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Available
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Publication
Phanes Pr (1991), Paperback, 77 pages
Description
The fifteen plates of the Mutus Liber "the Mute Book," are well known, and this book without words is recognized as a classic of the seventeenth-century alchemical tradition. Although the engravings seem to outline an alchemical process in detail, their message is not immediately obvious and it really requires a commentary to make it intelligible to the present-day reader. Adam McLean's extensive commentary on this series of engravings reveals the Mutus Liber as a synthesis of spiritual, soul, and physical alchemy. While the entire secret of the physical process is not fully revealed in the plates, enough information is given to piece together details of a modus operandi/ indeed, modern French alchemists like Canseliet and Barbault have found great inspiration and hints relating to the physical work in the Mutus Liber. As one of the most significant documents of the alchemical tradition, this edition of the Mutus Liber will be appreciated by all students of the Hermetic tradition, for Adam McLean's fascinating and insightful commentary throws a penetrating light on both the spiritual and physical dimensions of the Great Work.… (more)
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LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
In keeping with its title, the Mutus Liber consists of fifteen (or thirteen, depending on the edition) mostly wordless plates, without any body text. All of these are reproduced in this Adam McLean volume, with a four-page introduction on the history of the images, the original 1676 French
The commentary purports to be exploratory rather than authoritative. It emphasizes the irreducible polysemy of alchemical instruction, and points to parallel procedures with physical substances, components of the soul, and spiritual realities. McLean devotes a lot of attention to "etheric energies" corresponding to the Aristotelian elements, but it appears that these are still at the "physical" (or para-physical) level. For physical procedures, McLean often references the work of Armand Barbault in The Gold of a Thousand Mornings (1969, English translation 1975), who seems to have attempted the full process depicted in the Mutus Liber.
The original plates seem to be entirely free of Christian symbolism. The title plate includes three encrypted bible references to Genesis and Deuteronomy, along with an image of Jacob's ladder, but all the remaining religio-literary symbolism seems to be classical, with key appearances by Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, and Hercules. The operators depicted are a male achemist and his soror mystica, who is a full collaborator in the work, acting as much or more than her partner. Only in Plate XIV do we see another figure in the laboratory who seems to be their child: a startling development that receives surprisingly little attention from McLean. There is plenty of grist here for the mill of contemplation, and--one presumes--operation as well.
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copyright filing, McLean's detailed descriptions facing the plates, and his thirty-page commentary following them.The commentary purports to be exploratory rather than authoritative. It emphasizes the irreducible polysemy of alchemical instruction, and points to parallel procedures with physical substances, components of the soul, and spiritual realities. McLean devotes a lot of attention to "etheric energies" corresponding to the Aristotelian elements, but it appears that these are still at the "physical" (or para-physical) level. For physical procedures, McLean often references the work of Armand Barbault in The Gold of a Thousand Mornings (1969, English translation 1975), who seems to have attempted the full process depicted in the Mutus Liber.
The original plates seem to be entirely free of Christian symbolism. The title plate includes three encrypted bible references to Genesis and Deuteronomy, along with an image of Jacob's ladder, but all the remaining religio-literary symbolism seems to be classical, with key appearances by Jupiter, Neptune, Saturn, Mercury, and Hercules. The operators depicted are a male achemist and his soror mystica, who is a full collaborator in the work, acting as much or more than her partner. Only in Plate XIV do we see another figure in the laboratory who seems to be their child: a startling development that receives surprisingly little attention from McLean. There is plenty of grist here for the mill of contemplation, and--one presumes--operation as well.
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Physical description
77 p.; 5.98 inches
ISBN
0933999909 / 9780933999909
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