We have Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown to thank for this online archive of the world's largest occult library
Say what you will about Dan Brown’s virtues as a novelist, but the Da Vinci Code author has now cemented himself as a true patron of the (forbidden) arts forevermore. By donating to Amsterdam’s Ritman Library, also known by the much cooler name of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetic, Brown has helped make possible the global boon that is an in-progress digital archive of more than 25,000 occult texts.
Spanning a range of subjects that includes “Hermetica, Alchemy, Mysticism, Rosicrucians, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, and Comparative Religion,” The Ritman Library’s exceptionally titled Hermetically Open Project is an ongoing effort to “share the contents of the library and its field of thought online and make it more accessible to all.”
There’s welcome scholarly benefits to this, first and foremost, but the Project also means that anyone with an internet connection can now browse a growing collection of excellent stuff like the following image of a man and woman with sun and moon for heads, riding a lion and griffin, charging each other in an illustration of 16th century thinking.
Or this 1615 illustration that shows how kabbalah was incorporated into alchemist’s practice and, for the layperson, includes a chimera that features a face with either a giant beard or a full mouth of molten vomit spewing out of it.
The descriptions provided alongside the Instagram uploads of these images—and the summaries of the histories and beliefs behind the various categories of the collection included on the site—do a good job of showing that the Project isn’t just digitally archiving The Ritman’s massive collection, but providing context, too.
Here are a few more examples: