Adam McLean (1948-) is the (in)famous man behind Alchemywebsite.com. I remember knowing that website for as long as I have access to the internet, so even when it was still hosted at Levity.com. This book shows why that recollection is correct.
Of course McLean did way more than hosting a website. He is probably best known for coloring Alchemical plates, but he published many, many Alchemical texts, wrote books himself, had some journals (the most famous of which is the Hermetic Journal), etc. etc.
Now that McLean is starting to become of age, he not only started to look back at his life, but also to sell his massive collections of book, tarot decks, paintings, drawings and whatever he collected during his life. And a collector he sure is. As an example. Quite late in his life McLean developed an interest in the art of tarot cards. In the next decade he collected several thousands of them!
The autobiography starts quite autobiographical. McLean was interested in electronic devices and chemics from a very early age. He experimented, created his own devices and picked up an interest in maths. Formal education did not quite bring what he hoped, so McLean started to look for other ways to pursue his interests. Needless to say that somewhere along the line, he got interested in Alchemy.
You can read how he prints his own books, what projects he worked on, how he met people such as Joost Ritman of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, conferences he organised and attended, the many times he moved residence, his experiments with early computers and indeed, how he created a website as soon the internet became available to the general public.
(Overly) active, even obsessive perhaps, McLean goes after anything that triggers his interest, being it surreal art, Jeroen Bosch, mathematics, magic, (al)chemy, etc. A driven man indeed and he still is. Also his entire life he tries to convince people that a more rational approach of his subjects is to be preferred, something which is not always received with applause.
The book is an amusing read. Here and there I got some context to history that I was (vaguely) aware of before, such as the founding of the Ritman Library. As the book continues, it becomes less autobiographical though and more a list of McLean’s numerous projects.
2020 Kilbirnie Press, isbn 979-8669905583
