What Painting Is: How to Think about Oil Painting ... - Victoria Vesna

196 NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
12. There is a connection to my interests here: the treatise called Aesch-
Mezareph, a work of Jewish kabbalistic alchemy (as opposed to the
more common Christian kabbalism). The anonymous author
makes comparisons between hochmah and lead, binoh and tin, and
so forth. See Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbalah
denudata (Sulzbach: A.Lichtenthaler, 1677–84), reprinted
(Hildesheim: G.Olms, 1974); Gershom Scholem, Alchimia e kabbalah,
translated [from the German] by Marina Sartorio (Torino:
G.Einaudi, 1995). For Christian kabbalism see François Secret, Les
kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (Paris: Dunod, 1964). There are
several English editions of the Aesch-Mezareph; see for example
Aesch-Mezareph, translated by a lover of Philalethes [1714], edited
by Sapere Aude, in the series Collectanea hermetica, edited by
William Wynn Wescott, vol. 14 (London: Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1894), reprinted (New York: Occult Research Press,
[1956]).
13. The best introductions to alchemy are not biased for or against
either science or Jungianism. It is essential, in first encountering
the literature, not to read at random, or fall into one of the several
competing regimes of interpretation. Good first choices are:
Robert Halleux, Les Textes alchimiques, Typologie des Sources du
Moyen Âge Occidental, fascicle 32, edited by L.Genicot (Turnhout,
Belgium: Brepols, 1979); Wilhelm Ganzenmüller, “Wandlungen in
der geschichtlichen Betrachtung der Alchemie,” Chymia 3 (1950):
143–54, also in his Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technologie und der
Alchemic (Weinheim, 1956):349–60; and J.Weyer, “The Image of
Alchemy in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Histories of
Chemistry,” Ambix 23 (1976):65–79. Of these, Halleux is the most
knowledgeable and nonjudgmental, though even he falters when
it comes to the recent non-academic literature. First he says it should
be judged “du strict point de vue de l’historien,” but he ends up
concluding that scholarly knowledge of alchemy’s history “est une
exigence de santé mentale.” Halleux, Les Textes alchimiques, op. cit.,
57. A useful introductory bibliography is Alan Pritchard, Alchemy:
A Bibliography of English-Language Sources (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1980). Since the history of alchemical writings is so
difficult—so full of unacknowledged reprints, anonymous
translations, pirated and undated editions, and pseudonymous
treatises—I have made the notes as specific as possible. Refer to
the first citation of a given text for the fullest bibliographic
information.
NOTES TO CHAPTER I