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Author Topic: Books on Alchemy?  (Read 6801 times)

HarpingHawke

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Books on Alchemy?
« on: June 22, 2016, 07:47:42 pm »
I've recently dipped my toes into alchemy, and while the internet seems to be a good resource so far, I'd like to see if I can find some good books as well. As I am completely new to this, I'm not sure who's a reliable author or not.

Any suggestions as far as books or blogs are concerned?

Thanks! :)
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RecycledBenedict

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2016, 08:20:42 pm »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;192930
I've recently dipped my toes into alchemy, and while the internet seems to be a good resource so far, I'd like to see if I can find some good books as well. As I am completely new to this, I'm not sure who's a reliable author or not.

Any suggestions as far as books or blogs are concerned?

Thanks! :)

Although somewhat dated, E.J. Holmyard: Alchemy is still the best introduction to the strictly historical aspects of the subject.

I have found Lyndy Abraham: A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery (Cambridge University Press) very useful.

A rich collection of source-works as well and historical research and more speculative uses of the sources is found on Adam MacLean's amazing Alchemy Webpage:

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/adam.html

Old alchemy gradually became defunct between 1661 (when Boyle published The Sceptical Chymist) and the 1790s (when the fraternal Order of the Golden Rosy Cross was deorganised).

The revival of alchemy, now as an interior practice (something not without precedence in the past), happened due to two books: Mary Anne Atwood's A Suggestive Inquiry into Hermetic Mystery (1850) and Ethan Allen Hitchcock's Remarks upon Alchemy and Alchemists (1857).

Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens is an alchemical classic, but a guidebook make the study much easier. If you can afford it (or find it in a decent library nearby) H.M.E. de Jong's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources to an Alchemical Book of Emblems is highly recommended.

Although his political views, among other things, keep many readers away from his thought, Julius Evola's The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols and Teachings of the Royal Art is surprisingly good.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2016, 08:22:36 pm by RecycledBenedict »

HarpingHawke

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2016, 08:55:30 pm »
Quote from: FraterBenedict;192935


 
Fantastic! Thank you so much! I'll be looking at my local library's collection tomorrow, so I finally have a starting point for things to check out!

I do have one question: a book my library is sure to have is "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy." As with many 101 books, I'm not sure how reliable it is; have you heard of it before? If so, do you have an opinion on it?
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RecycledBenedict

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2016, 04:46:02 am »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;192941
Fantastic! Thank you so much! I'll be looking at my local library's collection tomorrow, so I finally have a starting point for things to check out!

I do have one question: a book my library is sure to have is "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy." As with many 101 books, I'm not sure how reliable it is; have you heard of it before? If so, do you have an opinion on it?


I am aware of the existence of the  Complete Idiot's Guide and ... for Dummies book series, but I can not testify for the particular quality of any books in these two book series.

I have heard, that Christopher Hodapp's Freemasons for Dummies is a quite good description of freemasonry in the English-speaking world (perhaps a less good introduction to freemasonry in France, Germany and Northern Europe), but since the subject now is alchemy, not freemasonry, I can not help you.

Wimsaur

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2016, 03:47:30 pm »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;192930
I've recently dipped my toes into alchemy, and while the internet seems to be a good resource so far, I'd like to see if I can find some good books as well. As I am completely new to this, I'm not sure who's a reliable author or not.

Any suggestions as far as books or blogs are concerned?

Thanks! :)
First, above all other books, I recommend:

Kybalion by Three Initiates.
This book provides the basis for all hermetic and alchemical philosophy that is necessary to understand before the metaphors and secrets can be understood from other texts.

Then,
The Emerald Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus.
This is the original alchemical text that comprises the entire recipe for making the philosopher's stone. It is only one page long but speaks volumes.

Divine Pymander (or Poemander) by Hermes Trismegistus.
This book provides a dialog between Hermes and his son communicating alchemical mysteries.

All three of these books are public domain so can be downloaded for free.

-Wimsaur.

Lumpino

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #5 on: August 08, 2016, 11:40:50 pm »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;192930
I've recently dipped my toes into alchemy, and while the internet seems to be a good resource so far, I'd like to see if I can find some good books as well. As I am completely new to this, I'm not sure who's a reliable author or not.

Any suggestions as far as books or blogs are concerned?

Thanks! :)


I think, the best about alchemy are eastern books. In western countries was alchemy a secret path due merciful Christians. Alchemists did not want to be  burned at the stake  of the Inquisition. :(
I recomend The secret of the golden flower, translantion by Richard Willhelm.
And for comparison from western books the Book of Lambspring.

HarpingHawke

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #6 on: August 09, 2016, 01:08:51 am »
Quote from: Wimsaur;193273
First, above all other books, I recommend:

Kybalion by Three Initiates.
This book provides the basis for all hermetic and alchemical philosophy that is necessary to understand before the metaphors and secrets can be understood from other texts.

Then,
The Emerald Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus.
This is the original alchemical text that comprises the entire recipe for making the philosopher's stone. It is only one page long but speaks volumes.

Divine Pymander (or Poemander) by Hermes Trismegistus.
This book provides a dialog between Hermes and his son communicating alchemical mysteries.

All three of these books are public domain so can be downloaded for free.

-Wimsaur.

 
Thanks so much! I will definitely be checking these out!
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HarpingHawke

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #7 on: August 09, 2016, 08:07:51 pm »
Quote from: Lumpino;194823
I think, the best about alchemy are eastern books. In western countries was alchemy a secret path due merciful Christians. Alchemists did not want to be  burned at the stake  of the Inquisition. :(
I recomend The secret of the golden flower, translantion by Richard Willhelm.
And for comparison from western books the Book of Lambspring.

 
That's really interesting; I've never heard the history of alchemy told like that before. Where did you learn that? I'd love to check out your source, if it's not too much trouble!
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MadZealot

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #8 on: August 10, 2016, 07:07:10 pm »
Quote from: FraterBenedict;192955


I have heard, that Christopher Hodapp's Freemasons for Dummies is a quite good description of freemasonry in the English-speaking world (perhaps a less good introduction to freemasonry in France, Germany and Northern Europe), but since the subject now is alchemy, not freemasonry, I can not help you.

 
It is, and Hodapp's a pretty neat guy.  And, yep, his book focuses on the more mainstream iterations of the Craft, US Masonry in particular.  European versions use more alchemical and elemental symbolism than we do in the States, generally speaking.
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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #9 on: August 10, 2016, 07:08:25 pm »
Quote from: HarpingHawke;194828
Thanks so much! I will definitely be checking these out!

 
Kybalion and Emerald Tablet are required reading.  :)
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HarpingHawke

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #10 on: August 11, 2016, 12:55:59 am »
Quote from: MadZealot;194873
Kybalion and Emerald Tablet are required reading.  :)

 
XD yep!
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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #11 on: August 11, 2016, 01:42:31 am »
Quote from: Lumpino;194823
I think, the best about alchemy are eastern books. In western countries was alchemy a secret path due merciful Christians. Alchemists did not want to be  burned at the stake  of the Inquisition. :(
I recomend The secret of the golden flower, translantion by Richard Willhelm.

 
I'll second the rec for Secret of the Golden Flower if you're interested in Chinese or Taoist alchemy at all (though I'm not quite sure what Lumpino is getting at there with the history either). You can find some more about Chinese alchemy here on the Wayback Machine, and the Willhelm translation is old enough to be on Sacret Texts, though Thomas Cleary did one that's a bit more readable due to, you know, being by Thomas Cleary.
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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #12 on: August 11, 2016, 03:44:35 am »
Quote from: Lumpino;194823
I think, the best about alchemy are eastern books. In western countries was alchemy a secret path due merciful Christians. Alchemists did not want to be  burned at the stake  of the Inquisition. :(

 
It seems to me that it's a misleading oversimplification to speak of alchemy as 'eastern, or western', since China and India each had their own distinct traditions of alchemy, and the western tradition also includes the (often classed as 'eastern' in other contexts, and indeed, when you speak of 'in western countries', you're either classing it as eastern or ignoring it altogether yourself) Arabic strand.

Similarly, the claim that alchemy was a secret path in Christendom is a vast oversimplification. While the papal decretal Spondent Pariter may have been a factor in some alchemists choosing to publish under pseudonyms, many alchemists did not do so; the decretal was a ban on fraudulent alchemy rather than on alchemy per se. (OTOH, fraudulent alchemy was, it seems, a significant problem, and many medieval European alchemical texts derive, to greater or lesser extent, from pseudo-alchemy.)

Nor was the decretal part of the Inquisition (which dealt specifically with heresy), nor did it authorize capital punishment (by burning at the stake or in any other form) for pseudo-alchemists; the punishments it authorized ranged from fines to, at worst and only for clerics, lifetime loss of all their clerical benefices.

That said, there may well be details about the relationship between alchemy on one hand and the Inquisitions and other ecclesiastic prohibitions on the other, of which I'm unaware (I made considerable use of Wikipedia's article on alchemy, especially these two sections, in composing this post); if you have specific, preferably scholarly, sources that support your claims more strongly than what I found, Lumpino, I'd be very interested in reading them.

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RecycledBenedict

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #13 on: August 12, 2016, 09:40:46 am »
Quote from: MadZealot;194872
It is, and Hodapp's a pretty neat guy.  And, yep, his book focuses on the more mainstream iterations of the Craft (...)


Anglophone mainstream, that is. In Scandinavia and Iceland the Swedish Rite is the mainstream, and in Germany it is a part of the mainstream, at least among grand lodges recognised by UGLE.

Germany is admittedly very complicated, with five separate grand lodges under the umbrella of VGLvD: One working the Swedish Rite, one using Craft degrees vaguely related to the defunct Strict Observance Rite, one using the Schröder Working and the Fessler Working and two using workings familiar to the Americans and the British.

RecycledBenedict

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Re: Books on Alchemy?
« Reply #14 on: August 12, 2016, 10:18:48 am »
Quote from: Wimsaur;193273
Kybalion by Three Initiates.
This book provides the basis for all hermetic and alchemical philosophy that is necessary to understand before the metaphors and secrets can be understood from other texts.

Then,
The Emerald Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus.
This is the original alchemical text that comprises the entire recipe for making the philosopher's stone. It is only one page long but speaks volumes.

Divine Pymander (or Poemander) by Hermes Trismegistus.
This book provides a dialog between Hermes and his son communicating alchemical mysteries.


I agree with you, Wimsaur, that these books are important for several different reasons, but I do not agree about some of your historical claims.

Kybalion does not

Quote
provide the basis for all hermetic and alchemical philosophy


but it is a very good representative of the stage of development Western Occultism - as influenced by New Thought - found itself at the beginning of the 20th century. Besides Kybalion, William Walker Atkinson also wrote several other books about his particular type of Occultism.

The Emerald Tablet is not
Quote
the original alchemical text

(The works by Zosimus of Panopolis are the original alchemical texts)
but the Emerald Tablet is probably the most important alchemical works from the Arabic phase of the development of alchemy, and it might be influenced by Chinese alchemy, as described here:

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/emerald.html

The Divine Pymander is the first treatise in the Corpus Hermeticum, that consists of eighteen treatises. If anyone want to read an up-to-date English translation of the entire Corpus Hermeticum, not just the first part out of eighteen, Brian Copenhaver has translated the entire Corpus + Asclepius in his book Hermetica (1992).

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