The first recorded Christmas card was sent by the alchemist Michael Maier to James I of England and his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1611. This discovery was made by our very own Adam McLean at the Scottish Record Office in 1979. The card did not include the now traditional imagery but a simple greeting with the words laid out to form a rose:



“A greeting on the birthday of the Sacred King, to the most worshipful and energetic lord and most eminent James, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Defender of the true faith, with a gesture of joyful celebration of the Birthday of the Lord, in most joy and fortune, we enter into the new auspicious year 1612”





A very happy alchemical Christmas (or whatever) to you all and have a great 2024!




   

Harry Everett Smith, who was born in 1923 and died in 1991, was a lot of things. Wikipedia describes him first as a polymath, then as an ‘artist, experimental filmmaker, bohemian, mystic, record collector, hoarder, student of anthropology and a Neo-Gnostic bishop’. The title of an unbridled oral history that Semiotext(e) published in 1996, meanwhile, rolls all his roles into the phrase American Magus. Does any of that help to articulate what Smith was? Perhaps not, but there is the promise of a clearer reflection in New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art’s upcoming retrospective exploration of Smith’s many-sided activity, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith.


In New York, where Smith lived from the 1950s onwards, he met Ginsberg (who became a longstanding supporter); began studying mysticism in earnest, particularly Kabbalah and the works of Aleister Crowley; and alongside other pursuits (meticulous scratchboard illustrations and drawings; amassing a vast collection of found paper airplanes) made increasingly ambitious and intricate films. Some of these, like the black-and-white animation using cutouts from Victorian catalogues to depict a series of alchemical transformations, Film No. 12: Heaven and Earth Magic (1957–62), were supposedly meant to run for six hours (the existing cut only lasts for one).

From:
https://artreview.com/what-to-make-of-harry-smith/


Exhibition announced here:
https://whitney.org/exhibitions/harry-smith


Film no. 12 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbjSSyAo9WA

"I just finished reading and watching a few different versions of the Beauty and the Beast tale and could not help but see some alchemical imagery and meaning in the tales."

http://www.themiddlepage.net/2013/02/alc...ry-in.html

"To whistle is not a natural act, but it is a universal phenomenon in human societies. In ancient China, whistling was especially significant because of its
magical and religious functions."


https://commons.ln.edu.hk/cgi/viewconten...=ljcs_1999

Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Letters on the Royal Art: The Spiritual Alchemy of JB Kerning’s Esoteric Masonry [Amazon, Publisher] by Johann Baptist Kerning, editor Ian H Gladwin, introduction Samuel Robinson.


https://library.hrmtc.com/2023/12/18/let...royal-art/

An ALCS panel discussion on the implications of AI for authors, featuring Tom Chatfield (author, tech philosopher and ALCS Chair), Mhairi Aitken (Ethics Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute), Nicola Solomon (CEO at Society of Authors) and Sathnam Sanghera (author and journalist). Filmed at the RSA in London, November 2023.

https://youtu.be/966fMxK6OMA?feature=shared

12-year-old Harrogate girl publishes first book after being inspired by her teachers.

Sula Stanhope is just like any other Year eight student. But inspired by her teachers at Oatlands Junior School and Harrogate Grammar School to a love of English, she has written and published a book.

https://www.harrogateadvertiser.co.uk/ne...rs-4446136

"Despite attending Trinity College in Cambridge, he was not formally educated until he was in his early twenties. As a result, his passion for learning and apprenticeship resulted in a unique path that would lead to intellectual immortality."


https://www.leicestershirevillages.com/u...ac-newton/

Robert Fludd was an English physician, alchemist, and mystical philosopher known for his diverse contributions to fields such as medicine, natural philosophy, and the esoteric arts.

Although not a direct founder of the Rosicrucian Order, Fludd's writings often featured Rosicrucian themes, reflecting a synthesis of spiritual and scientific ideas.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zdk0QEQb4o

"One of the greatest mysteries of the last century, centering on the time in Europe following The Great War, most especially French alchemist Fulcanelli's “The Mystery of the Cathedrals” & other works inspired by “him”. Originally broadcast October 30, 2001."

On BitChute:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/HMHHHgVxDqnj/