I don't know if people are interested but we are running a program form
alchemical research called HARP (Hieroglyphic and Alchemical Recognition
Program) at my University. Basically it originated out of my frantically
hunting down a symbol for some one for a ritual they were doing that
involved wading through volumes and volumes of pics and text to find what
she wanted as there was little cataloging order or crosslinked references on
the material, just ad hoc collections of artwork and disconnected and
contradictory text. I teamed up with some programming postgrads and were
making a web based program for people to catalogue in symbols and artwork
associated with rituals, alchemy, futhark, hieroglyphics etc which can be
accessed via a search engine based on its historicity, ritual use, mythic
origin and overall shape. The idea is to run it like wikipedia with members
making contributions that can be subjected to critique and review by the
site coordinators and via a forum. Entries will have to be cited and we
want to have sections to differentiate between empirical historical takes,
psychoanalytical views, ritual views and the like. We have just finished
the interface and its a couple of months yet before it will be up and
running ready for trial.
Anyway, while I was going to wait till the software is ready and just
network through friends and colleagues, is anyone interested in
participating as contributors, moderators and the like? Its still being put
together but some recent threads here piked my interest in people being
interested in alchemy and so and being interested in more user and public
friendly means of accessing it.
Anyway its there if people are interested.
David
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