The Dwellings of the Philosophers (Hardcover)

by Fulcanelli (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Dwellings of the Philosophers is perhaps the most important alchemical work of the past two centuries. This first translation into English brings us a wealth of alchemical philosophy that has hitherto been unavailable. Fulcanelli's sentinel masterpiece takes the attentive reader through the alchemical labyrinth, decoding the monuments and architectural decoration built by those who have actively engaged in the Great Work. Fulcanelli instructs us by showing that history must be interpreted by the monuments that have been left and not by the historians who construct a worldview exclusively through documents, which method gives us an often jaded and unrepresentative view of what transpired.

Not only does Fulcanelli decode and interpret the various alchemical symbols of the houses of the alchemist and philosophers, he goes to great lengths to lay bare and explicate the alchemical worldview of past centuries. Fulcanelli presents us with the deep mysteries of the Great Work.

About the Author
A spate of books have appeared in France speculating on the identity of the master alchemist who published Les Demeures Philosophales (1930)under the pseudonym of Fulcanelli. They have not revealed Fulcanelli's identity; whomever Fulcanelli may have been, or be, he has succeeded in the alchemist's oath, to keep silent and to disappear after accomplishing the Great Work. There are tales, possibly apocryphal, of the OSS unsuccessfully searching for him in Paris after the war. Fulcanelli is aslo alleged to have met with one of France's atomic physicists in the late 30s and warned him about the dangers of unlocking atomic energy, suggesting it had been done before. Fulcanelli disappeared, leaving no traces, almost as if he had never existed. His pseudonym, Fulcanelli, is derived from Vulcan, classical god of fire, smithing, the working of metals, and artifice. Legend suggests that Fulcanelli is still alive, but what is not legend is his work, the magisterial expos! ition of the alchemical secrets encoded in medieval architecture and literature.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 550 pages
• Publisher: Archive Press & Communications (March 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963521160
• ISBN-13: 978-0963521163
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #728,586 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, August 9, 2000

By	Jason Wolf (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

I've read every Alchemical and Hermetic Chemistry book I could get my hands on over the last 3 years and this was up there with some of the best. It's not for the beginner because it makes some assumptions of general and basic knowledge about Alchemy that could leave the casual read in the dust. This book really caters to the avid student of Alchemy. It is none the less a book for your alchemical collection because the beginner one day will be no longer, and this book will offer knowledge without a doubt. "The lips of wisdom are closed except to the ears of understanding"

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Most Important Books Ever Written, April 14, 2006

By	Laura Knight-Jadczyk (France) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fulcanelli's second book, Dwellings of the Philosophers , was originally one volume consisting of some six hundred pages divided into twenty chapters. In his foreword of the book, written in April 1929, Eug?ne Canseliet reveals the key enabling one to penetrate his master's writings. It lies in the following excerpt:

His method differs from the one that was used by his predecessors: it consists in describing in detail all the operations of the Work after having separated them into various parts. He thus deals with each phase of the work, begins to explain it in one chapter, interrupts it to pursue it in another chapter, and then completes it in yet a last one. This breaking up, which transforms the Magisterium into a philosophical jig-saw puzzle, is not to scare the learned researcher, but it promptly discourages the outsider, incapable of finding his way in this labyrinth of another kind, and unable to restore the order of the manipulations.

At the beginning of the book, Fulcanelli reverts to the subject of stone edifices; the custodians of hermetic science:
[...] Our preference remains for the Middle Ages such as revealed by the gothic edifices, rather than that period of time as described by historians.

Further on, he alludes to Huysmans' statement:

History is the most solemn of lies and the most childish of catches!

He seizes that opportunity to question the authenticity of certain tombs - crypts allegedly containing the remains of this or that historical figure, maintaining that it stands to reason that they are empty, unless corpses were substituted! He then again evokes the primacy of the Middle Ages over the period of the Renaissance:

[...] We deem that the medieval way of thinking reveals itself as being of scientific essence and no other. Art and literature are merely humble servants of traditional science. Their specific mission is to translate into symbols the truths that the Middle Ages received from Antiquity and of which they remained the faithful repositories.

In the next chapter, Fulcanelli gives some definitions of the term alchemy and pays tribute to the Adepts of the past. He then evokes the image of the legendary laboratory with its picturesque character.

In the following chapter, entitled "Chimie et Philosophie", Fulcanelli makes a distinction between alchemy and mere chemistry. He describes the first as the "science of causes" and the second as "science of facts". In his opinion, the latter rests on matter and experimentation, while the first originates in philosophy.

In the next chapter Fulcanelli makes a point of explaining the hermetic Cabala, which is based on phonetic assonance as well as on certain rules resting on the study of ancient Greek - the language of the Hellenes, and before them of the Pelasgians - perhaps of the very gods themselves! It is the language of the birds, the gay science or gay s?avoir, which enables the initiate to express Knowledge in only veiled terms.

After this, Fulcanelli undertakes the actual study of certain historic buildings that are adorned with alchemical symbols, and which he names "the dwellings of the philosophers". The Manoir de la Salamandre in Lisieux (no longer in existence) is the first one he deals with. Fulcanelli suggests that within its walls there existed a fraternity of Adepts - the Flers Alchemists, in the Orne Department - that counted the following three men among its members in 1420: Nicolas de Grosparmy, Nicolas Valois, and the priest, Pierre Vicot. This small group alone is said to have moved to Caen (Calvados Department), and one of the members allegedly erected the Manoir de la Salamandre in the course of the following century. Fulcanelli discusses at length the Secret Fire of the Great Work in this chapter. This Secret Fire is allegorically represented by a salamander, and according to legend, it lives in the igneous element. Several pages farther along, Fulcanelli lists the multiple virtues of the philosopher's stone. Drawing on various texts by the scholarly librarian, Pierre Dujols, he also brings our attention to the alchemical symbolism emanating from the Graal and the Templars' Baphomet.

Referring to the "house of Adam and Eve" in Le Mans, Fulcanelli also discusses in some detail Genesis and the symbolic appearance of the first Adam (made of red earth), and of the second Adam (Sulphur) that united with Eve and which designates Mercury.

In the chapter dedicated to Louis d'Estissac, and recalling the hermetic concerns of the author of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, Fulcanelli sees in the scholarly Fran?ois Rabelais the ma?tre d?s alchimies who initiated young Estissac. In this chapter, Fulcanelli particularly develops his thoughts on the symbolic significance of the Greek letter X (khi), since it is this letter that is identified with Light itself. In this respect, he tells us "the Greek X and the French X represent the writing of the light by the light itself". Bringing up Saint-Andrew's cross, as well as cat whiskers in the shape of a cross, he also tells us about the ways and customs of the Ecole Polytechnique (the "X" ), which he knows too well to have not been personally familiar with them!

In the following chapter, entitled `L'homme des bois' , Fulcanelli refers to the hermetic pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela, as well as to the Parisian alchemist, Nicolas Flamel.
Fulcanelli then extensively examines the coffered paintings on the ceiling admirably adorning the high gallery in the Ch?teau of Dampierre-sur-Boutonn.

The prestigious tomb of Fran?ois II in Nantes provides him with ample material to discourse on the alchemical androgynous state, and thus discuss what sets the hermetic Cabala in opposition to the mysteries of the Hebra?c Kabbala.

In the study of the Holyrood Palace sundial in Edinburgh, Scotland, Fulcanelli gives the reader precious information about the making of the Adepts' famous vitryol. Furthermore, he supplies significant details about the hermetic character of the prestigious Order of the Thistle, with which Scottish alchemist Alexander Sethon was likely not unfamiliar.

In its subsequent edition, The Dwellings of the Philosophers ends with a chapter entitled "The Unlimited Paradox of Sciences", which is decidedly hermetic in orientation, although also apocalyptic. According to Eug?ne Canseliet, this section was added to the previous text and was composed of the material of a third "collection of handwritten notes" that his master, Fulcanelli, had left with him before taking them back in 1928, thereby making it impossible to eventually publish the third book. That book, had it been published, would have been entitled Finis Gloriae Mundi - The End of the Glory of the World.

The alchemist Fulcanelli was the most famous adept of the 20th century, the man who achieved the Great Work less than 100 years ago, but his true identity has always been shrouded in myth and uninformed speculation...until now.

Patrick Rivi?re reveals with profuse documentary evidence the true identity of the enigmatic and prestigious author of The Mystery of the Cathedrals and The Dwellings of the Philosophers. Beginning with an overview of French alchemical life at the turn of the 20th century, Rivi?re carefully builds his case step-by-step with facts, documents, and photographs, introducing us to the well-known physicist who was known as Fulcanelli. Rivi?re also demolishes the scurrilous hypotheses that suggest Fulcanelli never existed. Rivi?re is uniquely suited to solving this mystery as his teacher was Fulcanelli's sole student, Eug?ne Canseliet. (ISBN 1-897244-21-5 Red Pill Press)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Second Paramount Work of Fulcanelli, November 13, 2007

By	Zadius Sky (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dwellings of the Philosophers (Paperback)

"Dwellings of the Philosophers" (Les Demeures Philosophales) was the second and the last known work of Fulcanelli as first published in 1929. This two-volume/500-plus-page book consisted of further information on classical architecture and alchemy than his first work, Fulcanelli: Master Alchemist: Le Mystere des Cathedrales, Esoteric Intrepretation of the Hermetic Symbols of The Great Work (Le Mystere Des Cathedrales ... of the Hermetic Symbols of Great Work).

In this work, Fulcanelli used a unique method to which differs from the masters before him by the means of scattering the clues or pieces throughout this book. And, it is truly up to the sincere seeker to discover these pieces and complete the puzzle of the great secret. A disciple of Fulcanelli, Eugene Canseliet, mentioned this "puzzle" in his first preface to this work. The means of discovery is highly important to Fulcanelli because he would see who is sincere and who is not sincere during the process of discovery. Such secrets are not for everyone.

Fulcanelli, a Great Master Alchemist of the 20th century. He is also the most mysterious figure of the 20th century, whose real name was unknown until the recent ground-breaking work (Fulcanelli - His True Identity Revealed) by Patrick Riviere, who was the student of Eugene Canseliet, a disciple of Fulcanelli himself.

To the truth seekers, I would recommend this book as part of your search, either in history, mystery, ancient arts, gothic, or alchemy. And, to the minds of curiosity and researchers, I would recommend this book as well for your keen eyes as you go through the ancient buildings seen in this book and the great symbolism that lies within. The stones in these walls as mentioned in this book give the most accurate truths than any written historical documents.