ABSTRACT
The Introduction serves to present the central scope of the book. In the footsteps of the pathbreaking work of Frances Yates on the connections between modern science and alchemy, it will consider alchemy as not an obsolete, purposeless undertaking that has been discredited by modern science, rather as the very ground out of which modern technologised science grew. Yates’ work is complemented by those of Heidegger, Mumford, Foucault and Gell on technology, which emphasise the connection between the transformative concerns of technology and magic – where the book will place the emphasis on necromancy, or the use of destruction and dead matter for productive purposes – and also argue that the deployment of technology is always primarily oriented towards humans, so the technologisation of man always precedes the technologisation of things. Consequently, in its reading, modern political science, in the sense of attempting to use the methods of science for the efficient governing of people, is a kind of political technology. It will discuss the methodology followed in the book, which will primarily use genealogy and political anthropology, but also classical philosophy, archaeology and mythology; and also introduces the most important word of the book, charis.
