A New Exhibition on Alchemy at London's Science Museum,

27 April 2012 - 27 April 2013

The quest for the philosophers’ stone was a major preoccupation of the early modern world. This precious substance was said to transform base metals into silver and gold, heal sickness, and unlock the mysteries of God and nature. Its recipe was a closely guarded secret and a bewildering array of signs and symbols were used, both figuratively and allegorically, to convey key processes and ideas in the search for the fabled stone. This exhibition follows the theme of a recipe using the same sources devised and decoded by the alchemists themselves.

The exhibition displays 22 of the most striking images from the rich collection of the Science Museum’s Library & Archives. Dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, these works reveal the power and intricacy of alchemical art, whilst allowing us to attempt an interpretation of the hidden meanings behind the symbols.

At the heart of the exhibition is a newly discovered manuscript: a Ripley scroll. These rare scrolls include some of the most complex and fascinating alchemical imagery in existence. For the first time, this object can be viewed alongside selected texts and images from the Museum’s collections.

Click HERE to visit the Science Museum webpage.

Call for Articles - Beyond Borderlands: A Critical Journal of the Weird, Paranormal, and Occult
Deadline: July 1st, 2013

Beyond Borderlands is a double-blind peer reviewed open access online journal and a forum for the interdisciplinary, artistic, and critical exploration of topics relating to esotericism, paranormality, and the culturally weird. Within our pages we hope to foster conversation between more traditional scholarly approaches and contemporary practitioners, artists, and writers exploring these themes. The journal provides a shared space for these divergent approaches without compromising the methodological integrity or free creativity appropriate to each.

Our website will be launched on May 4th, and our first issue will be published in October 2013. Potential contributors are invited to submit academic articles of approximately 4000 to 8000 words, with an abstract of 250 words. We also seek to introduce readers to scholarship pertaining to weird and occult topics while providing a guide for their interpretation through critical analysis and contextualization. Knowledgeable commentators are encouraged to submit reviews of between 1000 and 2500 words. All submissions should be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, with citations as footnotes.

The submission deadline for consideration in our first issue is July 1st, 2013. Please send all submissions to .
For further information, please contact the editor at .

Sincerely,

B.D.Mitchell
York University
218 Bethune College
York University
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M3J 1P3

Editor-in-chief
Beyond Borderlands: A Critical Journal of the Weird, Paranormal, and Occult
Click HERE to visit the Facebook page

ESSWE announces three travel bursaries of €300 each to assist students and/or members from economically disadvantaged countries to participate in the forthcoming ESSWE4 conference in Gothenburg.
One further bursary of €100 is available for other purposes. Guidelines and application form are available on the ESSWE website (under "ESSWE Bursaries"). The deadline to apply for funding to travel to ESSWE4 is 1 May 2013.

The Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion announces two funded positions as postgraduate student, one in Comparative Literature and one in Religious Studies (cf. announcements and general syllabi). Applications are assessed by the disciplines, respectively, and interviews may be arranged. The head of department will make decisions in May–June, and all applicants will be informed of the outcome.

The first day of employment is September 1, 2013. Applicants must be aware that the University's principle of announcing full postgraduate positions, rather than stipends, means that the postgraduate as employee is required to be physically present at the workplace, interacting actively with the research environment in order to benefit from the education provided there.

A complete application must be submitted no later than Monday March 25, 2013 (local time: CET, GMT+1). You can apply from Monday February 25, 2013. The application is made in The University of Gothenburg’s net-based Job Application Portal.

Friday 15 March, 10.30-17.00

What role do museums play in visitors’ religious and spiritual lives? Join us for a unique day of discussions on the varied ways visitors practise their faith and encounter the sacred in museums. Featuring speakers from a mix of museum and academic backgrounds, this event will explore the visitor experience at venues including the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall, the Creation Museum in Kentucky and the recent ‘spiritual journeys’ exhibitions at the British Museum.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Karen Armstrong, British Museum Trustee
  
• Rickie Burman, The National Gallery (and former Director of the Jewish Museum)
  
• Qaisra Khan, Project Curator at The British Museum
  
• Dr John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Death and Dying Practices Associate, University of Bath.
  

Event details:
£35, Members/concessions £28
The Stevenson Lecture Theatre, the British Museum, London
Morning and afternoon refreshments will be provided
The Museum will remain open until 20.30

Glasgow University Library,
Henry Heaney Room (Level 12)
Tuesday 5 February 2013, 5pm,

As part of the Stirling Maxwell Centre Seminar Series, Luca Guariento (University of Glasgow) will be giving a paper on ‘Cosmos, man and their musical interrelation in Robert Fludd’s visual symbolism’.

Studiemiddag of the C.G. Jung Vereniging Nederland

9 February 2013 at Antropia in Driebergen

If you're interested in the life and thought of the psychologist Carl Jung and live in the Netherlands, you might like to attend a lecture by Punita Miranda, an MA student at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and practising psychotherapist.

The title of the talk is 'From Experiment to Method: Jung's Active Imagination in the Context of his Red Book'.

Click Here to visit Punita's webpage and Here for the Jung Vereniging announcement.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) are pleased to invite applications for the 2013-2014 Rumford Scholarship.

This annual award will enable the Rumford Scholar to travel to Europe in order to undertake original research in the history of chemistry or alchemy in libraries/archives/museum collections using their particular resources.

The award may be held in any European country. The value of the award is £2300. Applications are due April 7, 2013. 

Call for Articles: Correspondences
Deadline: February 28, 2013

Correspondences is a new, biannual online journal devoted to the academic study of Western esotericism. The journal seek to create a public academic forum devoted to discussion and exposition of issues and currents in the field commonly known as ‘Western esotericism.’ The editors acknowledge that the use of “Western esotericism” as an umbrella term for a widely variant field of alternate scientific and religious ideas is problematic. Thus, articles related to esoteric currents from other global cultural centres may be accepted if a connection to alternative currents in “western culture” is implicitly established. The following list of areas of study is provided for clarification:

Alchemy, Anthroposophy, Astrology, Eco-spirituality, Esotericism in art, literature, and music, Freemasonry, Geomancy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Illuminism, Initiatory secret societies, Kabbalah, Magic, Mesmerism, Mysticism, Naturphilosophie, Neo-paganism, New Age, Occultism, Occulture, Paracelsianism, Rosicrucianism, Satanism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Traditionalism, Ufology, Witchcraft.

Correspondences intends to promote a wide forum of interdisciplinary debate regarding such areas of study, and therefore does not require academic credentials as a prerequisite for publication. Students and non-affiliated academics are encouraged to join established researchers in submitting insightful, well-researched articles that offer new ideas, positions, or information to the field.

We are currently accepting book reviews (max. 1500 words) and articles (5000-10000 words) for our first issue. The deadline for submission is February 28. Following a peer-review process, the first issue will be published June 1, 2013. Manuscripts should be submitted as per our submission guidelines, available at http://www.correspondencesjournal.com/. Please send your manuscript and any enquiries to

Sincerely,
Jimmy Elwing and Aren Roukema, Editors.
Click HERE to visit the website

The second annual election for a student representative will be taking place during the first week of December.

The duties of the person elected consists of attending the annual ESSWE board meeting as a non-voting representative of the students in order to put forward views on topics under discussion from the perspective of the students.
(The next board meeting will take place during the 4th ESSWE conference in Gothenburg).

Anyone interested in this position must confirm their candidacy by 21 November 2012. This will allow seventeen days for voters to reflect on their choice.

The election will take place over the course of seven days, from December 10-16, inclusive. Announcement of the successful candidate will follow on, or before, 21 December 2012.

Anyone interested in applying for the position or learning more about the voting procedures, please contact Kevin Hataley for further details: