Saturday, October 10, 2009

Roger Bacon, Alchemist.

How else to explain the following, from Blackwell's A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, page 2: "Among the first scholastics of note were Roger Bacon (b.1214/20; d. ca. 1492) . . ."? The book's proper entry on Roger Bacon states, on page 616, that Bacon died about 1292. However the entry's first sentence is "The basic facts of Bacon's chronology are still in dispute."

Current hypothesis: Bacon found the philosopher's stone, faked his own death in 1292, lived another 200 years or so being awesome, then was lost at sea in the search for a western route to India and Cathay. Probably still living in Atlantis.

Or else the first date was a typo. Right? Right?

4 comments:

Brandon said...

Hmm. This passage from the Opus Minus suddenly takes on considerable interest:

Prius est pulverisatio cum congelatione, deinde resolutio, cum ascensione, et depressione, et incarceratione, et mixtione. Et postea est sublimatio cum attritione et mortificatione, deinde sequitur corruptio olei, vel separatur a spiritu, ut post intendatur virtus ignea. Nam post haec intendimus calcis propositionem, et olei distillationem, et aquae exaltationem, ut ultimo quaeramus resolutionem a primo in septimum, et contentionem cum febre acuta. Qui vero haec sciret adimplere haberet medicinam perfectam, quam philosophi vocant Elixir, quae immergit se in liquefacto, ut consumeretur ab igne, nec fugeret.

It was there in front of everyone the whole time!

Michael Sullivan said...

Brandon, you have instantly gone from cool to double cool in my book!

Unknown said...

This is awesome.

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