Dumb Things Said about Occult Sciences

interesting post on Zosimos

"Hi,
I have presented a paper in Cardiff on Zosimus. For those interested, I've
posted it on my academia.edu page.
To my knowledge, there is no link between Zosimus and any specifically
platonic doctrine, despite the fact that the Souda ascribes a life of Plato
to Zosimus (this is not the only strange thing with this notice). The most
interesting link between early Greek alchemy and Platonism that I have read
is in an article by Luc Brisson called "Le corps dionysiaque." which shows
the alchemical connotations of Olympiodorus' reading of the anthropogenesis
attributed to Orpheus in which both Dionysius and the Titans are
sublimated by Zeus' lightening.
To the works on ancient Greek alchemy already cited, there is also the
important edition that Michèle Mertens did of a part of Zosimus' corpus in
the Budé series (Vol.4 part 1 of the *Alchimistes grecs *collection). For
those interested in the technical side of alchemy, there is also the
edition of two papyri with recipes (part of the "Anastasi papyri", from
which a lot of the PGM come from) done by Robert Halleux in the same
collection.
The most "philosophical" treatise by Zosimus, called "On the Letter Omega"
(part of M. Mertens' edition) was also edited, translated and annotated by
Howard Jackson in SBL. For those interested in the Gnostic connection,
Jackson also has an interesting article on the identity of the Nicotheos
"the hidden" quoted by Zosimus in the same treatise.

Best,
Olivier Dufault"

on the [neoplatonism] e-list

Quote of the Day -- On Alchemy's Place in the History of Science

The systems which confront the intelligence remain basically unchanged through the ages, although they assume different forms... there is nothing so disastrous in science as the arrogant dogmatism which despises the past and admires the present.
-Hoefer (quoted in Read)