Symposium Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry

 

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), in collaboration with the Allard Pierson of the University of Amsterdam and the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP), will hold its Annual Autumn Meeting at the Allard Pierson, Amsterdam, on 11 October 2024, starting at 9:30 am and ending at 16:30 pm.

The emphasis will be on the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica State collection, one of the extensive collections housed at the Allard Pierson. This library holds approximately 4,400 rare manuscripts and printed works related to the hermetic tradition, assembled by the Dutch entrepreneur Joost Ritman.

Program:

9:30-9:45 Registration and coffee
9:45-10:00 Welcome by Els van der Plas, director of the Allard Pierson
10:00-11:00 Keynote
Chair: Professor Frank James (University College London)
Professor Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London): ‘Thomas Harriot and the alchemy of the Northumberland Circle’
11:00-11:15 Coffee
11:15-12:30 Session 1. Chair: Peter Forshaw (HHP, University of Amsterdam)
11:15-11:35 Sergei Zotov: ‘An image series in the Traumgedichte der siebe Säulen’
11:35-11:55 Tjalling Janssen: ‘Elemental beings, discourses of nature, and Paracelsian reception in Georg von Welling’s Opus mago-cabbalisticum et theosophicum’
11:55-12:15 Corey Andrews: ‘Alchemy in the Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer (Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians), with reference to an ‘extended’ 20th-century manuscript’
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:00 Presentations of original material Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica State collection in the Regentenkamer, maximum of 15 people at a time.
14:00-15:30 Session 2 Chair: Noah Riggenbach (HHP, University of Amsterdam)
14:00-14:20 Kyra Gerber: ‘“einem, zweyen, dreyen, vieren in eins” – Marginalia in a rare early edition of Khunrath’s work’
14:20-14:40 Amber Richter: ‘The Fruit that Blossoms from the Daughter: The Hidden Dryads in Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens’
14:40-15:00 Peter Forshaw: ‘Abraham Le Juif’s Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques’
15:00-15:20 Jennifer Rampling: ‘Collecting Alchemy for Pleasure and Profit: The Making of Elias Ashmole’s Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum’
15:45-16:00 Coffee
16:00-16:30 Roundtable

Petra Huijgen