Myth in Alchemy: From Homer to the Chymical Gods: A Four-Week Live, Online Course with Alchemist Brian Cotnoir, Begins April 7.

Throughout the practice of western alchemy, myths, the stories of the gods and goddesses, were used to explain the forces at work in alchemical transmutation. It was thought that these stories cloaked deeper meanings that would, if understood properly, reveal the way forward in the work of perfecting matter and the soul.

Of interest are the sources of myth used by renaissance artists like Durer and alchemists like Maier in their depictions of the dieties. We will look at texts such as Boccaccio's Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Cartari's Images of the Pagan Gods, and the work that started the Emblem Books, The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo.

This will prepare us to better understand the 50 emblems in Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens a most remarkable alchemical text of image, music, and poetry in the service of alchemical transmutation.

This four-part course will examine the use of myth, its origins and development into a symbolic language of alchemy and will trace a few examples of myth and show how it is interpreted as not just a metaphor but as an actual physical process.


https://www.morbidanatomy.org/classes/p/...tnoir-2025

https://www.facebook.com/morbidanatomy/p...470791491/

"Alchemical Allures" is the first album by the duo Claussen/Klement, founded in 2019.

With a unique instrumentation of voice, objects, zither and electronics, the artists have created a soundscape composed of field recordings, vocal and instrumental elements as well as electronically generated sounds and noises.

All the tracks on this album were recorded during a residency at the Center National de Création Musicale GMEA in Albi-Tarn in July 2022.



https://claussenklement.bandcamp.com/alb...al-allures

By Pip Faulks (Philippa Lee)

"His Egyptian Rite is in fact a beautiful work of Hermetic and Masonic philosophy, an introduction to higher alchemical teachings, blending what he believed were the three most honourable and noble arts in the world."

https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/ar...agliostro/

"A fragile 13th century manuscript fragment, hidden in plain sight as the binding of a 16th-century archival register, has been discovered in Cambridge and revealed to contain rare medieval stories of Merlin and King Arthur."

https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/merlin-man...-cambridge
   


See also the similar find at Bristol in 2019:
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2019/janu...rlin-.html

"The follies of science at the court of Rudolph II: 1576-1612"

Henry Carrington Bolton (1843–1903) was an American chemist and bibliographer of science.

"Alchemy, after astrology, probably contributed more directly than any other of the six follies of science towards the advancement of the genuine science associated with it. The zealous searchers for the secrets of transmutation, stimulated by golden hopes, laboring with an industry and perseverance in difficulties worthy of imitation, acquired great skill in manipulation, becoming familiar with solution, crystallization, and sublimation, as a means of purifying solids, with distillation of liquids, and particularly with all operations involving the management of fire. By mixing all known chemicals in divers ways and treating these mixtures in every conceivable manner, though intelligent system was lacking, alchemists obtained hundreds of substances, many of which became indispensable agents in medicine, pharmacy, manufactures and household economy."

Free download:

https://dfg-viewer.de/show/?set%5Bmets%5...%3D1720816

or

https://archive.org/details/folliesscien...6/mode/2up

By Percy Ross.

The book is about Denis Zachaire:

Born in 1510 to a noble and ancient family of Guienne, Zachaire was sent to school at a young age in Bordeaux under the care of a tutor hired by the family. The tutor was obsessed with alchemy and the Magnum Opus, and Zachaire quickly found himself caught up in the hysteria, pouring vast amounts of his parents' money into the mystic crucible. Laboring tirelessly in smoke-filled chambers, Zachaire and his tutor spent over 200 crowns and his parents reduced his allowance. After returning home to mortgage his inheritance, Zachaire took up with a "Philosopher" and later with a monk, both of whom helped him spend whatever gold he had left.
In 1550, Zachaire claimed to transmute base metal into gold.

Although fictional, contemporary reviewers felt the book was based on very solid research.

Free download:

https://archive.org/details/b2492684x/page/n1/mode/2up

By Sean Martin.

Not sure about the copyright status of this.

https://rexresearch1.com/AlchemyArchives...emists.pdf

Can you solve a Graeco-Egyptian Alchemical Riddle?

"The Parisinus Graecus 2327 manuscript is one of the more richly illuminated alchemical manuscripts to have reached the West along with the better known Marcianus codex in Venice, gifted by Cardinal Bessarion to the republic of Venice. Dated with certainty to 1478 on the basis of its colophon, a version of the iconic red and green ouroboros nests within its folia."

https://thyrathen.substack.com/p/can-you...alchemical

Pavel D. LENKOV
Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

"We note that although in Taoism, as in religious exoteric practice, the calendar plays an important role, at the same time, the concept of “reversibility of time” also emerged and became established in Taoist esotericism. This concept, which has its roots in the philosophy of “Dao De Jing”, played a key role in Taoist esoteric practices (inner alchemy, nei dan)). In addition, in internal alchemy there was a specific terminology describing the dimensionality of alchemical practices, which actively used the “signs” (trigrams and hexagrams) of the “Yi jing”."

Page 21 of downloadable conference proceedings:

https://iphras.ru/uplfile/orient/asian_p...ok_eng.pdf

Libellus de Alchimia

Ascribed to Albertus Magnus

Translated by: Virginia Heines


https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/1...46611/html