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.

The Writings of Jakob Böhme

Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) saw a vision of God in a beam of sunlight reflecting off a pewter dish. He wrote many books over the course of his life describing his vision of metaphysics, the interrelationship between God and man, and his interpretations of scripture. He was a major influence on the Quakers, the Martinists, the Philadelphians, Hegel, von Schelling, Jung, and Philip K. Dick, among others. Isaac Newton is known to have studied Böhme intensely, and William Law goes so far as to assert that Newton deduced his Three Laws directly from Böhme's Three Principles, although this is controversial.

An excerpt from Signatura Rerum, Chapter 1, where Böhme writes on the Paracelsian doctrine of signatures:

15. And there is nothing that is created or born in nature, but it also manifests its internal form externally, for the internal continually labours or works itself forth to manifestation: As we know it in the power and form of this world, how the one only essence has manifested itself with the external birth in the desire of the similitude, how it has manifested itself in so many forms and shapes, which we see and know in the stars and elements, likewise in the living creatures, and also in the trees and herbs.

16. Therefore the greatest understanding lies in the signature, wherein man (viz. the image of the greatest virtue) may not only learn to know himself, but therein also he may learn to know the essence of all essences; for by the external form of all creatures, by their instigation, inclination, and desire, also by their sound, voice, and speech which they utter, the hidden spirit is known; for nature has given to everything its language according to its essence and form, for out of the essence the language or sound arises, and the fiat of that essence forms the quality of the essence in the voice or virtue which it sends forth, to the animals in the sound, and to the essentials in smell, virtue, and form.

17. Everything has its mouth to manifestation; and this is the language of nature, whence everything speaks out of its property, and continually manifests, declares, and sets forth itself for what it is good or profitable; for each thing manifests its mother, which thus gives the essence and the will to the form.

An excerpt from Of Heaven and Hell:

The Scholar asked his Master, saying;
Whither goeth the Soul when the Body dieth?

His master answered him;
There is no Necessity for it to go any whither.

What not! said the inquisitive Junius:
Must not the Soul leave the Body at Death, and go either to Heaven or Hell?

It needs no going forth, replied the venerable Theophorus:
Only the outward mortal Life with the Body shall separate themselves from the Soul. The Soul hath Heaven and Hell within itself before, according as it is written, "The Kingdom of God cometh not with Observation, neither shall they say, Lo here! or Lo there! For behold the Kingdom of God is within you." And which soever of the two, that is, either Heaven or Hell is manifested in it, in that the Soul standeth.

Here Junius said to his Master;
This is hard to understand. Doth it not enter into Heaven or Hell, as a Man entereth into a House; or as one goeth through a Hole or Casement, into an unknown Place; so goeth it not into another World?

The Master spoke and said;
No. There is verily no such Kind of entering in; forasmuch as Heaven and Hell are everywhere, being universally co-extended.
How is that possible? said the Scholar.
What, can Heaven and Hell be here present, where we are now sitting? And if one of them might, can you make me believe that both should ever be here together?

Then spoke the Master in this Manner:
I have said that Heaven is everywhere present; and it is true. For God is in Heaven; and God is everywhere. I have said also, that Hell must be in like Manner everywhere; and that is also true. For the wicked One, who is the Devil, is in Hell; and the whole World, as the Apostle hath taught us, lieth in the wicked One, or the evil One; which is as much as to say, not only that the Devil is in the World, but also that the World is in the Devil; and if in the Devil, then in Hell too, because he is there. So Hell therefore is everywhere, as well as Heaven; which is the Thing that was to be proved.

Unfortunately, his writings have not been much digitized, although the site Pass the Word has a nice collection.

The Internet Archive has scans of William Law's translation, but they come in sizes too small or too large for convenient reading.

I have reformatted the original scans, adjusting contrast for easier reading. The lovely images associated with Böhme's works did not come through too clear on the scans and completely disappeared during the textual contrast adjustment, but I may be able enhance them to readability or find an alternate source. So consider these PDFs a beta release, the emblem sequences are too elucidating and beautiful to miss out on. The Spamula blog has some good quality images to check out, and you can find many more all around the net, but it would be nice to have a high-quality digital version of the emblem sequences in this edition.

William Law's 4-Volume translation of Jakob Böhme:

1. 
   
   1. The Aurora [PDF] 38M
      
   2. The Three Principles [PDF] 45M
      
   
   
2. 
   
   1. The Threefold Life of Man [PDF] 31M
      
   2. The Answers to Forty Questions Concerning the Soul [PDF] 15M
      
   3. The Treatise of the Incarnation [PDF] 18M
      
   4. The Clavis [PDF] 5M
      
   
   
3. 
   
   1. The Mysterium Magnum [PDF] 76M
      
   2. Four Tables of Divine Revelation [PDF] 10M
      
   
   
4. 
   
   1. Signatura Rerum [PDF] 22M
      
   2. Of the Election of Grace [PDF] 24M
      
   3. The Way to Christ [PDF] 15M
      
   4. A Discourse between a Soul hungry and thirsty after the Fountain of Life, the sweet Love of Jesus Christ; and a Soul enlightened. [PDF] 2M
      
   5. A Treatise of the Four Complexions [PDF] 4M
      
   6. Of Christ's Testaments, Baptism, and the Supper [PDF] 12M
      

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Update: Most of Boehme's writings were only available in low-contrast scans when this post was written; there are now transcriptions available at www.jacobboehmeonline.com

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.

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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.

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!