"In the Book of Ostanes or “Book of the twelve chapters of Ostanes the Wise on the science of the renowned Stone,” the Persian Magus is the protagonist of a visionary experience in which he will obtain the secrets of the alchemical practice."
"Budzar appropriates these alchemical illustrations and applies her child-like style to it, creating a series of playful images where a central, often feminine presenting figure, is interacting with the natural world around them. Their expressions range from neutral to positive, but never negative. They seem to either be floating in an imaginary space or have their feet firmly planted in the flat landscape around them. One piece, The Phenomenon of Light, showcases yet again another feminine figure with long red hair and moons covering their private parts. In their outstretched hands are grapes and what appears to be a round mirror, which can be read as gluttony and vanity respectively. From the figure’s left breast, stars shoot out. A dynamic natural landscape plays out behind them, with curving waves and winding rainbows., “The characterization of science and magick turning the wheel of the natural world is probably like one of the freakiest things you can make art about,” Budzar wrote."
"This website is devoted to helping individuals understand and apply the principles of alchemy. Alchemy’s most basic tenet is that there are two ways of knowing reality. Learning to work with both of them is how the journey of transformation begins."
"Back when I first began my Plath work, writing what would become Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath (2014, Stephen F. Austin State University Press), I didn’t know squat about alchemy. I am still, by no means, an expert, save for getting the basic principles down from reading some of the texts that Plath read. As I first got into this work, I couldn’t get away from the metals and chemicals! They were everywhere in Ariel: tin, arsenic, mercury, lead, silver and gold. And the elements of air, water, earth and fire were everywhere too. It could not be ignored."
"This is the fourth in a series of blogs that discuss diagrams in the arts and sciences. I recently completed my PhD on this subject at Kyoto city University of the Arts, Japan's oldest Art School... By the end of the middle ages in Europe, Western Alchemy had adopted the diagrammatic format as its medium of choice, and the early fifteenth century witnessed the rapid emergence of the alchemical diagram as a means of codifying, arranging and recording alchemical transmutations."
"The second series of Daniel Cramer Emblemata Sacra engravings. The introductory Coronor emblem immediately suggests that we are in a phase after Classical Alchemy. We are in theurgy."
