![]() ![]() This thesis demonstrates that Lubiczian alchemy, by centring on the esoteric formation of all “bodies”, to include the hidden “nucleus” of continuity between metallurgical, biological and spiritual corporeality, speaks directly to the perception of alchemy as a nondual, operative-spiritual process. The link, for Schwaller, was perceived as a juncture of meta-physical and proto-physical forces, a process conceived in terms of an alchemical “salt” (a neutralisation reaction between an “acid” and a “base”). The life and work of the Alsatian hermeticist and Egyptosophist, René-Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961) attests to the continued presence of a distinctly nondual current of alchemical precept and practice in which material transmutation and spiritual transmutation are not separate nor merely coincidental endeavours but two indispensably linked sides of the same coin. Given that Khunrath is known above all as a practitioner of alchemy, the second part of this article considers several examples of music and song, beginning with a manuscript survival from Khunrath's work and ends with a brief examination of the most famous combination of alchemy and music, namely, the Atalanta fugiens of his admirer, Count Michael Maier (1568-1622). It examines the influence of pythagorean ideas on Khunrath's theurgical practices, identifies the christian-cabalist source of the polyglot hymn that he links to one of the theosophical images on the table of his Oratory, and offers some reflections about the use of music in this cabalistic dimension of his work. This article examines various references in Khunrath's writings that concern music and the related theme of harmony in the context of Khunrath's cabalistic and alchemical activities in his Oratory and Laboratory. The engraving of the Lab-Oratorium, in the Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom of the Paracelsian Heinrich Khunrath of Leipzig (1560-1605) - 'doctor of both medicines and faithful lover of theosophy'- is a well-known image for historians of early modern esotericism, but little has been said about the significance of the musical instruments in the foreground of the image. ![]()
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