NEWS
In December 2023 comes the world’s first complete account in English of the origins, meaning and practice of what is now known as Alchemy. For well over a century, the vast majority of ancient Graeco-Egyptian alchemical texts have languished on scholars’ shelves untranslated, denying the greater reading public the opportunity to understand the mysteries of alchemy. Churton brings under scrutiny all of the ancient sources to build a stunning picture of how a first century industrial revolution in Upper Egypt developed into one of the great spiritual mysteries of history, namely, the idea that a metal of low value could be transmuted into silver or gold: an idea encapsulated in the idea of the “philosopher’s stone” that has seized the imagination of human beings for millennia. For the first time, we can see clearly how this extraordinary idea developed, what was behind it, and what it created. Alchemy’s profound links to gnostic philosophy, astrology, spiritual meditation, and above all, to metallurgical chemistry are honestly explored without recourse to extravagant speculation, and subject to scholarly, scientific discipline. We learn what the first alchemists actually did, and how they did it, and of the many controversial aspects of the art, even in its early days. We discover the unique role of women in alchemical development, and the interplay of ideas between Egyptians and Jews. Finally, Churton explores the legacy of alchemy, in science, spirituality, the arts, and psychology that even today make the ancient art a compelling subject for thought and emulation. The world has waited a long time for a book such as this, which clears the field of errors and centuries of misunderstanding and error.
In February 2023, academic publishers E.J. Brill of Leiden published a scholarly anthology of articles by members of the world-renowned ENOCH SEMINAR, led by Prof. Gabriele Boccaccini of the University of Ann Arbor, Michigan: the global authority on the books attributed to Enoch the prophet. Rediscovering Enoch? (edited by Ariel Hessayon, Annette Yoshiko Reed and Gabriele Boccaccini) includes Tobias Churton’s illustrated article detailing the relations of the Ethiopic “Book of Enoch” to Freemasonry, as delivered to the Enoch Seminar’s conference in Florence in 2019.
In June 2023 Tobias appeared in the Enoch Seminar’s online conference where he presented the conference with an account of his 2021 book The Lost Pillars of Enoch (see BOOKS).
Tobias Churton’s forthcoming unique, comprehensive account of the origins, meaning and reception history of the three “books of Enoch” will be published by Inner Traditions in 2024. Entitled Beyond the Universe... The Amazing Books of Enoch: Pioneer of Jewish Mysticism and Key to Christian Origins, the book has the virtue of revealing close-up the thought-world of the origins of Christianity and the New Testament in a way that will astonish readers, while also reviewing the intense amount of scholarly work expended on the text since the discovery of Enoch among the Dead Sea Scrolls to the present time. Tobias regards this book as the crown of his long study of Christian origins.
Tobias Churton’s work continues to show that the spiritual history of humankind is not something we are likely to find amid the 24 hour news-barrage to which humanity is now subjected. Likewise, we should reflect that the apparently permanent threat of “apocalypse” doled out eagerly to the general public does not necessarily have command of the future. The wail of “Chicken Licken” today is the cry of the sheep-like journalist, manipulated by the worldly glitter of the Old Enemy and misplaced loyalties. Either the sky has fallen, or is about to fall; so we hear. Our fears often reflect our spiritual state. Tobias Churton will, against the tide, continue to assert, even in the wilderness, along with many others, in and out of our time, that spiritual vision is sole anchor in the tempest of fear, the light in the darkness, the hope amid the despair: key to all wisdom, whose price is far above what the richest might offer, or could ever offer, unless that is, they found their heart, and offered it freely. That would be a rare and precious thing, and unlikely to gain publicity, but it could make all the difference.
Tobias at the National Gallery of Victoria 50 years after his last visit . Photo © Mark Bennett 2018
