Alchemists Book

I'm not sure I have the correct edition, but I don't believe I was able to find the correct one here on Goodreads. I was reading a free version on my kindle which was a scan of a Harvard library copy from Google Books. Overall, it was a relatively good version, with the exception of any kind of symbols, which were more or less absent. For the majority of the book, this is not a problem, but it does become an issue in the sections on cabala, astrology, and alchemy, where all of the symbols are absent except for a couple of image scans. There are a fair amount of transcription flubs, as well. Still, this is a book I have been meaning to read for years, and having it available for free made that possible.

In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't pay for this. The antiquity makes this seem kind of like it would have good information, but reading through this emphasizes that a lot of accepted knowledge was folkloric, and not based on experience. As a collection of folklore, this was enjoyable, but as an elaboration of occult secrets, it kind of falls flat for me. I suppose, as something of a foundational work, I shouldn't have expected anything groundbreaking, but I guess I thought there would be more to this than there was. The introduction and framing this within a historical context was quite interesting, and the final section was laughably bad. I suppose I let myself expect more from this book than I ought to have. Taken without me presuppositions, this is a solid historical work on some occult topics.