Gerhard Dorn (c. 1530 – 1584) was a Belgian

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

alchemist Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, C ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and bibliophile.

Biography

The details of Gerhard Dorn's early life, along with those of many other 16th century personalities, are lost to history. It is known that he was born about 1530 in

Mechelen Mechelen (; french: Malines ; traditional English name: MechlinMechelen has been known in English as ''Mechlin'', from where the adjective ''Mechlinian'' is derived. This name may still be used, especially in a traditional or historical contex ...

, which is part of modern-day Belgium's Antwerp Province. He studied with

Adam von Bodenstein Adam von Bodenstein (1528–1577) was a Swiss Paracelsian alchemist and physician. He was born in Kemberg near Wittenberg in Germany and died of the plague in Basel. His father, Andreas Rudolph Bodenstein von Karlstadt, was a prominent theologian a ...

, to whom his first book is dedicated and began publishing books from around 1565. He used

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...

's personal

glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...

from his 1564 book, the ''

Monas Hieroglyphica ''Monas Hieroglyphica'' (or ''The Hieroglyphic Monad'') is a book by John Dee, the Elizabethan magus and court astrologer of Elizabeth I of England, published in Antwerp in 1564. It is an exposition of the meaning of an esoteric symbol that he ...

'', on the title page of his ''Chymisticum artificium''. Together with von Bodenstein, he rescued many of Paracelsus's manuscripts and printed them for the first time. He also translated many of them into

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for the

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

publisher

Pietro Perna Pietro is an Italian masculine given name. Notable people with the name include: People * Pietro I Candiano (c. 842–887), briefly the 16th Doge of Venice * Pietro Tribuno (died 912), 17th Doge of Venice, from 887 to his death * Pietro II Can ...

and lived in Basel during the 1570s and

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

in the early 1580s, where he died when he was in his mid-fifties.

Philosophy

Dorn claimed to have found a better philosophy and a more

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

way of thinking in Paracelsus and was one of Paracelsus's strongest advocates. He depreciated practical laboratory work in favor of theoretical study of the human mind, considering the prevailing education of his day too scholastic. Like many

alchemists Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

, Dorn was hostile to the philosophy of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

, with its emphasis upon the material world declaring that "whoever wishes to learn the alchemical art, let him not learn the philosophy of Aristotle but that which teaches the truth". Dorn argued that learning needed a reform as had religion in the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, as had medicine in the teachings of Paracelsus. What was needed, he asserted, was a mystical and spiritual "philosophy of love"—his radical theology claimed that it was God, not man who was in need of Redemption and he defined the alchemical opus as a labor which redeemed not man but God, a proposal which came perilously close to being heretical in the eyes of Christian orthodoxy. His principal writings are included in Volume I of the ''

Theatrum Chemicum (''"Chemical Theatre"'') is a compendium of early alchemical writings published in six volumes over the course of six decades. The first three volumes were published in 1602, while the final sixth volume was published in its entirety in 1661. re ...

''. As Monika Wikman summarized in her book ''Pregnant Darkness'', "Alchemists such as Gerhard Dorn, in his work 'The Speculative Philosophy,' referred to this next alchemical stage nner healingas ''

Unus Mundus ''Unus mundus'' (Latin for "One world") is an underlying concept of Western philosophy, theology, and alchemy, of a primordial unified reality from which everything derives. The term can be traced back to medieval Scholasticism though the notion it ...

'', where splits are healed, duality ceases, and the individual, the ''vir unus'', unites with the world soul."Wikman, Monika. ''Pregnant Darkness''. Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc., 2004. Page 59 in trade paperback edition. Dorn's writings were of great interest to the psychologist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

, enough for him to take Dorn's principal writings with him when traveling to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 1938. He is one of Jung's most frequently quoted sources upon

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

Works

* ''Clavis totius Philosophiae Chymisticae'', Lyons, 1567. * ''Chymisticum artificium naturae, theoricum et practicum'', Frankfurt, 1568. * ''Aurorae Thesaurusque Philosophorum'', Basel, 1577. * ''De Naturae Luce Physica'', Frankfurt, 1583.
''Dictionarium Paracelsi'', Frankfurt, 1583.

Notes

Sources

* Quotation from ''Theatrum Chemicum'' (vol.1 ''Speculative Philosophy'') * Gerhard Dorn, Paul Ferguson,

Adam McLean Adam McLean (born 7 March 1948 in Glasgow) is a Scottish writer on alchemical texts and symbolism. In 1978 he founded the ''Hermetic Journal'' which he published until 1992 during which time he also started publishing the ''Magnum Opus Hermetic ...

. ''The Speculative Philosophy of Gerhard Dorn.'' Glasgow.

External links

Discussion of Dorn's thoughts on body, soul and spirit
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorn, Gerhard

Dorn Dorn (German for thorn) is a German/Austrian and Dutch/Flemish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Angela Dorn-Rancke, , German politician * August T. Dorn (1849-1923), American politician *Dieter Dorn (born 1935), German theatre d ...

Physicians of the Habsburg Netherlands Paracelsians Belgian alchemists

1530s births 1584 deaths 16th-century occultists 16th-century alchemists