Author : Raphael Patai
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691006420
Total Pages : 638 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)
Book Synopsis The Jewish Alchemists by : Raphael Patai
Download or read book The Jewish Alchemists written by Raphael Patai and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 638 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this monumental work, Raphael Patai, acclaimed author of Hebrew Myths (with Robert Graves) and The Hebrew Goddess, opens up an entirely new field in cultural history by tracing Jewish alchemy from antiquity to the nineteenth century. Until now there has been little attention given to the significant role that Jews played in the field of alchemy. Here, drawing on an enormous range of previously unexplored sources, Patai reveals 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 practiced 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 culmination of many years of research, The Jewish Alchemists shows that alchemy was much more than the attempt at transmuting base metals into gold: it was a powerful worldview that assumed an essential unity underlying all of nature - and the power of humans to intervene, with God's help, in nature's course.