Read and Download Free eBooks
/
Categories
Browse by category
1,965 books to get lost inYours to read. Yours to keep.
No books found.
Try another title or author.
Try another title or author.
This second volume of The Hermetic Museum gathers historical alchemical writings concerned with the philosopher's stone, the transformation of metals and the interpretation of nature. The English edition presents a collection of tracts drawn from the earlier Latin anthology, preserving the mixture of practical instruction, allegorical narrative and philosophical explanation characteristic of the tradition.
The contents include Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy, the Testament attributed to Cremer, writings by Michael Sendivogius and works associated with Eirenaeus Philalethes. Michael Maier's allegory and John Frederick Helvetius's account add further approaches to the language and purposes of alchemical investigation. The individual texts employ different voices while returning to questions about substances, processes and concealed knowledge.
This is the complete second volume of the 1893 English collection, rather than a modern abridgement or a single selected tract. Its original printed pages, illustrations and internal divisions are retained. Readers interested in the history of alchemy, symbolic interpretation and the literature surrounding hidden transformations will find several substantial primary texts presented together in their historical arrangement.