Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont
Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont ( * before October 20, 1614 ( date of baptism ) in Vilvoorde, Flemish Brabant, † 1699 in Coelln in Berlin) was a Flemish polymath, writer and diplomat. He is the son of Johan Baptista van Helmont.
Life and work
Helmont published in the 1640s, the works of his father, who was from alchemy, a pioneer of scientific chemistry. After the death of his father in 1644 Helmont renounced his heritage and began a life that he described himself with the Hermit peregrinans ( the wandering hermit ). After initial medical work, he turned to the Kabbalah and worked with Henry More, a representative of the Cambridge Platonists. Together they edited the translations of kabbalistic texts by Christian Knorr von Rose Roth. Franciscus van Helmont maintained important contacts in the Netherlands, where he was with Adam Boreel (1603-1667) and Peter Serrarius (1600-1669), known. Later, he maintained contact with the ' lantern ', a circle around the merchant Benjamin furly from Rotterdam, which included John Locke.
He influenced Franciscus van den ends (* around 1602, † 1674) and the Spanish physician Juan de Cabriada ( 1665-1714 ). In Amsterdam he worked in 1690 on a theory that underpinned the work of Johann Conrad Ammann with the deaf.
Van Helmont spent much time in Germany and England. From 1644 on, when his father died, until 1656, when he was charged by the German Emperor to the nobility, he was constantly diplomatically active for German princes and their families. From 1648 until his death he was constantly between England, the Netherlands, Hanover, Berlin, Heidelberg, Sulzbach, Vienna, Switzerland and Italy go. His intellectual abilities, his diplomatic finesse and his reputation as a physician opened the access to the royal courts of Europe him. Above all, he was responsible for the Kurpfälzer family ( Elizabeth of Herford, Prince Rupert and Sophie of Hanover ) and for Duke Christian August von Pfalz- Sulzbach as a doctor, counselor and diplomat active. 1661, he was arrested by soldiers in Kitzingen of Philipp Wilhelm of the Palatinate. He was taken to Rome and interrogated by the Inquisition and even tortured. Only after eighteen months he was released. 1667, he published a treatise in Latin literacy veri naturalis hebraici brevissima delineatio ( German Kurtzer Entwurff of the actual nature of the Holy alphabet language ) about the " Adamic language", which he equated with the Hebrew. He argued that the Hebrew alphabet are comparable implicitly with musical notes pronunciation guidelines
By van Helmont's mediation was Christian Knorr von Rosenroth 1668 yards and councilor of Duke Christian August at whose court in Sulzbach. Helmont also was a friend of Leibniz, who also wrote his obituary later. In 1671 he made Leibnitz and Knorr von Rosenroth acquainted.
In 1670 he traveled to England, where he met King Charles II. He worked on a diplomatic mission for Elisabeth of the Palatinate. Here, he also met Robert Boyle, a leading chemist in the tradition of his father.
About his work as a doctor of Anne Conway in 1675 he began to attend meetings of the Quakers. He introduced her to Kabbalah in return. From 1671 until her death in 1679 he lived with her at Ragley Hall. Twenty years later he was the subject of " Keithian Controversy ", a controversy within Quakerism, in which van Helmont took the view expressed by George Keith Page, who eventually broke away.
In the letters A Cabbalistical Dialogue ( published in Latin in 1677, 1682 in English ), he defended the Kabbalistic metaphysics. She stands with him in close relation to the Kabbalah Denudata of Knorr von Rose Roth and represents matter and spirit in a continuum by describing matter as a " coalition" of monads. There are various aspects of the development of Monadenbegriffes who shared Conway and van Helmont with Leibniz. In the same period, claimed his writing Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, which was often the Kabbalah Denudata attached as an anonymous essay to be a treatise for the conversion of Junden to Christianity. At the same time, it served as an introduction to the Christian Kabbalah and the identification of Jesus Christ with Adam qadmon within the meaning of Lurianic Kabbalah.
He spent his last years in Germany and continued its close cooperation with Leibniz. There is speculation that the last book, which was published under Helmont's name, premeditate and Considerate Thoughts on the first chapter of Genesis is really from Leibnitz.