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Adam McLean's books Why buy these books when so much is available free on the internet ? There is a great deal of material on alchemy and related subjects now available on web sites. A large proportion of this will be seen to be merely speculative drivel, ideosyncratic interpretations of alchemical ideas, relating alchemy and hermeticism to all sort of weird, wacky and irrelevant ideas and philosophies. A few web sites carry actual original alchemical source texts - my own Alchemy Web Site being amongst them. A great deal of this is taken from books published in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. Few people have access to early printed books or manuscripts, and are willing to spend the long hours transcribing these to give away on the internet. I think I have done my share of that, with nearly 200 texts available on my web site. Considerably less than 1% of all known alchemical writings are available on the internet. Anyone who has access to one of the great collections of alchemical books can see that there are so many amazing texts that people are not able to read. One can only understand and appreciate alchemy, when one can read some of these incredible unknown texts. This is one of the task of my publishing ventures - to make this material available again to people. Most of the works I publish have never been available in a printed book (being taken from a manuscript source) or are translations into English of works printed three or four centuries ago. My books are thus providing access for the first time to the core material of the alchemical and hermetic traditions. Putting the text into a book form obviously helps to pay for the costs of transcribing and editing the material. Also many people really want to read material in a book form rather than struggle to read this on computer monitors which is inconvenient and can cause eyestrain. A book also has a certain beauty, and for many it is a delight to collect a small specialist library on a subject area such as alchemy. I myself have collected a modest library with my limited financial resources. There are so few serious books published each year on alchemy that for a modest outlay one can, over a few years, come to possess a fine collection. I am sure the Magnum Opus, Hermetic Sudies and the Hermetic Research series books would be a part of any such collection on alchemy. The books are thus collectable, and being quite rare, few copies ever come onto the second hand market. Most people who buy the books seem to hold onto them. So they can fetch quite excessive prices when sold secondhand. They will, no doubt, be highly valued as collector's items when I am no longer able to physically produce the books. |
Complete listing of all Magnum Opus books Why is it so difficult to buy the Magnum Opus books ? Can I not just buy them through Amazon or my local bookseller, like any other book ? Frustrated waiting for a particular book to become available ? Information on how the Magnum Opus books are prepared. What Magnum Opus books are available right now to buy ? Why buy these books when so much is available free on the internet ? Sample pages from some Magnum Opus books  |