The Golden Fleece and Alchemy

by Antoine Faivre

This book traces the Golden Fleece myth from late paganism through medieval and Renaissance alchemical and masonic interpretations. We follow the changing fashions in the history of initiation as well as in mythology. Faivre connects politics, chivalry, the age of exploration, Renaissance architecture and iconography, the hermeneutics of eighteenth century Germany and France, and modern practitioners of alchemy.

This book will be welcomed by modern practitioners of alchemy and the occult as well as by scholars of esotericism.

Genres: History

140 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

Antoine 'Tony' Faivre was Professor of Germanic studies at the University of Haute-Normandie, director of the Cahiers del Hermétisme and of Bibliothèque de l'hermétisme, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Chair of the History of Esoteric Currents in Modern and Contemporary Europe at École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, and served as editor of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism along with Wouter J. Hanegraaff. He was awarded the Ordre National du Mérite in 2009.

Faivre was the first to define "Western esotericism" as a legitimate field of interdisciplinary academic study and is held to be one of the foremost scholars in the field he pioneered.

Reviews

[NewFrontier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard read, but masterfully put together.