Hathor's Alchemy: The Ancient Egyptian Roots of the Hermetic Art Paperback – February 5, 2019

This work is very well written and contains priceless information. A wonderful scholarly work about Hathor and alchemy. Many thanks to the author for taking to time to write such a beautiful book. The choice of photos contained within are stunning, the book’s layout is attractive, and I appreciate the high quality paper that’s used. Highly recommended.

This is another wonderful book by an author who is sincere and educated in her field. Terrific!

This is an incredible work that illuminates much of the inner work tradition concerned with the transformation of the soul in Ancient Egypt and traces how this tradition lived on in the mystical texts of Alchemy. Oddly, in both Alchemy and in Ancient Egypt, scholars often downplay, overlook, or deny that there was attention to the transformation of the Soul during life - that there was a living mystical tradition and not pure superstition.It is very hard to summarize what this book achieves because the Ancient Egypt sensibility is far removed from the ways modern people think and typically understand spirituality.First, it must be understood that despite incredible feats of architecture, nearly 3000 years of consistent civilization, and innumerable works of religious art, many scholars still insist that Ancient Egyptians were simple, "practical" people who were also incredibly superstitious as they awaited an afterlife. This may, perhaps, be in an attempt to give the Greeks a certain prominence in history as the originators of a certain quality of art, philosophy, and religion, but many of our most beloved Greeks, like Plato and Pythagoras, were explicit in attributing so much of the richness of their thought and civilization to the Egyptians. Much of this prejudice may stem from not wanting to attribute the origins of European civilization to a brown-skinned African civilization. This question of 'why' is a whole topic not covered in this book, but it's worth mentioning to appreciate what Hathor's Alchmey is about.This does an incredible job of illuminating the significance and meaning of many of these symbols of inner transformation and describes how they were depicted in so-called 'funerary texts' and 'books' and in the meaning of and rituals that took place in temples (Roberts specifically emphasizes the Book of Day and it's connection to the Abu Simbel Temple) .It illustrates the Egyptian means of understanding through "likeness", symbols, and expressing meaning through shared qualities, which leads to the fascinating way that the Egyptians understood the craft of metallurgy as a practical expression of "inner principles" of the human soul, which, in turn, were reflections of the relationships of celestial bodies, which were symbolic expressions of spiritual principles. For example, the sun is a representation of the highest principle, Ra, akin to the Neoplatonic Monad or Supreme Being, and how, as the sun makes its way through the sky by day, revealing the stars at night, the sun's journey "through the earth" by night is complemented by the "Stars in the earth" in the form of minerals. For the Egyptians, then, the metallurgic processes of transforming and purifying certain minerals was a practical 'mirror' of the soul's own transformation and refinement.Roberts goes into these processes in some of her other books on Hathor, but in 'Hathor Rising' explains how Egyptian Craft Guilds, like miners and metallurgists, and that these Guilds may have functioned like Mystery Schools, with exoteric and esoteric significance. And how these, in turn, inform and inspire the transformational symbolism found all over Ancient Egyptian monuments and art.In Hathor's Alchemy, she focuses in on how this Guild-Wisdom lead to early Christian and Islamic Alchemy, showing how the authors of Alchemical Texts weren't morons trying to do impossible works of chemistry, nor people with mental disorders having elaborate hallucinations, as some authors argue, but that there was a consistent 'inner meaning' expressed through the symbolic. Further, she shows how many of the symbols that reach into Islamic Alchemy, and much later, stem from far back in Ancient Egyptian history. An example that comes to mind is the "winged and wingless birds" of many alchemical texts that Roberts ties into the inscriptions from the 'crypt' of the Temple of Hathor in Dendera of a winged and wingless birds. I was particularly struck by this from having been to Dendera a few times and puzzled by these images.There's much more within this book. It's extremely rich and worthy of anyone who loves Egypt and symbolism, and doesn't write off the Egyptians as merely superstitious farmers worshiping egomaniac god-kings and animal gods.I read this book after Dr. Robert's earlier books 'Hathor Rising' and 'My Heart My Mother'. This book may seem incomprehensible without at least first reading Hathor Rising and it's value is greatly enhanced by My Heart My Mother where Roberts spends much more time looking at the Book of Day and the Book of Night, their relationship, how they were expressed within the Temple of Seti I in Abydos, and how ritual, mythological, and spiritual meaning were all woven together.My criticism of this and Roberts other works is that is so broad, and while it certainly makes the case that there is an 'inner transformation' tradition in Ancient Egypt that the Egyptians understood occurred during life, and not after death, it sometimes feels that Roberts is holding back from making certain conclusions or elaborating on certain points for fear of being labeled a quack or that she is trying to avoid too much speculation. Therefore, she will point out some incredibly interesting symbolism, she'll anchor it within a context, but my personal reading is that she's hesitant to spell out what she believes the symbolism means, leaving it up to the reader to understand it had meaning for the Egyptians or the later alchemists, and that the meaning was within the context of inner transformation, but not stating specifically how or what that transformational facet is.I sincerely hope Robert's work is not overlooked, because the incredible job she's done is crucial for recognizing the rich history of wisdom that has been almost entirely lost or neglected by the modern world. I marked up almost every single page, including footnotes, with highlights, connections, and notes. Amazing read.

The book is acceptable but nothing more than that. It is all things Hathor if you want that.