argentvive

Finding alchemy clues in literature.  His Dark Materials/The Book of Dust, The Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, a little Shakespeare

[argentvive]

Alchemy 101 - Where to Find Things

I’ve been posting about alchemy in literature for a few years now, somewhat randomly, based on what I was reading or in response to asks.  I thought it might be useful to create a list of the key posts, with links for easy reference.  This is a work in progress.  I’ve listed the categories I intend to include and will fill them in as I have time.  

General Introduction 

This is my brief introduction to the five main kinds of alchemy: physical, spiritual, literary, psychological, and practical.

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/180576502445/alchemy-physical-spiritual-literary

This is the first part of Lyndy Abraham’s historical introduction to alchemy from her indispensable Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery.

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/182911061965/lyndy-abrahams-introduction-to-literary-alchemy

Alchemical Diagrams

European alchemists were very keen on using diagrams to illustrate the opus alchymicum (the magnum opus, the Great Work) of creating the Philosopher’s Stone.  I’ve written about these four famous images multiple times. Studying these images--especially Maier and Mylius--is the quickest and easiest way to learn the basics of alchemy.  

1. Michael Maier, Atalanta fugiens

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/175647751650/michael-maier-atalanta-fugiens-creating-the

2.  John Dee, Monas hieroglyphica

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/186477356685/john-dee-monas-hieroglyphica-1564-the

3.  Johann Daniel Mylius, Mundus elementaris

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/181570593980/johann-daniel-mylius-mundus-elementaris-the

4.  Heinrich Khunrath, Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/167962110550/spirit-soul-and-body

Alchemy Symbols

https://www.tumblr.com/argentvive/768450950360924160/alchemy-symbols

Numbers

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/629995509687468033/alchemy-101-numbers-1-3

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/630005072751984640/alchemy-101-numbers-4-6

The next post explains the correspondences between the 7 heavenly bodies, the 7 metals, and the 7 organs of the body.  The doctrine of correspondences is fundamental to spiritual and literary alchemy.  

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/630269538308587520/alchemy-101-the-very-special-number-7

Marking Characters

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/181491637675/alchemy-101-marking-your-characters-names

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/181567904630/alchemy-101-marking-your-characters-birthdays

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/181631587880/alchemy-101-marking-your-characters-personality

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/181911238600/alchemy-101-marking-your-characters-mastery

The Chemical Wedding of Sol and Luna (Red King and White Queen; Sulphur and Mercury/Argentvive)

This is a general introduction to the chemical wedding, with some examples:

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/190746374560/chemical-wedding-what-does-it-look-like

I’ve also done case studies of the Chemical Weddings between Jaime + Brienne and Jon + Daenerys from Game of Thrones/ASOIAF and between Lord Asriel + Marisa Coulter and Lyra + Will from His Dark Materials.  

Jaime and Brienne

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/170620855110/jamie-has-his-hand-cut-off-by-in-a-storm-of

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/171503434530/jaime-and-brienne-as-captives

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/171582701530/jamie-and-brienne-in-the-bath

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/171784901810/bear

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/173562760305/jaime-brienne-oathkeeper-and-a-new-mission

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/173653207295/jaime-brienne-and-honor-part-2

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/173911940355/jaime-brienne-and-honor-part-3-oathkeeper

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/172539993755/jaime-and-brienne-conjoin-through-oathkeeper

Jon and Daenerys

Jon and Daenerys have not met in the books yet, so my posts draw either on how they are marked in the books or their interactions in the TV series--minus the last 2 episodes of course.  

The symbolism and imagery attending their initial meeting at Dragonstone is particularly interesting.

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/183547267265/got-is-all-about-jon-and-dany

This post looks at the cave scene in the show:

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/165880094905/jon-and-dany-in-the-cave-at-dragonstone

Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/189696226305/lord-asriel-and-marisa-coulter-chemical-wedding

Lyra and Will

Lyra and Will have a very well developed Chemical Wedding in TAS.

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/639261663723405312/lyra-and-wills-chemical-wedding-in-the-amber

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/639352508929687552/lyra-and-wills-chemical-wedding-part-2

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/639797141245689856/lyra-and-wills-chemical-wedding-part-3

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/641702023866286080/lyra-and-wills-chemical-wedding-pt-4-mary

Solve et Coagula

Solve et coagula--Latin for dissolve and coagulate--is the central process of physical alchemy.  Using fire and water, the alchemist first dissolves a solid into a fluid substance, then coagulates it back to a dry solid.  In a story, the “solve” usually involves the protagonist having a dramatic encounter with water--a bath, tears, drowning, etc., while the “coagula” is shown by having him or her be burned by fire or injured by piercing weapons.  Knives, swords, axes, scissors, the scythe of Saturn, and the teeth of lions and wolves are symbols of the “secret fire.”

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/182587352715/why-is-game-of-thrones-so-violent

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/171503434530/jaime-and-brienne-as-captives

Colours and Stages of Alchemy

This post lays out the main schemes of the alchemical process--four stages, seven, twelve, and fourteen.  

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/643426690373173248/alchemy-how-many-stages-four-seven

In the following post on “Citrinitas,” the optional yellow stage, I explain the origins of the four stage--black-yellow-white-red--sequence:

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/646325994800676864/citrinitas-alchemys-yellow-stage

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/argentvive/644877860469964800

Animals and Birds

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/188998432877/anonymous-said

Works of Literary Alchemy

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/167747829925/alchemy-or-not-how-do-you-tell

Sources for Literary Alchemy

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/648933123789373440/hi-do-you-have-any-book-recommendations-for

[ducissatenebrarum]

The “Etruscan werewolf” refers not to a shapeshifting beast but to a daemon-wolf—a liminal spirit between life and death in Etruscan belief. With a human body and wolf’s head, this being symbolized restless souls who had died violently or without proper burial.

Depictions appear on tomb paintings and artifacts like the Pontic Plate (c. 520 BC) from Vulci, showing a clawed wolf-man with gold bracelets among mythic creatures. To the Etruscans, the wolf embodied twilight and the passage to the underworld—a guardian of death and transition. Unlike modern legends, this figure reflected the spirit’s unrest, not transformation.

Pontic Plate (520 BC), depicting “Etruscan Wolf-Man,” Vulci, Italy 🇮🇹 — Museo Nazionale Etrusco, Villa Giulia, Rome.

[argentvive]

The Indian take on alchemy

[cuties-in-codices]

crowned snake woman

in the alchemical "buch der heiligen dreifaltigkeit" ("book of the holy trinity"), bavaria, late 15th c.

source: Munich, BSB, Cgm 598, fol. 78v

[tomoleary]

John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) Study for The Magic Circle (1886) Source

The Magic Circle

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Note the ouroboros coiled around her neck

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Have only been to Iran once, for a few days, but it happened to be Nowruz, which I’d never heard of before then

[artist-varo]

The battle, 1947, Remedios Varo

https://www.wikiart.org/en/remedios-varo/the-battle-1947

[typhlonectes]

Ouroboros Pie Crust by Danielle Baskin

[questingbeaste]

c’mon everybody we’re making pie!

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So impressive!

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The persistence of Zoroastrian customs in Iran

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Do you, by any means, happen to know a tract called “The Flaw of Alchemy: On Dragons and the Nature of the God in Man”? Iʼve been trying to find it everywhere online but couldnʼt.

Sorry. I haven’t heard of it. You could try asking the Ritman Library in Amsterdam. They have the most extensive collection of books on Hermetic philosophy that I know of.

[argentvive]

Lion and Sun Flag

In the ongoing uprisings in Iran, some protesters have raised the former flag of the monarchy, adopted under the Qajars in 1906 and subsequently used by the Pahlavis.

Appropriately, this is known as the lion and sun flag.

It reminded me immediately of this alchemical image of the lion devouring the sun (from Rosarium philosophorum, 1550, image 18).

I often write about how modern art and literature adapt and use imagery from medieval alchemy. However, in this case, it is alchemy that is the borrower. The lion and sun imagery goes far far back, to Zoroastrianism and ancient Persia, as we can see in this image of King Artaxerxes II (445-358 BCE).

I think you can go back earlier still, to Babylonian astronomy and astrology. The Babylonians were the first we know of to associate the lion, Leo, with the sun. So today, millennia later, we have the sign of the Zodiac, Leo, corresponding to July 24 to August 23.

There is so much that can be written about this topic; maybe I'll come back to it later.

[his-dark-materials-trilogy]

So excited!

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Central Asia in red

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Ouroboros (1478)

I think the first image in the rapidfire series I just reblogged is this illustration from a Greek manuscript by Thedoros Pelecanos (copied from an earlier version by Synosius):

The source is Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Ms. grec 2327, f. 297.

The wingless dragon eating its own tail portrays the circularity of the alchemical process. The beginning of the process is symbolized by a green creature (sometimes a green lion or serpent rather than a dragon). The end of the process, when the alchemist achieves the Philosopher's Stone, the Red Stone, is indicated by a red dragon.

[s-n]

[argentvive]

Slow it down!