"A collection of 38 herbal manuscripts have remained all but hidden to scholars in the shadow of the Italian Alps. Despite several texts analyzing specific texts (Leporace, 1952, Lupo 1982, Ragazzini 1983, Toresella 1985, Pezzella 2007 and Bruzzone 2015, 2019) and one pioneering work which synthesizes a large portion of them as united in the corpus (Segre 2000), the “alchemical herbal tradition” has so far escaped examination through methodologies employed in the history of science, medicine and magic.'

Bryce Beasley.

Full text:

https://shareok.org/handle/11244/340569

"For Zosimos the alchemist (c.4th C. AD), it seems that the whole of alchemy depended upon the kairos – the opportune moment, determined via katarchic astrology, when an experiment would succeed. In fact, Zosimos refers to alchemical transformations as kairikai katabaphai – colour changes achieved at the kairos – and states that they are «subject to lunar influence and the passing of time» (The Visions 10.12). This paper explores Zosimos’ understanding of kairos and its importance in his alchemical practice."

Full text.

http://rivista.thaumazein.it/index.php/t...e/view/260

"It is tempting to affirm that on and about November 2022 (post)human character changed. The revolution in A.I. simulations certainly calls for an updated of the ancient realization that humans are imitative animals, or homo mimeticus. But the mimetic turn in posthuman studies is not limited to A.I.: from simulation to identification, affective contagion to viral mimesis, robotics to hypermimesis, the essays collected in this volume articulate the multiple facets of homo mimeticus 2.0. Challenging rationalist accounts of autonomous originality internal to the history of Homo sapiens, this volume argues from different—artistic, philosophical, technological—perspectives that the all too human tendency to imitate is, paradoxically, central to our ongoing process of becoming posthuman."

Open Access book:

https://books.google.je/books?id=9BYrEQA...navlinks_s

Author(s): Prajit K. Basu 1
Publication date (Electronic, pub): 31 March 2023
Journal: AsiaChem Magazine
Publisher: Israel Chemical Society (ICS)

"In this essay, I describe very briefly, the pursuit of chemical knowledge in India until the period of the early eighteenth century."

https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...7/acm00052

"The Oedipus myth is foundational to depth psychology due to Freud’s use of Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex in the creation of psychoanalysis. But analytical psychology’s engagement with the myth has been limited despite the importance Jung also places upon it. The absence of a developed Jungian response to Oedipus means the myth’s psychologically constructive elements have been overlooked in favour of reductive Freudian interpretations. I examine whether analytical psychology can fruitfully re-engage with Oedipus by reinterpreting his story as a paternal rebirth."

Full text:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full...5922.12959

"This paper argues that the Yuan dynasty Daoist Huang Gongwang’s 黃公望 (1269–1354) painting Clearing after Sudden Snow resonates with the principles of inner alchemy (neidan, 內丹), particularly the stage known as the resurgence of yang force."

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/7/861

   

"Beside the codenames and esoteric symbols inherited from Graeco-Egyptian antiquity, the later Arabic alchemical tradition also adopted motifs drawn from the Qur’an: from the blessed olive tree of the famous Light Verse (Q 24.35) to the burning bush and Moses’ staff. This interweaving of scripture and alchemical theory is especially noticeable in one of the major works of the post-Jābirian corpus, Shudhūr al-dhahab (Shards of Gold) by the Moroccan poet Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs (fl. sixth/twelfth century), as well as in Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs’s self-penned commentary, Ḥall mushkilāt al-Shudhūr (The Solution to the Obscurities in the ‘Shards’)."

Richard Todd

Department of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham

Full article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....7#abstract

Situating ciphers among alchemical techniques of secrecy

Sarah Lang

University of Graz

"This paper offers a contextual frameworkfor the historical analysis of alchemical ciphers. It argues that they differ from other ciphers due to their unique context: the alchemical  tradition  embodies  a  performative  culture  of  secrecy,  which  employs  avariety of techniques to achieve this performance.  This  paper  contends  that  the distinction between ‘secret as content’ versus  ‘secrecy  as  practice’  presents  a  useful framework for understanding alchemical rhetorics of secrecy and their relationship  to  alchemical  cryptography.    Additionally, it demonstrates how these principles can be applied in interpreting several examples."

https://www.ecp.ep.liu.se/index.php/hist...ew/698/604

Oxford Univ. thesis by KF Allan.

"This thesis explores how four female poets—Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), Hester Pulter (1607-1678), Katherine Philips (1632-1664), and Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673)—conceptualise poetry as an alchemy of the mind that nonetheless has real, practical implications for themselves and for their readers. The ‘alchemical poetics’ of these women writers thus exhibit a lively interest in, and radical transformation of, alchemical thought that grapples variously with the saving of souls, healing of the body, and transmutation of matter. More crucially, I contend that this grouping of women writers is actively participating in the evolution of alchemical thought through poetry."


Full text:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:55a625...3958414c34

The Transition from Alchemical to Modern Chemical Symbolism: from Bergman and Guiton de Morveau to Hassenfratz and Adet, Higgins, Richter, Dalton, and Berzelius

Curt Wentrup


"The alchemical symbols for metals, acids, bases and salts were still in everyday use in much of the 18th century. The modern notation, which we use today, is due to Berzelius, but the transition was long and arduous and took place between ca. 1775 and 1820 roughly simultaneously with but distinct from the Chemical Revolution."

Open Access.

https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.w....202400033