La Fabrication Chimique de l'Or (procédés Jollivet Castelot) / The Manufacture of Gold by Jollivet Castelot Chemical Processes / Die Herstellun von Gold auf Chemischem Wege (Verfahren Jollivet Castelot) / La Fabricacion Quimica del Oro (Procedimientos Jollivet Castelot). Texte français traductions anglaise, allemande, espagnole.
Douai, France: Chez l'auteur, 1928. First Edition. Softcover. Small octavo. 126pp (+ii pp. blank) Original soft paper wrappers. Text in French / English / German and Spanish. François Jollivet-Castelot (1874-1937) was a French author, occultist and alchemist. He was the president of the Societe Alchimique of France, an organization founded with Papus, Stanislas de Guaita, Sedir and others, and was the editor of their journal L'Hyperchimie. He wrote novels, as well as alchemical texts, and had a lengthy, thoughtful correspondence with August Strindberg who seems to have viewed him as a mentor. He espoused hyperchemistry, a practice which melded metaphysics with operative chemistry and also the philosophical/metaphysical doctrine of hylozoïsme. , a doctrine which holds that matter is endowed with life by itself, without the intervention of extrinsic principles. In 1925, Jollivet-Castelot claimed to have manufactured gold from silver and various chemical compounds using a process which he later described in this book. He appealed to the various scientific authorities to test and verify his process, but was consistently refused. The volume has the label of Emile Norry / Librairie Critique (who apparently acted as its distributor) across the front wrapper. Cheap paper evenly tanned. Overall a VG+ copy of a rare (and quite fragile) volume. Item #59780
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