McLean summarizes Newman on Starkey/Philalethes

Newman's article in 'Alchemy Revisted' which was based on a paper
presented at the Groeningen conference on the history of alchemy
in 1989 is entitled 'The Authorship of the Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum
Regis Palatium'.

The crux of Newman's analysis seems to be that processes for
making the star-regulus of Antimony and some related processes
imnoving an amalgamation presented in Starkey's 'Key' are very
similar to that outlined in Philalethes' 'Introitus' - "close
textual affiliation" is the term Newman uses.

Newman suggests, from textual analysis, that Starkey's 'Key' is based
on an earlier work of Alexander von Suchten, rather than being taken
from Philalethes' 'Introitus', and further concludes that Starkey himself
wrote the 'Introitus'. He also found that there is no mention of Philalethes
in Starkey's own private journals from the 1650's, though he openly refers
to Suchten. Newman finds it odd that Starkey does not mention
Philalethes in his private notebooks, and thus concludes that he was
not mentioned because Starkey knew he did not exist, i.e. because
he himself wrote the Philalethes text.
-Adam McLean in the Alchemy Academy Archive

Coptic Incantation

Boehme on the Principle of Fire

"The principle of fire is the root, and it grows in its root. It has in its proprium sour, bitter, fierceness and anguish. And these grow in its proprium in poison and death the anguished stern life, which in itself gives darkness, owing to the drawing in of the harshness. Its properties make sulphur, mercury, and salt; through the fire's property makes not Sul in sulphur, but the will of freedom makes Sul in sulphur, while the principle goes forward."
-- Jacob Boehme (1575-1624)
(thanks to Phil Norfleet for the quote)

Short Dialogue on Alchemical Violence with Edward Butler

@t3dy: A spiritual alchemy reading should get alchemical matter theory right. It does no good to interpolate anachronistic modern spiritualities.

@EPButler: Indeed, perhaps alchemy not grounded in a theory of matter is a contradiction in terms.

@t3dy: But Jung's theory (which is based on a similar attitude in Atwood) argues that alchemical matter theory was nonsense+thus no theory

@EPButler: If alchemical matter theory is nonsense, find a way to read it so it makes sense again: hermeneutical charity. (Same goes, e.g., for ancient physics)

@t3dy: Of course, I do like to explore hermeneutic models that balance charity with *alchemical* violence (properly understood).

@EPButler: Charitable readings are frequently perceived as "violent", where the violence is being done to the conventional interpretation.

Taken from his Twitter archive

Saint Jerome by Theodoricus of Prague (14th century)

Diagramming Plato

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Was featured on Wikipedia's Picture of the day. Here's their article on The Garden