Books on Alchemy: I'm looking for more books

What books on alchemy do you find worthwhile? I would prefer books that are by authors with sound knowledge of alchemy and that use a synthesis approach and an explain-the-old-alchemical-drawing approach (and not a historical-survey approach).

So far, I've found:

Alchemy by Titus Burckhardt: Synthesis approach. I found it quite engaging.

Alchemy by E.J. Holmyard: Historical survey approach. After this one, I don't think I need any more books right now on the chronological/historical study of alchemy, unless there's an amazing one.

The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation by Dennis William Hauck: Apparently he is an alchemist. This particular book crosses over somewhat (or quite a bit) into new-agey-ness, but still good for a synthesis and for its explain-some-old-alchemical-drawings approach

Dictionary of Alchemy by Mark Haeffner. But the alchemy dictionary at alchemylab.com seems almost as good.

On my wish-list so far are the following two books. (What do you think of those two?)

The Hermetic Tradition: Symbols & Teaching of the Royal Art by Julius Evola: A synthetic approach. But I'm afraid maybe this one is too arcane and too syncretic/eclectic?.

The alchemy book by Johannes Fabricius: It looked kind of interesting at the store [The English original seems to be OOP, while the French translation is in print and available at a good price for the quality of the edition.]. Has a lot of images and commentaries on the images.

Thanks for any replies!

The only Alchemy book that I have is:

"Alchemy An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology"
by Marie-Louise von Franz.

I got it at a second hand book store copyright 1980.


From the back cover:

"It was the genius of C.G. Jung to discover in the "holy technique" of alchemy a parallel to the psychological individuation process. This book, by Jung's long-time friend and co-worker completely de mystifies the subject.

Designed as an introduction to Jung's more detailed studies, and profusely illustrated, here is a lucid and practical account of wha tthe alchemists were really looking for--emotional balance and wholeness.

Once again, Marie-Louise von Franz demonstrates her remarkable gift for translating esoteric symbolic material into everyday experience. For the images and motifs that so occupied the alchemists were of an archetypal nature, and as such they constantly turn up in modern dreams and drawings."

Is this a different approach to other books on alchemy? I'm not very knowledgable on the subject.

Ruby7

Edited to add: This book is available on Amazon.ca new and also used for the unbelievable price of $0.01.

ISBN 0-919123-04-X

Jung

Thanks, Ruby ... The von Franz book which you mention happens, coincidentally, to be the first one I bought. Did you ever get around to reading it?

I bought it a few years ago and dropped reading it as it was confusingly written and assumed some background knowledge. I have looked at it recently again and, now that I have some background from other reading on alchemy, the book may be worthwhile perusing. I find the 'pychological alchemy' books confusing to read, without a prior reading background in more general 'process' alchemy. But that's just me, perhaps.

Speaking of psychological alchemy, I was perusing Edinger's book, Mysterium Lectures at the store today and it may be worthwhile for me to read sometime. The book is a transcript of Edinger's paragraph-by-paragraph lecture series on Jung's grand opus on psychological alchemy, Mysterium Coniunctionis.

That said, my interest in alchemy is more along the lines of hermetic spiritual alchemy (rather than psychological alchemy) -- as a background for tarot.

Have any alchemy-tarot approaches worked for you?

You said that you were interested in alchemy topics first, which I think is wonderful. The only little bits I've read might be too lightweight for you.

Does the Alchemical Tarot by Robert Place sound too mixed for your tastes? I actually like the book for this deck quite a lot.

I actually found bits of Alchemy, only tastes in the Art and Arcana book by Ronald Decker fascinating, as it refers to the Medieval Scapini designs.

I really enjoyed my descriptive readings in the book titled "The Last Alchemist," about G. Balsamo, the 'great Caligostro' and then dipping into the "Ancient Egyptian" by Giordano Berti, as he also discusses a bit of Paul Christian and some of the period takes on alchemy and tarot...maybe again, not tight enough on alchemy to work for you.

Regards,

Cerulean Mari

Re: Jung

Rusty Neon said:

Thanks, Ruby ... The von Franz book which you mention happens, coincidentally, to be the first one I bought. Did you ever get around to reading it?

I bought it a few years ago and dropped reading it as it was confusingly written and assumed some background knowledge. I have looked at it recently again and, now that I have some background from other reading on alchemy, the book may be worthwhile perusing. I find the 'pychological alchemy' books confusing to read, without a prior reading background in more general 'process' alchemy. But that's just me, perhaps.

Click to expand...

I bought the book about a month ago, and my initial attempt at reading it wasn't very successful. I did find it quite confusing. I put it aside to read other books (always too many books on the go!) but thought I would get back to it. I think it probably would be better for me to read a book on as you say "general "process" alchemy" first.

Ruby7

My knowledge of alchemy is very limited. I recently found this article about alchemy on Carol Herzer's website for the Illuminated Tarot. The article is about 40 pages long. Actually, I would be interested in someone's opinion about it that knows something about the subject.


http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/alchemyintro.htm

Regards,
Rose

There is a huge alchemy archive by Adam McLean, The Alchemy Website: http://www.levity.com/alchemy/index.html .It also has a search option and a very long list of books on alchemy.I'm just starting to read about alchemy, so I can't really recommend any of them.
I have a book by Alexander Roob: "The Hermetic Museum: Alchemy & Mysticism", Koln (Germany), Taschen (edition) that contains 700 pages of beautiful pictures (in colour) with very short explanations and some short introductory chapters. Although it doesn't tell you what to do with those pictures, it is very nice to look through now and then and costs (only) $20. By the same author there is also a textbook with the same title that is more expensive, but I don't have that one.
The book by Evola you mentioned might be interesting, because I have his (and other writers') "Introduction to Magic", which I find strange but fascinating (although that may be very much a matter of taste). I am certainly going to look for the one on alchemy (thanks!).
I don't know about New Ageness, but I really like the book by D.W.Hauck: "The Emerald Tablet", because it gives clear explanations about the activities and goals of alchemists. It is almost only about inner alchemy and the second half of the book explains how you can start searching for the Philosophers Stone yourself through alchemist meditations. This book finally gave me the courage to dive into this enormous amount of material.
I hope this was of any help,
greetings, Jimi.

I've just found an article about a possible relationship between the Mantegna pictures and alchemy on the website I mentioned : http://www.levity.com/alchemy/mantegna.html .

I ended up getting the Evola book and (in French) the Fabricius book. Both of them are 'meaty' and quite interesting and should take some time to absorb.