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The dissolving of one’s self, and the recrystallizing at higher, more angelic states of being. This is the Alchemical message, this is the shaman’s dance.
— Terence McKenna (via unionovserpents)
2013/06/17
The Magical Calendar is one of the most amazing pieces of art and information available in Western Hermeticism.
Published in 1620, the Magical Calendar contains tables of correspondences arranged by number from one to twelve. They are based in part on extensive tables in Agrippa, book 2, chapters 4-14 but go well beyond anything in Agrippa, especially sigils. The engraving was executed by the brilliant Johannes Theodorus de Bry who illustrated other important occult works such as those of Robert Fludd. The author was Johann Baptista Großchedel. Carlos Gilly has identified the original manuscript on which the printed Magical Calendar was based as British Library manuscript Harley 3420.
Adam McLean published a wonderful study of it in The Magical Calendar: A Synthesis of Magical Symbolism from the Seventeenth-Century Renaissance of Medieval Occultism (available via amazon.com)
2013/06/17
Engraving of Ouroboros (a dragon swallowing its own tail) by Lucas Jennis. Published on an alchemicalemblem-book entitled De Lapide Philisophico (1625)
![lunaghoststar:
From “A collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne…” by George Wither, 1635
[view / download book]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/7625c2b831d038d54a486d5f458127f7/tumblr_mnya1nHm9k1s8183so1_500.jpg)
2013/06/17
Engraving from Renaissance Italy showing Apollo, the Muses, the planetary spheres and musical ratios.
2013/06/16
18k gold with a carved agate skull surrounded by rose- and old-cut diamonds and black enamelling, with hallmarks for London 1852. It has an interior inscription on the ring that adds another fascinating layer of history: Inscribed “James Dixon Obit 1852,” it memorialises James Dixon, a well-known English silversmith and founder of the family firm of James Dixon & Sons.
(via funeral)
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My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. […] Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it. So I don’t guffaw at the woman who visits her husband’s grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It’s not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she’s talking to, that’s all right. That’s not what this is about. This is about humans being human.
— Carl Sagan on why sometimes it’s good to temporarily forgo your beliefs in order to respect someone else’s (via applepiesfromscratch)
— Carl Sagan on why sometimes it’s good to temporarily forgo your beliefs in order to respect someone else’s (via applepiesfromscratch)
(Source: carl-sagan, via tachypomp)
