Athanasius Kircher's MAP OF THE SUN
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Essay on Rikki Ducornet by M.E. Warlick, who's also the author of MAX ERNST AND ALCHEMY from the University of Texas Surrealist Revolution series:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/subjects/surreal.html


"Western alchemy arose in Hellenistic Egypt a land of the Black Earth-within a rich melange of classical philosophy, Eastern rebirth myths, and the dualistic heresies of Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism and Manicheanism. Unraveling alchemy's origins and sources within this intellectual alembic is a difficult process. There are hints of its first stirrings when classical philosophers describe the world's creation as a metallic transformation or when religious prophets suggest that God was boiling and evaporating the cosmos. Likewise, it is a difficult task to unwind the glittering threads of dreams, magic, legends, alchemy, Gnostic philosophy and children's fairy tales woven within the novels, short fiction, essays and poetry of Rikki Ducornet. Yet alchemy is there like a deep oceanic current that tugs and sways at the lucid surface of her writing"...
http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/rikki-ducornet/
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Cyrano de Bergerac's (the actual writer, not Rostand's character) 'hermetic' classic THE OTHER WORLD:The Society and Government of the Moon is online here:
http://www.bewilderingstories.com/special/tow.html
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