Lives of alchemystical philosophers ... To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy / by Arthur Edward Waite.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lives of alchemystical philosophers ... To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy / by Arthur Edward Waite. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    on Hermetic Philosophy has been considerably enlarged from such sources as Langlet du Fresnoy's Histoire de la Philosophie HermHique. The preliminary account of the Physical Theory and Practice of the Magnum Opus is a slight original sketch which, to readers unacquainted with alchemy, will afford some notion of the processes of accredited adepts. The introductory essay on the object of alchemical philosophy advocates new and important views concerning the great question of psychal chemistry, and appreciates at their true worth the conflicting theories advanced by the various schools of Hermetic interpretation. IMPORTANT NOTE. I AM forced to append to this Preface a correction of one or two errors of absolutely vital importance, which were unfortunately overlooked in the text. On page i88, line i8, the date was intended to read 1643; on page 189, line 5, read anno trigesirno tertio for trigeshno a?i7io; and on line 6, anno vigesimo tertio instead of vigesimo anno. But if these emendations restore the passage to its original integrity, a discovery which I have made while this work was passing through the press has entirely cancelled its value. I have been gratified with a sight of the original edition of Philalethes' Introitus Apertus—z. small octavo pamphlet in the original paper cover as it was published at Amsterdam in the year 1667. It definitely establishes that its mysterious author was born in or about the year 1623, or two years later than the Welsh adept, Thomas Vaughan, with whom he has so long been identified. This original edition is excessively scarce; I believe I am the only English mystic who has seen it during the present generation. The reader must please understand that the calculation in the pages re- ferred to was based on the date 1643; this date, in the hght of the original edition, has proved erroneous, and by a curious chance, that which was accidentally printed, turns out to be correct at the expense of the calculation.