Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264755 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 250 pages

Customer Reviews

THE HERMETIC AND ALCHEMIST FOUNDATIONS OF FREEMASONRY
Tobias Churton is one of the few scholars in the field of the Mystical Western tradition that I read time and time again because he approaches his subject with academic rigor. The Golden Builders is a resume of the history of Western mysticism and of its influences. Churton gives the reader a good insight into Hermes Trimegistus, The Harran Gnostics, Alchemy and the Rosicrucians and ends the book with a very interesting piece on Elias Ashmole and Freemasonry.

Dry
This book is full of names and dates and is, without doubt, informative. However, I have to say, I found this book dry and without much charm. If you went to this book (as I did) looking to find out why the Golden Builders did what they did, you will be disapointed. This book gives a detailed history of who lived when, and gives a time line of transformation from alchemy, to rosicrusionism to freemasonry - but for me far to little about the ideas, thoughts abs beliefs that shaped these groups.

WoW great book with a section on my home county!
I live in the lush green parts of the county of Staffordshire, not far away is the town of Biddulph which gets more than a few mentions in the book along with Smallwood down the road. Biddulph is noted by the locals as mysterious and by outsiders as a no go zone, mainly stories of inbreeds. In the local library there is an account of an Egyptian family moving into the area and their blood line. Along with Knights of the Templar graves and an Egyptians garden to go with it all gets rather interesting.

Lichfield is the diocise which controls my local church, the home of Elias Ashmole. I always wondered what the three spires meant and the book reveals.

I purchased the book for information on Ashmole after researching the Lost book of Enoch, I heard it was in his musuem. This tablet is of great importance to humanity yet it's not really shouted about like it should be.

One thing for sure is, the author has done his work to that of a local who lived here at the time it was all happening.

Great stuff!

I heard on the grape vine a Lomas in the area was digging holes in the local Biddulph church yard for something of interest. The excavation finished around June 2005....

Keep it up Tobias Churton