Alchemical traditions : from antiquity to the avant-garde / edited by Aaron Cheak.

Melbourne, Australia : Numen Books, [2013]

683 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Part I. Cornerstones: ancient alchemies, East & West. Introduction to Part One: Circumambulating the alchemical mysterium / Aaron Cheak -- The perfect black: Egypt and alchemy / Aaron Cheak -- Telestic transformation and philosophical rebirth: from ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism / Algis Uždavinys -- Metallurgy and demiurgy: the roots of Greek alchemy in the mythology of Hephaestos (Discussions) / Rod Blackhirst -- Taking from water to fill in fire: the history and dynamics of Taoist alchemy / Aaron Cheak -- Mercury and immortality: the Hindu alchemical tradition / David Gordon White -- Iatrochemistry, metaphysiology, gnosis: Tibetan alchemy in the Kālacakra tantra / Kim Lai -- Part II. Transformations: alchemies of the spirit, body & word. Introduction to Part Two: Interzone: on the origins and nature of European alchemy / Aaron Cheak -- The alchemical khiasmos: counter-stretched harmony and divine self-perception / Aaron Cheak & Sabrina Dalla Valle -- Altus' Ominous aphorism: reading as alchemical process / Mirco Mannucci -- Turris philosophorum: on the alchemical iconography of the tower / Christopher A. Plaisance -- Of ether, entheogens and colloidal gold: Heinrich Khunrath and the making of a philosophers' stone / Hereward Tilton -- Becoming an angel: the mundus imaginalis of Henry Corbin and the platonic path of self-knowledge / Angela Voss -- The kiss of death: amor, corpus resurrectionis and the alchemical transfiguration of Eros / Paul Scarpari -- Agent of all mutations: metallurgical, biological and spiritual evolution in the alchemy of René Schwaller de Lubicz / Aaron Cheak -- Take two emerald tablets in the morning: surrealism and the alchemical transubstantiation of the world / Leon Marvell -- Incredible lunatic of the future: the alchemical horticulture of Alan Chadwick / Rod Blackhirst -- Alchemical endgame: 'checkmate' in Beckett and Eliot / Dan Mellamphy.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 641-676).