By Gavin Ashenden.

"He was a close friend of T. S. Eliot, deeply admired by C. S. Lewis, inspirational for W. H. Auden in his journey to faith, and a literary sparring partner for J. R. R. Tolkien. Yet half a century after his death, much of Charles Williams’s life and work remains an enigma. The questions that arose from his immersion in Rosicrucian and hermetic culture and ideology―central to understanding Williams’s thought and art remain provocatively unexplored. For a decade of his early adulthood, Williams was a member of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, a form of neo-Rosicrucianism. There is widespread confusion about its nature, which is to be expected given that this was a semisecret society. Though Williams left his formal association with it behind, it enriched and informed his imaginative world with a hermetic myth that expressed itself in an underlying ideology and metaphysics."

https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Williams-...0873387813

"Searching for Order: The history of the alchemists, herbalists and philosophers who unlocked the secrets of the plant world."

"Searching for Order traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe. Redefining man's relationship with nature was an important feature of the Renaissance. But in a world full of plagues and poisons, there was also a practical need to name and recognise different plants: most medicines were made from plant extracts."

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/searching-...747585299/

"In what may be the first-ever use of uranium in Iran, yellow pigment created from uranium oxide ("(oksid-e uran") was used frequently in Qajar tilework. The oxide was imported from Europe and sold to artisans by alchemists ("meshshaq"). The pigment fluoresces under UV light."

Paper here:

‘WE MUST SEND YOU A SAMPLE’—A PERSIAN–EUROPEAN DIALOGUE: INSIGHTS INTO LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY CERAMIC TECHNOLOGY BASED ON CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF TILES FROM THE ETTEHADIEH HOUSE COMPLEX, TEHRAN, IRAN"

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/p....2020.0015


Hat-tip: Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

https://x.com/yarbatman/status/1875281873339056524


   

Monday February 3rd! Introducing an exciting new ONLINE class series!

Alchemy and Music: Matter, Geometry, and the Ascent of the Soul With Brian Cotnoir!

This is a 4 class series, all online live via Zoom

Alchemy and Music: Matter, Geometry, and the Ascent of the Soul is an exploration of these ideas through alchemical practice and worldview



https://www.instagram.com/philosophical_...mg_index=1

"Use AI to quickly summarize, find information, translate, and provide citations from your documents."

https://www.pdfgpt.chat/?utm_source=twit...ixc4e4uvnf

"The UK government plans to stop funding the Latin Excellence Programme that has brought Latin to state schools in England in Keystage 3 and 4... The programme was created to shed the elitist kudos of this subject... Many of the schools affected are inner city schools and thus abolishing this programme diminishes the opportunities available to the students... This plan increases the inequality of state school pupils by suggesting that Latin as a subject should only be taught in private schools. It diminishes the selection available and lacks ambition."


https://www.change.org/p/save-the-latin-...te-schools

"Astrologers and alchemists alike have long understood that planetary aspects serve as keys to unlocking the mysteries of inner and outer worlds. When viewed through the lens of sacred geometry, these aspects transform into archetypal patterns, offering insights into personal evolution and universal harmony. Together, they guide us on the path of alchemical transmutation—turning the base material of our lives into spiritual gold."


https://www.jcfrequency.com/home/table-o...trology-an

"Hennig Brand was on to something. Or rather, he thought he was..."


https://bigthink.com/the-past/how-urine-...chemistry/

"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