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Mysteries of the Unknown
Secrets of the Alchemists
Contents:
Gold
Chasing the Seductive Gleam
A Visit to the Laboratory
Alchemy's Golden Age
Alchemical Wisdom from a Wordless Book
Into the Scientific Era
The Great Work in the Orient
The Alchemists of Today
Gold
Chasing the Seductive Gleam
A Visit to the Laboratory
Alchemy's Golden Age
Alchemical Wisdom from a Wordless Book
Into the Scientific Era
The Great Work in the Orient
The Alchemists of Today
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 3, 2024
…since humans first beheld the metal’s entrancing shimmer and associated it with the life-giving sun, gold has been treasured far beyond its value as the medium of wealth and power. It is the metal of gods, fashioned by virtually all cultures into their most revered objects… manifest[ing] enlightenment, purity, and immortality. To the alchemists, who sought to create gold from baser matter, their highest aim was not mere riches, but divinity itself.
Hermes Trismegistus
"Just as all things proceed from One alone, by meditation on One alone, so also they are born from this one thing by adaptation." Another passage exhorted the alchemist to "separate the earth from the fire and the subtle from the gross, softly and with great prudence." …
"What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that below." This dictum goes to the heart of several ancient philosophies and has surfaced in many forms of magic worldwide. It teaches that every aspect of the physical world in some way reflects a more fundamental reality in the world of spirit.
The metals themselves, most scholars thought, were naturally fashioned in the earth's interior furnace by an essentially alchemical process that acted on the prima materia. Furthermore, since all things in nature were charged with the divine spirit and therefore aspired to a higher, more perfect state, metals, too, gradually perfected themselves in the earth's womb. Thus even lead, through a natural process of transmutation, would eventually turn into silver or gold. The alchemist's task, therefore, was to speed up nature's work by performing the transmutation in the laboratory. Such artificial transmutation seemed entirely reasonable to Renaissance thinkers. The problem was how to go about it.
One vital part of the answer was the mysterious agent known as the philosophers' stone, described by the fourth-century alchemist Zosimus as a "stone which is not a stone." This substance, which carried literally hundreds of other names- such as the "powder of projection," the "vir-gin's milk," and the "shade of the sun" —was credited with miraculous powers. Not only could it.help transmute base metals into gold, it reputedly could soften glass, render its owner invisible at will, or give an alchemist the ability to levitate. A few people believed that the stone would enable them to converse with angels or even to understand the language of animals.
Closely related to the stone, and often synonymous with it, was the elixir of life, whose specific attribute was the power to cure disease and stave off death. It was this aspect of the stone that gradually came to command more attention among alchemists and laymen alike during the sixteenth century, as the practice of medicine inched toward a more scientific approach.
Hermes Trismegistus
"Just as all things proceed from One alone, by meditation on One alone, so also they are born from this one thing by adaptation." Another passage exhorted the alchemist to "separate the earth from the fire and the subtle from the gross, softly and with great prudence." …
"What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that below." This dictum goes to the heart of several ancient philosophies and has surfaced in many forms of magic worldwide. It teaches that every aspect of the physical world in some way reflects a more fundamental reality in the world of spirit.
The metals themselves, most scholars thought, were naturally fashioned in the earth's interior furnace by an essentially alchemical process that acted on the prima materia. Furthermore, since all things in nature were charged with the divine spirit and therefore aspired to a higher, more perfect state, metals, too, gradually perfected themselves in the earth's womb. Thus even lead, through a natural process of transmutation, would eventually turn into silver or gold. The alchemist's task, therefore, was to speed up nature's work by performing the transmutation in the laboratory. Such artificial transmutation seemed entirely reasonable to Renaissance thinkers. The problem was how to go about it.
One vital part of the answer was the mysterious agent known as the philosophers' stone, described by the fourth-century alchemist Zosimus as a "stone which is not a stone." This substance, which carried literally hundreds of other names- such as the "powder of projection," the "vir-gin's milk," and the "shade of the sun" —was credited with miraculous powers. Not only could it.help transmute base metals into gold, it reputedly could soften glass, render its owner invisible at will, or give an alchemist the ability to levitate. A few people believed that the stone would enable them to converse with angels or even to understand the language of animals.
Closely related to the stone, and often synonymous with it, was the elixir of life, whose specific attribute was the power to cure disease and stave off death. It was this aspect of the stone that gradually came to command more attention among alchemists and laymen alike during the sixteenth century, as the practice of medicine inched toward a more scientific approach.
September 14, 2017
This book takes readers into a variety of areas and through time, because the search and the mystery of alchemy goes back for years. Time Life always adds their won special quality to the books and makes all of them treasures to own.
July 4, 2022
Despite somewhat cheap looks, this aesthecally pleasing book contains a lot of very interesting info and is highly recommended to new and old scholars of the topic.
September 27, 2020
Found this book in a Little Free Library in Northfield, VT. Was an interesting read about the history of Alchemy and the general culture around it. I loved seeing that this was published the year I was born (1990!)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews