Mary Anne Atwood

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Mary Anne Atwood , née South, (* 1817 in Dieppe ; † April 13, 1910 in Thirsk , Yorkshire ) was an English author on spiritual alchemy and occultism.

She grew up in Gosport , Hampshire . Her father Thomas South studied and supported the history of the occult. In 1859 she married the Anglican clergyman Alban Thomas Atwood, who was vicar in Leake , Yorkshire. The marriage remained childless. After his death in 1883 she moved to Knayton Lodge in Thirsk in north Yorkshire, where she lived until her death.

She published a book on the history of Hermetic Doctrine in 1850 , in which she argued that the real purpose of alchemy was spiritual perfection. After the publication, she and her father began to doubt whether she had given up too much of the Secret Doctrine. She bought up as many copies of the book as possible and probably destroyed them. Only a few copies have survived. In 1918 the writer, lawyer and Freemason Walter Leslie Wilmhurst (1867–1939) brought out a new edition. After the death of her father, who worked on the books, she no longer published anything.

Her story was in part the inspiration for Lindsay Clarke's novel The Chymical Wedding (1989) , which received the Whitbread Award.

Part of her estate, including letters to Isabelle de Steiger, is at Brown University.

Fonts

  • Early Magnetism in its higher relations to humanity, as veiled in the Poets and the Prophets. London: H. Baillière 1846 (under the pseudonym Θυος Μαθος, Tuos Matos, an anagram by Thomas South)
  • A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery With a Dissertation on the More Celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers, being an attempt towards the recovery of the ancient experiment of Nature. London: Trelawny Saunders 1850. (531 pages, published as MA South), Archives
    • New edition with an introduction by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst. Belfast: William Tait 1918. Another reprint was published in 1920 and 1960 by Julian Press (New York)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Atwood Papers , pdf
personal data
SURNAME Atwood, Mary Anne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES South, Mary Anne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English author on alchemy and occultism
DATE OF BIRTH 1817
PLACE OF BIRTH Dieppe
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1910
Place of death Thirsk (Yorkshire)