Art with alchemical symbolism from the book “Au seuil du mystère” by Guy Bechtel’s “Essais de sciences maudites” series, 1915. The title and series name translates to “On the Threshold of Mystery (Essays of the damned sciences 1)”. Source: Embassy of the Free Mind.
“Cabala, speculum artis et naturae, in alchymia” by Stephan Michelspacher, 1616, is a short pamphlet about hidden secrets in 4 works of art. The book claims that only masters of alchemy will fully understand them, but gives hints to their meanings relating to: chemistry, astrology, philosophy, art, virtues, and the natural elements.
From Embassy of the Free Mind, and translated on Seculo Spiritus Sancti
Image with alchemical symbolism from the title page of Aufschlüsse zur Magie by Karl Von Eckartshausen, 1791. The title roughly translates to “Insights into Magic.” Eckartshausen is also the author of The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, an important book to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Source: The Embassy of the Freemind
“The Mirror of Art and Nature” a diagram from Cabala, Speculum Artis et Naturae, in Alchymia by Stephan Michelspacher, 1616
Depiction of the four humors, the chemical systems believed to regulate human behaviors. According to Hippocrates, who is credited as the first to apply the principle to medicine, the humors were blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Image: Bartholomaeus Anglicus, mid-15thC
