{"product_id":"the-elixir-and-the-stone-the-tradition-of-magic-and-alchemy","title":"THE ELIXIR AND THE STONE: THE TRADITION OF MAGIC AND ALCHEMY","description":"\u003cp\u003eSince the seventeenth century  science has been contending with philosophy  organized religion and the arts for domination over Western civilization and society. By the middle of the twentieth century  the battle appeared to be won; scientific rationalism and skepticism were triumphant. Yet in the last few decades a strong and potent counter-current has emerged. One manifestation of this has been the so-called occult revival.  In The Elixir and the Stone  Baigent and Leigh argue 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. The authors trace the history of this intriguing and all-encompassing philosophy  which has much in common with contemporary holistic thought  charting it s origin in the Egyptian mysteries  and demonstrating how it continued to exercise enormous influence through the magicians and magi of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Many remarkable characters feature in the 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 that emerges is that of Faust himself  one of the defining myths of Western civilization.  The Elixir and the Stoneis a remarkably rich and ambitious book that adds up to a little short of an alternative history of the intellectual world. Perhaps for the first time it puts into their true context those shadowy alchemists and magicians who have haunted the imaginations of people for centuries. Moreover it offers a way of looking at the world that is in one sense  alternative   but in another  deeply historical.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44966720569397,"sku":"ByrdShop_0099490021","price":23.25,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780099490029.jpg?v=1770576585","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-elixir-and-the-stone-the-tradition-of-magic-and-alchemy","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}