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Athanasius Kircher

1602–1680 · Germany / Rome (Jesuit)
Athanasius Kircher

Description

Athanasius Kircher was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts". He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities that would become the Kircherian Museum. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades.

Facts

Born2 May 1601/1602, Geisa, Princely Abbey of Fulda
Died27 November 1680 (aged 78 or 79), Rome, Papal States
InstitutionsUniversity of WürzburgUniversity of AvignonPontifical Gregorian University

Life & work in brief

Summarised by section — one row per topic, for fast reading.

Work / contributionSignificance
LifeKircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not know) in Geisa, Buchonia, near Fulda (Hessen, Germany).
WorksKircher published many substantial books on a wide variety of subjects such as Egyptology, geology, and music theory.
LegacyFor most of his professional life, Kircher was one of the scientific stars of his world: according to historian Paula Findlen, he "had a global reputation that was virtually unsurpassed by any early modern author".
In popular cultureKircher's life and research are central to the plot of James Rollin's 2015 novel The Bone Labyrinth.
BibliographyKircher's principal works, in chronological order, are:

Contribution to the celestial-alphabet tradition

Jesuit polymath of the Roman College whose Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–55) sought to decode the hieroglyphs as a divinely-given stellar-kabbalistic symbolic language — the Baroque synthesis of Egyptology, Hermeticism, Kabbalah and astral magic. His 'hieroglyphs as celestial alphabet' is the learned early-modular form of this project's thesis.

In the Luco Library
Oedipus Aegyptiacus
Athanasius Kircher

The planetary kameot — the apparatus they worked with

The 7 magic squares ↔ 7 doubles ↔ 7 planets (Sefer Yetzirah §4). Each square's order n gives a distinct sigil modulus; the constant is M = n(n²+1)/2. Saturn 3×3 = the Lo Shu (M=15), the basis of the Aiq-Bekar sigil method. Caveat (§6.3 / §15b.3): the sigil-over-kamea method is Renaissance (Agrippa, 1531), not medieval Jewish.

♄ Saturn3×3
8
1
6
3
5
7
4
9
2
double ב · M=15
♃ Jupiter4×4
16
2
3
13
5
11
10
8
9
7
6
12
4
14
15
1
double ג · M=34
♂ Mars5×5
17
24
1
8
15
23
5
7
14
16
4
6
13
20
22
10
12
19
21
3
11
18
25
2
9
double ד · M=65
☉ Sun6×6
35
1
6
26
19
24
3
32
7
21
23
25
31
9
2
22
27
20
8
28
33
17
10
15
30
5
34
12
14
16
4
36
29
13
18
11
double כ · M=111
♀ Venus7×7
30
39
48
1
10
19
28
38
47
7
9
18
27
29
46
6
8
17
26
35
37
5
14
16
25
34
36
45
13
15
24
33
42
44
4
21
23
32
41
43
3
12
22
31
40
49
2
11
20
double פ · M=175
☿ Mercury8×8
64
2
3
61
60
6
7
57
9
55
54
12
13
51
50
16
17
47
46
20
21
43
42
24
40
26
27
37
36
30
31
33
32
34
35
29
28
38
39
25
41
23
22
44
45
19
18
48
49
15
14
52
53
11
10
56
8
58
59
5
4
62
63
1
double ר · M=260
☽ Moon9×9
47
58
69
80
1
12
23
34
45
57
68
79
9
11
22
33
44
46
67
78
8
10
21
32
43
54
56
77
7
18
20
31
42
53
55
66
6
17
19
30
41
52
63
65
76
16
27
29
40
51
62
64
75
5
26
28
39
50
61
72
74
4
15
36
38
49
60
71
73
3
14
25
37
48
59
70
81
2
13
24
35
double ת · M=369

Lineage — influence tree

Where Athanasius Kircher sits in the magi lineage: who shaped this figure, and who this figure shaped in turn. Mage names link to their own ficha.

this mage
Athanasius Kircher
Influenced