American Alchemists: Delmar DeForest Bryant, "Adiramled"

This image of the stone of Joshua is not taken from Adiramled's works (which are unillustrated as far as I have seen), but I believe it is thematically appropriate.

I take the quoted biographic information from this Alchemy Forum thread:

Bryant wrote a number of books in the years 1901 to 1911, some of whose titles are given below, and also published a monthly newsletter-magazine titled "Adiramled." During those years he lived in Ohio; East Orange, New Jersey; New York City; and South Haven, Michigan. and owned publishing companies variously called, "Adiramled Publishing Company," [...] Adiramled (Bryant) moved to New York City, as of December 15, 1901. He moved to East Orange, New Jersey as of September 1902, an area described by A as "the loveliest suburbs accessible to Greater New-Yorkers." Plans to "establish a vast home-with farm attachment for raising food, together with industries of various kinds to give employment to a lot of people. It will be a kind of co-operative commonwealth-a realization of Bulwer's and Bellamy's Dreams...." By November 1903 is publishing from South Haven, Michigan "practically a suburb of Chicago" (Adiramled, November 1903).

[...]

In June 1901 Adiramled writes knowledgeably about prime matter

In October 1901, Adiramled writes of receiving his astrological chart from J.K. Newman of Omaha, Nebraska, (1811 Lake Street)

Adiramled once lived in Chicago (Page 4 of Adiramled, January 1902).

From the Adiramled Newsletter, April 1902: "The magic medicine of the ancients was in the form of a very subtle spiritual oil...a grease...The Universal Axle Grease." "...It was in looking down into the crater of an extinct volcano that I beheld evidences of the very Wonder I am presently alluding to. "Here at the foot of this very mountain I gathered the pieces of Lav which I pulverized into the oleaginous Sand on which to experiment with a view of extracting this Oil. "Since then, I have discovered that there are places in America where it can also be obtained of excellent quality but in extremely small quantity. "So that thus far, it has taken an enormous amount of labor and patience to obtain it. "I am at present studying on a chemical process to manufacture it from common loam by a treatment with Carbon and my experiments bid fair to succeeed. "Naturally while I am studying, I am teaching, because the thing is entirely too good to keep wholly to myself..."

He was a friend of John Hazelrigg and cites Ethan Allen Hitchcock.
From "The Unfoldment":

The Sages all assure us that the Thing called Philosopher's Stone is a thing "seen by all but recognized by few." They say that it is a common element, or rather the Quintessence of all elements, Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and that virtually it is contained in all things, but more in some than in others. Again, they say that its simplicity is so great that if openly declared it would be utterly incredible.

There is a sampling of his apparently extensive bibliography online:

• Lessons in the Unfoldment of the Philsopher's Stone with gematric annotations by Paul Foster Case.
  
• The Art of Alchemy or The Generation of Gold - A course of Practical Lessons in Metallic Transmutation:
  
  • Lesson 1
    
  • Lesson 2
    
  • Lesson 3
    
  • Lesson 4
    
  
  
• The Divine Symbols
  
• The Alche-Mythic Basis of Astrology an essay he wrote for Hazelrigg's Year Book.
  
• The Light of Life - or - The Mastery of Death

Anyone with any information at all about this fairly obscure American alchemist, please don't hesitate to leave a comment!

American Alchemists: John Hazelrigg

John Hazelrigg (1860-1944) began studying astrology in 1892 and began publishing in 1900, several articles, books, and 'Hazelrigg's Astrological Herald'. He founded the American Academy of Astrologians (along with Delmar Bryant) in 1916. He is apparently pretty popular still among astrologers, I have not found any information on his alchemical interests aside from his published works.


Books online:

• Astrosophic Principles "An enquiry into the tenets and the philosophy of the stellar science - with numerous arguments, controversial and evidentiary, in support of its rationality"
  
• The Book of Formulas "a collection of choice spagyric preparations, predestinated to the cure of disease and the conservation of health: including some of the rarest and most valuable secrets of the ancient medical and Hermetic philosophy."
  
• 1917 Year Book of the American Academy of Astrologians
  
• Metaphysical Astrology:
  
  
  
  • The Rationale of Astrology
    
  • Inductive Astrology I II III
    
  • Astrological Symbolism I II
    
  • Eclipses
    
  • Nature's Analogies

Misc:

• The Number of a Name this letter describes an English numerological scheme I've seen called "Chaldean" elsewhere.
  
• Hazelrigg supposedly predicted in 1908 that the presidents elected in the years 1920, 1940, and 1960 would die in office. (I believe this was in his 'Astrological Herald' or 'Astrological Almanac'
  

The Unurthed blog has some striking pictures from Hazelrigg's Sun Book.

American Alchemists: Ethan Allen Hitchcock

Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1817-1870) was the grandson of the Ethan Allen, who captured Fort Ticonderoga with Benedict Arnold. EAH fought in the Mexican-American War (which he opposed), as a major general in the Civil War, and was supposedly a personal friend to Lincoln.

There is a nice biography in a Missouri Historical Review from 1908, and a rather more effusive one from the Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis. The Philosopher's Stone, by General N.B. Buford gives a brief overview of Hitchcock's thinking.
An in-depth appreciation, 'Ethan Allen Hitchcock: soldier-humanitarian-scholar discoverer of the "true subject" of the hermetic art' by I. Bernard Cohen is at the American Antiquarian Society.

He was a great admirer of Spinoza and was among the first modern writers to discuss the idea that alchemists were principally concerned with spiritual or psychological work, rather than physical experimentation.

His 'Remarks on Alchemy and the Alchemists" is cited by Blavatsky, Albert G. Mackey, Mary Anne Atwood, and Adiramled among many others. It is extensively discussed by AE Waite and Herbert Silberer, who in turn led Jung to become interested in alchemical symbolism.

• Remarks upon alchemy and the alchemists: indicating a method of discovering the true nature of hermetic philosophy : and showing that the search after the philosopher's stone had not for its object the discovery of an agent for the transmutation of metals : being also an attempt to rescue from undeserved opprobrium the reputation of a class of extraordinary thinkers in past ages. 1857
• Fifty Years in Camp and Field personal diary, edited by WA Croffut.
  

  Nov. 12 1866. I wish to say that I saw, a moment since, what the Philosopher's Stone signifies. I do not omit a statement of it from any desire to make it a mystery. My relation to it is still to be determined. A great number of passages in books of alchemy seem perfectly clear now. I have nowhere told what it is or even what I think it is. It is a kind of revelation, but, when seen, has an effect something like looking at the sun. Personally I have much to fear from it, before I can look forward to its benefits. I have nothing to unsay in my books, and have but this to add: that they are studies to reach the One Thing.

  
  
• Swedenborg, a Hermetic Philosopher Being a sequel to the Remarks on Alchemy and the Alchemists. Showing that Emanuel Swedenborg was a Hermetic Philosopher, and that his writings may be interpreted from the point of view of Hermetic Philosophy. With a chapter comparing Swedenborg to Spinoza. “One truth openeth the way to another.” 1858.
  
• Christ, the Spirit: Being an Attempt to State the Primitive View of Christianity
  
• Spenser's poem, entitled Colin Clouts come home againe, explained; with remarks upon the Amoretti Sonnets, and also on a few of the Minor Poems of the Early English Poets. 1865.
  
• Remarks on the Sonnets of Shakespeare: showing that they belong to the Hermetic class of writings, and explaining their general meaning and purpose.
  
• The Red Book of Appin: A Story of the Middle Ages With Other Hermetic Stories and Allegorical Tales.