Darkline » Alchemy

Atlas Obscura’s World-wide Equinox Celebration

Mark — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:22:10 +0000

Atlas Obscura is celebrating March 20th by hosting a number of events around the world, all of them highlighting the Strange in your neighborhood. Check the full list of events, and if you’re in Seattle, Ourboros Press publisher, William Kiesel is presenting “Alligators and Alchemy in Cabinets of Curiosity” at the Ancient Grounds Cafe at 1pm.

There will be a brief slide show displaying some early examples of Curiosity Cabinets as well as some discussion as to the similarities shared with alchemical laboratories. All of this will take place is a cafe that is merely masquerading as a coffee house.

Ancient Grounds has a great deal of Native American masks, totem poles, tribal art, headdresses and other clothing, and other displays. And probably an alligator or two.

Wandering the stacks at the Munich Digitisation Centre

Mark — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:32:48 +0000

We’re giving this link its own post because there’s much to love here. The Munich Digitisation Centre at the Bavarian State College has an extensive collection of digitized books, including a number of medieval alchemy treatises. One of my favorite links is their tag cloud page. Talk about visual browsing. Each book has been carefully digitized, and each one is the sort of archaic manuscript that makes the book lover salivate.

Books on Alchemy .. Books on Magic .. Exegeses of the Bible ..

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Mark — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 06:03:58 +0000

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was an Italian philosopher and scholar who lived from 1463 until 1494. During his short life, he studied theology and philosophy, dabbled in the Cabala, wrote an extensive series of treaties on all possible subjects (900 in all, collected as Conclusiones philosophicae, cabalasticae et theologicae in Rome). While some were vaguely heretical, they realistically just pointed out the lack of theological enlightenment of the era. He sought a synthesis of religion and philosophy, attempting to counter the spread of pure humanism with a bit of critical thinking. He saw Hebrew and Talmudic sources as viable texts and generally got into trouble over his eagerness and willingess to be a free thinker. His piece, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” is one of the landmark pieces of the Italian Renaissance (some go so far as to call it a “manifesto”).

Parts of his Oration can be found here in Latin, Italian, and English. A complete translation can be found here.

Walter Pater’s history of Pico in context of the Renaissance can be found here.