"To All Ingeniously Elaborate Students, In the most Divine Mysteries of Hermetique Learning." Or so British politician and Freemason ELIAS Ashmole (1617-1692) dedicated this curious artifact of the esoteric and spiritual philosophy of alchemy.
An avid collector of antiquaries and other oddities (they were, upon his death, bequeathed to Oxford University, which used them to found the Ashmolean Museum), Ashmole counted among his treasures volumes of metaphysical poems available only in private,. "To All Ingeniously Elaborate Students, In the most Divine Mysteries of Hermetique Learning." Or so British politician and Freemason ELIAS Ashmole (1617-1692) dedicated this curious artifact of the esoteric and spiritual philosophy of alchemy
