Product Description

A fantastic journey through the history of esoteric lore: the great work of the alchemists...

The Hermetic Museum takes its readers on a magical mystery tour spanning an arc from the mediaeval cosmogram and images of Christian mysticism, through the fascinating world of alchemy to the art of the Romantic era. The enigmatic hieroglyphs of cabbalists, Rosicrucians and freemasons are shown to be closely linked with the early scientific illustrations in the fields of medicine, chemistry, optics and colour theory.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #134403 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 575 pages

About the Author
Alexander Roob studied painting at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. From 2000 to 2002, he was a professor at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg. He has been teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart since 2002.

Customer Reviews

Breathtaking Beauty
This is an extraordinary collection of art - comprehensive and diverse, spanning a significant portion of human history. Brief descriptions and explanatory text are sprinkled about but the greatest pleasure, in my opinion, derives from the gorgeous reproductions of art related to alchemy and mysticism.

I actually own two copies of this book. One that I peruse regularly and another that I shall keep as a spare should my first wear out. It is an excellent gift - very uplifting and immensely inspiring.

The subject of alchemy has been somewhat cheapened in our time - reduced to a few basic - often misrepresented - ideas and thrown about by simple minds with incoherent ideas. Few people have encountered the breadth of the subject and the contributions it has made to human civilizations. The inspiration it has provided artists and scientists is immense and this book captures quite a bit of this significance.

The author neither advocates existing belief in alchemy and mysticism, nor denies it. It is a historical perspective - largely relayed through imagery - celebrating the great beauty of the subject and the complexities it once contained.

Short version of the original book
Why do I give this book only 2 stars? I don't agree with the way this book is marketed. Watch out for ordering this book, as there are two books of the same title, author and publisher. What's the difference? One of the books has the word 'icons' on it and has only 192 pages from the original book. The original book has 712 pages. Check that the ISBN's match for what you are after. I made the mistake of buying this book from a site that did not list the page numbers and went off the title, publisher, author and picture on the front cover. Since first writing this review, I have now returned to say that I have the original 712 paged book and am very happy with it. When it comes to a book like this, why settle for second best?

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer...
This is a beautiful book, a detailed historical examination of the alchemy trope and its major themes. The emphasis is on the visual arts (great selections here), but literature, philosophy, and comparative religion also get a good shake. I would have liked a more detailed analysis of music and dance, but the book is already huge.

The pictures are well-chosen and well-reproduced, and tell a fascinating story of an ideas percolation across Europe, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The text is also quite a prize; one example of surprising insight: Roob observes that Joyce drew a parallel between Blake's four Zoas and the Gunas of classical Indian thought, while demonstrating through Indian images and Blake's illustrations how Joyce could connect the dots. There's plenty of Blake here and a good squirt of Gurdjieff, too.

A thought on the relationship between alchemy and mysticism to get you going: "It is not a question of 'getting there' or 'being there'; the Tantric tradition speaks of being here. It speaks of transmutation and the analogy of alchemistic practice is used a great deal. For exxample, the existence of lead is not rejected but lead is transmuted into gold. You do not have to change its metallic quality at all; you must simply transmute it" (Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, p.219).