COLLECTANEA CHEMICA A E WAITE 1893 ALCHEMY CDBOOK

COLLECTANEA CHEMICA

 This is a short collection of some curious Alchemical treatises which was republished by A.E. Waite in 1893. According to the preface, Waite found these in a manuscript belonging to a collector of occult books.

COLLECTANEA CHEMICA:

Being, Certain Select Treatises On, Alchemy and Hermetic Medicine By, Eirenaeus Philalethes, Dr. Francis Anthony, George Starkey, Sir George Ripley, and a Work by an Anonymous Unknown Which is Attributed to Edward Kelly (ed. by A. E. Waite) London, J. Elliot and Co. [1893]

Being a collection of alchemical works over some 160 pages. Contents: The Secret of the Immortal Liquor called Alkahest; Aurum Potabile; The Admirable Efficacy of the True Oil of Sulphur Vive; The Stone of the Philosophers; The Bosom Book of Sire George Ripley, The Preparation of the Sophic Mercury.

Highly recommended.

The Hermetic Tracts comprised in this volume are printed from a quarto manuscript (itself a transcript from an older but now untraceable work) belonging to the celebrated collection of the late Mr. Frederick Hockley, who was well known among modern students of the secret sciences, not only for the resources of his Hermetic library, but for his practical acquaintance with many branches of esoteric lore, and for his real or reputed connection with the numerous but unavowed associations which now, as at anterior periods, are supposed to dispense initiation into occult knowledge. While practically the reprint is verbatim, it would have been a needless source of confusion, in a subject which is already sufficiently confused, to have reproduced

the obsolete orthography, the superfluous capitals, the perplexing parentheses, the unnecessary italics, and the chaotic punctuation of the original. These, therefore, have been abandoned in favour of a simpler method. But the flavour of antiquity is sometimes valued for its age rather than its excellence; and partly in deference to this prejudice, there has been no attempt to reconstruct the style of these old writings. Moreover, though somewhat barbarous and entangled, it does not present sufficient difficulties to justify a drastic purgation.