Lawrence Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy

I got this book as a Christmas gift and have not been disappointed. It's really the first reliable, scholarly introduction to alchemy that is both an easy read and a fascinating guide to the subject. It is well illustrated with useful diagrams that help explain the chemistry, which Principe shows was the real focus of the work. I especially appreciated the chapter on Zosimos, which sets the record straight about the nature of his dream as well as providing an interesting framework for thinking about his gnostic influences. There's lots of great stuff on medieval and islamic alchemical theory explained more clearly than I have seen in any book on alchemy, and Principe even tackles some of the more difficult renaissance cases like Maier and Khunrath, persuasively putting those strange texts into their religious and alchemical contexts. I only wish that it had been longer. A more lengthy review to come.

Versluis vs. Hanegraaff (not sure he understands emic vs. etic here)

Still, one has to wonder about the implications of the sharp division he makes between a “religionist” perspective and an “empiricist” one. Let us consider, for a moment, the example of an alchemical treatise. It may well be that this treatise includes arcane allusions to alchemical work that only a practicing alchemist would recognize and understand. We could envision an etic approach to this treatise that completely fails to recognize what the treatise conveys on alchemical discipline, whereas an emic approach might very well be the only one that could get at what the alchemical work is actually about. In this case, as in a number of others I might also cite, a sympathetic empiricist perspective may well be indispensable for understanding the work one is investigating. And this, in fact, is the methodological approach that I am advocating here.
Methods in the Study of Western Esotericism

Zodiacal Man

Adam McLean on the "Frater Albertus" school

"Yes, it is good to see some researchers revisiting actual alchemical
processes and attempting to repeat some alchemical experiments
described in the original writings, books and manuscripts of alchemists.
Unfortunately, as these often involve high temperatures, molten metals
or salts, corrosive acids and alkalis, as well as poisonous volatile
substances, these can only be undertaken in a properly equipped
chemical laboratory.

From the 1980s, there was popularised by Frater Albertus in the USA
a type of kitchen chemistry, involving simple low temperature distillations
of herbal material. This was presented as an actual "alchemy" which could
result in plant stones and various such preparations which people were
led to believe could cure them of illnesses. Sadly, this was mere froth and
fabrication and had almost no connection to anything one might recognise as
being recorded in actual alchemical writings. During the last 30 years, this
Frater Albertus concocted "alchemy" seems to have been the one which
has become the popular view of practical alchemy, and is trawled through
in study courses and various web sites.

The important thing, surely, is to explore the original writings of the alchemists
and also attempt to repeat their experimental work."

taken from a comment posted here

Faces of the Sun and Moon

from a Persian manuscript

Spiritual Alchemy and the function of images

Spiritual alchemy and the function of image : coincidentia oppositorum in Michael Maier's Atalanta fugiens / Florin George Calian
The function of image in alchemical treatises like Michael Maier’s Atalanta fugiens opens a discussion of alchemy as laboratory work or as spiritual discipline. According to some scholars, the iconography of alchemy is a metaphorical illustration of laboratory work. This thesis argues that it is not the case with Atalanta fugiens, where the iconographical language is part of a tradition that stresses the power of image in expressing spiritual and metaphysical achievement. The tradition for which the image plays the major role is identified by Ernst Gombrich as a Neo-Platonic one. Using Gombrich’s theory (the Neo-Platonic symbol theory) and his terminology pertaining to the function of images (didactic, revelative, magic), I explored the possible ways of interpreting Atlanta fugiens’ iconography for both the initiated and the common “reader”. Three emblems (VIII, XXX, and XXI) are analyzed in relation to the additional text to illustrate the possibility of building a structural model for the images (didactic-revelative, didactic, and revelative), but also to discuss their ambiguity in several semiotic layers. The hypothesis is also advanced that Atalanta fugiens’ illustrations were influenced by the iconography of Lambspring’s De lapide Philosophorum, and not the other way around. This entire excursion returns to the starting point of the thesis, which stresses that alchemy is an allegorical manner of expression for something spiritual and religious, and not merely pre-chemistry.

Buckyball

lifted from Wikipedia's Timeline of chemistry