Fludd, Robert

FLUDD, ROBERT. - English physician and philosopher, b. at Milgate House (Kent) in 1574, d. in London on 8 Sept. 1637. He was a member of the Rosicrucian sect.

Under the influence of Nicholas of Cusa and Paracelsus he adhered to a pantheistic conception, into which theosophy, occultism and the natural sciences of the time flowed together. God, in whom contradictions coincide, is the "complicatio" of the universe and the world the "explicatio" of God.
God is wisdom and light and, as such, explicating himself in the world, is the source and cause of all positive values (heat, love, good, beautiful, repulsive force that expands). But, on the other hand, God is at the same time hidden, wrapped in darkness, and, as such, is the cause of every negative value (cold, hatred, evil, deformed, attractive force that contracts). The world therefore, the "explicatio" of God, is composed of light and darkness, of heat and cold, etc. These oppositions are also found in the human microcosm in which the macrocosm rises to consciousness of itself.