Acknowledgments
I am not a quick writer, indeed this book has been so long in composition that we have moved from papyrus to paper, the printing press has been invented, and if I take much longer, you’ll be ‘reading’ this on a VR headset or in some form of augmented reality. The ‘never-ready’ book, if not always its author, has been surprisingly resilient, surviving cancer, near death in intensive care, breakup, as well as many of the other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Bringing it to some form of completion has been a bitter-sweet experience. This being said, I have been privileged to enjoy the encouragement and sustaining friendship of innumerable people on the way and whatever this is, it is for them, with profound gratitude.
The person most responsible for encouraging me down this path is my long- suffering doctoral supervisor and dear friend Stephen Clucas, who basically took a stray in off the street and gave him an academic home, at Birkbeck, University of London. The groundwork for this project owes much to daily conversations in Stephen’s office and numerous cups of tea. This book has its roots in the MA dissertation I wrote long, long ago, and then the doctorate that I researched under his guidance, with generous support from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.
It was Stephen who helped me get funds for my first ever paper at a conference, the Renaissance Society of America, in Chicago, 2001, on a panel that he had arranged, chaired by an elderly Allen Debus, with him and Lawrence Principe. Since then, Stephen and Larry have stuck by me through thick and thin (so, yes, basically, I’m saying, contrary to most acknowledgments, that this is all their fault).
But my shirking of responsibility does not end there, in fact many historians of science, esotericism, intellectual and cultural history share their own burden of blame for emboldening me in my obsessive pursuits. At Birkbeck, Sue Wiseman and Michael Hunter helped eke out my income with projects as a departmental librarian and researcher into Robert Boyle’s Work-Diaries. My doctoral examiners Michael Bath and Dilwyn Knox provided invaluable insights into my research and writing. During my stint as webmaster for the Society for Renaissance Studies, Brian Vickers served as mentor and even at times ‘agony uncle’; instrumental, I’m sure, in securing me the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project Imagines Magorum: Ritual Magic in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1650 that sustained me after my graduation. Two special Jonathans, Sawday and Hope, then kept my head above the waters with a fellowship at the University of Strathclyde, with profitable time spent delving into the James Young Alchemy Collection and the equally special Lauren Kassell, then at HPS, Cambridge kept the wolf from the door by inviting me to contribute to her project on the Casebooks of Simon Forman. During this period Nicholas and Clare Goodrick-Clarke provided me with valuable experience and warm support as honorary fellow and visiting lecturer at the University of Exeter’s Centre for the Study of Esotericism.
Eventually, during a conference in Rome, Wouter Hanegraaff sounded me out about a possible position at the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP), and, after an interview in which I confessed that one of the three books that had most influenced me in my studies was The Lord of the Rings, that’s how I came to be writing this monograph at the University of Amsterdam. Needless to say, I owe a huge debt of thanks to Wouter, Marco Pasi and my more recent HHP colleagues Dylan Burns and Liana Saif, as well as to the extended family in Religious Studies, Jacqueline Borsje, Gerard Wiegers, Ulrike Popp-Baier, Jan Willem van Henten, Carolina Ivanescu, Tessel Bauduin, Christian Greer, and Antoinette Rutten. Behind the scenes, without whom HHP wouldn’t exist, is the pioneering spirit of Rosalie Basten who, with the Foundation she created, generously supports our endeavours in a myriad of ways. Over the years many inspiring people have sat on the board and I would especially like to thank Frans Tilman, Karel van der Toorn, Jan Bremmer and Christoph Lüthy for their kindness and counsel.
Not to be neglected are the life-lines provided by two academic societies. SHAC: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry welcomed me to their council many years ago and continue to foster my interests. It is always a pleasure to get together with Frank James, Bruce Moran, Jenny Rampling, Jo Hedesan, Tara Nummedal and the many other enthusiastic scholars I have got to know there. The same applies for ESSWE: European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism and its many brilliant members. Thanks, in particular, to Andreas Kilcher, Boaz Huss, Henrik Bogdan, Egil Asprem, György Szönyi, Jean-Pierre Brach, Mark Sedgwick, Nemanja Radulovic, and Bernd-Christian Otto, each of whom has helped me, inspired me, and befriended me along the way. I would like to thank Brill Academic Publishers, too, for the privilege of editing Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, published on behalf of ESSWE. Thanks, of course, to Brill, too, for steadfastly taking on this monograph for Aries Book Series and for Marco Pasi’s unflagging support as editor-in-chief.
And then there are the many other wonderful people who have, one way or another, contributed to my growth and sustained my love of research through the years. It’s a crime simply to list their names, but thank you to Susanna Åkerman, Michael Allen, Geraldine and Bali Beskin, Donna Bilak, Melvyn Bragg, Charles Burnett, Nick Campion, Yossi Chajes, Leah DeVun, Umberto Eco, Antoine Faivre, Claire Fanger, Bob Gilbert, Carlos Gilly, Liz Greene, Håkan Håkansson, Yuval Harari, Hiro Hirai, Pavel Horák, Howard Hotson, Oliver Humberg, Moshe Idel, Didier Kahn, Vladimír Karpenko, Vera Keller, Adam McLean, Hanns-Peter Neumann, Christopher Partridge, Rafal Prinke, Ivo Purš, François Quiviger, David Rankine, Joad Raymond, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Julian Strube, Valery Rees, Sonu Shamdasani, Bill Sherman, Joachim Telle, Hereward Tilton, Anke Timmermann, Vladimír Urbánek, Andrew Weeks, Volkhard Wels, Tom Willard, Elliot Wolfson, and Martin Žemla.
I’d also like to thank some of the incredible students whom I have taught over the years, especially the memorable doctoral and research students, many of whom have pursued an academic path: Mike Zuber, Lyke de Vries, John MacMurphy, Corey Andrews, Tjalling Janssen, Brennan Kettele, José Leitão, Andrea Franchetto, Friedemann Rimbach-Sator, and Dennis van Dijk. The list could go on and on. Special thanks to both John and Corey for taking photographs that appear in The Mage’s Images and to Tjalling for creating the ‘deconstructed Aleph’ image for the Cabala chapter.
Untold thanks to the librarians and archivists whose unstinting help has furthered my research. I’d particularly like to thank Robert Lenkiewicz and Hans Thomas Hakl for bravely allowing me to rummage through their private libraries. Thanks, also, to Jim Sebold (www.myoldmaps.com) and Christian Dumolard (http://hermetism.free.fr/) for granting me permission to use material on their websites and to Silas Emmery whose @studium_alchemiae Instagram page first alerted me to the existence of the hand-coloured copy of Khunrath’s Amphitheatre in Copenhagen.
Here in Amsterdam, I’d like to thank the Ritman Library/Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica for the warm friendship of Esther and Rixande Ritman, Cis van Heertum, José Bouman, Natalie Koch, Jasha van der Wel, Carmen Sandries, and Han Bakker. My thanks also to the library’s founder, Joost Ritman, for the generous gift of frommann-holzboog’s edition of Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum at an enjoyable conference in Munich. In a similar vein, thank you to Stijn van Rossem and Gwendolyn Verbraak at the Allard Pierson, University of Amsterdam. The Allard Pierson and the Foundation HHP have provided considerable financial assistance with obtaining images for this publication. I look forward to many interesting projects with Stijn, Gwendolyn and colleagues in Bijzondere Collecties (Special Collections) in the future.
Forgive yet another long list of names, but these really are the unsung heroes of academia and deserve a great deal of thanks. I’d recommend them all as helpful contacts if you’re trying to gain access to material in their archives. Christopher Hunwick (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle); Berthold Kreß (Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg); Helga Tichy (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek); Anne Carre (Musée d’Ixelles, Brussels); Frank Bowles (Cambridge University Library); Signe Pagh Milling (Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen); Nadja Krieger (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt); Michael Korey (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden); Femke Van der Fraenen (Ghent University Library); Christiane Backhaus (Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha); Cornelia Pfordt (Göttingen State and University Library); Hartmut Broszinski (Murhardsche Bibliothek und Landesbibliothek Kassel); Susanne Dietel (Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig); Stina Brodin (Linköping Diocesan Library); Andrea Clarke, Alexander Lock, and Sandra Tuppen (London, British Library); Clare Lappin and Paul Taylor (London, Warburg Institute); Verónica Montes (Museo Nacional del Prado); Matthew Rowe (Beinecke Library, Yale University); Heather Furnas (Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University); Luboš Antonín (Chateau Library Department, National Museum Library, Prague); Vlado Bohdan (Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague); Ulrich Hinske (Universitätsbibliothek Rostock); Markus Wagner (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt); Ann-Charlotte Knochenhauer (Kungliga biblioteket, Stockholm); Cristina Meisner (Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas); Achim Blankenburg (Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek); Gertrud Oswald (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna); Sonja Donabaum (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna); Monica Seidler-Hux (Zentralbibliothek Zurich). Although I don’t know their names, my gratitude to all the other people who have helped me from other libraries, including the Getty Research Institute Library, John Rylands Library, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania, and Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel.
On a more personal note, I would like to thank Punita Miranda for the loving support (physical, mental, temperamental), encouragement, grounding, and a multitude of other gifts over the years while I have wrestled with this monster. Thanks to my neighbour Rob Bolscher for saving my life by calling emergency services in 2019. Last, but, of course, by no means least, thanks for enduring the melodramatic highs and lows, the ups and downs of my life and work, to my parents, Wendy, Graham, and Alberto, my sister Gabrielle and niece Niamh. I can sense them all rolling their eyes as I write this. Thanks for being who you are.
Peter Forshaw
Amsterdam, 23 January 2023