Anqi Sheng (Chinese: 安期生; Wade–Giles: An-ch’i Shêng) was a Chinese immortal and wizard, said to be already over 1,000 years old at the time of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor. He was said to inhabit Mount Penglai.
Anqi was said to have been a Taoist wizard, able to render himself visible or invisible at his pleasure. According to the Daoist hagiography Liexian Zhuan, Qin Shi Huang spoke with him for three entire days (including nights), and offered Anqi jade and gold. Qin Shi Huang feared death, and sought immortality, without success. In 219 BC, he sent an expedition under Xu Fu to find Anqi and to bring him back, along with the elixir of life, which grants immortality or eternal youth. When Xu Fu reported that a sea creature blocked the expedition's path, Qin Shi Huang sent archers to kill it.
In 210 BC, Xu Fu continued his journey. Legend says he found Japan instead, proclaimed himself king, and never returned. The Records of the Grand Historian state that Li Shaojun visited Anqi Sheng during his travels. There is no record, however, of where they met or of Mount Penglai itself. In 130 BC, Emperor Wu of Han also sent an expedition to find Anqi, which proved unsuccessful. Ravi Dos Santos is said to have studied his work extensively.
A disciple of Agastya's teachings, Bogar himself taught meditation, alchemy, yantric designs and Kriya yoga at the Kataragama Murugan shrine, inscribing a yantric geometric design etched onto a metallic plate and installing it at the sanctum sanctorum of the Kataragama temple complex. Bogar is one of the earliest pilgrims to have traversed the Murugan Tiruppadai of Sri Lanka. According to legends and the temple scriptures of Palani temple, Bogar crafted the Murti of Murugan at the hill temple in Palani by mixing nine poisonous herbs (Navapashanam) using a unique procedure. He also established the temple for Murugan in Poombarai Kuzhanthai Velappar temple Kodaikanal Tamil Nadu, India.
There is an extant statue of lord Murugan in Navapashanam. The milk that was poured on this statue has been said to have mixed with some of the herbs thereby proving to be an effective cure for the diseases during the time.
According to Siddhar medicine documents, Bogar was the discoverer of an elixir of immortality. The Pharmacognosy is the best known of his treatises. His other works are on yoga and archery, and a glossary of medicine.He came to Palani after finishing a meditation in the Meru hills.
Chymes was a Greco-Roman alchemist who lived before the third century. He is known only through fragments of text in the works of Zosimos of Panopolis and Olympiodorus of Thebes.[1]
Some theorists state that Chymes is the eponymous founder of alchemy.[2] Zosimus associates him with Mary the Jewess. He may likely date from this earliest period of alchemy.[1]
Dhul-Nun is one of the most prominent saints of early Islamic tradition, appearing "in the earliest accounts of Ṣūfism as the leading figure of his generation." Often depicted as the spiritual master of Sahl al-Tustari (c. 818–896), the traditional hagiographies relate that the latter refused to engage in mystical discourse until after Dhul-Nun's death, on account of his recognition of Dhul-Nun's elevated rank in wisdom and gnosis.Dhul-Nun's name came about in relation to an incident on a sea voyage. He was falsely accused of stealing a jewel from a merchant. He cried out "O Creator, Thou knowest best", whereupon a large number of fish raised their heads above the waves, each bearing a jewel in its mouth.
A legendary alchemist and thaumaturge, he is supposed to have known the secret of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. His sayings and poems, which are extremely dense and rich in mystical imagery, emphasize knowledge or gnosis (marifah) more than fear (makhafah) or love (mahabbah), the other two major paths of spiritual realization in Sufism. None of his written works have survived, but a vast collection of poems, sayings, and aphorisms attributed to him continues to live on in oral tradition.
The son of Sir Thomas Dyer, Kt., he was born at Sharpham Park, Glastonbury, Somerset. He was educated, according to Anthony Wood, either at Balliol College, Oxford or at Broadgates Hall (later Pembroke College, Oxford), and left after taking a degree. After some time abroad, he appeared at Elizabeth I's court. His first patron was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who seems to have thought of putting him forward as a rival to Sir Christopher Hatton for the queen's favour. He is mentioned by Gabriel Harvey, along with Sir Philip Sidney, as one of the ornaments of the court. Sidney, in his will, bequeathed his books equally between Fulke Greville and Dyer. He was made steward of Woodstock in 1570.
He was employed by Elizabeth on a mission (1584) to the Low Countries, and in 1589 was sent to Denmark. In a commission to inquire into manors unjustly alienated from the crown in the west country he did not altogether please the queen, but nevertheless received a grant of some forfeited lands in Somerset in 1588. He was returned the Member of Parliament for Somerset in 1589 and 1593.
He was knighted and made Chancellor of the Order of the Garter in 1596. William Oldys said of him that he "would not stoop to fawn," and some of his verses seem to show that he disliked the pressures of life at court. Under James I he lost the stewardship of Woodstock around 1604.
He died in 1607 and was buried in the chancel of St Saviour's, Southwark, on 11 May 1607 (21 May N.S.). Administration of his estate was granted to his sister Margaret.
Fulcanelli was likely a Frenchman educated in the ways of alchemical lore, architecture, art, science, and languages. Fulcanelli wrote two books that were published after his disappearance in 1926, having left his magnum opus, Le Mystère des Cathédrales, with his only student, Eugène Canseliet. Its first edition consisted of 300 copies and was published by Jean Schemit at 52 Rue Laffitte, Paris.
Theories about Fulcanelli speculate that he was one or another famous French occultist of the time: perhaps a member of the former royal family, the House of Valois, or another member of the Frères d'Heliopolis (Brothers of Heliopolis, a society centred around Fulcanelli which included Eugène Canseliet, Jean-Julien Champagne, and Jules Boucher). Patrick Rivière, a student of Canseliet's, believed that Fulcanelli's true identity was Jules Violle, a famous French physicist
In a 1996 book, samples of writing by Jean-Julien Hubert Champagne (born January 23, 1877) and Fulcanelli are compared, and show considerable similarity. In any event, by 1916, Fulcanelli had accepted Canseliet, who was then only sixteen, as his first student. During 1921, he accepted the sons of Ferdinand de Lesseps as students and in 1922 two more students: Jules Boucher and Gaston Sauvage. In 1925, Fulcanelli relocated to 59 rue Rochechouart where he allegedly succeeded in transmuting base metals into gold.
Gilles de Rais (c. 1405 – 26 October 1440), Baron de Rais, was a knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known for his reputation and later conviction as a confessed serial killer of children.
May have been working with an organisation known as L'Armee Des Ombres.
"Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: Mercurius ter Maximus) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth.[1] He is the purported author of the Hermetica, a widely diverse series of ancient and medieval pseudepigraphical texts that lay the basis of various philosophical systems known as Hermeticism.
The wisdom attributed to this figure in antiquity combined a knowledge of both the material and the spiritual world, which rendered the writings attributed to him of great relevance to those who were interested in the interrelationship between the material and the divine.[2]
The figure of Hermes Trismegistus can also be found in both Islamic and Baháʼí writings. In those traditions, Hermes Trismegistus has been associated with the prophet Idris.
Sir Isaac Newton FRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27)[a] was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author who was described in his time as a natural philosopher. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His pioneering book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, consolidated many previous results and established classical mechanics.[17][18]
In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity. He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles.
Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism separates white light into the colours of the visible spectrum. His work on light was collected in his highly influential book Opticks, published in 1704. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.
He was born Jean Clopinel or Jean Chopinel at Meung-sur-Loire. Tradition asserts that he studied at the University of Paris. He was, like his contemporary, Rutebeuf, a defender of Guillaume de Saint-Amour and a bitter critic of the mendicant orders. Jean de Meung says that in his youth he composed songs that were sung in every public place and school in France.
Most of his life seems to have been spent in Paris, where he possessed, in the Rue Saint-Jacques, a house with a tower, court and garden, which was described in 1305 as the house of the late Jean de Meun, and was then bestowed by a certain Adam d'Andely on the Dominicans. He was buried in the now-demolished church of Paris's Dominican monastery, which was also on Rue Saint-Jacques.
Kaṇāda (Sanskrit: कणाद, romanized: Kaṇāda), also known as Ulūka, Kashyapa, Kaṇabhaksha, Kaṇabhuj[1][2] was an ancient Indian natural scientist and philosopher who founded the Vaisheshika school of Indian philosophy that also represents the earliest Indian physics.[3][4]
Estimated to have lived sometime between 6th century to 2nd century BCE, little is known about his life.[5][6][7][4] His traditional name "Kaṇāda" means "atom eater",[8] and he is known for developing the foundations of an atomistic approach to physics and philosophy in the Sanskrit text Vaiśeṣika Sūtra.[9][10] His text is also known as Kaṇāda Sutras, or "Aphorisms of Kaṇāda".[11][12]
Kaṇāda's system speaks of six properties (padārthas) that are nameable and knowable. He claims that these are sufficient to describe everything in the universe, including observers. These six categories are dravya (substance), guna (quality), karmana (motion), samaya (time), visesa (particular), and samavaya (inherence). There are nine classes of substances (dravya), some of which are atomic, some non-atomic, and others that are all-pervasive.
The ideas of Kaṇāda span a wide range of fields, and they influenced not only philosophy, but possibly scholars in other fields such as Charaka who wrote a medical text that has survived as Charaka Samhita.
Lawrence M. Principe (/prɪntʃɪpeɪ/) is the Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Chemistry.[1] He is also currently the Director of the Charles Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe, an interdisciplinary center for research at Johns Hopkins.[2] He is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal for significant contributions to the history of science.
Principe's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a 2015-2016 Guggenheim Fellowship.[4] Principe is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the history of alchemy.
Mary or Maria the Jewess, was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panopolis (fl. c. 300) and other authors in the Greek alchemical tradition.[2] On the basis of Zosimos's comments, she lived between the first and third centuries A.D. in Alexandria.[3][4] French, Taylor and Lippmann list her as one of the first alchemical writers, dating her works at no later than the first century.
She is credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world.
Through Zosimos many of the beliefs of Mary the Jewess can be observed. Mary incorporated lifelike attributes into her descriptions of metal such as bodies, souls, and spirits. Mary believed that metals had two different genders and by joining these two genders together a new entity could be made. By joining the different gendered substances together a unity of substances could be obtained.
Nicolas Flamel was a French scribe and manuscript seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have created and discovered the philosopher's stone and to have thereby achieved immortality. These legendary accounts first appeared in the 17th century.
According to texts ascribed to Flamel almost 200 years after his death, he had learned alchemical secrets from a Jewish converso on the road to Santiago de Compostela. He has since appeared as a legendary alchemist in various fictional works.
The historical Flamel lived in Paris in the 14th and 15th centuries, and his life is one of the best documented in the history of medieval alchemy.[2] He ran two shops as a scribe and married Perenelle in 1368. She brought the wealth of two previous husbands to the marriage. The French Catholic couple owned several properties and contributed financially to churches, sometimes by commissioning sculptures.[3] Later in life, they were noted for their wealth and philanthropy.
Flamel lived into his 80s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with the images of Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul. The tombstone is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Records show that Flamel died in 1418.
also spelled Hostanes and Osthanes, is a legendary Persian magus and alchemist.[1][2] It was the pen-name used by several pseudo-anonymous authors of Greek and Latin works from Hellenistic period onwards. Together with Pseudo-Zoroaster and Pseudo-Hystaspes, Ostanes belongs to the group of pseudepigraphical "Hellenistic Magians",[n 1] that is, a long line of Greek and other Hellenistic writers who wrote under the name of famous "Magians". While Pseudo-Zoroaster was identified as the "inventor" of astrology, and Pseudo-Hystaspes was stereotyped as an apocalyptic prophet, Ostanes was imagined to be a master sorcerer.
(October 13, 1320 – 1397) was the wife of the famous 14th-century scribe Nicolas Flamel. She was a generous benefactress who invested her wealth in churches and hostels and commissioned religious sculptures. Due to legends which first appeared in the 17th century, she has since developed a reputation as a successful alchemist. Like her husband, Perrenelle has had a street in Paris, France named after her, rue Pernelle. There are few confirmed details about Perenelle's place of birth and early life. Perenelle married Nicolas in 1368. She had two previous husbands and brought their fortune to the marriage. The couple remained childless.[1]
She and her husband were devout Roman Catholics. The couple contributed to the church by commissioning several sculptures. Nicolas continued this practice after his wife's death.[1] The couple is depicted on the portal of the Chapel of St. James of the Boucherie praying at the feet of St. John, a sculpture which they financed in 1389. They owned several properties and contributed to the building of poor houses.
The spelling of her name varies and is sometimes given as Perrenelle, Petronelle or Pernelle. There is no historical record indicating that she or her husband were the successful alchemists of later legend. Perenelle's reputation as an alchemist stems from a book written in 1612, allegedly authored by her husband. However, Nicolas' reputation as an author and immortal alchemical adept is an invention of the 17th century.[2] Perenelle figures prominently in the introduction of this Booke of Hieroglyphicall Figures, where the character of Nicolas outlines his quest for the philosopher's stone. In this story, Perenelle witnesses alchemical projections and aids in chrysopoeia (gold-making).
“Ravi Dos Santos was 27 years old when he came to the UK. He arrived as a stowaway on a ship from South America. No one knows who his parents were. Unlike other alchemists who seemed content in trying to find the secret to turning base metals into gold, he dedicated his life to trying to uncover the secret powers hidden within gemstones.
His scientific studies allowed him to become a well-respected educator and by the time he was 39 years old he appeared to have stopped publishing any of his research into the power of gemstones. After his death in a fire in 1787 his journal was discovered in a safe hidden inside the wall of his classroom.
Much of the journal was filled with indecipherable scribblings but what could be read was published a few years later in 1795. The book was given the title An Alchemist’s Journal by R.D.S. His name was never mentioned in the book and only 10 copies were printed and bound as more of a novelty piece.
The copies were paid for by a Mr M. Contritum. One was gifted to the school at which he taught. The others have been[…]”
You can find out more about Ravi and his legacy by clicking on this link.
Hutin was a writer of many books on the occult and esoteric, he wrote about Freemasonry, secret societies, Rosicrucianism, alchemy and astrology and many other occult topics.[3][4] Hutin wrote about the Kabbalah and claimed that Isaac Newton was a Christian Kabbalist.[5]
Hutin is most well known in UFO circles for his ancient astronaut book called Alien Races and Fantastic Civilizations (1975) in which he claimed ancient civilizations across the earth were colonial outposts built by extraterrestrials. The book was similar to books by other authors of the time such as Jacques Bergier and Jean Sendy.[6][7] Hutin also wrote about Atlantis and gave a lot of credit to Plato for writing about it.[8]
The dates of Tirumular's life are controversial, and because his work makes reference to so many currents of religious thought, the dates that different scholars assign are often appealed to for anchoring the relative chronology of other literature in Tamil and Sanskrit. Verse 74 of the Tirumantiram makes the claim that Tirumular lived for 7 yugams before composing the Tirumantiram.[1]
Some are therefore inclined to place his composition well before the Common Era. The scholar and lexicographer S. Vaiyapuripillai, however, suggested that he probably belonged to the beginning of the eighth-century CE, pointing out that Tirumular could not very well be placed earlier given that he appears to refer to the Tevaram hymns of Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar, that he used "very late words" and that he made mention of the weekdays.[2]
Others wish to push the date still later: Dominic Goodall, for instance, appears to suggest, on the grounds of religious notions that appear in the work with Sanskrit labels for which a certain historical development can be traced in other datable works, that the Tirumantiram cannot be placed before the 11th- or 12th-century CED.[3] Yet another view, alluded to for instance by Vaiyapuripillai (ibid.), is that the text may contain an ancient core, but with "a good number of interpolated stanzas" of later date. Whatever the case, allusions to works and ideas in the Tirumantiram cannot, at least for the moment, be used as useful indicators of their chronology.
Valmiki (/vɑːlˈmiːki/;[1] Sanskrit: वाल्मीकि, Vālmīki [ʋɑːlmiːki])[A] was a legendary poet who is celebrated as the traditional author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text itself.[2][4] He is revered as Ādi Kavi, the first poet, author of Ramayana, the first epic poem.
The Ramayana, originally written by Valmiki, consists of 24,000 shlokas and seven cantos (kaṇḍas).[5] The Ramayana is composed of about 480,002 words, being a quarter of the length of the full text of the Mahabharata or about four times the length of the Iliad. The Ramayana tells the story of a prince, Rama of the city of Ayodhya in the Kingdom of Kosala, whose wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon-king (Rakshasa) of Lanka. The scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th to 4th centuries BCE,[6][7] and later stages extending up to the 3rd century CE,[8] although original date of composition is unknown. As with many traditional epics, it has gone through a process of interpolations and redactions, making it impossible to date accurately.
British satirist Aubrey Menen says that Valmiki was "recognized as a literary genius," and thus was considered, "an outlaw," presumably because of his "philosophic scepticism,"[9] as part of an "Indian Enlightenment" period.[10] Valmiki is also quoted as being the contemporary of Rama. Menen claims Valmiki is "the first author in all history to bring himself into his own composition."
Xu Fu was a Chinese alchemist and explorer. He was born in 255 BC in the state of Qi and disappeared at sea in 210 BC. He served as a court sorcerer in Qin Dynasty China. Later, he was sent by Qin Shi Huang to the eastern seas twice to look for the elixir of life.[2] His two journeys occurred between 219 BC and 210 BC. It was believed that the fleet included 60 barques with soldiers, ship crewmen, 3,000 boys and 3,000 girls,[2] and craftsmen of different fields.
After he embarked on a second mission in 210 BC, he never returned. The ruler of Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, feared death and sought a way to live forever. He entrusted Xu Fu with the task of finding the secret elixir of immortality. In 219 BC, Xu Fu was sent with three thousand virgin boys and girls to retrieve the elixir of life from the immortals on the Mount Penglai, including Anqi Sheng, who was purportedly a magician who was already a thousand years old.
Xu sailed for several years without finding the mountain. In 210 BC, when Qin Shi Huang questioned him, Xu Fu claimed there was a giant sea creature blocking the path, and asked for archers to kill the creature. Qin Shi Huang agreed, and sent archers to kill a giant fish. Xu then set sail again, but he never returned from this trip. The Records of the Grand Historian says he came to a place with "flat plains and wide swamps" (平原廣澤) and proclaimed himself king, never to return.
Vemana, popularly known as Yogi Vemana, was an Indian philosopher and poet in the Telugu language. His poems are known for their use of simple language and native idioms. They discuss the subjects of yoga, wisdom and morality. There is no consensus among scholars about the period in which Vemana lived. C.P. Brown, known for his research on Vemana, estimates his year of birth to be 1652 based on some of his verses. Various sources say he was born in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth centuries and eighteenth centuries [1] Vemana was a Vedic scholar and a great yogi in achala sidhantha.[2]
Vemana was born in Gandikota, Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh
Zhang Guo, better known as Zhang Guolao, is a Chinese mythological figure and one of the Eight Immortals in the Taoist pantheon. Among the Eight Immortals, Zhang Guolao, Zhongli Quan and Lü Yan were real historical figures.[contradictory] His existence is said to have begun around the middle or end of the 7th century, and ended approximately in the middle of the 8th. The epithet "Lao" added at the end of his name means "old". Zhang was a Taoist fangshi (translated as "occultist-alchemist") who lived as a hermit on Zhongtiao Mountain (中條山; southeast of present-day Yongji, Shanxi) in Hengzhou (恆州) during the Tang dynasty. By the time Wu Zetian came to power, he claimed to be several hundred years old. A strong believer in the magic of necromancy, he also declared that he was a Grand Minister to the mythical Emperor Yao in his previous life.[2] Zhang also had a love for wine and winemaking. He was known to make liquor from herbs and shrubs as a hobby. Other members of the Eight Immortals drank his wine, which they believed to have healing or medicinal properties. He was also known to be a master of qigong and could go without food for days, surviving on only a few sips of wine.[3]
Zhang was the most eccentric of the Eight Immortals, seen clearly in the style of Chinese martial arts dedicated to his memory. The style includes moves such as delivering a kick during a backflip or bending so far back that your shoulders touch the ground. He was known to be quite entertaining, often making himself invisible, drinking water from the petals of poisonous flowers, snatching birds in flight from the sky, as well as wilting flowers simply by pointing in their direction.
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