Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration

"The literary influence of alchemy and hermeticism in the work of most medieval and early modern authors has been overlooked. Stanton Linden now provides the first comprehensive examination of this influence on English literature from the late Middle Ages through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing extensively on alchemical allusions as well as on the practical and theoretical background of the art and its pictorial tradition, Linden demonstrates the pervasiveness of interest in alchemy during this three-hundred-year period. Most writers―including Langland, Gower, Barclay, Eramus, Sidney, Greene, Lyly, and Shakespeare―were familiar with alchemy, and references to it appear in a wide range of genres. Yet the purposes it served in literature from Chaucer through Jonson were narrowly satirical. In literature of the seventeenth century, especially in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton, the functions of alchemy changed. Focusing on Bacon, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton―in addition to Jonson and Butler―Linden demonstrates the emergence of new attitudes and innovative themes, motifs, images, and ideas. The use of alchemy to suggest spiritual growth and change, purification, regeneration, and millenarian ideas reflected important new emphases in alchemical, medical, and occultist writing. This new tradition did not continue, however, and Butler's return to satire was contextualized in the antagonism of the Royal Society and religious Latitudinarians to philosophical enthusiasm and the occult. Butler, like Shadwell and Swift, expanded the range of satirical victims to include experimental scientists as well as occult charlatans. The literary uses of alchemy thus reveal the changing intellectual milieus of three centuries"

Stanton J. Linden

https://myfreesky.online/book/2739168/b5...=recommend

Interview with Owen Weinman:

https://rumble.com/v70f6dy-what-everyone...v1_science

Kyle Fraser

"This paper explores the relationship between Zosimos of Panopolis and the Book of Enoch, focusing on the perception of alchemy as a form of forbidden knowledge. It examines Zosimos’ references to fallen angels and their teachings in alchemical practices, highlighting the influence of Hellenistic Judaism, particularly through gnostic currents. The discussion aims to contextualize Zosimos within the broader dynamics of ancient philosophical traditions, particularly his syncretic views on Jewish and Egyptian alchemical customs and his engagement with esoteric texts." (Ai-generated abstract)

https://www.academia.edu/1237033/Zosimos..._Knowledge

1992, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, ed. H. D. Betz

https://www.academia.edu/128377241/_PGM_...ranslator_

"In the past decade or so, we have come to understand more and more about women involved in alchemy in early modern Europe. Thanks to a number of published and ongoing research projects, we now know that women were patrons, authors, and practitioners, as well as laboratory assistants and managers. We also know that they read, excerpted, and collected alchemical knowledge in household collections of recipes, known as receipt books."

Tara Nummedal

https://www.academia.edu/108820242/Alche...al_Visions

"From prehistoric metal extraction to medieval alchemy to modern industry, chemistry has been central to our understanding and use of the physical world as well as to trade, warfare and medicine. In its turn, chemistry has been shaped by changing technologies, institutions and cultural beliefs. A Cultural History of Chemistry presents the first detailed and authoritative survey from antiquity to today, focusing on the West but integrating key developments in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Arabic-Islamic and Byzantine empires."


https://www.academia.edu/70717076/Cultur..._Antiquity

"This paper fleshes out the relationship of the third-century alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis and his colleague, Theosebeia, which was later dramatized in the Book of Pictures, an illustrated Arabic manuscript (thirteenth century) that depicts the couple crowned with the sun and moon, representing various alchemical processes. Their relationship provides an important window into the historical development of erotic themes in alchemical literature. I argue that there is an erotics of pedagogy at work in this text, rooted in alchemical allegories of the fusion of male and female substances and Islamic notions of the initiatory relationship between teacher and student."

Shannon Grimes

https://www.academia.edu/75363660/Zosimo...l_Pedagogy

Rosacroce, libertini e alchimisti nella società veneta del secondo Seicento: i Cavalieri dell’Aurea e Rosa Croce

By Federico Barbierato


https://www.academia.edu/90638413/Rosacr...Rosa_Croce

"The paper argues that Ibn ʿArabī presents an unconventional view of Pharaoh’s fate, suggesting he receives divine mercy rather than condemnation. This perspective challenges traditional narratives and highlights Ibn ʿArabī's belief in God's encompassing mercy. Furthermore, it explores alchemy not merely as a physical process but as a means of inner transformation, linking it to Sufi practices and the broader theme of human development. The paper’s first part delves into these ideas, particularly through the lens of the ‘divine art’ in Ibn ʿArabī's work, and sets the stage for subsequent discussions on futuwwa and further alchemical influences." (AI-generated abstract)

Alison Roberts

https://www.academia.edu/115451051/Recti...hur_Part_1

"George Wilson had it in his heart for many years to write a book corresponding to the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne, with the title Religio Chemici. Several of the Essays in this volume were intended to form chapters of it, but the health and leisure necessary to carry out his plans were never attainable, and thus fragments only of the designed work exist. These fragments, however, being in most cases like finished gems waiting to be set, some of them are now given in a collected form to his friends and the public."

"The essays display a strong belief in the harmony of chemical science with divine purpose, seeing in the order, the laws, and the transformations of matter signs of wisdom and beneficence beyond mere material forces." - Alexander the Library Cat


https://archive.org/details/b21969292/page/n5/mode/2up