APPENDIX 1

A list of those influenced by the Hermetic tradition (by no means exhaustive)

The Artists

Sandro Botticelli (c.1444–1510) – Italian Renaissance painter

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) – Tuscan polymath

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) – German painter and mathematician

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (1503–40) known as Parmigianino – Italian painter and printmaker

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) – English painter (of French origin), inventor and alchemist

William Blake (1757–1827) – English poet, visionary, painter and printmaker

Scientists, Doctors and philosophers

Plato (c.428–348 bc) – Greek philosopher

Roger Bacon (1214–94) – English Franciscan Friar and philosopher

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) – Polish astronomer and founder of heliocentric cosmology

Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) – Danish astronomer, astrologer and alchemist

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) – Italian priest, philosopher, cosmologist and occultist

Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) – English philosopher, statesman and essayist

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) – Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher

Michael Maier (1568–1622) – German physician and alchemist

Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) – English author and expert in medicine, religion, science and esoterica

Elias Ashmole (1617–92) – English antiquary, politician, astrologer, alchemist and early speculative Freemason

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) – English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher and alchemist

Carl Jung (1875–1961) – Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology

Herbert Silberer (1882–1923) – Viennese psychologist, contemporary of Freud, Adler and Jung

Writers and poets

Olympiodorus of Thebes (born c.380, active c.412–25) – Egyptian historical writer and poet

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) – English playwright and poet

John Donne (1572–1631) – Jacobean poet and preacher

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) – English poet and satirist

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) – English Romantic poet

Mary Shelley (1797–1851) – English writer, including the novel Frankenstein

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) – Irish poet, dramatist and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Occultists, Magicians and Alchemists

Maria the Jewess also known as Maria Prophetissa (c.3rd century ad) – an early Western alchemist and inventor of important alchemical apparatus including the three-armed distillation chamber or still

Abu Musa Jā bir ibn Hayyān, also known as Geber (c.721–c.815) – Muslim polymath and alchemist

Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn al-Farakh al-Farakh al-Fārābi (c.872–950/951) – Persian scientist, philosopher and alchemist

Abū Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allāh ibn Sinā (980–1037), known as Avicenna – Persian polymath, alchemist and physician

Artephius (c.12 ad) – attributed author The Secret Book of Artephius

Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) – German Dominican friar, scientist and alchemist

Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) – Italian Roman Catholic priest and student of Albertus Magnus

Arnold de Villeneuve (Villanova) (c.1240–1311) – French healer, doctor and alchemist

Pope John XXII (1244–1344) – French Prelate and friend and student of Villeneuve

Pietro D’Apone (b.1250) – Italian physician, alchemist and astrologer, tortured (died in prison) and consequently burned in effigy by the Inquisition

Raymond Lully (c.1235–1316) – Spanish scholar and alchemist

Jean de Meung (c.1250–c.1305) – French author, poet and alchemist

Alain de L’Isle (b.c.1128–d.1298) – French alchemist known as the ‘Universal Doctor’

Nicolas Flamel (c.1330–1417?) – French alchemist

Christian Rosenkreuz (c.1378–1484?) – legendary founder of the Rosicrucian Order (Order of the Rose Cross)

Bernard of Treves (1406–90) – German alchemist

Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516) – German Abbot and occultist, his students included Agrippa and Paracelsus

Dr Johann Georg Faust (1466–c.1540) – German alchemist, astrologer and magician

Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–c.1535) – German magician, writer, alchemist and Astrologer

Paracelsus (1493–1541) – Swiss alchemist and doctor

Sir George Ripley (1415?-1490) – English alchemist, wrote The Compound of Alchymy; or, the Twelve Gates leading to the Discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone

John Dee (1527–1609) – English occultist, philosopher and mathematician

Edward Kelley (1555–97) – English magician

Robert Fludd (1574–1637) – English physicist, astrologer, alchemist and mystic

Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) – German Christian mystic

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) – Swedish scientist, theologian and Christian mystic

Count de St Germain (c.1710–c.84) – inventor and alchemist

Dom Antoine Joseph Pernety (1716–96) – French Dominican monk and alchemist, created the Swedenborgian Rite

Martinez Pasqually (c.1727–74) – French Freemason and mystic, founded Ordre des Chevalier Maçons Élus Cohen de L’Univers/Order of Knight Masons, Elect Priests of the Universe

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815) – German-born healer

Louis-Claude Saint-Martin (1743–1803) – French philosopher known as le philosophe inconnu

Eliphas Lévi (1810–75) – French occult author and magician

John Yarker (1833–1913) – English Freemason, author and occultist

Gérard Encausse, known as Papus (1865–1916) – Spanish-born physician and occultist, founder of the modern Martinist Order

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (?1866–1949) – Armenian-Greek mystic

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) – English occultist, writer and mystic, member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Manly Palmer Hall (1901–90) – Canadian author and mystic

Israel Regardie (1907–85) – English occultist and author

Franz Bardon (1909–58) – Czech naturopath and magician