by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

The alchemists' Maria Prophetessa,
also called the Jewess (Moses' older sister, Miriam);
in the background is the alchemical conjunctio, or union, of upper and lower.
(Scanned by me from C.G. Jung's Psychology & Alchemy, p.153)

Since I've begun this page with an image of Maria Prophetessa (see directly above), it's only fair to give you her text as well <smile>.  From Adam McLean's site (see directly below) comes "Mary the Prophetess," a 16th-17th century text transcribed from the British Library MS. Sloane 3641 folios 1-8.  From a brief passage of poetry at the end of this prose text:

...Mary the Light of dew, and Art has got
In three hours to tye the Knot.
Pluto's daughter, it is she
Who bindeth Loves confederacy
Joyned with three seeds she does aspire
To be exalted in the Fire.

This amazing site from Adam McLean in Scotland is "dedicated to Alchemy in all its facets."  It's an obvious labor of love.  I'll let McLean tell you about his site himself:

70 megabytes of information on alchemy in all its facets. Divided into over 1300 sections and providing thousands of pages of text, over 1700 images, over 200 complete alchemical texts, extensive bibliographical material on the printed books and manuscripts, numerous articles, introductory and general reference material. There is also a searchable graphics database with 800 images, and a database of alchemy books with 4600 entries and 5 megs of text. It was first launched on 7th May 1995 and new pages are continually being added. There are about 400 people accessing this site each day....

Mercifully, the site has a good search engine!  Some materials are also available in French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.  Among the many excellences on this vast site are special sections on Inner, Islamic (including Egyptian), Indian, and Chinese Alchemy.  In addition, McLean offers information on conferences, alchemical societies, magazines & journals, study courses, related websites, and even an e-mail discussion group for those whose alchemical interests are serious.

This is "Alchemical Symbolism, Imagery, and Music," again from McLean's site.  When it comes to alchemy (this is doubtless one of my many character flaws), alchemical imagery really excites me whereas most alchemical texts just turn me rabid.  Thus, I find this page's many links to manuscript art truly delicious -- plan to spend a great deal of time here!

Also included are a few hundred of McLean's own exquisitely handcolored alchemical woodcuts; some of these are even "animated," by which I mean that you'll see an image (at the above link) and suddenly it'll be peeled back, like turning a page in a book, and another image will appear, and another and another.  It's very cool <smile>.

This is "Herbs & Alchemy," a collection of well-chosen links by Barbara Harrison Beegle (another of her sites is on my Grail page).   Currently, she has 21 alchemical links: 16 are handpicked texts from Adam McLean's site (see above).  If going directly to McLean's site overwhelms you (and it could), you might prefer to start here with Barbara's excellent choices.  Among them, you'll discover much fascinating information.

Faust before the magic mirror
Rembrandt
(From C.G. Jung's Psychology & Alchemy, p.111)

This is The Gnosis Archive from Stephan A. Hoeller, Bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica.  You'll find an introduction to what gnosticism is (see direct link below), excellent translations of primary texts, a bookstore, readings, meditations, and audio clips of web lectures (including one on Harry Potter and Tolkien -- I only had time to listen to a few minutes of this one but found it delightful).

I met Bishop Hoeller in the 1980's when he was a guest speaker in one of Professor Birger Pearson's graduate gnosticism seminars at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  At the time, I was interested in locating lost gnostic texts and reasoned that doing pastlife regressions with people passionate about gnosticism would be an ideal way to look for clues.  Since I had a decade's experience in regressing people, I wrote Bishop Hoeller about my plan and he responded that he was interested in being one of my subjects.  We made several appointments, but they always got cancelled by one or the other of us.  It slowly became clear that our mutually hectic schedules were too much of a hindrance -- and the plan faded.

During that time, however, I did drive down to Los Angeles with several friends for an Easter service and was very moved, both by the man's sincerity and his congregation's belief.  Gnosticism isn't my current path, but for those interested in it, Bishop Hoeller is a reliable guide.

"What Is a Gnostic?" is an engaging, clear essay by Stephan A. Hoeller (see directly above) for those new to this ancient tradition.

"The Gnostic Worldview: a Brief Summary of Gnosticism" is another excellent introductory essay, a companion piece to the above, by Stephan A. Hoeller.

This is the website for the J. R. Ritman Library of Hermetic Philosophy in Amsterdam:

...With this collection, the founder of the library aims to make available the manuscripts and printed works in the field of the Hermetic-Christian tradition. The collection offers a wealth of information for the study of this spiritual tradition, which has exerted a notable influence in the course of our era; for instance in 2nd-century Alexandria (Gnostic movements), in the thirteenth century (European mysticism), in the second half of the fifteenth century in Italy (revival of interest in Hermetic philosophy) and in the first half of the seventeenth century in Germany (Rosicrucians and theosophical movements)....

Navigation isn't as clear as it could be.  I was beginning to think the site offered nothing of value to its online audience until, after clicking on many categories, I finally found what I wanted: actual manuscript pages with descriptions of the books from which they came.  You'll find these treasures under Recent Additions to this Site -- beautiful manuscript art, essays, also an interview with the library's fascinating founder, J. R. Ritman (who recently nearly lost his collection to a large, cold-hearted Dutch bank -- it's a heartening story).  Of special interest from "Recent Additions..." is this link for the library's Kabbalah collection: http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/kabbalah.html.

In addition to its fabulous collection of works dating from the 10th century onwards, the library also has its own publishing branch -- here's the publication list (unfortunately, none are online): http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/pubs.html.

Mandala
(From Remo F. Roth site -- see directly below)

http://www.psychovision.ch/rfr/radbilde.htm

[This is the only link this page had from 11/13/98, when it was launched, to 25 April 2001]:  This is "The Wheel Image of Niklaus von Flüe as Symbol of the Subtle Body" by Jungian, Remo F. Roth.  It's a lengthy, thoughtful paper, illustrated and carefully documented.  About its human subject, Roth writes:

...Niklaus von Flüe was born in the year 1417 in Sachseln, in the vicinity of Lucerne, and died at the age of 70 in the year 1487. He claimed to have had visions already in the womb. This series of visions continued during his earthly life and concluded with the so-called vision of the terrible countenance of God....

I would have preferred less Jungian amplification of the Wheel Image and more biographical exploration of a unique 15th century hermit/saint -- yet the paper remains useful and succeeds in whetting one's appetite for more. [Annotation revised 4/22/01.]

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Copyright 1998-2001 by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Latest Updates after 11/13/98 launch:
22 April 2001 (added new link but removed it 4/25 as I suspect it's a hoax);
25 April 2001 (more new links): unless noted, all links are from today, 4/25/01.