Book Review: "Alchemy & Mysticism"

Art publisher Taschen printed a whole slew of 25th anniversary editions back in 2005, one of which was a translation of Alexander Roob's Alchemy & Mysticism. When I came across the book remaindered last summer I thought I'd take a leaf through the nearly 600 pages of text and images. I have now completed my perusal. Unfortunately I found the text well nigh incomprehensible, but I'm not sure whether this is a function of the subject itself or just the translation. The images (from early alchemical and mystical texts, mainly) were interesting enough (and are beautifully reproduced here), but the accompanying captions and expository paragraphs left something to be desired.