PUBLISHING IN LATE 2026
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“The main thing is that the Soul may be re-born in the flesh, and while having experience of Matter, to master it.” — Julius Kohn
Splendor Solis is a book that invites us not only to read it but to inhabit it. Its images do not merely illustrate the Work, they are specially designed to aid the reform of perception within the one who attends to them closely.
British Library manuscript Harley MS. 3469 has been studied for four centuries; thoroughly catalogued, dated, translated, and commented upon. Many have admired its images, but stand outside its entrance debating whatever it is.
But Trismosin, whoever he was, created something far more intricate than a sequence of beautiful images elucidating a long lost art. He created a system of inner transformation, encoded in image and text.
We are pleased to announce a forthcoming commentary on Splendor Solis, which offers fellow miners practical tools to decode the symbols and ciphers to begin or to deepen this perception for themselves.
We are also excited to share a new discovery revealing the true structure of the 22 plates, which resolves the “mistaken” binding order and deepens the inquiry.
Where academic study has preserved and catalogued this manuscript, this edition asks what it is for, and puts the answer to a workable system.
Join the update waitlist for SPLENDOR SOLIS: THE ART OF SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY
ABOUT THE BOOK
This oversize hardbound volume reproducing the highest resolution scans from the British Library features:
- GORDON JAMES: With forty years of devoted experience and leveraging the full apparatus of the Western Mystery Tradition, James’ commentary offers unusual depth and practical application. His corrected essays and four other preparatory essays come to print for the first time.
- JULIUS KOHN: The first English translation by Kohn served occult students for more than a century for good reason. We have retained the complete 1920 text, explanatory notes, and supplemental material.
- J. KUNS: The editor of James Investigates supplies commentary on the frame images and chariot scenes, clairifcations of Kohn’s and James’ note, an essay on the Little Work, and explains a cipher in the paintings, which reveals the original binding and “Regimen of Planets” as intentional.
THE CHAPTERS
PREPARATORY ESSAYS: Steps Toward The Stone — Stages in the Art — Gematria — Color — The Opus Minor.
PLATE I: The two men that are one man — The arms of the art are not for a battle — The three modes of consciousness — The structural pattern within the common arrangement.
PLATE II: The philosopher’s finger — The gross work and the physical vessel — What the outer frame encodes about the three principles across the seven metals.
PLATE III: The two nerve currents and the method of their combination — The geometry of the two fountains —The intellect and the deductive function.
PLATE IV: The Emerald Tablet and the seven parables — Achiles, Alexander, and Diogenes triptych explained — Why there are no ‘mistakes’ in the manuscript or in life.
PLATE V: Meditation as mining — The Esther allegory — ESTHES, HASVEROS, and the hidden stone.
PLATE VI: The Tree of Life — The White-headed Raven, the Door of the Art, and the subconscious as the field of the Work — The philosophers ladder.
PLATE VII: The Old King and New King — The three crowns and their metals decoded — The nymphs and satyrs of the intaglios.
PLATE VIII: The Holy Guardian Angel, the 25th Path, and the One Ego of all humanity — The pure gold of the Absolute — Alchemical fraud.
PLATE IX: The Rebis and the operative union of Self- and Subconsciousness — The hidden Conjunctio.
PLATE X: The philosophic death, the True Ego, the body reborn — Poseidon, Galatea, and the Nigredo cycle.
PLATE XI: Why Mercury and Jupiter? — The reproductive force rechanneled — The cyclical nature of Nigredo.
PLATE XII: Saturn’s caduceus — The corrected order of the retorts, the Vault of C.R.C., and the Hodos Camelionis.
PLATE XIII: Jupiter’s chariot over Saturn’s regime — Three stages of the Art enacted in the vessel — The pancha kleshas and planetary plates — Righterousness and conformity.
PLATE XIV: Making the fixed volatile — The Iron Key, the Samson allegory, and the wheel signs — Geburah’s three names and why the ego generates conflict.
PLATE XV: The Sun and the dragon — The Anahata Chakra at the center of seven planets and seven treatises simultaneously — The number 666 as coincidentia oppositorum.
PLATE XVI: The pineal gland, the Amber Bell, and the coagulation of brain sand — The four 1582’s — The true and invisible Sion.
PLATE XVII: Venus’s chariot, the peacock in the vessel, the tethered Cupid — The desire nature — The warning of accomplishment and the siddhis.
PLATE XVIII: The King standing upon the crescent — Twenty-one marks, eight pearls — Orsan or Orsam — The key that turns of itself.
PLATE XIX: The surrender from beyond will — The premature Rubedo — The 49 Gates — The philosopher who’s name carries caution.
PLATE XX: The Jackdaw and cat — The ten Sephiroth as the egoistic structure — Swastikas, stove and wombs, the 72 roundels — Gestating in the athanor.
PLATE XXI: Squaring of the Circle — Reproductive force and the cells — The Egyptian water glyph — Salt of the sages.
PLATE XXII: The New Jerusalem, the Cube of Space, and the complete psycho-physiological transmutation of consciousness — The manuscript that continues beyond.
