The Greater and Lesser Worlds of Robert Fludd

Joscelyn Godwin is a musicologist and historian of ideas who taught at Colgate University for 45 years and is the author of a number of authoritative books on esotericism, including Harmonies of Heaven and Earth. Here he provides a magnificent and surely definitive illustrated volume on the work of Dr Robert Fludd (1574-1637). He describes him not only as a physician but also a Christian hermeticist, Rosicrucian, alchemist, astrologer, musician and inventor, giving a broad outline of his life and work in the first chapter. Subtitled 'Macrocosm, Microcosm and Medicine', the work moves through Fludd's encyclopaedic works on these topics and also includes sections on divination, Kabbalah, meteorology and the relationship between multiple levels of existence. The illustrations are quite extraordinary in their elaborate detail and give a visual representation of Fludd's world and understanding, with expert commentary by the author. There are illustrations on optics and perspective, how to draw the eye and cross the river underwater with a breathing tube; also an extraordinary musical water clock. The diagrams and drawings of man as microcosm also explain our levels of understanding from the senses to intelligence accessing the divine. On page 143 there is an extraordinary depiction of the levels of sense, reason, intellect and nous (mens) with corresponding sensible, imaginal and intellectual/spiritual worlds and on page 149 the 'ladder of ascent' through these levels and culminating in the Word or Logos. As a musician, Fludd also depicts the world as a great monochord (pp. 196-7). As such, this remarkable study gives the reader not only verbal but also visual access to the mind of a genius in his era.