#michael maier

[shisasan]

Illustration from Atalanta fugiens by Michael Maier, first published in 1618 in Oppenheim, one of the most renowned emblem books of the hermetic-alchemical tradition. Combining fifty engravings with epigrams, fugues, and discourses, it was designed as a meditation on transformation. This emblem depicts the element of Air, “in whose breath the philosopher’s stone is conceived”, a reminder that in alchemy, creation begins not in matter, but in the unseen.

[grrlmusic]

Crash

[granstromjulius]

Michael Maier

[elyaqim]

Terra (Mother Earth), 1618.

🌍 As the song “Happy Birthday to You” has been firmly established to be in the public domain, it can be sung to wish people a happy Earth Day without incurring any copyright infringement.

(If she is the Earth, on what is she standing?)

☞ “Nutrix ejus terra eſt,” emblem by Matthias Merian illustrating epigram no. 2, Atalanta Fugiens …, by Michaele Majero (Michael Maier), 1618. (In the public domain.)

[sakrogoat]

Michael Maier - Hermes Trismegistus, from Symbola Aureae Mensae

[argentvive]

Alchemical Emblem Books  Atalanta fugiens - Part 2

I’m breaking this post into two to avoid a superlong post.  Part 1 is here:

https://argentvive.tumblr.com/post/697962912031064064/alchemical-emblem-books-atalanta-fugiens-part-1

Emblem XIX If you kill one of the four, instantly all will die.  (The image shows personifications of the four elements--fire, air, water, and earth.  GRRM uses this idea in ASOIAF as a way for the men of the Night Watch to kill the Others.)

Emblem XXIV  The Wolf devoured the King and, cremated, restored him to life. (This may turn out to be the inspiration for the resurrection of Jon Snow, if GRRM ever writes it.)

Emblem XXVI The Fruit of Human Wisdom is the Tree of Life  (A person who has completed the Great Work and achieved Wisdom--personified by a woman-- will be rewarded with “health and length of days” and “glory and infinite riches,” the words on the banners she is holding.  In a story, this is the Happy Ever After, or, in Tolkien’s invented word, the Eucatastrophe.)

Emblem XXIX Just as the Salamander lives in the Fire, so does the Stone. (The salamander is a symbol for Sulphur, the Male Principle of the Work, who corresponds to fire and air)

Emblem XXXI The King swimming in the sea, crying out in a loud voice, “Whoever saves me will have a great reward”

Emblem XLVII The Wolf from the East and the Dog from the West savaged each other.  (I’ve suggested that Malcolm channels “wild dogs” in his struggle with Bonneville in La Belle Sauvage.)  

A recent essay, “Michael Maier and Mythoalchemy,” explores Maier’s alchemical readings of  Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology in Atalanta and his other works.  For example, Maier sees alchemical meaning in Egyptian mythology when Osiris the Sun god marries his sister Isis the Moon goddess and gets dismembered by Typhon.  

https://furnaceandfugue.org/essays/forshaw/

There are a few other printed alchemical works I’ve cited a lot that I could write about, but it seems few people are interested, so I will put this project on hold for now.  

[mjaomjaomjao]

michael maier

[brother-hermes]

MENTAL ALCHEMY: THE SUN & THE MOON

MENTAL ALCHEMY: THE SUN & THE MOON

“If thou but settest foot on this path, thou shalt see it everywhere.”― Hermes When Michael Maier depicted Hermes Trismegistus with the sun and the moon he did so knowing this imagery would stir something within our subconscious. See, cosmic language isn’t a language of words. This is why psychologists oftentimes use dream interpretations as a way to help their clients get in touch with their…

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