The Museum of Lost Wonder

Jeff Hoke

Weiser,  August 2006

Welcome to Wonder

Open The Museum of Lost Wonder and step into an alternative world full of compelling images, fascinating historical tidbits, and provocative challenges to common myths. Follow your whimsy into this treasure trove to create a place where you can expand your mind. Find your way back to the wonder of your own imagination as you peruse these seven halls:

  • Calcinatio, The Hall of Technology
  • Solutio, The Hall of Aquaria
  • Coagulatio, The Zoological Garden
  • Sublimatio, The Observatory
  • Morificatio, The Mausoleum of History
  • Separatio, The Laboratory of Science and Faith
  • Conjunctio, The Gallery of the Arts

Where Physics Meet Metaphysics

Jeff Hoke blends his knowledge of science and art with his classical studies of 14th-century alchemy and the origins of philosophy and scientific theory, creating exhibits in his "museum" that dazzle the imagination. These magnificent illustrations return us to an era where the physician was also the magician, and the astronomer the astrologer.

Wander the pages of The Museum of Lost Wonder and discover new ways of seeing yourself, your place in the world, and the world itself. Jeff Hoke distills life's big questions into easy, imaginative experiments. Take a mind-expanding romp through the worlds of physics, science, art, alchemy, and metaphysics, a trip that will have you asking -- and answering -- questions about the origins of the universe, as well as your creative mind.

hardcover | ISBN: 9781578633647 | Publication Date: August 2006

Reviews:
"This informative guide, with its sharp graphic illustrations and hands-on activities to stimulate the imagination, presents a fresh way to approach many of the oldest questions pondered by humankind."
--Robert Sabuda, author of Winter's Tale

"The Museum of Lost Wonder is one of the most imaginative books ever to appear. It is filled with magic, mysticism, science and art all delightfully accurate. By reading it and following the guides to build the models, you will discover the magic that may be missing in your life today. Don't miss the opportunity!"
--Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., physicist and author of many books including Dr. Quantum's Little Book of Big Ideas

"A celebration of the human mind. A quirky, graphical telling of the story of everything and ourselves as the principal actors in its drama. A cabinet of curiosities brimming with marvels, astonishments, and revelations. Consistently wise in its recognition that humor is the gateway to the profound, and how Beer has transformed and shaped the major philosophies of the world. For all you seekers of truth, this book is better than a pair of transcendent socks, wiser than an oracular muffin and more entertaining than a whistling oyster."
--Brian Froud, author of Faeries and Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book

"Jeff Hoke's The Museum of Lost Wonder is a soulful delight -- an alchemical workbook designed to remap the connections between science and poetry, matter and psyche, philosophy and comic books."
--Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and The Visionary State

"Jeff Hoke's Museum is a repository for arcane, 'lost' esoteric knowledge [that] relates to 'wunderkammer' or cabinets of curiosities of pre-Enlightenment Europe, which perceived the earliest form of museum as a model of the world. Yet Hoke's  Museum is also a metaphysical architectural model of the mind, a kind of cornucopia of hermetic knowledge."
--James Putnam, independent curator, writer, and founding curator of the British Museum's Contemporary Arts and Cultures Program