Isaac Newton - an outstanding English scientist who laid the foundations of classical mechanics, physics and mathematics. Few people know that he was also the most knowledgeable of the alchemists. In the twentieth century. Newton's personal manuscripts were deciphered. As it turned out, the well-known rationalist, calling to think coldly and impartially, was a heretic, looking for the secret of the philosopher's stone, deciphering the Bible and even predicting … TADAMMMMM … The End of the World in 2060!
Sir Newton (1643–1727) is known as the scientist who created mechanics, but it turns out that this is only one aspect of his rich inner world. Like many people of his time, he had a variety of interests, including optics, mathematics (he created differential integral calculus), and it turned out that he took an interest in theology, alchemy and mysticism. As part of a project to translate Newton's articles in digital format, his articles on theology have also appeared on the Internet, which are stored in the National Library in Jerusalem.
Newton was a religious man who did a lot of theology and biblical research. It turns out that most of his articles were devoted to religious topics, not scientific ones. In his writings, he raised the problem: “Gravity explains the motion of the planets, but it cannot explain who made them move. Only God can explain everything. He knows everything that is happening, and everything that needs to happen! Faith in God prompted him to study the laws of nature in order to understand the highest wisdom of the Creator.
Sacred geometry in the First Temple of King Solomon
As a religious person, Newton believed that sacred secrets were hidden in the structures of ancient temples. For 50 years, he studied in depth the structure of many temples. Among them are the temples of Greece, Rome, but especially the First Temple of King Solomon. He was sure that not only in the works of ancient philosophers and scientists there is a hidden meaning, but also in the architecture of ancient temples.
Using the famous descriptions of the temple provided in the Book of Kings, which he himself translated from Hebrew, as well as through other research on the structure of the temples of that period, Newton presented a sketch and description of the First Temple.
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His work contains a detailed description of the architectural design, including the size of the building and the number of steps in its various compartments. There is also a detailed description of the daily routine in the building of the temple and the roads along which the pilgrims passed. As a scientist, Newton was interested in sacred geometry used in the construction of the temple of King Solomon, as well as spirals, the golden ratio (divine proportion) as a harmonious relationship between different lengths, which is widely observed in nature, art and architecture. For this, Newton studied in detail the architecture of the temple.
Newton came to the conclusion that the designer of the temple was King Solomon himself, who received the help of Heaven. He wrote that this philosophy can be found not only in nature, but also in the scriptures: "The Book of Genesis", "The Book of Job", "The Book of Psalms", "The Book of Isaiah" and others. King Solomon had a connection with God and, thanks to deep knowledge, he became the largest philosopher in the world. In his scientific quest, Newton was interested in the Kabbalah and the Talmud, as well as ancient universal religions.
Newton was busy studying the course of history, compiling the chronology of the ancient kingdoms, published a year after his death. The book is mainly devoted to the history of Greece, Egypt, the region of Levontia. In addition, Newton began to deeply study the period before Christianity. When he was exploring very ancient times, he became interested in a place in England called Stonehenge, where there were two circles of large stones (galin) surrounding the common center in which the torch is located.
Similar ancient places, where stones are located around a central fire, have been found all over the world, including Denmark, Persia, Ireland, China, etc. Newton from these facts concluded that all these places were round temples of some ancient a religion that spread throughout the Earth, and stone circles around the fire reflected the ancient belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa. Newton suggested that this ancient belief was the forerunner of all modern religions. (I advise you to read the previous post Great mystics in reality: Blavatsky)
Newton the alchemist
Beginning in 1668, Newton devoted 25 years of his life to a secret science - alchemy, with which he was selflessly fascinated. Just like other alchemists, he was busy looking for the philosopher's stone - a mythical ingredient that turns any metal into gold. Newton became one of the leading alchemists in Europe. He did not do this in order to get rich - experiments became for him a means of comprehending God's secrets, solving the mysteries of God's creations. Alchemy was supposed to help him reveal the laws of the universe.
Newton believed that God gave people knowledge encrypted in ancient writings, temples, myths and alchemical literature. He believed that alchemy was able to reveal the secrets of the universe, which you just need to learn to decipher. He considered himself the chosen one, called to unravel the mysteries hidden in the Bible.
He researched the history of religion and unexpectedly came to the conclusion that the Catholic and Anglican churches were based on a distortion of biblical tenets. In the 1670s. Newton secretly became a heretic: he was convinced that the doctrine of the Trinity was blasphemy, as it denied one God, and that the monks perverted the true essence of Christianity. If this had been learned at Cambridge, his scientific career would have come to an end. In addition, in those days for such heretical views, they could have been imprisoned.
Newton diligently studied the biblical texts, he had 30 Bibles in different languages of the world. In his opinion, God foresaw that Catholics would pervert pure Christianity, and left true knowledge in the biblical texts. Newton tried to find encrypted descriptions of the past and the future in them, and, based on his own calculations, tried to uncover the secret of the end of the world.
Newton theologian
Newton went down in the history of science and culture mainly as the founder of classical physical knowledge, but his contemporaries also highly appreciated his theological works. Thus, the famous English philosopher Locke wrote in 1703 to his nephew King: “Newton is a truly remarkable scientist, and not only because of his amazing achievements in mathematics, but also in theology and thanks to his great knowledge in the Holy Scriptures, in which few can compare with him.
In wide circles, Newton's fame as a theologian was very great, and the seemingly strange combination of a mathematician and a theologian was the norm for the scientific hierarchy of the 17th century, especially in England, where broad knowledge in natural and theological sciences could be of great help in a political career. Protestantism and Newton's Arianism were one of the forms of struggle against the Catholic Stuarts, with the Tory party. The same political roots can be traced in almost all of Newton's historical and theological works.
In the last fragment of the fundamental work "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" Newton directly writes: "Discourse about God on the basis of occurring phenomena, of course, refers to the subject of natural philosophy." The planets and their satellites, once set in motion by a mysterious "first impulse", continued to circle along the ellipses they had outlined for ever and ever, or at least until the end of all things. Newton's "initial conditions" subsequently formed the basis of later arguments in favor of the existence of God. Thus, the proof from pre-established harmony, proposed by Leibniz, not only gives the divine principle the status of the root cause of all things, but also offers reasonable justifications for the age-old philosophical paradox that the good is logically connected with some evil:"As all clocks show the same time without any causal interaction, there must be a single external Cause that regulates all of them."
Newton - financier
Gradually, the news of the versatile English genius spread throughout Europe. In 1698, the Russian Tsar Peter I, having arrived in London as part of his Grand Embassy, was most eager to meet with Isaac Newton.
Newton respectfully agreed to such a date and even considered the inventive and practical Russian tsar a much more knowledgeable interlocutor than the monarch of his own country. In the same year, Newton received the post of Governor of the Mint - in this post he remained until his death. Controlling public finances was undoubtedly a lucrative business, and therefore Newton became a very wealthy person, which allowed him to fully focus on scientific research, even at the expense of an academic university career. But the path of the head of the researcher was by no means alien: in 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Scientific Society, which was then not in the best position, being on the verge of bankruptcy. Before Newton, this post was traditionally held by aristocrats,who perceived their position more as a sinecure, and therefore did not care much about the fate of the enterprise. Newton decided to completely change this attitude: over the years of his leadership of the Society, he attended almost all of its meetings and even chaired them, summing up the discussions from a special chairman's chair installed at the head of the table. Only after he, having expressed his weighty arguments, sat back down, did the lackey serving at the meetings place the official staff of the Society on the table. In this way, a special ritual was observed, which was essentially identified with the royal court with its own, enlightened monarch.summing up the discussions from the special chair at the head of the table. Only after he, having expressed his weighty arguments, sat back down, did the lackey serving at the meetings place the official staff of the Society on the table. In this way, a special ritual was observed, which was essentially identified with the royal court with its own, enlightened monarch.summing up the discussions from the special chair at the head of the table. Only after he, having expressed his weighty arguments, sat back down, did the lackey serving at the meetings place the official staff of the Society on the table. In this way, a special ritual was observed, which was essentially identified with the royal court with its own, enlightened monarch.
Newton - mystic and esoteric
Happened by a very religious person (though not quite in the traditional sense of the word), Newton did not remain indifferent to esotericism and alchemy. For example, he befriends the French exiled Protestant Jean Desagulier, one of the key figures in European Freemasonry. Esoteric traditions were partly borrowed by Freemasonry from the medieval guild brotherhoods of builders-masons, and partly originated from the medieval orders of knighthood. It is not known for certain whether Newton was a Freemason, but undoubtedly his membership in the educational society "Spalding gentleman's society", which held informal meetings and discussions about ancient antiquities over a cup of coffee. In addition, Newton is known to have shared the classic alchemical allegory of Jason's journey for the Golden Fleece.
The American historian of science C. Webster notes that the presence in Newton's library of the books of the famous alchemist Paracelsus and his students testifies that Newton was familiar with the cornerstones of traditional occult sciences. Scientists estimate that the volume of alchemical works that passed through the hands of Newton exceeded 5,000 pages. In addition, Newton maintained contact with the alchemists and magicians of the time and was even a member of the secret alchemical society, where he was known under the pseudonym Iegova Sanctus (One Holy Jehovah) - an anagram of his own Latin name Isaacus Neutonus. At the same time, the sphere of the main scientific interests of Newton the alchemist was the search for a supposed universal solvent - menstruum, having studied the nature of which Newton hoped to comprehend the secret of transmutation of elements and penetrate into the inner innermost structures of matter. It is worth noting that, being a man of a turning era, when the medieval geocentric worldview was replaced by scientific thinking and the consciousness of modern times, Newton therefore turned one side of his activity into the past - to the problems of theology, magic and traditional science, and the other to the future, which broke with scholasticism. the tradition of medieval scientific schools.
Isaac Newton discovered the secret of his double life only at 84, on his deathbed. He told his friends about his heretical views and refused the last confession. After his death, 169 books on alchemy were found in the library. His archives remained unknown for a long time, only in 1936 they were sold at auction. They were acquired by John Maynard Keynes and, after deciphering them, published the article "Another Newton", which made a splash, revealing the truth about the scientist as an alchemist, mystic and theologian.