Hermetic Museum, The (2 Volume Set)

This compendium of alchemist writings assembled by TGS Publishing is indeed a library to behold.

THE HERMETIC MUSEUM would also seem to represent a distinctive school in Alchemy, not altogether committed to certain modes and terminology which derived most of their prestige from the past, and sufficiently enigmatical as it was, still inclined to be less obscure and misleading than was the habit of the older masters. For it belonged to a period which had inherited a bitter experience of the failures, impostures, and misery surrounding the Magnum Opus and its mystical quest, which was weary of unequipped experiment, weary of wandering "multipliers," and pretentious "bellows-blowers," while it was just being awakened to the conviction that if Alchemy were true at all, it was not to be learned from books, or, at least, from any books which had hitherto been written on the subject.

Running through all the tracts which are comprised in the following volumes, the reader will recognize traces of a central claim in alchemical initiation-that the secrets, whatever they were, must be understood as the property of a college of adepts, pretending to have subsisted from time almost immemorial, and revealing themselves to the select and the few, while the literature, large as it is, appears chiefly as an instrument of intercommunication between those who knew. At the same time, it may also be regarded as a sign and omen to the likely seeker, an advertisement that there was a mystery, and that he must go further who would unravel it.

EXCERPT



CONTENTS

Volume 1 Includes: Preface To The English Edition. The Preface of The Original Edition. Part 1 The Golden Tract Concerning The Stone Of The Philosophers. The Golden Age Restored. The Sophic Hydrolith or Water Stone of The Wise A Demonstration Of Nature A Short Tract, or Philosophical Summary The Only True Way The Glory of the World The Second Part Of This Book. The Dicta Of The Sages. Another Tract A Tract of Great Price The Book of Alze The Book of Lambspring The Golden Tripod The "Practica" The Tract of Basilius Valentinus The Twelve Keys Part 2 The Chemical Treatise of Thomas Norton The Testament of Cremer A Tetrastich On This Work. The New Chemical Light A Preface To The Riddle Of The Sages. A Parable or Enigma of the Sages. A Dialogue Between Mercury, The Alchemist, & Nature. New Chemical Light. Second Part. Concerning Sulphur. An Open Entrance To The Closed Palace Of The King. The Three Treatises of Philalethes. The Metamorphosis Of Metals The Celestial Ruby. The Fount Of Chemical Truth. The Golden Calf The All-Wise Doorkeeper A Key To The Fourfold Figure Part 3 Collectanea Chemica The Secret Of The Immortal Liquor The Secret Of The Liquor Alkahest. Aurum Potabile Oil Of Sulphur Per Campanam. The Stone of the Philosophers The Bosom Book Preparations of the Sophic Mercury. Volume 2 Includes: Triumphal Chariot Of Antimony By Basil Valentine Golden Chain Of Homer Emerald Tablet Of Hermes Glory Of The World The Six Keys Of Eudoxus Freher's Process In The Philosophical Work The Golden Tractate Of Hermes Trismegistus The Hermetic Arcanum Hortulanus' Commentary On The Emerald Tablet The Stone Of The Philosophers By Edward Kelly Mary The Prophetess An Alchemical Mass The Mirror Of Alchemy On The Philadelphian Gold Tract On The Tincture And Oil Of Antimony By Roger Bacon Turba Philosophorum (Part 1) Turba Philosophorum (Part 2) The Hermetic And Alchemical Writings Of Paracelsus Coelum Philosophorum By Paracelsus The Book Concerning The Tincture Of The Philosophers By Paracelsus The Treasure Of Treasures For Alchemists By Paracelsus The Aurora Of The Philosophers By Paracelsus Alchemical Catechism