An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found within.
• 2021 Coalition of Visionary Resources Gold Award • Reveals that those who love and work with crystals and stones have been intuitively following the path of spiritual alchemy • Provides meditative practices with specific stones to go with each stage of the alchemical transformation process as well as other tools and techniques • Includes an illustrated dictionary summarizing the spiritual qualities of more than 375 different minerals, crystals, and gemstones The Alchemy of Stones presents an inspired breakthrough in Robert Simmons’ thirty-five year career of exploring and revealing the spiritual qualities and potentials of minerals, crystals, and gemstones. This holistic, Earth-based framework for understanding stones and their energies initiates readers into an alchemical worldview that leads to spiritual healing, transformation, and transcendence. Engaging readers step by step, Simmons provides guidance on discovering and harnessing the three human powers of intention, attention, and imagination, each a crucial component for meeting and working in harmony with the energies of the Stone Beings. Simmons also introduces us to the Divine Feminine intelligence known as Sophia, or Wisdom. The Stone Beings are her emissaries, and through relating and co-creating with them, the healing and redemption of ourselves and the Earth becomes a reality. Offering an illustrated dictionary of the spiritual qualities of more than 375 different minerals, crystals, and gemstones, Simmons also explores in depth what he calls the Four Cornerstones of the Alchemy of Stones: Moldavite, Phenacite, Azeztulite, and Rosophia. He discusses the stages of alchemical transformation and provides meditative practices with specific stones to go with each stage. He also explores how to work with stone mandalas, crystal body layouts, gemstone elixirs, and Orgonite energy devices and details powerful techniques for working with stones. Woven throughout are Simmons’ personal stories of the pivotal mystical experiences that triggered his capacity to feel stone energies and led him to develop his relationship with the stones, revealing how this work can open minds and awaken hearts. Lavishly illustrated, The Alchemy of Stones is an invitation to a journey of enlightenment, transformation, and spiritual metamorphosis aligned with the path of our living, conscious Earth.
Unabridged republication of the original 1913 edition, published as The history of magic, including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites, and its mysteries.
A sourcebook of documentation on women artists at the forefront of work at the intersection of art and technology. Although women have been at the forefront of art and technology creation, no source has adequately documented their core contributions to the field. Women, Art, and Technology, which originated in a Leonardo journal project of the same name, is a compendium of the work of women artists who have played a central role in the development of new media practice.The book includes overviews of the history and foundations of the field by, among others, artists Sheila Pinkel and Kathy Brew; classic papers by women working in art and technology; papers written expressly for this book by women whose work is currently shaping and reshaping the field; and a series of critical essays that look to the future. Artist contributors Computer graphics artists Rebecca Allen and Donna Cox; video artists Dara Birnbaum, Joan Jonas, Valerie Soe, and Steina Vasulka; composers Cecile Le Prado, Pauline Oliveros, and Pamela Z; interactive artists Jennifer Hall and Blyth Hazen, Agnes Hegedus, Lynn Hershman, and Sonya Rapoport; virtual reality artists Char Davies and Brenda Laurel; net artists Anna Couey, Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss, Nancy Paterson, and Sandy Stone; and choreographer Dawn Stoppiello; critics include Margaret Morse, Jaishree Odin, Patric Prince, and Zoe Sofia
In spite of all the papers that others have written about the manuscript, there is no complete survey of all the approaches, ideas, background information and analytic studies that have accumulated over the nearly fifty-five years since the manuscript was discovered by Wilfrid M. Voynich in 1912. This report pulls together all the information the author could obtain from all the sources she has examined, and to present it in an orderly fashion. The resulting survey will provide a firm basis upon which other students may build their work, whether they seek to decipher the text or simply to learn more about the problem.
• Examines the foundational texts and principles of Hermeticism and alchemy, showing how they offer a foundation for a psycho-spiritual creative practice • Takes the reader on a Hermetic journey through each of the seven traditional planets, offering meditative discourses that speak directly to the intuitive soul • Provides examples from traditional alchemical art and the author’s own intricate esoteric paintings Drawing on ancient Egyptian and Greek cosmogonies and essential Hermetic texts, such as the Corpus Hermeticum, the Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina), and the Nag Hammadi codices, Marlene Seven Bremner offers a detailed understanding of Hermetic philosophy and the art of alchemy as a foundation for a psycho-spiritual creative practice. Offering examples from traditional alchemical art and her own intricate esoteric paintings, Bremner examines the foundational principles of Hermeticism and alchemy and shows how these traditions are a direct means for accessing higher consciousness and true self-knowledge, or gnosis, as well as a way to extract the essence of one’s own creative gifts. The author takes the reader on a Hermetic journey through each of the seven traditional planets--Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon--exploring their mythological, philosophical, alchemical, Qabalistic, magical, astrological, and energetic natures and offering meditative discourses that reach past the rational mind to speak directly to the intuitive soul. She relates the seven planets to the esoteric anatomy of the human body, specifically the seven chakras, and shows how the planets can offer understanding and experience of archetypal energies and patterns in the body, in one’s life, and in the creative process. A profound synthesis of magical and occult teachings as well as an initiation into the alchemical opus, this book reveals how to integrate and apply Hermetic and alchemical principles to awaken inner knowing, liberate the imagination, and live a mystical, creative, and truly inspired life.
A guide to the religions of the world and to the concepts, movements, people, and events that have shaped them. It includes features such as: entries on religious movements and concepts, historical and legendary figures, divinities, religious sites and ceremonies; images that show sacred places, vestments, rituals, objects, and texts; and more.
An old woman enters into a fantastical world of dreams and nightmares in this surrealist classic admired by Björk and Luis Buñuel. Leonora Carrington, painter, playwright, and novelist, was a surrealist trickster par excellence, and The Hearing Trumpet is the witty, celebratory key to her anarchic and allusive body of work. The novel begins in the bourgeois comfort of a residential corner of a Mexican city and ends with a man-made apocalypse that promises to usher in the earth’s rebirth. In between we are swept off to a most curious old-age home run by a self-improvement cult and drawn several centuries back in time with a cross-dressing Abbess who is on a quest to restore the Holy Grail to its rightful owner, the Goddess Venus. Guiding us is one of the most unexpected heroines in twentieth-century literature, a nonagenarian vegetarian named Marian Leatherby, who, as Olga Tokarczuk writes in her afterword, is “hard of hearing” but “full of life.”
