Skip to content
Libra Esoterica

Victorian Alchemy

Science, magic and ancient Egypt

by Eleanor Dobson

  • First published:
  • 21st century
  • Language: English
Read free

Description

Description from Directory of Open Access Books (opens in a new tab)

Victorian Alchemy explores nineteenth-century conceptions of ancient Egypt as this extant civilisation was being ‘rediscovered’ in the modern world. With its material remnants somewhat paradoxically symbolic of both antiquity and modernity (in the very currentness of Egyptological excavations), ancient Egypt was at once evocative of ancient magical power and of cutting-edge science, a tension that might be productively conceived of as ‘alchemical’. Allusions to ancient Egypt simultaneously lent an air of legitimacy to depictions of the supernatural while projecting a sense of enchantment onto representations of cutting-edge science. Examining literature and other cultural forms including art, photography and early film, Eleanor Dobson traces the myriad ways in which magic and science were perceived as entwined, and ancient Egypt evoked in parallel with various fields of study, from imaging technologies and astronomy, to investigations into the electromagnetic spectrum and the human mind itself. In so doing, counter to linear narratives of nineteenth-century progress, and demonstrating how ancient Egypt was more than a mere setting for Orientalist fantasies or nightmares, the book establishes how conceptions of modernity were inextricably bound up in the contemporary reception of the ancient world, and suggests how such ideas that took root and flourished in the Victorian era persist to this day.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism, Occultism and esotericism, Ritual magic and grimoires, and Spiritualism, mediumship, and channeling.

  • Occultism and esotericism

    Controlled discovery queries from doab and oapen matched “esotericism” and “occultism”. Retained metadata contains “supernatural” in the description, “Esotericism” in the subject metadata, and “Occultism” in the subject metadata.

    • “esotericism”· via Directory of Open Access Books
    • “occultism”· via OAPEN Library
    • “supernatural”· in description
    • “Esotericism”· in subject
    • “Occultism”· in subject
  • Ritual magic and grimoires

    Retained metadata contains “Magic” in the subtitle, “Magic” in the description, “Magic” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).

    • “Magic”· in subtitle
    • “Magic”· in description
    • “Magic”· in subject
    • “Magic”· in edition subtitle
  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from crossref, doab, and oapen matched “alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “Alchemy” in the title, “Alchemy” in the description, “Alchemy” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).

    • “alchemy”· via Crossref
    • “alchemy”· via Directory of Open Access Books
    • “alchemy”· via OAPEN Library
    • “Alchemy”· in title
    • “Alchemy”· in description
    • “Alchemy”· in subject
  • Spiritualism, mediumship, and channeling

    Retained metadata contains “Spiritualism” in the subject metadata.

    • “Spiritualism”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

Read & download

Free, public copies reported by our sources. Links open the source directly.

Not yet in passage search

Pro research answers quote indexed passages. Ask the library to index this book’s public text.

marks a direct file download. Rights vary by country; each source states its own terms.

Buy or borrow

Links to ISBN 1787358488; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

One edition cataloged here.

Science, magic and ancient Egypt

Crossref publisher-supplied book record

279; London

2022-10-06UCL PressEnglish
  • 9781787358485
Open access

Subjects

25 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Catalog id
crossref:10.14324/111.9781787358485
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved