"IF WE WERE TO TELL YOU that there is an alchemical agenda that transcends religions, secret societies and spans the millennia, you would probably
- and rightly - at least entertain the suspicion that we had taken momentary leave of our sanity. If we were to tell you, further, that this alchemical agenda
spans virtually every discipline that you can think of - from biology to history, physics, topology, art, music - even, as we shall see in the main text, literary
criticism - you would probably entertain that idea more seriously, for that, indeed, is what we are going to tell you in these pages, for superintending all
the alchemical images and their implied agendas that we survey here, there is one standing out above them all, that both compels the agendas, and simultaneously reveals some of them as forms of false alchemy; the image is that of primordial simplicity, or androgyny, or “Nothingness,” or physical medium,
or aether, or “ocean of quantum flux,” or Grand Architect of the Universe. The image goes by many names, depending on the fashion of the age, and the
particular agenda emphasized, but it is, nonetheless, the same image."



Free book (apparently):


https://www.pearl-hifi.com/11_Spirited_G...gendas.pdf

"In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment―generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion―were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the “darker” pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His engaging topics include the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, and the widespread pursuit of magic and alchemy."



https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Enlight...0393079465



   

"Painted representations of alchemists in their workshops, and the symbols and recurring elements within each scene, have always fascinated me. Influences for scene include Flemish paintings, and their symbolic use of objects to convey their society’s moral values, and paintings by Rembrandt, such as The Parable of the Rich Fool. Rembrandt’s use of lighting and materials to evoke mystery, and the quest for knowledge, is masterful."


https://substance3d.adobe.com/magazine/p...-workshop/

Representation of Alchemists in Sixteenth-century Netherlandish Art

by Dana Rehn

"The earliest representation of an alchemist in Netherlandish art is an engraving dated to the sixteenth century by the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-1569)...In Bruegel’s intricately detailed image, a dilapidated family kitchen doubles as a laboratory. The alchemist sitting at the hearth on the left appears to be placing the family’s last coin in a crucible to be melted in the alchemical process. This point is further underscored by his wife, who is seated in a hunched posture behind him and attempts to empty the contents of an already empty purse"


https://danarehn.com/2021/11/03/poverty-...ers-stone/

"Henri van Swinden's archive in the Leiden Special Collections contains four draft letters by Swiss mathematician Fatio De Duillier to Isaac Newton from 1693. The previously unpublished letters shed light on Newton’s alchemical practices and his reliance on circulation of knowledge."

https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog...aac-newton

The BPH Collection also has an extraordinary example of applied alchemical art ­– that is, three 17th-century oak panels painted with emblems from Atalanta fugiens, though the textual elements (the motto and epigram) are left out.[2]Two of the panels contain pairs of emblems, respectively: emblems L and I (hereafter Panel 1); and emblems XLII and IX (Panel 2). The third one features three emblems: XXV-XXVI-XXVII (Panel 3). One of these panels, the only one to have been framed (at a later date), though obviously belonging to the same series, was part of the collection of Princess Christina of the Netherlands, which was auctioned in 1996. An interesting added feature in these three panels with emblems from Atalanta fugiens suggests that the patron who commissioned them wished to stress the element of alchemical transformation. In this sense they offer an intriguing yet enigmatic example of contemporary artistic interpretation and reception of one of the most celebrated alchemical emblem books of all times.

https://embassyofthefreemind.com/nl/coll...ta-fugiens

"In this week’s blog, postgraduate student Thomas Murrie shares with us some of the findings from his dissertation, the focus of which was on one of the Library’s manuscripts – the ‘Alchimiae Tractatus’ (ms38176)."


https://special-collections.wp.st-andrew...h-century/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cFHHB938vc

https://artvee.com/dl/the-alchemist/

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"Shannon Grimes, professor and head of the Department of Religious and Ethical Studies, just published her first book, Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt. It’s the first book in a series on Greco-Egyptian alchemy. Her book offers a new perspective on early alchemy and its origins.

“I’m very interested in religious views of the natural world,” said Grimes. “My expertise is in religion in the Greco-Roman world, so alchemy, which emerged during this period and combines religion and chemistry, is something that intrigued me.”


https://www.meredith.edu/news/grimes-div...irst-book/

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/produc...0473407759

"Living the Long Life: Physical and Spiritual Health in Two Early Paracelsian Tracts"

Tom Willard

https://www.academia.edu/1075498/_Living...an_Tracts_