Skip to content
Libra Esoterica

Treatise on the great art

a system of physics according to Hermetic philosophy and theory and practice of the Magisterium

by Antoine Joseph Pernety

  • First published:
  • 19th century
  • Language: English
  • Content type: Primary source
Read free

Description

Description from Global Grey ebooks (opens in a new tab)

Treatise on the Great Art: A system of physics according to Hermetic philosophy and theory and practice of the Magisterium is a book by Antoine-Joseph Pernety, first published in the 18th century. This compact yet ambitious work sets out Pernety’s clear, methodical presentation of the Hermetic and alchemical tradition. Written by a Benedictine scholar who moved in Enlightenment and occult circles, the treatise treats alchemy not merely as metal transmutation but as a system of natural philosophy and spiritual regeneration — a practical manual of the magisterium that explains the theory and stages of the Great Work alongside wider Hermetic cosmology. The tone is instructive and systematic, which makes the text useful both to students of the symbolic language of alchemy and to readers seeking a historically grounded account of the art. Because Pernety frames alchemy as a blend of laboratory craft, natural philosophy and spiritual discipline, the book has been treated by later occultists and historians as an important eighteenth-century statement of how Hermetic practice and Enlightenment learning intersect. Useful for those looking for classic alchemical manuals, and historical Hermetica.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Alchemy and Hermeticism, Consciousness, mysticism, and metaphysics, Occultism and esotericism, and Ritual magic and grimoires.

  • Occultism and esotericism

    Controlled discovery queries from global-grey matched “Occult Teachings and Traditions”. Retained metadata contains “occult” in the description, “occult” in the subject metadata, and “Occult Teachings and Traditions” in the subject metadata.

    • “Occult Teachings and Traditions”· via Global Grey ebooks
    • “occult”· in description
    • “occult”· in subject
    • “Occult Teachings and Traditions”· in subject
  • Ritual magic and grimoires

    Controlled discovery queries from internet-archive and openlibrary-historical matched “Magic”. Retained metadata contains “Magic” in the subject metadata.

    • “Magic”· via Internet Archive
    • “Magic”· via Open Library
    • “Magic”· in subject
  • Alchemy and Hermeticism

    Controlled discovery queries from internet-archive and openlibrary-historical matched “Alchemy”. Retained metadata contains “hermetic” in the subtitle, “Alchemy” in the description, “hermetic” in the description, and 2 additional metadata match(es).

    • “Alchemy”· via Internet Archive
    • “Alchemy”· via Open Library
    • “hermetic”· in subtitle
    • “Alchemy”· in description
    • “hermetic”· in description
    • “Alchemy”· in subject
  • Consciousness, mysticism, and metaphysics

    Controlled discovery queries from openlibrary-historical matched “Mysticism”.

    • “Mysticism”· via Open Library

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

Read & download

Free, public copies reported by our sources. Links open the source directly.

Not yet in passage search

Pro research answers quote indexed passages. Ask the library to index this book’s public text.

marks a direct file download. Rights vary by country; each source states its own terms.

Buy or borrow

No ISBN on record, so the Amazon link searches by title and author. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

2 editions cataloged here.

Global Grey ebook edition (available formats vary by title)

—Global Grey ebooksEnglish—Public download

a system of physics according to Hermetic philosophy and theory and practice of the Magisterium

Internet Archive institutional pre-1900 scan

1898Boston : Occult Pub. Co.; Occult Pub. Co.English—Public

Subjects

5 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloging notes

  • Contributing institution: Harold B. Lee Library
  • Digitization sponsor: Brigham Young University
  • Discovery required Internet Archive search metadata to report a PDF format; the exact direct-file URL is added only after the item's file listing confirms an unrestricted PDF filename.
  • Internet Archive institutional collection: americana
  • Scanner: scribe1.provo.archive.org
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL28760266W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved