I only recently became aware of how deeply involved the classical hermetic tradition
is to modern science (the Royal Society was founded on a rosicrucian background) and
psychedelic research in particular.
The impulses given by a John Dee, Giordano Bruno, Robert Fludd or Michael Maier leaded
directly to the first masonic and rosicrucian lodges, to be modernized by Aleister Crowley,
Jack Parsons and others, who were in the forefront of psychedelic experimentation and
were the uppermost inspirations for Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson and others.
There is even some (conspiracy) theory that says, referring on some statements apparently
made by Al Hubbard and Willis Harman that the invention of LSD follows direclty a lineage
who goes back to Eleusis by Nietzsche, Steiner, Goethe, the whole band of Basel through
medieval magicians and alchemists.
Even, if this speculations is, lets say, a little bit freaked out, I like the idea
of an old order of spiritual psychedelism to safe the world.
Arthur Dee was one of the greatest alchemists of all time, not likely to his dad, I forgot his name, this small James Bond sorcerer working for the queen of a... Hail Arthur!