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FLUDD, or FLUD, ROBERT [ROBERTUS DE F...

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Originally appearing in Volume V10, Page 574 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FLUDD, or FLUD, See also:ROBERT [ROBERTUS DE FLUCTIBUS] (1574-1637)  , See also:English physician and mystical philosopher, the son of See also:Sir See also:Thomas See also:Fludd, treasurer of See also:war to See also:Queen See also:Elizabeth in See also:France and the See also:Low Countries, was See also:born at Milgate, See also:Kent . After studying at St See also:John's See also:College, See also:Oxford, he travelled in See also:Europe for six years, and became acquainted with the writings of See also:Paracelsus . He subsequently returned to Oxford, became a member of See also:Christ See also:Church, took his medical degrees, and ultimately became a See also:fellow of the College of Physicians . He practised in See also:London with success, though it is said that he combined with purely medical treatment a See also:good See also:deal of faith-healing . Following Paracelsus, he endeavoured to See also:form a See also:system of See also:philosophy founded on the identity of See also:physical and spiritual truth . The universe and all created things proceed from See also:God, who is the beginning, the end and the sum of all things, and to him they will return . The See also:act of creation is the separation of the active principle (See also:light) from the passive (darkness) in the bosom of the divine unity (God) . The universe consists of three worlds; the archetypal (God), the macrocosm (the See also:world), the See also:microcosm (See also:man) . Man is the world in See also:miniature, all the parts of both sympathetically correspond and act upon each other . It is possible for man (and even for the See also:mineral and the plant) to undergo transformation and to win See also:immortality . Fludd's system may be described as a materialistic See also:pantheism, which, allegorically interpreted, he put forward as containing the real meaning of See also:Christianity, revealed to See also:Adam by God himself, handed down by tradition to See also:Moses and the patriarchs, and revealed a second See also:time by Christ . The opinions of Fludd had the See also:honour of being refuted by See also:Kepler, Gassendi and See also:Mersenne .

Though rapt in mystical See also:

speculation, Fludd was a man of varied attainments, He did not disdain scientific experiments, and isthought by some to be the See also:original inventor of the See also:barometer . He was an ardent defender of the Rosicrucians, and De Quincey considers him to have been the immediate, as J . V . See also:Andrea was the remote, See also:father of See also:freemasonry . Fludd died on the 8th of See also:September 1637 . See J . B . See also:Craven, See also:Robert Fludd, the English Rosicrucian (1902), where a See also:list of his See also:works is given; A . E . See also:Waite, The Real See also:History of the Rosicrucians (1887) ; De Quincey, The Rosicrucians and See also:Free-masons; J . See also:Hunt, Religious Thought in See also:England (1870), i . 240 seq .

His works were published in 6 vols., See also:

Oppenheim and See also:Gouda, 1638 .

End of Article: FLUDD, or FLUD, ROBERT [ROBERTUS DE FLUCTIBUS] (1574-1637)
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GUSTAV LEBERECHT FLUGEL (1802-1870)

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