Shades of Ungodliness: Satie, the Occult, and the Flight from Reason

Lindsey MacChiarella

"Faced with a collapse of orthodox religious ideals precipitated by the technological revolution in the mid-nineteenth century, Satie and many in the  Western world took refuge in unorthodox occult religions during the fin de siècle. Avant-garde artists and composers found inspiration in these irrational and imaginative religions, and occult groups often acted as artistic patrons. The Rose+Croix Catholique, with whom Satie collaborated for two years, was  a particularly influential supporter of new Impressionist and Symbolist  movements."

https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/o...m/PDF/view

"Studies in Delius’ social milieu during the 1880s and 1890s suggested that both Delius and his closest friends were pursuing aspects of esoteric knowledge influential on his early works. Thus the operas Irmelin and the Magic Fountain were each laid out as comprehensive alchemical allegories, and confirm that Delius had been strongly attracted to alchemical lore and symbolism sometime before he first met Strindberg."

Critchett, Clive Ian (2017) Proportion and the esoteric: Frederick Delius and his music. Doctoral thesis (PhD), The Royal Northern College of Music in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University. 

https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/622566/

Alchemical Harmonaia: An Exploration of Alchemical Modes and other Symbols in Music

JR Glosson

"Music and the Ineffable or Mystical world have always been tied hand in hand. The Greek Philosophers believed music to be the second greatest science of the quadrivium – second only to astronomy in the ability to capture the essence of the universe. Signs and symbols permeate mysticism and initiatory societies, such as the Rosicrucian and Masonic fraternities. The exploration of these signs and their symbolic use within these mystical and initiatory societies has yet to have been expounded upon in recent scholarship. Mysticism in an alchemical, or hermetic, sense has had little attention in the music-theoretical studies. This thesis will start filling this void."

https://digital.library.txst.edu/items/c...93fe8/full

https://www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk/jan-van-der...atory-1570


   

Many public domain books available for full-text inspection and download at Hathi Trust:


https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Ho...=100&ft=ft

Undated. Oil on Copper.

   

"The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the use of alchemy within the work of Rebecca Horn, to elucidate its presence in her work, and to illuminate its purpose as a personal philosophy and as a creative tool. The use of alchemy within Horn's work occurs as a process of revelation and transformation. Alchemy is revealed as a spiritual philosophy and as an interpretative system through the changes that occur in Horn's oeuvre."

By Douglas Dunlop

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/675...adc278016/

Full text available at pdf button

More about Rebecca Horn here:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rebecca-horn-2269

"This work re-interprets the symbolism of the emblematic "Rainbow" portrait (c. 1600) of Elizabeth I. The traditional title comes from the identification of the rainbow in the portrait as that of Genesis 9:13. In fact, as this work demonstrates, it is the philosophers' rainbow, a cryptonym for the colors--black, red, white--of the three stages of alchemic transmutation: purification, illumination, perfection. Elizabeth is represented as the Faery Queen, the alchemical monarch."

Robert Gibson Robertson III

Louisiana State Univ.

https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6549/

Full text available with the Download button

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Erika M. Grimminger

CONCEPT, Vol. XXXV (2012)

"What  were  aristocratic women’s responses to illness?How  did  they  deal  with  sickness  in  the  family  and  community?How  did  noble  women  come  together  in  times  of  sickness  or  pregnancy?What  knowledge  did they possess about medicines and other remedies?Did men seem to appreciate women’s help in health  care?"


https://concept.journals.villanova.edu/a...ew/790/643

From the Lowens Fellows, University of Victoria.

"Welcome to A Science of Secrets: Exploring Early Modern Alchemy! This exhibit wants to do just that: explore what early modern alchemy was, who practiced it, how they wrote about their ideas and why they pursued ‘magical’ goals. In modern media, alchemists are often lumped in with wizards and warlocks in fantasy books. But they would not have thought of themselves in this way and they don’t write about themselves that way. Alchemists are now considered proto-chemists who contributed a lot to early chemistry and to medicine. This exhibit hopes to peel back the veil on this mysterious practice and show you the real people behind this discipline.

Four poems and one prose treatise are the focuses of this exhibit. Although they come from different decades across the centuries when alchemy was popular (or beyond), they share many of the same features. If you want more information about these items, see the About page. There is also an index of terms in the about section. However, alchemy was a vast phenomenon that spanned centuries and countries. It would be impossible to cover everything. These works are largely from the French or English tradition and I hope they provide a glimpse into alchemy."

https://omekas.library.uvic.ca/s/lowens/page/alchemy