Alchymic Journals Page 10

  THERE IS REASON to suppose that devils inhabit our provinces as comfortably as they inhabit the ocean depths, crepuscular forests, precipices or deserts. They have been seen gathering for the sabbat in Westphalia and Thuringia and at the Spirato della Mirandola in Italy and in the Carpathians on the Babia Gora, streaming thence and elsewhere out of their apartments in earth’s inaccessible pockets with little regard to distance. Pliny avows that he saw with his own eyes the birth of cinnabar from the blood shed on sandy soil by an elephant and a dragon locked in mortal combat—which many dispute. But facts do not cease to exist by virtue of being ignored, and I have observed demons fornicate not only upon each other but with complaisant humans, which admixture produces cambions. Is nature to blame for divergencies? I do not know.

  I HAVE SEEN how the demon of lust Osmodeus seizes possession of aching bodies for an instant of carnal enjoyment. Later, with passion assuaged, he discards this abused and mutilated flesh. And because I have seen our proclivity to rummage for wealth amid putrescence, I wonder if we may seek resurrection atop a dung-heap. But that is theology’s hospice.

  VENAL MALAISE OR bewitchment—how might it be cured? Noisome vapors from smouldering waste compel the animus to withdraw, alleviating symptoms because phlogiston lapidifies the brain. Still, such counteractives may prove useless due to opacities that frequently develop among women of exquisite temperament, some of whom will contrive to poison the aliment they prepare for their husbands, being drugged or stupefied with licentious imagery. Women of this type should be dissuaded from suckling and from playing with receptive children because of debauched or meditative coercions. I do not know how women so possessed are to be helped. They seem to know more than I—deceitfully pretending to ask advice. I would grasp the blind root of a universe were I able to address such darkness.

  HOW IS THE salacious female to be considered? I am uncertain because I think the status of woman honorable and significant insofar as she is man’s instrument of pleasure, experienced at oestrus, mistress of the night, ripe with magic property, more passionate than the dawn. Yet she is an uncontrollable ungovernable wind tumbling down a hill. She is like the tree bearing fruit, and man is like the fruit she has borne. If we consider what injuries the tree can sustain but how much less its fruit, by so much is she superior.

  THAT WOMEN GROW lascivious and preoccupied with venery after marriage has long been established and could be the result of evil spirits drawn to submissive subjects. Women recently wed have been known to whisper throughout the night and to dream of splendid fish seeking entrance to the moon. Women deprived of husbands will gibber and babble, or mouth foreign languages. Also, it has been established that young girls may sprout hair by the age of ten and at twelve go raging after a man, but how this latent force emerges I know not. So might we look in vain for the source of a mighty river. Why concupiscence would thus manifest itself seems beyond understanding and without bottom, like a Portuguese harbor. Lust seems as imperious as the flame which orders everything aside—burning dwellings and forests, withering lakes. Actaeon the hunter when he surprised Artemis bathing was caught by the hounds of his own distracted thought. Endymion wished to sleep forever on the slope of Mount Latmus that he might re-visit Selene. How does perversity restore us? Are we inclined toward what we oppose? The animosity of love I would compare with the fly Cantharides—golden wings affixed to a body indurated by poison.

  I WONDER THAT men marry nymphs, which are threatening because their intellects and minds preserve the similitude of our own and through us they become immortal. But still they have not immortal souls, so any man who would take a nymph as his wife must be careful neither to offend nor insult her, nor abandon her beside the shore of a lake with her crisp hair glittering, because she will vanish into her element.

  MEN AND WOMEN appear to rejoice at correspondences of form, much as dissimilar things move toward each other to embrace. Yet there is one pleasure of a horse, another of a dog. Cattle differ upon their choice. Arguments persuasive to one to the next look unconvincing, even as that truth acceptable to Hans may seem offensive to Kurt, according to temperament or training. Therefore, if like is to meet and act upon like we anticipate concord, whereas if the actor and acted-upon stand at sword-point we look toward contagion or virulence. Often there will be wrath and bile, just as we find in plants an herb or vegetable furiously engaged against its neighbor because their constituents are less a unity than a multitude. Nature seems disposed to act in the same manner if furnished with identical materials, whether to reproduce monstrosities such as the mule which issues from a congress of ass and mare, or beings conformable to their particular species. Some insist that mules are born on a distant isle and as to their genesis we know little, but I suspect that with judicious proportion most things may be accomplished. Also, we stand more in need of holistic physicians than apostles. Ah! I would give advice that sounds helpful when I myself do not understand. By God, I walk in fancied circles.

  I DEBATE WHAT nature hopes to achieve with us. Could it be an escape from incogitance, out of vacuity toward entity—shadow to substance? So do I question the admixture of evil, by what warrant this pervades a room, what is its composition and how it mottles the lucidity of thought. Raveled in doubt I comb the constellations for one favorable burst of light. Orion walks poised and balanced on pinnacles of diamond fire while I am grown full of device drawing together metal bones. Where is the alchymic root or spring? What might be disclosed should the lamp illuminating our universe prevail?

  HUMAN INTELLECT ENABLES us to choose among contrary paths but how should we decide on the parabola of thought? I have looked toward the radiant arch of understanding only to observe a net built with entanglement. Yet, it is critical that men discover how presumptions originate—with such vehemence does the mind influence the flesh, since we are conjoined of two laboratories—corpus being that which tangibly labors, whereas the intangible we describe as imagination.

  SHAME COMPELS THE face to blush, fright summons pallor, ague, trembling diarrhoea and melancholic obstructions. Envy evokes jaundice. Delight stimulates. Sadness oppresses. Intolerable anguish contributes to miscarriage, hysterics, apoplexies and malformed children. Of this, as of much else, I am persuaded—as by his thumb alone would I be able to recognize Hercules. But how does the simple bird conceive her nest? Whence comes the prosperous wind? Why should a circle lack angles?

  WHAT IS THE provenance of those glorious hues that engage us during spring and summer? If we consider the gross nigritude of earth it proposes nothing fragrant or savory or desirable, nonetheless iridescent colors emerge along with a plenitude of living creatures—shining pools replete with an infinity of fishes, gracious birds, leaping animals—amid a plethora of minerals and sparkling stones such as emerald, alexandrite, carbuncle, girasole and peridot, all derived from abhorrence. Out of an herb yclept Colorio when it molders in cattle dung crawls a most repulsive larva, yet as its carcase is burnt—Anon! We behold the rainbow. Who can attribute the mysteries of nature?

  EARTH APPEARS TO be the premise and foundation of all things, constituting fundament or centrality, at once the sole object and recipient of heavenly beneficence, proprietor of seminal virtue which, by stimulation, attempts to reassure and liberate that which it is offered. I have heard it likened to the belly where matter digests itself in order to be renewed since every shape represents the tomb of another, which is self-evident and a determining precept of creation. But I feel apprehensive about confining movement to parallels.

  I ASK ABOUT the maturity of wheat—what obligates it to grow. A seed must be planted in soil which encourages it to secrete the essence dormant within its husk, whereupon it flourishes. Now since that is so, what inhibits a multiplication of gold? But let us say the matrix should be disqualified for humidity, or too much or too little of some other aspect should develop, then we would feel surprised because nature objects to change, although like a generous mother she rewards that husbandman who meliorates h
is ground with compost, who scorches weeds and resuscitates morbid matter through fructifying unguents. Hence, the alchymist beginning his assault against disease by accoupling observation with intuition should anticipate a fulsome harvest. Yet I have watched men mark their schemes out of obduracy toward fatal excess.

  IT IS CLEAR how vegetables resolve to expand beneath the sun, but when they think the sun too strong they decide to perish. So should an alchymic doctor apprehend the tendencies of heat and cold, of moisture and desiccation—of every debilitating operative and seasonal monarch. He must not bitterly complain how what proved useful or effective once must prove effectual twice, but should assiduously chart the progress of sinister blemishes, learn why cinquefoil despairs and follow the seven proud daughters of Atlas—Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygeta, Alcyone, Merope and Maia—nightly plotting their trajectory, because we embody a universe comprised of mortal and celestial spheres. Consequently, if a man’s organs neglect their office he will fall sick, he will lift up both hands to providence.

  MANIFESTATIONS OF DISEASE and health fluctuate because Sol and Luna which now travel separately once were affiliated. Thus it follows that as sidereal objects decline or ascend a patient’s condition will appear to deteriorate or improve. We should note also that expressions of agony characteristic to the moribund often disappear, which suggests that paradise might not be far distant, closer than we expect.

  THE BODY SUBMITS when it knows it must, if mortal flesh admits no alternative. I have heard Chymists suggest how resurrection is possible when substances containing Harmoniac are supplied—charcoal, wax, oil and soot—which seems implausible. Illness desires its medicine just as the man desires a wife, this much I accept. But what argues our claim to restoration?

  I KNOW THAT we estimate the size and shape of a dog or an ox or a tree by its shadow just as we estimate degrees of health or sickness by inspecting the quantity and color and odor of urine. I know also that nature will announce the perfect way and order without which nothing can be done or brought toward a perfect end. So much I admit, yet the earth may be compared to a scaffold upon which each individual is required to stand alone, where each determines his future.

  SALT, SOUR, SWEET, Bitter—these four savors a body accepts, but how often foolish men misapply the fragile cup consigned to their use. We have been offered a cornucopia of pleasures such as spiced wine to accompany our meals, music urging us to dance, friends for conversation, illustrated manuscripts for enlightenment, docile beasts, et cetera. Still we expend this provender immoderately by giving way to intemperance—raging against our fate—unlike animals which do not doubt themselves and thus live comfortably. Subordinate creatures refuse to eat or drink injurious material, selecting instead what nutriment they require through natural instinct whereas men yield to gluttony, swallow foreign liquid, make flatulent speeches, load their bellies with carnage, defile themselves, rake over the world and succumb to grief.

  CONSUMING SANGUINE BARNYARD flesh is perilous because it rots and makes wind, thwarting rectification of the blood, whereas the meat of birds is salubrious because these creatures subsist upon aether—the noblest constituent. Legumes are believed to accumulate their strength from diurnal quantities of sunlight which is released into our bodies, hence such plants are good and do not inflame choleric humors. Solar foods are beneficial to humanity, for should any organ conflate or grow distempered others miscarry—as if the fifth string of a musical instrument should be tight or loose. Now, because this is not mysterious I feel puzzled that the less knowledge blundering doctors have the less they covet to know. Myself, I would not maunder about as I hear others do, hiding ignorance or flaccid uncertainty behind confident prescription. I would as soon dance the jig with some itinerant minstrel or frolic in the hay with goats. I regard this earth as an infirmary, and I am but one earnest doctor in search of the Great Catholicon.

  SPURIOUS PHYSICIANS STROKE their beards while hawking unguents extracted from tragacanth, verdigris and fat—as a mendacious moon does falsely tint familiar objects to make the gullible exclaim at counterfeit spectacles and rejoice and clap hands, thankful to sensory illusion. Honest practitioners seek truth in spiritual verity, reason in moral certitude.

  RECEIPTS AND MAGISTRALS past counting have left us unequally perplexed, but through systematic observation various matters which astonish us may be resolved, lessening our amazement. Aristotle writes upon a Greek afflicted with defective vision that caused the atmosphere about him to act as a looking-glass while optical streams from his eyes, being reflected backward, threw forth an image of himself which faced and preceded him where he walked. So do most men agree to mistaken adumbrations for the probable semblance of themselves, inanimate and hollow. Did not Olympiodorus mention a natural deficit to understanding? Did he not speak of conceptions that lie askew?

  VAN HELMONT DISCUSSES an old woman cured of noxious megrim by a touch, and he speaks of an abbess with a distended arm that could not bend her fingers for at least eighteen years, but she recovered by the application of lictus to her tongue. I think humors as qualities in themselves do not exemplify health, being little more than conditions neither indigenous nor natural. Bostock asserts that these might not be a cause so much as caused. Perhaps. I subscribe to several minds.

  IN THE CITY of Frankfort is alleged to be a Dominican by name Uldericus Balk who employs a magnetic analeptic for jaundice or dropsy which is made from five drops of a sick man’s blood rehabilitated in the shell of a speckled egg. Being fortified with animal meat and set on the ground before a famished dog Balk’s lincture acts vehemently against disease by expelling it out of the patient and causing it to reappear in the creature—much as that leprosie in ancient times passed through Naaman into Gehazi. This seems possible. I myself effect sympathetic recures by a withdrawal of blood to attract mumia. Extraction through cupping, plus venesection, ensures an adequate supply which is given to a surrogate after boiling with onager milk. Even so, I judge the comportment of a doctor more efficacious than his remedy, more puissant than his finest drug.

  I THINK DISEASE results from an overflow of corrosive catarrh which descends from the base of the skull to visceral organs. If fluid reaches the lung we may expect apostema and phthisis, in the joints we anticipate rheumatism and gout, in the legs ulceration and decay. Such ailments derive from the treachery of malignant or idle planets—which is commonly acknowledged. Nonetheless, it seems that by admitting the physician with his corrective, providence has imagined and conceived of balance.

  SURELY A SUBJUNCTION of astronomy with medicine directs us at our labor because we have seen duplicated in laboratories a macrocosmic circulation of celestial agents that resembles falling rain or the pulsing motion of blood. Venus and Mars and a red moon in trilateral opposition revive old disorders while new configurations of Saturn introduce fresh disease. What is the attribute of Mars if not aetherial modes of iron distributed broadly down the progress of nature? And Venus? The power to stimulate vasa spermatica in masculine bodies. Or what is Melissa? We know it to be a subtle astral essence choosing materiate expression in the humblest garden plant. Or what is some animal if not a personification of sidereal human characteristics? Page after page therefore illustrates universal correspondence. That being so, terrestrial events must derive from the absolute harmony of heaven since beams of starlight fall indiscriminately across the earth. And as the nature of light is to flow continually, without respite, what fugitive phenomenon could be out-cast?

  IF IT IS verified that stars have both their amicabilities and enmities, being given to mutual attraction or repulsion, each withdrawing or venturing toward an area of its neighbor, such coordination could not exist but for conscious empathy. So does Roger Bacon argue how those luculent encrustations that like a cascanet of jewels embellish the fluctuating and fruitful matrix of this earth have grown up in response to everlasting agitation among angelic properties. Myself, I believe it vain to endorse or question seraphic philosophy. I would sooner
ask the nativity and circulation of pestilence that in distant lands flaps down men like flies.