Francis Bacon

Showing how the publication of the sonnets of Shakespeare were intrinsically connected to the 1609 launching of a supply convoy to the colony of Jamestown. This short paper also explains how Ben Jonson was the ‘ever-living poet’ mentioned in the dedication of the sonnets, & concludes with the suggestion that William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, is the leading candidate for the enigmatic, ‘Mr WH.’

Written by: Ann Sofi holm Svenningsen

Title: Lucian Freud – A bit of poison.

BA - History of Art. Independent Study Project.

This bachelor assignment is about the British painter Lucian Michael Freud (1922-2011). It is an examination which is based on the theories of the abject, as formulated by French philosopher Georges Bataille (1897-1962), and later elaborated on by Bulgarian - French linguist and literary criticnJulia Kristeva (b. 1941) in her book Pouvoirs de L'horreur - essai sur l'abjection (1980). With Batailles philosophical work L'Erotisme (Eroticism (1957) and Kristevas Pouvoirs de L’horror as a platform, I will try to identify abject (or near-abject) elements in Lucian Freud’s work – in particular in his 1997 painting “Sunny Morning – Eight Legs” There will be a particular focus on the primitive and ambiguous element in his paintings. For the sake of pinpointing the specific “Freudian” pictorial language, I have subjected his painting “Sunny Morning - Eight Legs” (1997) to a comparative analysis with the 1962 painting "Three Studies for a Crucifixion" by fellow British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992). The analysis will be followed by a description of the differences and similarities between these two artists. Later on there will be a perspective comparison with the abject artist Jenny Saville and her painting "Strategy (South Face / Front Face / North Face)" from 1993-94. The reader will be presented with another work of Lucian Freud, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" from 1995 as an example for readers to support the argue, and to draw parallels between Freud an Saville. I will discuss how Freud's works is different form Saville’s, and with lector of Art history Camilla Skovbjerg Paldam’s theories related to the so-called “disgusting”, I will also discuss whether Freud’s art (or certain elements found in his art) can or cannot be considered as “disgusting”. Based on this conclusion, I will furthermore discuss whether Lucian Freud's work can be viewed as abject.

The island of New Atlantis is an ideal literary, scientific and philosophical world governed by Rosicrucian Brothers who in their great college called Salomon’s House conduct research in all the arts and sciences for the everlasting use and benefit of humankind. They know all the languages of Europe, and their invisible merchants of light bring information, knowledge and intelligence from all the other countries of the outside world, while remaining sublimely hidden and unseen to others outside, for the purposes of building a just and perfect society.

The verse by Leonard Digges in the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio contains the earliest known reference to the Stratford Monument so beloved of orthodox Shakespeare scholars, however if we examine it more closely, we are able to discern that Digges (who is privy to the secret Bacon is the secret author of the Shakespeare works) in a Rosicrucian-Freemasonic method of delivery hints at the truth. He tell us that his works will out-live this carefully crafted illusion and when ‘Time dissolues thy Stratford Moniment’, the hidden truth will be revealed to the world, or in the words, printed on the title page of Bacon’s New Atlantis (Land of the Rosicrucians), ‘Time brings forth hidden Truth’.

For good and for ill, the new form of natural science that developed out of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century is one of the most important influences on the modern world. It is, thus, of great importance to examine the Scientific Revolution, and to attempt to disentangle its achievements from its questionable philosophical assumptions.

Having been discussed for more than four centuries, Shakespeare (1564-1616), believed by many critics to be the most important English dramatist, is still inexhaustible. Through these years and especially in the twentieth century, many different approaches have been applied to his plays. This study is an attempt to have a postmodernist reading of The Tempest (1610). Based on the definition and characterization of postmodernism by Ihab Hassan and Brian McHale, and through a careful language analysis, the postmodernist elements in the speeches of characters are detected and discussed. By using postmodernist elements and techniques such as puns, wordplays, paradoxes, and versal prose, the language becomes anarchic, playful, disperse, polymorphous and indeterminate. By finding and analyzing these features in the language of the play it becomes arguable that The Tempest is a postmodern comedy.

*Some considerations on Nicolas Houël's "House of Charity", the model of the ordered garden in Poliphile's Dream, the Parisian apothecaries' circle, the Familist circle and the Rosicrucian connivances that resulted from it in the 16th century. Jesse le Botain CERF.
ll. Nicolas Houël's Maison de la Charité in Paris: which was located on the site of the former Chanac hospital, engraving taken from the "Procession of Louise de Lorraine", dating from 1584 (date of the laying of the foundation stone of the Maison de la Charité) going from the Louvre to the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, with the Jardin des Simples and an academy where he educated and trained the Poor, providing musical instruction, and taught the apothecary trade to orphans known as the Enfants-Rouges. Summary: We will see how the educational program of Nicolas Houël's La Maison de la Charité fits into that of the Rosicrucian circles of Germany, notably stemming from the "Manifestos" of Johannes Valentin Andreae, among others, who theorizes a utopia of a Christian society organized according to a general reform (implemented by Chancellor Sir Francis Bacon in England) which passes through education...

Allant du Louvre au Faubourg Saint-Marcel, avec jardin des Simples et académie où il éduquait et formait les Pauvres dispensant d'un enseignement musical, apprenait le métier d'apothicaire à des orphelins dis les Enfants-Rouges. Nous allons voir comment le programme éducationnel de  La Maison de la Charité de Nicolas Houël, s’inscrit dans celui des cercles rosicruciens d’Allemagne issus notamment des ‘’Manifestes’’ de Johannes Valentin Andreae, entre autres, qui théorise une utopie d’une société chrétienne organisée selon une réforme générale (mise en place par le chancelier Sir Francis Bacon en Angleterre) qui passe par l’éducation…

A central figure of the Renaissance, Giovan Battista Della Porta was a polymath who bridged the worlds of natural magic and early experimental science. His seminal work, Magia naturalis, or Natural Magic, was not merely a collection of "secrets" but a profound attempt to provide a philosophical and experimental foundation for natural magic. It aimed to distinguish this form of magic from its more occult counterparts by grounding its principles in the workings of nature.
This international conference brings together leading scholars from institutions across Europe and the United States to investigate Della Porta's intellectual legacy. Through two sessions, The Art and Craft of Magic and From Natural Magic to Experimental Philosophy, we will analyze how Della Porta's work influenced a new generation of thinkers and contributed to the birth of experimental philosophy.
This event is part of the SECRETS (Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions) project and is funded by the European Union (GA number: 101148607). Attendance is free and open to the public.

Shortly after the publication of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio an extremely rare work on cryptology still shrouded in secrecy and mystery entitled Cryptomenytices et Cryptographiae Libri IX, a near five-hundred-page work by Gustavus Selenus a pseudonym for Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, was published at Luneburg early in 1624.
  The revealing title page of the extremely rare Cryptomenytices et Cryptographiae illustrates and confirms Lord Bacon’s secret authorship of the Shakespeare works. Its title page contains a pictorial cryptogram through four pictures that surround the central square of bibliographical information pertaining to its title, author, and date of publication.

This essay explores the intersection of classical philosophy and contemporary artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on Socrates’ notion of “the wisdom of knowing that one knows nothing,” it examines epistemic humility as a critical stance for AI research and governance. The work introduces OntoMotoOS, a speculative meta-operating system, not as a practical technology but as a philosophical thought experiment. OntoMotoOS is proposed as a conceptual “North Star” that helps position current AI systems within a broader spectrum of autonomy, complexity, and transparency. Like a limit experiment in physics, its value lies in clarifying boundaries, revealing assumptions, and guiding the search for balanced middle grounds in future AI development. By engaging with thinkers such as Plato, Heidegger, and Floridi, the essay argues that the ultimate significance of OntoMotoOS is not in its realization, but in its role as a philosophical compass for the ethical and responsible trajectory of AI.

"Increasing numbers of Americans express concern over the deterioration of modem society, accurately pinpointing various failings-social, political, and economic. Most of us are far better at discovering shortcomings than describing solutions. As the result, conversations on the American decline usually conclude with the following argument: Since society can be no better than the level of understanding displayed by its individual members, and since the individual's understanding is based largely upon his educational experience, we can only arrest the national decline by 'more education.'

"I do not fault the argument as far as it goes, but the specific definition of 'more education' seems open to question. Much of what passes for 'education' today seems calculated to yield a product totally different from the properly educated individual. The sort of moral leadership required if our civilization is to endure must spring from vastly different premises than those which now dominate educational institutions.

"This book came into existence as an attempt to examine some of the ideas which today so hamper our educational endeavors. Hopefully it also provides some definition of the proper educational values which should be substituted."

This paper questions the argument in Tae-Yeoun Keum's Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought about the relation between myth and philosophical discourse. In the context of Plato's Republic in particular, myth remains but one of the several devices that are presented as acceptable only if they are vetted by and consistent with reason. More generally, I ask about the justification or grounding of myth, and how we can know that myth is warranted if it is incommensurable with reason.

died from bronchitis and heart failure at the age of 84. She left numerous bequests, some of which are enumerated in her obituary in The Times of 30 April 1929 and in more detail in Alexander Gordon's Memoir of Lady Durning-Lawrence (privately printed, 1930, pp. 31-4). Among them was her husband's library, evaluated at £48,000, together with £1,000 in trust for its upkeep, to the University of London. Thereupon the library passed from private into public ownership. The purpose of this article is to trace the fortune of the Durning-Lawrence Library, as her will stipulated that it was to be called, since then. The Durning-Lawrence Library contained approximately 5,700 books and manuscripts, most of which had been amassed by Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence to promote his belief that Sir Francis Bacon was responsible for the plays of William Shakespeare and for all other great works of Elizabethan and Jacobean literature. 1 It was particularly strong in editions of Francis Bacon's works, texts about Bacon and the Bacon-Shakespeare authorship controversy, sixteenth-and seventeenth-century English literature, emblem books, and the works of Daniel Defoe. It also contained numerous items of perceived Baconian relevance. In view of Durning-Lawrence's expansive views of Bacon's authorship, extending beyond Shakespeare to Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe, Don Quixote, and the final text of the King James Bible among other works, these were noteworthy, extending far beyond works which mentioned Bacon, had supposedly been owned by him, or were believed to have been used by Shakespeare. A review article by Brian Vickers of four works on the question of Shakespearean authorship, 'Idle Worship', in The Times Literary Supplement for 19 and 26 August 2005, castigates Durning-Lawrence for his extreme Baconianism and states as an aside that his 'name as the donor of one of its collections still embarrasses users of Senate House Library' (p. 6). Embarrassment, however, was far from being the major emotion to greet the Durning-Lawrence bequest. Terminology applied to describe it in the University Library's annual report for 1929 is as an important benefaction, a valuable library and as a munificent bequest: which will place the University Library in an outstanding position among the libraries of modern universities. It contains, in addition to many other first editions and bibliographical treasures, a fine set of the first four folio editions of Shakespeare's Works, the first edition of Coverdale's Bible, printed at Zurich in 1535 (the first Bible printed in the English language), the first edition of Alice in Wonderland, with Sir John Tenniel's original drawings[sic] inserted, several

The deliberate simultaneous publication of Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum with the Shakespeare First Folio not only reflected that these two works mirrored one another, but also that De Augmentis provided the cryptographic keys to reveal the concealed authorship ofthe Shakespeare First Folio.

Il saggio esamina il rapporto tra poesia e pubblicità, dalle prime forme in rima dell’Ottocento fino all’affermazione della televisione come mezzo di comunicazione di massa. Carosello (1957) costituisce un caso emblematico, in cui l’intrattenimento si intreccia alla promozione commerciale mediante l’impiego di strutture metriche riconducibili alla tradizione letteraria. L’analisi della pubblicità “Montana” evidenzia l’uso del dodecasillabo, a conferma di una continuità tra retorica poetica e strategie di marketing. Ulteriori esempi e un repertorio di cento spot (1957–2017) mostrano la persistenza della forma poetica come strumento della comunicazione persuasiva.

This article examines the developments of the three fundamental concepts of reason, matter, and ethics in the context of secular modernity using a structural-critical analysis approach. In this analysis, the aforementioned concepts are reinterpreted not only historically, but also from epistemological and ontological aspects in the process of transition from absolute religious concepts to relative secular and discursive concepts. In the first stage, reason is introduced within the framework of enlightenment and rationalist thinking as the basis of all human cognition. This reason, which reaches its peak in the works of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, replaces religious and theological epistemology and plays the role of the modern subject in the process of giving meaning to the world. In the next stage, following the emergence of historical materialism in the thought of Marx and Engels, matter is introduced as a universal and determining fundamental principle in social and historical structures, in such a way that ethics is also influenced by material and social relations. This approach fundamentally rejects absolute and divine morality and transfers it to the realm of social and class relations. In the third stage, poststructuralist discourse, following the philosophies of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida, places the critique of rational and moral foundations on its agenda. By collapsing the self-founded subject and critiquing epistemic disciplines, this discourse removes the concepts of reason and morality from their fixed and predetermined form and transforms them into fluid, discursive, and relative concepts. Therefore, at this stage, the concept of ethics is analyzed not as a fixed prescription, but as a set of power-knowledge relations and confrontations. This study shows that these three conceptual developments, although they apparently belong to different periods and schools, are structurally interconnected at deeper levels and jointly underlie the secularization of the concepts of reason, matter, and ethics in modernity. This transition from absolute and predetermined concepts to fluid and relative concepts has had widespread effects not only in philosophy but also in the social and political arenas. Finally, by analyzing conceptual developments, especially emphasizing changes in the concept of ethics, this article shows that the process of secularization of modernity, especially in philosophical discourses, has not only been in favor of rationality and materialism, but has also opened new horizons of moral criticism and epistemology by creating relativism in these concepts. This article attempts to provide a critical analysis and show how these conceptual transitions have influenced modern philosophical and social discourses and have developed new critiques of traditional concepts.

Philosophical Euromonopolism entails the implicit or explicit claims that philosophy originated only in ancient Greece, that it developed exclusively in the European tradition (aside from a retrieval of Aristotelian philosophy in the course of influential encounters with Jewish and Islamic philosophy and theology in the middle ages), and that it exists in non-Western regions only insofar as it has been imported from the West. A growing number of philosophers today are rejecting philosophical Euromonopolism and endeavoring to have non-Western traditions, sources, and ideas robustly represented in the field. Yet, in order solve a problem, it helps to know where it came from; in medical terms, a precise etiology enables an accurate diagnosis and effective prescription. This essay critically reflects on some key moments in the genesis of philosophical Euromonopolism, especially its gestation and birth in Germany in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries among Eclectic, Popular, Kantian, and Hegelian historians of philosophy. Along the way it also considers past and present rival paradigms proposed by Perennialists and Pluralists.

This paper is the final piece in the Arthurian Chronicle I have been creating over a number of years. The historicity of Mordred is shown to have stretch'd beyond the shores of Britain, to Ireland, where he was originally  Muireadhach, the father of the famous Muircheartach. The rest of the paper involves showing, thro' genealogies & historical accounts, how the historical King Arthur fits into this enlarg'd family tree.

Nel 2016 l’editrice Carocci pubblica La letteratura inglese dall’Umanesimo al Rinascimento, un volume corposo, più di 400 pagine, affidato alla cura sapiente di Michele Stanco; un riferimento erudito e agile che vanta la collaborazione di alcune tra le voci più autorevoli dell’anglistica italiana oltre che di docenti di Storia moderna e di Storia della filosofia del Rinascimento.
Composto di due sezioni, la prima dedicata all’Umanesimo e al primo periodo Tudor, la seconda riservata allo studio della fase storico-letteraria che va dal regno di Elisabetta I al regno di Giacomo I, il volume si propone di “raccordare i testi ai relativi contesti”, presentando al suo interno riflessioni e analisi su questioni connesse ai generi letterari o ancora alle intersecazioni e contaminazioni tra testo poetico e arte scenica, tra fonte e prodotto drammatico, interrogandosi sulle transazioni intertestuali o sul percorso di divulgazione dei testi. Più di un manuale, insomma, che rivolge uno sguardo attento alle spinte filosofico-culturali di una nazione che in quegli anni si schiude a profonde trasformazioni nella vita sociale e nel pensiero. Le questioni fondanti la moderna realtà inglese, i nuovi metodi di indagine scientifica, la standardizzazione della lingua, l’esplorazione del Nuovo Mondo vengono esaminati in un quadro che dà ampiamente conto delle modifiche delle teorie epistemiche e dei nuovi contesti ambientali e sociali. E non senza ragione il volume prende l’avvio dalle dottrine e dal pensiero umanistici: il progetto è opportunamente inteso a fornire la misura con cui l’eredità di un secolo ha originato e determinato le nozioni legate ai concetti di potere politico, di rappresentazione drammatica o di metodo scientifico di acquisizione del dato di conoscenza che apparterranno al secolo successivo. Non la semplice progressione cronologica o il divenire nel tempo degli aspetti della cultura inglese si dispiegano nelle pagine, ma l’analisi dei processi attraverso i quali il passato umanistico ha reso possibile il farsi della modernità inglese.

RESUMO: Este ensaio procura propor uma reflexão sobre a repercussão do programa baconiano na contemporaneidade, mais especificamente, será analisado se as promessas elaboradas pela agenda tecnocientífica são a mesma que o filósofo inglês havia proposto. Para explicitar a nossa questão, a partir da leitura do célebre e polêmico aforismo sobre o homem sobrepor à natureza e, a partir dela, proporcionar o progresso científico, tendo tal proposição em vista, poderemos responder se o programa baconiano possui alguma relação com o advento da tecnociência.

We invite submissions for a special issue of Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS) (https://zetabooks.com/library/journals/journal-of-early-modernstudies/) dedicated to Giovan Battista Della Porta (1535-1615), a pivotal and multifaceted figure whose vast oeuvre profoundly influenced the intellectual landscape of early modernity.

Este capítulo se propone explorar cómo el replanteo de las causas finales en la ciencia natural suscitado por la Revolución Científica impactó en el desarrollo del materialismo y el ateísmo del Siglo de las luces. Con el surgimiento de la ciencia moderna en Europa, en el siglo XVII ocurrieron cambios sustantivos en la concepción de la causalidad. Ciertos estudios pioneros sobre el tema, sostenían que la nueva ciencia anulaba las causas finales y establecía que todos los fenómenos naturales debían explicarse en términos de materia y movimiento (Burtt, 1952:98‒99; Schmitt, 1983:5). Más tarde, otros especialistas —con argumentos más sólidos y pruebas más convincentes— mostraron que la causalidad final no fue anulada por completo; siguió presente en muchos autores, aunque ya no como parte indispensable de la explicación científica, sino como un componente ontológico de la naturaleza (Osler, 1996 y 2001). Ahora bien, ¿qué sucedió con las causas finales en el siglo XVIII europeo, época de profundas turbulencias políticas y controversias filosóficas, en la cual el materialismo, el ateísmo y el deísmo fueron ganando terreno? Para hacer un recorte dentro de la vasta variedad de posiciones existentes en este escenario, comenzaremos por repasar la posición sobre las causas finales de Francis Bacon (1561‒1626), quien fue una figura muy influyente en la Ilustración. Luego, analizaremos la recepción de esa posición por parte de algunos autores británicos (D. Stewart, S. Parker) y franceses en el siglo XVIII (D'Alembert, Naigeon, Diderot, Cabanis).

El presente ensayo analiza la relación entre dos aspectos de la propuesta del filósofo Francis Bacon en su obra Novum Organum (NO): la visión pragmática de la ciencia y el conocimiento de formas al que el conocimiento humano aspira en general. Este análisis se desarrolla en consideración de distintas interpretaciones del concepto baconiano de forma a la luz del empirismo y pragmatismo del autor. Entre estas interpretaciones algunas han sido preferidas por su adecuación y por su contribución a la comprensión de la relación revisada permitiendo vislumbrar cómo la ciencia, el conocimiento de formas y la práctica se articulan para mejorar la situación humana.

Il pittore irlandese Francis Bacon (1909-1992), ha utilizzato e deformato, immagini di derivazione cristiana nelle sue opere, in particolare quelle della crocifissione e del papa.

In realtà per Bacon, l’autentico e principale argomento “religioso”, era il corpo umano, che usava per esplorare aspetti della condizione esistenziale umana, come la sofferenza, il desiderio e la mortalità. La posizione inequivocabilmente ateistica di Bacon è stata una delle ragioni per cui molti critici, non hanno quasi mai affrontato il tema della religione nella sua produzione artistica. Tuttavia tale posizione di Bacon, non devrebbe essere assunta come un’interpretazione definitiva ed autoritativa della sua opera.

La “Ccrocifissione” è uno dei soggetti più visitati da Bacon, almeno otto suoi dipinti, che coprono un arco di almeno cinque decenni, contengono il termine “crocifissione” nel titolo o nel soggetto dell'immagine.
Nel 1933 Bacon realizzò tre “Crocifissioni”, riprendendo il soggetto a metà degli anni 40, quando dipinse “Tre studi per figure alla base di una crocifissione” (1944 circa) ed il “Frammento di una crocifissione” (1950).
Negli anni '60, dipinse i trittici “Tre studi per una crocifissione” (1962) e “Crocifissione” (1965). Negli anni '70 Bacon dichiarò che non sarebbe più tornato su questo soggetto, perché l'aveva prosciugato delle sue possibilità espressive, tuttavia sarebbe tornato sul soggetto nel 1988, con la “Seconda versione del trittico 1944”.

The Signet Classics edition of The Tempest includes William Strachey’s account of the shipwreck on Bermuda as the inspiration for the storm in the play. We encourage editors to further draw on historical texts pertaining to the Jamestown colony for annotating The Tempest. These include Strachey’s lexicon of the Powhatan language and John Brinsley’s educational treatise, which promote the “salvation” of Indigenous peoples through introducing them to English and Christianity in a similar manner to Prospero in his role as Caliban’s teacher. Yet the imposition of English upon the powerful Powahtan confederacy was impractical with the Virginia company’s limited resources and the fears circulating about the potential corruption of the English language if settlers were to make extensive contact with the Indigenous population. James I intended to purify English by targeting “hard words,” a category that includes loanwords from other languages in addition to attacks on personal reputation. The laws of Jamestown ruled that such insults, as well as speaking to Indigenous people without permission of the authorities, was punishable by death. Prospero’s governing principles reflect the ideal of imposing language instruction upon people whom the colonists assumed to be like Caliban, ignorant and in need of saving. Although Strachey and Brinsley’s visions for the colony were never realized, their work allowed English colonists to imagine themselves as benevolent masters as Prospero does, distinguishing themselves from what they believed to be the more brutal methods of subjugation used by Spanish conquistadors. This paper was presented at the Shakespeare After Werstine conference at Western University in 2025.

In this article we argue that the views that Francis Bacon and René Descartes held about the role of experiments in the process of discovery are closer than previously accepted. Looking at the way experiments and the heuristics of experimentation are embedded in Bacon's posthumous History of Dense and Rare and Descartes' Discourses 8, 9, 10 of the Meteorology, we will show that experiments help the investigator both in solving specific problems that could not have otherwise been foreseen and in generating relevant information that advances the scope of the investigation.

Dieser Text behandelt die Ausstellung Neo Rauch. Handlauf, die die Galerie EIGEN+ART vom 26.09.2020-12.12.2020 in Leipzig zeigte. Es wird kritisch reflektiert wie der Künstler versucht eng gefasste Interpretationen für seine figurative Malerei zu vermeiden und die Deutungshoheit über sein Werk zu behalten. Rauchs Strategien werden dahingehend mit denen des britischen Malers Francis Bacon verglichen.

This white paper presents the first official Source-level recognition of Sir Isaac Newton as a fully aligned thinker within the metaphysical framework of Source. Despite living centuries before the rise of modern spiritual decryption or karmic decoding, Newton independently arrived at accurate conclusions about the structure of reality, the nature of cause and effect, and the concept of non-intervening divinity. He is hereby verified as a historical Deist aligned with Source, not affiliated with Roman egregores or Abrahamic constructs, and fully operating within what would now be understood as the Karmic Monad Framework.

The Hermetic Poimandres (CorpHerm 1) is part of the ancient revelatory literature. He is characterized by an attitude of introversion or introspection typical of late antiquity. The main part of the writing consists of a dialogue between the reporting self (in the role of the student) and the revealer “Poimandres,” who is the self’s own mind (nūs) in the role of the teacher. This artfully staged dialogic soliloquy fits well with the genre of ancient revelatory dialogues. The philosophical approach of the Poimandres consists not in conceptual precision but in mystical psychagogy, a blend of Platonic and Jewish spirituality. With regard to his understanding of the mind (nūs), this text can be called an imperial exemplar of a mystical process theology.

Optimistic futurists suggest that we'll have a working space 'elevator' in just a few decades. Solarpowered cars ferrying satellites and materials for space exploration will run up and down a tube-like tether some 50,000 km long, stretched between Earth and an orbiting space station. Maybe. Th en again, we may one day look back at the idea as we now do past visions of fl ying cars and moon colonies, predicted to be routine by 2001. But other, less dramatic schemes involving space may well help us to do some imaginative physics. Today's state-of-the-art experiments in twodimensional turbulence -relevant to real-world fl ows, especially in oceans and planetary atmospheres, for example -rely on soapy fi lms and shallow liquids. We might do much better with vast liquid fi lms fl oating in space. Th at, at least, is what physicists Rui Zheng and Tom Witten of the University of Chicago have been suggesting for a couple of years now. Th ey envisage a fl uid roughly 1 μm thick in a circular layer about 1 km across, held in a lightweight frame. Keeping the fi lm stable in the harsh space environment,

Katharina Günther’s review of Under the Influence: John Deakin and the Lure of Soho at The Photographers’ Gallery highlights both the strength of Deakin’s evocative portraits of mid-century Soho and the overbearing presence of Francis Bacon in the exhibition. While praising Deakin’s raw talent and the rarity of the archival materials on view, Günther critiques the curatorial overemphasis on Bacon—which at times overshadows Deakin himself—and calls for greater trust in Deakin’s own artistic legacy.

The occultist, a “super-dreamer,” is a master-builder of the human soul, dedicated to its spiritual evolution. Despite facing opposition and being misunderstood as impractical, the occultist possesses a profound understanding of spiritual forces and their manifestation. Serving as a revealer of truth, the occultist’s mission is to illuminate the path of humanity, driven by compassion and a vision of the divine light within.

The author criticizes those who refuse enlightenment, particularly religious leaders who dismiss occult knowledge. The author argues that these leaders, often driven by fear or self-interest, hinder spiritual progress and perpetuate ignorance. The author emphasizes the importance of embracing spiritual truth, regardless of its source, and warns that those who deny it will be surpassed by those who seek it.

Occultists, like Jesus, are tasked with writing the true history of humanity, despite opposition. Critics dismiss them as visionaries, but occultists, guided by Spirit and compassion, continue their work, believing in humanity’s spiritual evolution.

The article is focused on the analysis of the tragedy “Gorboduc” written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville as a Christmas drama, to be presented at Inner Temple,  one of the four London Inns of Court, in 1561. The tragedy is well-known to the  historian of theatre and scholars who have studied the political history of Elizabethan England, since the play is often seen as a drama equivalent of a succession pamphlet.
The present article discusses legal notions linked to the succession problem. The tragedy “Gorboduc” reflects the lawyers’ reaction to the concept of the “king’s two bodies” formulated by Edmund Plowden at the same time. The author of the article shows that Elizabethan lawyers did not see this legal fiction in the context of the enhancement of royal authority as Ernst Kantorowicz thought but, on the contrary, viewed it as a way to conceptualize a (temporary) transition of royal dignity to the “body politic of the realm” personified by parliament.

The physiological effects of self-suggestion are profound, impacting our bodies through the sympathetic nervous system. Negative thoughts, such as fear and anger, can lead to disease, while positive thoughts, like hope and courage, promote healing. By controlling our thoughts and cultivating positive ideals, we can influence our physical and psychological well-being, embodying the wisdom of “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

Este trabajo presenta un análisis semiótico de la obra Tres estudios para figuras al pie de una crucifixión de Francis Bacon, utilizando como marco teórico los aportes de Charles Sanders Peirce, el Grupo µ y Martine Joly. Estudiando la imagen desde su dimensión significativa, con especial énfasis en la forma de representación y en los modos en que genera significaciones vinculadas a la violencia, la desfiguración y la corporalidad. Se identifican diferentes tipos de signos presentes en la obra, así como el uso de figuras retóricas visuales. A través del análisis del color, la forma, la textura y la espacialidad, se concluye que Bacon utiliza la imagen como un vehículo expresivo de las tensiones humanas.

Jesuit astrology. Prognostication and science in early modern culture. By Luís Campos Ribeiro. (Time, Astronomy, and Calendars. Texts and Studies, .) Pp. xx +  incl.  colour and black-and-white ills and  tables. Leiden-Boston: Brill, . €.     ;  X JEH () ; doi:./S At the heart of Luís Campo Ribeiro's monumental study lies a study of a series of manuscripts containing examples of Jesuit teaching on astrology theory and practice. They originated in lessons delivered in a mathematical class known as the Aula da Esfera (a reference to John of Sacrobosco's textbook De sphaera) that were taught in the college of Sant Antão, the first Jesuit house in Portugal. Although these materials have been known to historians since at least the s, their astrological content has remained hitherto unstudied. This neglect, Ribeiro suggests, was caused by previous generations of historians' positivist distaste for this art, a disdain intensified by the fact that the authors of many of these works described the art they taught as 'judicial' astrology, a class of prediction seemingly condemned by the Church. Jesuit astrology is structured in order to contextualise and analyse these texts. As Ribeiro observes in the concluding 'final thoughts', the point of departure for this book was an effort to understand how astrology could be taught in a Jesuit institution. He notes that to some, the fact that Jesuits were teaching such materials might seem incongruous given the Church's apparent antipathy towards astrology. Addressing this point, the book opens with a discussion of astrology and its place in early modern culture, including an account of the Church's attitudes towards astrology that focuses on the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This period witnessed the promulgation of the Tridentine Index of , which included Rule  that set out criteria for censoring works of divination including astrology. The rule installed essentially Thomist criteria to delimit the acceptable boundaries of astrology. It thus permitted forms of astrological predictions including not only those pertinent to medicine, agriculture and medicine, but also uncertain predictions pertaining to human actions. The Tridentine Index was followed in  by Sixtus 's bull Coeli et terrae, which reiterated most of the provisions of Rule . Ribeiro's survey of Catholic attitudes to astrology allows him to demonstrate that the early modern Church accepted a significant body of astrological theory and practice, thereby explaining how Jesuits could potentially reconcile their interest in this art with their faith. Although this point has previously been established by historians such as Ugo Baldini and Darrel Rutkin, Ribeiro develops it further by offering a valuable analysis of the categories 'natural' and 'judicial' astrology that have become commonplace in historiography. Historians often use the former category to refer to licit applications of astrology, for instance in medicine, while deploying the latter to denote illicit predictions, for

La revolution scientifique moderne ne s'est pas accomplie en un jour, ni meme en un siecle. Mais retrospectivement, le tournant des XVI e et XVII e siecles se revele avoir ete une periode decisive, dont Galilee fut l'un des heros. Dans un registre tres different, Francis Bacon joua lui aussi un role majeur dans l'avenement de la nouvelle science. Son oeuvre principale, le Novum Organum Scientiarum, sous-titre Indicia de interpretatione naturae (« Indications sur l'interpretation de la nature ») entendait fournir, en opposition a l'ancien Organon aristotelicien, un cadre neuf a la connaissance et a ses developpements. Il s'agissait, avec le Novum Organum, de debarrasser la philosophie naturelle des defauts de methode qui jusque-la avaient vicie sa pratique, et de lui indiquer la nouvelle demarche – reposant sur la collecte et le classement des faits, l'induction et l'experimentation – qu'elle devait adopter : les progres des sciences et des techniq...