Banner graphic for She-philosopher.com: Studies in the history of science, technology & culture

THE PLAYERS > Athanasius Kircher


First Published:  March 2004
Revised (substantive):  7 July 2025

Composite illustration casting Athanasius Kircher as THE SCIENTIST AS MYSTAGOGUE OF NATURE. Portrait engraving of Kircher in 1664 (age 62) is juxtaposed with a Greek inscription ("Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All") from a 1669 engraved title-page, and with a graphic presentation of the quotation from Kestler’s 1675 _Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis_ describing Kircher as "the most miraculous mystagogue of Nature, the great magician."

 

pointer  CLICK/TAP here to advance to next page on
Athanasius Kircher in THE PLAYERS section
 
[ “Athanasius Kircher’s Magical Mechanism” ]

go to TOP of page

HOME | the PLAYERS | IN BRIEF | GALLERY | LIBRARY | STUDIES | REFERENCES | PREVIEWS | SUPPORT US

 

Quickly search the She-philosopher.com website:

(or click/tap here for Advanced Search options)

Search strategies & work-arounds for managing mojibake are available here.

Search tool powered by Open Source Software: KSearch.

Learned something of value here?

Invest in independent scholarship!

This website seeks modern-day patrons who share our vision of independent scholarship as a public good.

If you have used (copied, repeated, repurposed, referenced) — or been influenced by — or taken issue with — something you discovered here, I encourage you to join our movement to reinvent patronage for a democratic world. Please consider making a small donation to help build She-philosopher.com’s unique collection of trusted resources, to help me right the historical record, and to keep the provocative content coming.

Original archival scholarship — which is what’s published here — is a public good, but too much of it is sequestered behind paywalls because it is so costly and difficult to produce. Help She-philosopher.com buck this trend by making a small investment in the future of high-quality online scholarship.

Promote independent academic publishing without paywalls: please donate!

If you have questions or comments for us, e-mail: editor@she-philosopher.com.

Ornamental thistle (associated with the heraldic emblem of Scotland in the 17th century)

This Web page was last modified on:  07/07/2025 11:11 PM.

Copyright © 2004–2025 She-philosopher.com.

Creative Commons License button

This work
Athanasius Kircher - “the Scientist as mystagogue of Nature” | landing page for THE PLAYERS section
(plus ancillary content) by Deborah Taylor-Pearce is licensed under a Free Culture (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.  Creative Commons iconAttribution iconShareAlike icon