Robert Fludd

(b bap. Bearsted, 17 Jan 1574; d London, 8 Sept 1637). English writer and physician. In his many Latin treatises he touched on music, often in abstruse language and with fantastic diagrams; he criticized contemporary theorists, including Kepler and Mersenne. He composed some dances.

Fludd, Robert (1574-1637) British alchemist and Rosicrucian. A follower of Paracelsus, Fludd dabbled in philosophical system-building incorporating arcane knowledge and mystical speculation. His works include Tractatus theologo-philosophicus (1617) and Philosophia Moysaica (1638).

English Rosicrucian and alchemist who was born at Milgate House, in the parish of Bearsted, Kent, England. His father was Sir Thomas Fludd, a knight who enjoyed the patronage of Queen Elizabeth and served her for several years as "treasurer of war in the low countries."

At age 17 Robert entered St. John's College, Oxford. Five years later he took his bachelor of arts degree. Soon afterward he decided to take up medical science and left England to study on the Continent, visiting France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, supporting himself as a teacher. Upon returning home his alma mater, Oxford, conferred on him the degrees of bachelor of medicine and doctor of medicine; five years later, in 1609, he became a fellow of the College of Physicians.

Having prepared himself thoroughly for the medical profession, Fludd went to London and took a house in Fenchurch Street. He soon gained an extensive practice, his success attributable not merely to his genuine skill but also to his having an attractive and even magnetic personality. Although he kept busy with his medical practice, Fludd found time to write at length on medicine. He also became an important and influential member of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross and began experiments in alchemy. He preached the great efficacy of the magnet, of sympathetic cures, of the weapon salve, and declared his belief in the philosophers' stone, the universal alkahest or solvent, and the elixir vitae.

As a writer, Fludd represented a school of medical mystics, which laid claim to the possession of the key to universal sciences. Fludd maintained that all things were animated by two principles: condensation, the boreal, or northern virtue; and rarefaction, the austral, or southern virtue. He asserted that the human body was controlled by a number of demons, that each disease had its peculiar demon, and each demon his particular place in the frame of humanity, and that to conquer a disease— say, in the right leg—one must call in the aid of the demon who ruled the left, always proceeding by this rule of contraries. As soon as the doctrines of the Rosicrucians were promulgated in the early seventeenth century Fludd embraced them with eagerness, and when several German writers attacked them he published a defense in 1616, under the title Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosea-Cruce Suspicionis et Infamiæ Maculis Aspersam Abluens, which procured him a widespread reputation as one of the apostles of the new fraternity.

Fludd met with the usual fate of prophets and was lustily denounced by a host of critics, including Pierre Gassendi and Johann Kepler. Fludd retorted in an elaborate treatise, Summum Bonum, quod est Magiæ, Cabalæ, Alchimiæ, Fratrum Roseæ-Crucis Verorum, et adversus Mersenium Calumniatorem. At a later period he made an adventurous attempt to identify the doctrines of the Rosicrucians with what he called the "philosophy of Moses" in his new volume, Philosophia Mosaica, in quâ sapientia et scientia Creationis explicantur (1638), and wrote numerous treatises on alchemy and medical science. His Philosophia Mosaica is notable for a discussion of the relationship between a rod and the mineral and vegetable world (i.e., the divining rod or dowsing rod). He also founded an English school for Rosicrucians.

Fludd was one of the high priests of the magnetic philosophy and learnedly expounded the laws of austral medicine, the doctrines of sympathies, and the fine powers and marvelous effects of the magnet. According to his theory, when two men approach each other their magnetism is either active or passive, that is, positive or negative. If the emanations that they send out are broken or thrown back, there arises antipathy, or magnetismus negativus; when the emanations pass through each other, positive magnetism is produced, for the magnetic rays proceed from the center to the circumference. Humans, like the earth, have their poles, or two main streams of magnetic influence, according to Fludd's theory. Like a miniature world, humans are endowed with a magnetic virtue that is subjected to the same laws as those of the universe. How these principles could be developed in the cure or prevention of disease is described at length in Fludd's books.

Fludd died September 8, 1637, at a house in Coleman St., London, to which he had moved a few years before. Before his death he had won a fairly wide reputation founded on his chemical ability and had also written a number of books that contributed to the establishment of Rosicrucianism in Europe.

Sources:

The Dictionary of National Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1953.

Fludd, Robert. Medicina Catholica. Frankfurt: William Fitzer, 1629.

——. Monochordum Mundi Symphoniacum. Frankfurt, 1622.

——. Philosophia Mosaica, in quâ sapientia et scientia Creationis explicantur.

Gouda: Peter Rammazen, 1638. Translated as Mosaicall Philosophy. London: Humphrey Moseley, 1659.

——. Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rosae Cruce defendans. Leiden: Gottfried Basson, 1617.

——. Veritatis Proscenium. Frankfurt: Johann Theodore de Bry, 1621.

Godwin, Joscelyn. Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds. Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1979.

Robert Fludd

Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (1574, Bearsted, Kent – 8 September 1637, London) was a prominent English Paracelsian physician, astrologer, and mystic. He was not a member of the Rosicrucians, as often alleged, but he defended their thoughts in the Apologia Compendiaria of 1616.^[1]

Contents 1 Life 2 Works 3 Gwynedd connection 4 In popular culture 5 Notes 6 Further reading 7 External links

Life

He was the son of Sir Thomas Fludd, a high-ranking governmental official (Queen Elizabeth I's treasurer for war in Europe).

He obtained an MD from University of Oxford.

Between 1598 and 1604, Fludd studied medicine, chemistry and the occult on the European mainland, but he is best known for his research in occult philosophy. He had a celebrated exchange of views with Johannes Kepler concerning the scientific and hermetic approaches to knowledge.^[2]

Works

His philosophy is presented in Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, metaphysica, physica, atque technica Historia (The metaphysical, physical, and technical history of the two worlds, namely the greater and the lesser, published in Germany between 1617 and 1621)^[3]; according to Frances Yates, his memory system (which she describes in detail in The Art of Memory, pp. 321-341) may reflect the layout of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (The Art of Memory, Chapter XVI).

In 1618, Fludd wrote De Musica Mundana (Mundane Music) which described his theories of music, including his mundane (also known as "divine" or "celestial") monochord.^[4]

In 1630, Fludd proposed many perpetual motion machines. People were trying to patent variations of Fludd's machine in the 1870s. Fludd's machine worked by recirculation by means of a water wheel and Archimedean screw. The device pumps the water back into its own supply tank.^[5][6]

Fludd was the first person to discuss the circulation of the blood, and did in fact arrive at the correct conclusion. His conclusion was based on the macrocosm-microcosm analogy, a theory in which all occurrences in the microcosm (man) are influenced by the macrocosm (the heavens). His theory was that the blood must circulate because the heart is like the sun and the blood like the planets and, by this time, it was known that the planets orbit around the sun. William Harvey later explained the circulation of blood in more modern and experimental terms, though still referring to the macrocosm-microcosm analogy of Fludd.

Gwynedd connection

He was a descendant of Cunedda Wledig ap Edern,^{[citation needed]} King of Gwynedd, which is now part of Wales.

In popular culture

In conspiracy theories, such as the one promoted in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Fludd has been alleged to be the sixteenth Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.

Robert Fludd is an important secondary character in Mary Gentle's novel A Sundial in a Grave: 1610.

Notes

1. ^ William H. Huffman, Robert Fludd and the end of the Renaissance (Routledge London & New York, 1988)
2. ^ Wolfgang Pauli, Wolfgang Pauli - Writings on physics and philosophy, translated by Robert Schlapp and edited by P. Enz and Karl von Meyenn (Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1994), Section 21, The influence of archetypical ideas on the scientific theories of Kepler. ISBN 354-05685-9X, ISBN 978-354-05685-99.
3. ^ Karsten Kenklies, Wissenschaft als Ethisches Programm. Robert Fludd und die Reform der Bildung im 17. Jahrhundert (Jena, 2005)
4. ^ Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic, and Rosicrucian symbolical philosophy (H.S. Crocker Company, Inc., 1928)
5. ^ http://www.uh.edu/engines/pmm1.jpg
6. ^ http://www.windmillworld.com/mills/images/fludd1618.gif

Further reading

• Allen G. Debus, The English Paracelsians, New York: Watts, 1965.
• Tita French Baumlin, "Robert Fludd," The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500-1660, Second Series, Detroit: Gale, 2003, pp. 85-99.
• J. B. Craven, Doctor Fludd (Robertus de Fluctibus), the English Rosicrucian: Life and Writings, Kirkwall: William Peace & Son, 1902.
• Joscelyn Godwin, Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds, London: Thames and Hudson, 1979.
• Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory, London: Routledge, 1966.
• William H. Huffman, ed., Robert Fludd: Essential Readings, London: Aquarian/Thorsons, 1992.

External links

• Robert Fludd biography at Levity
• Fludd's magnum opus, 'Utriusque Cosmi maioris salicet et minoris metaphysica..'(1617-1619) is available as ZIP or PDF download.
• A large section of 'Utriusque Cosmi maioris salicet et minoris metaphysica..' is available as page images at the University of Utah.
• Online originals of works by Robert Fludd
• JR Ritman Library: Treasures from the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica
• Robert Fludd chronology

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