Arca Arcanorum
or, The Secret of Secrets
by Arthur Dee
Arca Arcanorum was written in 1634 by the alchemist and royal physician Arthur Dee, the eldest son of the Elizabethan magus John Dee, to celebrate his triumphal consummation of the Great Work and the attainment of the Secret of Secrets. Only a single manuscript of this work exists, executed in Dee’s own handwriting and bequeathed upon his death to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This is the first time this all-important alchemical treatise is brought to the press, having remained virtually unknown for almost 400 years.
As a further key to the alchemical processes outlined by Dee, the Appendix features the decrypted text of the alchemical cipher known as Hermeticae Philosophiae Medulla, found originally in a shared notebook which belonged to John and Arthur Dee. The cipher was finally decoded by Megan Piorko, Sarah Lang and Richard Bean in 2023. The full text of it, augmented with further details from the Scottish alchemist Patrick Ruthven’s 1612 laboratory notes, is included in this edition of Arca Arcanorum.
____________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
Publisher’s Foreword
Introduction
Dedication
To the Candid Reader
Chapter I.
On the First Matter of the Philosophers.
Chapter II.
The Preparation: or the work of the Winter.
Chapter III.
The Weight of the First Work.
Chapter IV.
The Four-part Philosophical Fire.
Chapter V.
The Birth of the Stone.
Chapter VI.
The Weights of the Second Work.
Chapter VII.
On Imbibition.
Chapter VIII.
On Fermentation.
Chapter IX.
On Projection.
Chapter X.
On Multiplication.
Things To Be Observed.
Appendix: Hermeticæ Philosophiæ Medulla
Bibliography
____________________________________________________________
Including seven colour illustrations.
Classic Hardcover Edition - limited to 700 hand-numbered copies
176 pages. Hand-bound in bronze-coloured reconstituted leather, stamped in gold. Printed in full colour on Munken Pure Rough 120 gsm paper. Featuring bronze endpapers, brown & oyster head & tail band and espresso-coloured silk ribbon. Presented with a black letterpress bookmark, stamped in gold.
____________________________________________________________
About the Author
The late Arthur Dee (1579-1651) was the eldest son of the famed Elizabethan magus, astrologer and polymath, John Dee. From a very young age he became his father’s alchemical progeny, and accompanied him on their famous six-year expedition across Europe, which included a sojourn at the alchemical court of Emperor Rudolf II of Prague. He frequently witnessed alchemical operations performed by John Dee and his collaborator, Edward Kelley, including metallic projection and transmutation, which Arthur attests to have witnessed for the first time at the tender age of 8. Later, Arthur Dee went on to acquire a medical degree at the University of Basel and continue his studies in Oxford, subsequently establishing a successful carrier as a physician in England. In 1621 he was recommended by King James to Tsar Mikhail of Russia, and became the latter’s personal physician in Moscow for fourteen years. It was there that he composed his only two original texts: Fasciculus Chemicus and Arca Arcanorum.
