9/21/2007

Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries



This opaque work is one of the few documents accepted as "authentically" Rosicrucian aside from the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio Fraternitatis, and The Chymical Wedding.

A gorgeous color edition in German is available online at the University of Wisconson History of Science and Technology digital collection. For easier viewing, these high-quality images have been collected in a pdf.

An English translation by the AMORC is available online at the Rose+Croix Journal resources page.



There are also several incomplete or altered versions of these figures floating around. The good folks at Celephais Press have duplicated Franz Hartmann's version with this comment:
The only thing I have to say in mitigation for preparing an e-text of this travesty of the Geheime Figuren is that the complete English translation is in copyright and I have no real desire to pick a fight with AMORC.

Lambsprinck


The Book of Lambspring

The images for Lambspring at levity are rather small, larger images of these engravings with Spanish titles can be found in this photo gallery.

The library at the University of Salzberg has a lovely hand-painted color edition in German. For easier viewing, this series of images has been made into a pdf.

9/20/2007

The Most Holy Trinosophia

The Trinosophia is one of two books attributed to the Comte de Saint-Germain.

Manly P. Hall's translation can be read in parallel with the French at the Sacred Texts site, but the pictures are in black and white and they neglect some of the smaller images and illuminated letters.

A sorta low-rez color scan can be found here, in a Flash "page-turning" display. The original book is absolutely beautiful.

I've taken the images from the SWF and made a PDF out of them for easier reading.

The other book of St. Germain's is the "triangular book", which has never been reprinted. Update! Adam McLean produced a reproduction of the triangular book.

This alchemy list thread contains some information about the two copies of the triangular book and an English translation of (some of?) the text.

I found these images of the triangular book here.









Update 3/31/2011: Since this post was first written, several boxes from the Manly P. Hall collection have been scanned and are available at archive.org, including a very high quality color scan of the triangular book!

Update 4/01/2011: Iona Miller has informed me that the above images are actually from an earlier, non-public triangular book. Thanks Iona!

Large archives

The number of alchemy texts already online is scarcely believable, since the entire body of work as literature has been largely forgotten, nevermind the comsological/philosophical aspects. Still, according to Adam McLean, only 1% of extant texts are online.

Take some time to browse around these sites:

Adam McLean's Alchemy Site
The primary online source, massive and well-categorized.

Rex Research Alchemy pages
There is a lot of overlap here with Adam McLean's site, but Robert Nelson has several texts not found elsewhere, including Mary Anne Atwood's Hermetic Philosophy & Alchemy and the influential Ordinall of Alchimy by Thomas Norton.

The AZOGUE journal maintains a large archive.

Alan Pritchard maintains an extensive biliography, including a section for online texts.

Relevant texts can also be found at the Internet Sacred Text Archive in the alchemy, freemasonry, Rosicrucian, and sub rosa sections.

European Cultural Heritage Online, many interesting source text scans.

The Twilit Grotto, etexts of many of the most important Renaissance thinkers, John Dee, Agrippa, Johannes Trithemius, Giordano Bruno, etc.

Lullian Arts has hypertexts and applications relating to Raymond Lull's mnemonic techniques.

The Newton Project is digitizing some of Newton's more speculative and theological writings that have seldom been seen before. Also Robert Boyle's work diaries are online.

Theatrum Chemicum Electronicum (1st ed. 1602), an electronic reproduction of Lazarus Zetzner's 6-volume >5000pp compendium, mostly in Latin. Electronic edition by Rafal Prinke. Not to be confused with Elias Ashmole's Theatricum Chemicum Brittanicum (1652). The UPenn images of Ashmole's collection have been collected into a pdf.

The Complutense University of Madrid has around 120 manuscripts (mostly latin) online, including Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, compiled by Jean-Jacques Manget.

The Manly P. Hall manuscript collection is now online at archive.org

Berthelot's Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs:
Vol. 1
Vols. 2-3
Vols. 3-4

C.G. Jung's alchemical collection is also currently being digitized.

The Swiss site e-rara has the Alchemy, Magic and Kabbalah (Foundation of the Works of C.G.Jung) and Historical scientific literature (ETH-Bibliothek)

I would also like to point out Mike Dickman's original translations and the R.A.M.S. collection, which is not online, but can be ordered on CD-ROM.