Technikatörténeti szemle 22. (1996)

Papers from the Second International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Eger, Hungary, 16–19 August, 1995) - Pérez-Bustamente, A. Juan: The Holistic Concept of Alchemy

ingredients characterised ALCHEMY chological content (see fig.2) which have been the object of numerous researches in the last half of the present century

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. Special attention has been paid to the "Ouroboros"snake or dragon

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7679 and to the cosmicegg

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8082 symbolisms as well as to the cosmic correspondences of metals with planets

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8283 and numerology and magic squares

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relating metals and planets. Of special interest in the arabian and european alchemical systems is the hermetic symbolism of the "Emerald Table"(Tabula Smaragdina), attributed to the legendary egyptian god Hermes Trismegistos, even to Enoch, which contains in 13 cryptically enunciated tenets the basis both of the esoteric and exoteric western alchemy. Such a table was unknown to greek alchemy, is mentioned in arabian writings of the Vlllth c. and was published at the beginning of the IXth c. being credited to Apolonius of Tyana (S.I a.D.). Throughout the scholastic and renaissance periods it became quite popular among european alchemists. Davis

86 has correlated and interpreted the three latin versions of the "Tabula Smaragdine" which were current among later alchemists.