"Linked to alchemy and hermetical knowledge, distillation was seen as a method for improving metals and other mineral substances, within a paradigm that asserted that minerals were gestated in the soil and grew and developed as if they were living beings. Despite this mystical base, ancient alchemists had practical concerns, among which was the production of elaborate dyes manufactured by distilling sulfur, thus obtaining golden pigments that were then used in decoration and metallurgy. With the advent of Christianity, this ancient form of alchemy was gradually left behind and perceived as heretical, although some ancient alchemy texts describing distillation were preserved in Constantinople."

https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/the-sa...aqua-vitae

Inspired by the works of Carl Jung as well as the writing of laboratory alchemists such as Robert Allen Bartlet, the Inner Alchemy Oracle depicts the alchemical process of transformation via 52 cards. The cards depict the 7 Base Metals, the 7 Chakras and the 4 Elements, Spagyric Plants & Jungian/Popular Psychology, and are intended as to work as catalysts for the reader's inner transformation and self-reflection.

https://shop.watkinsbooks.com/products/i...ra-kadabra


Flip-through here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2A5Qm-qmvs

The original 1818 text of Mary Shelley's classic novel, with annotations and essays highlighting its scientific, ethical, and cautionary aspects.

https://tinyurl.com/ytvz3fr4



Related essay by Alfred Nordmann:

Victor Frankenstein’s Technoscientific Dream of Reason

How is it that this premodern mystical alchemist appears so contemporary today?

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/victo...of-reason/

Over 150 lightweight but well-illustrated and well-written articles on alchemy at Ancient Origins:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/searchall/alchemy

"The Rosarium Philosophorum, a 16th-century alchemical text, offers a profound map for this very journey. Often overshadowed by its cryptic language and intricate woodcut illustrations, it serves as much more than a manual for turning lead into gold. It invites us to consider the alchemical process as a reflection of our inner lives – a symbolic guide to navigating the cycles of disintegration and renewal that define human existence."

Dr. Michael Sebastian

https://medium.com/@babunow99/alchemy-of...6f33531d34

English translation of the text here:
https://archive.org/details/EnglishTrans...losophorum

Creative Alchemy

The Royal Art as a Spiritual-Creative Process

Taught by Marlene Seven Bremner
Live on Zoom*
Thursdays at 5 pm MT
January 23 - February 20

https://marlenesevenbremner.com/courses

https://www.instagram.com/m7artist/p/DEF3px2SkCS/

"This 1462 Kräuterbuch (“Book of Herbs”) by Johannes Hartlieb enfolds, verbatim, much of Konrad von Megenberg’s Buch der Natur, published a century earlier and considered by scholars to be the first natural history written in German. (The Buch der Natur itself reworked herbals by Thomas of Cantimpré and Albert Magnus, who, in turn, borrowed heavily from Arabic botanical handbooks.) Unlike its predecessors, however, Harlieb’s volume features 160 illustrations abreast textual descriptions of the plants’ medicinal uses, and is thought to be the only fully illustrated herbal from the incunabula period of German history."


https://publicdomainreview.org/collectio...-of-herbs/

Barbara Obrist.

Les débuts de l'imagerie alchimique: XIV-XV siecles. Paris: Le Sycomore / Féodalisme, 1992. First Edition. Softcover, Octavo. 328 pp. [+72 pp of plates] . Printed glossy card covers with flaps. B&W and colour illustrations. FRENCH TEXT. A scholarly study of the birth of alchemical iconography in mediaeval Europe, during the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. 

https://www.weiserantiquarian.com/pages/...xv-siecles

"One of the oldest tarot decks ever created, the Sola Busca is known for its alchemical symbolism and for having inspired many of the minor arcana of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck."

https://artisantarot.com/shop/p/sola-bus...n1PQ9rl1rh

"What if the rise of ancient empires wasn’t only about warfare or strategy, but rooted in the forgotten secrets of alchemy? Discover 'The Forgotten Role of Alchemy in Ancient Empires' and its profound influence on science, medicine, philosophy, and spirituality."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM9xIuSW87k