Alquimia y religión

In this revised edition of Alchemy and Religion, Raimon Arola expands the original volume with his investigations of "the occult", placing this concept as what is behind a veil, thus moving away from what is known as the occult, the movement of the 19th century, which, in general, was a degeneration of the traditional sciences. The first part of the book focuses on the study of alchemy as it was formed in the Modern Age, especially from Paracelsus, when it became the place where some wise men concentrated a treasure of knowledge and spiritual development that, according to them, it should become the inner and secret nucleus of the Christian tradition, as well as the necessary impulse for a religious reform. With the rationalism that prevailed in Europe at the end of the seventeenth century, this science or art was locked up in a mixed bag -occultism, spiritualism, esotericism, etc.- and it was considered as something alien to religion. However, behind the apparent madness of the ancient alchemists lies a teaching that deserves to be taken into account by today's philosophers and historians of religions, arts and sciences. Its postulates clarify registers and ways of the human being that have remained forgotten or framed in disciplinary fields alien to the life of the spirit. With this oblivion, its most intimate symbolic universe, expressed basically through images, has been marginalized from Western thought.