Ceres, Thetis and Alchemical Nurture
Maier pairs the nurture of Triptolemus and Achilles with the gradual strengthening of his philosophical stone.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)Loading Lumitheca…
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Concepts & Teachings
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Four Guides to Alchemy in Maier
Nature, reason, experience and reading become a guide, staff, spectacles and lamp in Maier’s image of inquiry.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Mercury and Vulcan at the Hearth
Two Mercuries and a furnace introduce Maier’s distinction between the subject’s inward qualities and the heat applied from outside.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Naaman’s Washing in Maier
The biblical washing in Jordan becomes Maier’s analogy for the purification of the philosophers’ brass.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Pallas and the Golden Rain in Maier
Pallas’s birth and a shower of gold at Rhodes become an explicitly allegorical reading of myth and alchemical wisdom.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Rebis and the Two Mountains in Maier
Mercury and Venus provide a double origin for the two-headed figure Maier calls Rebis.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
Saturn and the Colours of Transformation
Maier reads Saturn’s swallowed stone through blackness, whiteness and redness in Emblem XII.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Geometrical Stone in Maier
A circle, square and triangle explain the transformation of a divided body into a renewed unity in Emblem XXI.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
SourceThe Great Work in Lévi
Self-creation and the emancipation of the will within Hermetic transformation.
Éliphas Lévi, Transcendental Magic
The King’s Vapour Bath in Maier
King Duenech’s enclosed bath connects an alchemical allegory with historical theories of digestion, sweat and purification.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Lion and Winged Lioness in Maier
A fixed lion and flying lioness picture the difficult union of contrasting alchemical qualities.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Old Man in the Dew-House
A tree, an enclosed house and an ageing man form Maier’s allegory of renewal in Emblem IX.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Philosophical Coral in Maier
Coral supplies Maier with an image of growth, hardening and red colour in the philosophers’ stone.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Potter’s Art in Maier
The potter’s handling of earth, water, air and fire becomes a model for Maier’s account of transformation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Salamander and Fixation in Maier
The salamander in the flames represents the resistance to fire that Maier calls fixation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Sun and Its Shadow in Maier
Light and shade work together in Maier’s forty-fifth emblem, linking an astronomical image with alchemical transformation.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Three Voices in Atalanta Fugiens
Atalanta, Hippomenes and the delaying apple name the three musical roles printed beside Maier’s first fugue.
Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Two Fountains in Maier
A hot fountain and a cold fountain picture Maier’s account of opposed qualities becoming one philosophical water.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Washerwoman in Atalanta Fugiens
The household washing scene through which Maier connects cleansing with the varied operations of the chymist.
Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1618)
The Wolf and the Dog in Maier
An eastern wolf and a western dog turn the opposed forces of sulphur and Mercury into a struggle of mutual dependence.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens (1618)Showing 20 of 20 entries