelsian movement
gathered around Ernest of Bavaria (1554-1612), Bishop of
Liege, of Hildesheim, Prince Elector of Cologne, and
Bishop of Münster. Since then, Stanihurst analysed the
relationships betwen medicine and chemistry.
In the early 1590 he was invited to Spain by King Philip
II, who became seriously ill. Stanihurst had a great
laboratory in El Escorial. He produced new chemicals
compounds and he tryed to find specific substances for
curing each disease. He also instruct King's personal
distillators to manufacture chemical medicines. During
this period he wrote some alchemical treatises but we
only conserved El Toque de Alquimia
internally dated 1593, now in Madrid Biblioteca Nacional
Ms 2058.
In 1595 Stanihurst returned to Liege. He then took holy
orders and he was appointed chaplain to Archduke Albert,
ruler of the Netherlands, and his wife Isabella (daughter
of Philip II). It seems that he was also chaplain to the
English Benedictine convent at Brussels.
- JOSÉ
RODRÍGUEZ GUERRERO, "Examen de una Amalgama Problemática:
Psicología Analítica y Alquimia".
Abstract:
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who produced his own
school of alchemy based on Analytical Psychology.
According to Jung, alchemical imagery was the form in
which alchemists expresed their own subconscious mind.
Alchemy is presented as a non temporal discipline of
transcendent truths called "Archetypes". A rare
phenomenon called "Synchronicity" provides
access to the diachronic and trans-cultural Archetypes,
which are located in a "Collective Unconscious"
and are characterized by being universal images not
grounded in experience. Jung argued that alchemical
images manifest themselves in neurotic or psychical
crisis and in dreams.
Is clear that the Jungian
model was a force to be reckoned with the first
historiography of alchemy. However, recent historians on
alchemy have demostrated that Junguian interpretation
have been built with intuitions and insights. Archetypes,
Synchronicity and Collective Unconscious are not
scientifically grounded. Studies such as those of Barbara
Obrist, William Newman, Lawrence M. Principe and Urszula
Szulakowska have demostrated that alchemy is not a
transhistorical myth, but a construct which is culturally
produced. In the historical research alchemy have a
language which is both a self-contained structure, yet
which changes according to the dictates of his own
chronological period.
José Rodríguez examines the Jungian theories (evolution,
contradictions, inconsistencies) and its problems with
the historical perspective.
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