ΖΩΣΙΜΟΣ Ο ΠΑΝΟΠΟΛΙΤΗΣ

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"THE VISIONS OF ZOSIMOS I must make clear at once that the following observations on the visions of Zosimos of Panopolis, an important alchemist and Gnostic of the third century A.D. are not intended as a final explanation of this extraordinarily difficult material. My psychological contribution is no more than an attempt to shed a little light on it and to answer some of the questions raised by the visions. (…) (…) We have no reason to suppose that all the alchemists were self-deceivers of this sort. The deeper we penetrate into the obscurities of their thinking, the more we must admit their right to style themselves “philosophers”. Throughout the ages, alchemy was one of the great human quest for the unattainable. So, at least, we would describe it if we gave rein to our rationalistic prejudices. But the religious experience of grace is an irrational phenomenon, and cannot be discussed any more than can the “beautiful” or the “good”. Since that is so, no serious quest is without hope. It is something instinctive, that cannot be reduced to a personal aetiology any more than can intelligence or musicality or any other inborn propensity. I am therefore of the opinion that our analysis and interpretation have done justice to the vision of Zosimos if we have succeeded in understanding its essential components in the light of how men thought then, and in elucidating the meaning and purpose of its mise-en-scène. When Kēkulē had his dream of the dancing pairs and deduced from it the structure of the benzol ring, he accomplished something that Zosimos strove for in vain. His “composition of the waters” did not fall into as neat a pattern as did the carbon and hydrogen atoms of the benzol ring. Alchemy projected an inner, psychic experience into chemical substances that seemed to hold out mysterious possibilities but nevertheless proved refractory to the intentions of the alchemist. Although chemistry has nothing to learn from the vision of Zosimos, it is a mine of discovery for modern psychology, which would come to a sorry pass if it could not turn to these testimonies of psychic experience from ancient times. Its statements would then be without support, like novelties that cannot be compared with anything, and whose value it is almost impossible to assess. But such documents give the investigator an Archimedean point outside his own narrow field or work, and therewith an invaluable opportunity to find his bearings in the seeming chaos of individual events." “The Visions of Zosimos”, which appears in: Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 13: Alchemical Studies, by C. G. Jung, edited by Gerhard Adler & R. F.C. Hull, Princeton University Press, 1968, is available here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/1281.html Track: Die Weiße Rose (Tale Of Us & Mind Against) Artist: SHDW (Marco Blaesi) & Obscure Shape (Luigi Urban) Label: From Another Mind Release Date: September 2016 Photograph: Distillation equipment of Zosimos, Illustration from the 15th century Byzantine Greek manuscript Codex Parisinus 2327, by Theodoros Pelecanos (Bibliothèque nationale de France), reproduced by Marcelin Berthelot in his 1887 text, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs - (3 vol., Paris, 1887–1888, p.161). Zosimos of Panopolis (Greek: Ζώσιμος) was a Greek alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century AD. He was born in Panopolis, present day Akhmim in the south of Egypt, and flourished ca. 300 AD. He wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, which he called "Cheirokmeta," using the Greek word for "things made by hand." Pieces of this work survive in the original Greek language and in translations into Syriac or Arabic. He is one of about 40 authors represented in a compendium of alchemical writings that was probably put together in Constantinople in the 7th or 8th century AD and that exists in manuscripts in Venice and Paris. Stephen of Alexandria is another. Zosimos provided one of the first definitions of alchemy as the study of "the composition of waters, movement, growth, embodying and disembodying, drawing the spirits from bodies and bonding the spirits within bodies. He is widely known as the first alchemist in history.The Book of Pictures-Mushaf as-suwar, by Zosimos of Panopolis (Corpus Alchemicum Arabicum, Vol. II. 2.), edited & introduced by Theodor Abt, translated by Salwa Fuad & Theodor Abt is available here: https://www.weiserantiquarian.com/pages/books/53832/theodor-abt-theodor-abt/corpus-alchemicum-arabicum-vol-ii-2-the-book-of-pictures-mushaf-as-suwar/?soldItem=true The text is a dialogue between the teacher Zosimos and his beloved student Theosebeia, explaining to her the symbolic meaning of the alchemical work. The unique contribution of this text is its forty-two pictures, mostly in color, that Zosimos drew for Theosebeia. These pictures are, as is demonstrated in the introduction written by Theodor Abt, the earliest alchemical pictures known.