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| The ELIXIR and the STONE, The TRADITION of MAGIC and ALCHEMY |
| PRICE : £ 16.99 |
| by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
Published: Viking, 16.99+p&p, hardcover, 454pp b&w illustrations "Since the seventeenth century, science has been contending with philosophy, organised religion and the arts for dominion over Western civilization and society. By the middle of the twentieth century, the battle appeared to be won: scientific rationalism and scepticism were triumphant. Yet in the last few decades a strong and potent countercurrent has emerged. One manifestation of this has been the so-called occult revival. "In the ... (this book) ...(it is argued) ... that this occult revival - and indeed the entire revolution in attitudes which has taken place recently - owes a profound debt to Hermeticism, a body of esoteric teaching which flourished in Alexandria two thousand years ago, and which then went underground, never to be entirely destroyed. "The authors trace the history of this intriguing and all-encompassing philosophy - which has much in common with contemporary holistic thought - charting its origin in the Egyptian mysteries, and demonstrating how it continued to exert enormous influence through the magicians and magi of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Many remarkable characters feature in their narrative, including the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon and the Elizabethan magus John Dee, prototype of Shakespeare's Prospero in The Tempest , but the central figure to emerge is that of Faust himself - one of the defining myths of Western civilisation. ... " |
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