Alchymic Journals Read online

  MAGISTER ANSELM BOETIUS de Boodt proposes the regeneration of earth into a Jewel by virtue of its lapidific endowment, agitated and urged toward movement through celestial warmth, during which a conclusive role was performed by the Lord—Deus Optimus Maximus. Ach! Our brain feels ploughed in wrinkles. We doubt if Borri with his palm-branch might sweep the court of such a smelly pie. Nor, saying so, would we disparage God, but donkeys that invest his pasture.

  WONDER HAS SEIZED us regarding this manuscript Sarlamethon that was purchased by a gullible Italian for three thousand crowns. Then what? Up from Hades bubbled an Adriatic storm so our greedy Latin with his gold pass-port sank from view. Yea! O, what a pitiful story! Is the Adriatic at mid-winter less raging or turbulent than mankind? Do we not all swarm with vague or mixed anxieties? Meister Albertus in his silly Book of Secrets affirms how travel across distant countries wearies us, yet Eirenaeus Philalethes cautions that the ignorant are consigned to frantic struggles in endless thickets. Truly, we respond like buckets on a rope—as one goes up his brother falls. Thus we consult the mist and contend at morality, asking if this be autumn or summer but do not guess what sign old Sol held.

  WE ARE TOLD in Philostratus Jarchus that some Hindoo prince bequeathed seven rings with the seven signatures of regnant planets to Apollonius, who vowed to wear them sequentially and by such magic live beyond one hundred years, yet retain the comeliness of youth. But do we not hear about the Bear that after five centuries he becomes a Fox? So among Wolves which after eight hundred birthdays select different shapes. Verily! Thus might oceans roil overhead—as Patricius claims. So do rats foretelling human events turn white. So do smoaky exhalations ascending from putrid matter inside the stomach suffocate the intellect.

  MUCH GOSSIP PATTERS on our heads regarding two fleet wizards from Elizabeth’s Court by name John Dee—appointed warden of Manchester College—with his accomplice Kelley that in a ruin near Glastonbury uncovered a Liquid which they took with them all across the Continent so far as Trebona, there performing a little hermetic music to multiply their fortune. Moreover, we hear of one Sendivogius traveling disguised like a lackey with a box of magic powder tucked in his waistcoat—one pinch sufficient to project ducats out of mercury ounce for ounce! And we do affirm how mortal existence appears a concatenation of days linking absurdity to absurdity.

  NOW ARE WE notified how at the residence of Thaddeus de Hazek—Imperial Medicaster—our English Kelley did manage to extract from quick-silver one full pound of gold, diluting the matrix with a quiddity so estimable that following this transmutation some jewel similar to a Ruby manifested itself upon the slag, a miracle devoutly attested by that most virtuous physician, Doctor Nicholas Barnaud. Whereupon our illustrious sovereign Maximilian skipped merrily off the saddle to welcome this foreign cock’s-broth at Court and knighted and anointed him Grand Marshal of Bohemia! But concerning the actual worth of such unworthiness, does a silver circle plugged in a hog’s snout enrich his carcass? Alchymists contend of their subject that it is Man—not legerdemain toward the benefits of office. And this saltimbank that was born blagueur, canter, Pharisee, fabulist, romancer, taradiddle, Ananias, cockatrice—plus we know not what greater jilt—having lost both ears for untold mischief, concealed the disgrace beneath a snug velvet bonnet to give his features a most oracular and thoughtful appearance. O, we are familiar with the bulk of them from Jean de Gallans to Georges Sabellicus, from Guy de Crusembourg to Wenzel von Reinburg, from Domenico Caetano to the mysterious Richtausen. Aye! Lincture and tincture and wax and one stuffed crocodile, so much have we met and guess times present do but iterate upon our proscenium things past.

  VARIOUS HONEST SCHOLARS have certified to the fly-trap skill and crafty jugglement at laudable science of Arnold di Villa Nova. John André, Jurisconsult, once observed this mountebank in Rome sub-ducting gold from iron bars. Nevertheless, facts vary at the circumference, presumptions collapse, perimeters dissolve. Vapors darken the alembic. Alain de l’Isle distilled the Magisterium, we hear, but we hear also that brute savages in thatch huts beyond the Western Sea have netted the wily Scolopendra! Well, from the credulous we do not withhold credulity, placing much value on firm belief. Is not theriac prescribed for melodious dreams? May not the flesh of winged dragons alleviate bloody flux? Or catechitic instruction by demons—is not that preferable to ignorance?

  TOWARD EVERY UNCOMMON triumph do we wax fulsome with praise. O yea! High homage therefore to Ramon Lull that did persuade King Edward on how to lubricate his crusade, thus acquiring as work-shop a drafty chamber of the fabulous Tower. What next? Presto! Twenty-three English tons of quicksilver turned sombresault into gold as pliant as that which informs a Jacobus! Aye! And medals were coined from this bounteous slag-heap by Edward’s order whose purity exceeds description, which men have labeled Rose Nobles. Was not this marvelous? We exclaim at such merit yet ask how Rose Nobles be weighed, if currencies be but simulacra and durable shades of life.

  TRULY, MUCH HOMAGE do we render this numinous philosopher that has built a Machine of concentric disks which revolve about an Axis in order to convert Mahometans. Upon its rim sixteen chambers interlock and each proclaims his message: Philosophy, Virtue, Justice, Dominion, Humility, Magnitude, and the rest, whereby innumerable combinations are secured. So did Hermes Trismegistus construct the city of Adocentyn whose light-house sequentially flashed the hues of regnant planets! Moralists malign presumptuous apostles by claiming they engage their souls with error at every turn. Ourselves, we draw no tangent.

  MORE AND MORE do we meet with Doctor Illuminatus who presumes to indulge every court from Aragon to Extremadura—debating and tossing the crust of matter while he likens earth’s form to a melon. Granted. Yet he argues that should Spanish mines hold adequate mercury he might harvest the Mediterranean bed for ingenite gold! So goes he promenading through every court in Iberia save that of good sense. Discoursing much or little, how redoubtable we find the shifting face of Man.

  WE HEAR IT alleged that from the jaws of some putrid corpse Philippus Theophrastus contrived to draw six gold particles which he judged must be the consequence of mineral virtue in that fragrant citizen—since how else could such wealth accumulate? Well, thaumaturgic considerations absorb our wit, causing us to shout and grow baffled and run through circles. Accordingly we suspect our Doctor misled himself. By turbith or unction do virulent diseases react against quicksilver whose essence gravitates to the mouth where it amalgamates with spittle, there to maturate unless it can be expelled—save that when a patient expires the essence will condense, moldering or festering throughout the carcass until purified and redeemed by liquefied atoms of degeneration after which it coagulates toward the likeness of gold. We have seen how by similar intent violets might spring from ashes, or stars that shine unequally must have their purpose, because nature resembles a chiming clock within which all subordinate wheels contribute their motion.

  BEHOLD THE CAUDACITY of man’s estate! Pray for Theophrastus, disillusioned and sour, traveling home to his native village of Einsiedeln in the lofty canton of Appenzell, exchanging a troubled passage for eremetic contemplation. Ingratitude accompanied him and marked ascendencies while he wandered—yea! Poverty, neglect and ridicule trafficked at his heels like three mangy skulking mongrels. Therefore did he return bitterly to the ancient church that presided over his birth whose walls now loomed transparent, so much had he achieved with thirty-eight years. But in regard to that woeful journey we have heard enough, albeit little of what his parents were, which we think odd since precedents do not close where they began. Still, some say nobility lies more in the heart than birth. Concerning friends, we make out less, while of himself next to nothing. As for women, he kept no warm relationship, though of enemies a plenitude—thieves, derelicts and frauds, assassins, liars, buggers, cheats. And the wisdom of Avicenna he fed to the flames on a holiday, avowing that monumental rubbish merited its plume of smoke—to which we chant Amen!

  AT SALZBURG EXPIRED our con
tradictory Philippus who was quack or psychikos—we know not which—in the Kaygasse, it is said, where he had engaged a chamber. He wrote how robbers at night creep in to steal if they cannot be seen, so creeps in cunning Death while medicine sits at its obscurity to steal away life, which is a man’s greatest treasure. So the private way of God went to work to draw out his life, and we think he recognized that hand, giving directions for his burial at St. Sebastian’s Church beyond the bridge. Bolstered half-upright on his couch he dictated to a local scribe how an erudite practitioner of medicine, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, being of clear mind committed life, death and soul to the care of an Almighty that would not permit the martyrdom and travail of His only Son to be fruitless, nugatory, one more sleeveless errand culled by a poor servant. Whereafter legacies were writ that all but paupers should forget. Two cartons of manuscripts and books he left at Augsburg, one at Kromau, various oddments at Leoben and in Carinthia—possibly at St. Veith or Villach. What a munificent estate! Some few burnished coins gibbering with loneliness, a patched cloak, boots, Concordia Bibliorum and Interpretationes super Evangelia badly frayed, ointments, knives, hostility sufficient for twelve plus the storage-vault of an insatiable mind. All work done—Lo, a misbegotten adept departed—this unlikely angel ascending from the Gasthaus zum Weissen Ross! Paradise is but a search for knowledge, he said, allotting his tormented years to that end and the public good. We doubt he had much choice. Disciples say the ferryman erred by thinking him three decades older, since as he knew so much more than cooks and servants Azrael mistook that countenance for one whose day was spent. But let it pass. In the hospital cemetery of Saint Sebastian we have examined a marble obelisk dedicated to Philippus Theophrastus, Alchymist and Physician, who with wondrous magic did cure the gout, leprosy and dropsy and bound up fearful wounds. There, by and large, he remains except his skull is gone—as though it could not quit travel. Just where this relic might be, who knows? We hear it exists in southern Bavaria and is thought to be that of some female. Yet we suspect a divine trumpeter draws winds together.

  REGARDING THE SCRIVENER Flamel, we present our conspectus. That he dwelt in Paris near Saint Jacques-de-la-Boucherie in the notary street with his wife Perenelle is documented. And none save skeptics would dispute that on the seventeenth of January, Anno Domini 1382, he did successfully transmute eight ounces of mercury into an equivalent weight of silver, to which his wife stood witness—the assay exceeding proof. On the twenty-fifth of April, Perenelle again his deponent, our modest notary surpassed that achievement! O wonder upon wonder! We all but doubt our senses, we stagger from marvel to marvel. What next? Good Perenelle journeys to Switzerland, and Monsieur Flamel having interred in her vacant grave a Log respectfully publishes the date of her exit: Anno Domini 1399. But why? We confess bewilderment. Yea, we cudgel our brains. Where is the end to legerdemain? Lo, this artful scrivener—having distilled the Philosopher’s Stone of limitless wealth and fountain of immortality—having buried on his own behalf another succedaneum, swiftly joins his devoted wife. Chymist Ninian Bres testifies that he saw them hundreds of years later on the Boulevard du Temple near the Opéra strolling arm-in-arm! Flamel, says he, was of moderate height, considerably bent by the passage of centuries but walked with a firm step and his eyes were lustrous. His skin looked translucent, not unlike alabaster. Concerning sweet Perenelle, she had somewhat aged. The two were attired in a style not long out of date, nonetheless a fustiness seemed to emanate from their clothes and as they came wandering toward a recess in the boulevard where Monsieur Bres waited, half-concealed beneath an arch—all sooty, reeking with sulphur, fingers discolored by acid—the Alchymist paused, gazing toward him as if about to speak, but cautious Perenelle drew her husband back into the crowd. Now we have seen on the fifth leaf of Figures d’Abraham Juif the face of an alchymist which we think must represent Flamel. If this be so, how do we refute the testament of Ninian Bres? We confess ourselves inadequate. But that a single musty clerk might touch the Stone seems to us implausible and undeserved, since if we do not surpass ourselves we have dropped asleep within a dream. Therefore, if mortal intent is gratification but nothing beyond, all has been accomplished. And therefore human intelligence has been wasted, although some turn to it while the gods claim yet another victim. And who would care how August winds prevail across Egypt? And who, like Thebet Benchorat, would assign four decades to find out the motions of an eighth sphere? Which among us would make miracles?

  VERY MANY EARNEST problems have been subjected to our thought: circumstantial conjuries, transformation, circular majesties, talismans riveted to amulets, redemption, trine and sextile aspects, magicians flush with snivel and windy smirks, bawds, panders, factors, malapert friars feeding on kickshaw, flouts, taunts, counterfeit florins, crowns and angels, the mandrake voice sweeter than heavenly music—O, sediment in abundance! And what becomes of charity? Accordingly we look upon hermetic art with one eye shut because it is meant to mislead travelers anticipating perfection. So let us contemplate that miserable Puffer coughing, spewing up dark blood, full of blasted hope, stuffed with fugitive rainbows, hail drumming the glass while wife Meg yowls on his track for gold, exploring the metallic souls of minerals caught in fuliginous envelopes with obscurity the sign of his resolution, anticipating Erichthonius’ Basket, Deucalion’s Coffer, the Tower of Danae—which is but a Swamp of Lerna, less valuable than seaweed. Lybian quicksand drowns his entangled wit. Does he consult with Avicenna? Does he ask if a thing is, then how is it? Or if it be not, how is it not? Mayhap his skull was struck that same blow with which many avow a Comet once struck the sun. See him crouch at the furnaces of Borrichius, Beccher, Kunckel, Stahl—seeking one rod of light. Now he computes the sand, now he counts the rain, daubing and greasing, cloaked and wrapped with his hubris of invincibility. What shall he whistle into a cage? See him peer upon the shade of Gargoyles decorating mossy walls, consigned to measurements of electuary, bone-ash and orpiment beneath some dusty bouquet of stale herbs that dangle from a leaky roof—piss-guardian to pots of camphor and stibnite jugs sweet as night-buckets, pasting together his porcelain crock—this jack-leg porter to Bedlam logic. Listen to him cough while he tabulates wages that would starve a cellar mouse. Slop-slop! Drizzle-drizzle! Whistling stripes greet the venturesome Adept, strangulation with a halter if his mouldy metaphysic work-shop gives birth to that ineffable Regal Infant. Ague, cold soup, lice, cinders, mildewed bread—O yea! Apocalyptic images fade like tapestry. How long would our dove-tail chymist warm a splintered bench? Here does he squat—this ambitious novice in bleached velvet, alight to occult parallels. Observe him confront the universe by means of ichor, balm, gall, calx—Pelican plus White Cock plus the faithless Argent Vive. Now being told of some doctor that smeared yellow unguent over a peasant’s fork to gild it our aspirant would do likewise. Thus every student replicates the art of his professor and struts in taverns like a deemster glutting his soul with lies. Therefore have we felt his pulse to speak of Gehazi—the impudent servant who turned covetous and opinionated after boasting accomplishments he had filched, unread, foppish, persuaded that he understood the Magnum Opus but got as his reward a Leprosie. So will others sicken upon rancid wine, puking, helpless, turgid with emrods, spite and livor, much like those storks which congregate on Asian plains where he that settles last is torn apart. Regard this Chymist. Watch him kneel by the hearth to pursue treasure, immortality and youth. Observe the tattered bundle vanish, old, emaciated, furious, grazing on bitter herbs yet devoted to uncertain art, unrepentant, dissolving among smoke and ashes. How handsomely does he illustrate affliction. Such a puddly life.

  WE OURSELVES, HAVE we not fled from imperfectly rubified metal and the odor of bauxite? We have essayed all—hair, blood and soul of Saturn, marcasites, aes astum, saffron of Mars, scales and dross of litharge, of iron, of antimony—all worth a rotted prune-pit. We have worked to extract oil and water from silver, calcined with salt or without salt, yet our best efforts failed. We derive no advan
tage. Toward antique grandeur have we labored, assisted by ardent and corrosive liquid. By recourse to vitriol and salammoniac with egg-shell orpiment have we sought the Stone which achieves consummation through putrefaction. The Green Lion did not help. Saffron of Mars proved inefficacious. Celandines, secundines, rennet, salt attincar, salt alembrot, none disclosed its secret. Nor would the sperm of falling stars—sophic brass! So we have pummeled froth! We have heard quaint music! Mercuric ointments have we congealed and mixed into triumphant minerals, thinking thereby to succeed—joining those that struggle toward multiplication and amalgamation. With constancy and perseverance have we multiplied one-third of nothing. Not simple albifaction but rubifaction have we witnessed—receipts with congelations, sophistications from Navarre to Germany. Lo! All proved Limbus, the wily cube of nature escaped. Now here and there did we meet one or two claiming to know another who possessed that Formula, yet never could we make his acquaintance. So is it not familiar? Is it not a lugubrious concert?

  AGAINST THE INCERTUS with every vain science were we advised by Cornelius Agrippa—those that constitute medicine, physic or metaphysic, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, music, poetry, cosmography and jurisprudence, pious superstition, principles, alchymy and the craft of memory. He does bloat with eloquence does our tutor, he thickens with those divulgations of wisdom which map out solitary minds. And how shall he address himself to the mermaid’s shoulder when midnight turns?

  SOME FLANDERS CHYMIST pretends that by a stranger’s generosity he was granted a morsel of the essence we seek, which sparkled like powdered glass and upon which he projected half-a-pound of quick-silver—this mineral congealing toward yellow slag with excellent virtue that weighed almost as much. Therefore he chose to believe in the truth of alchymic magistery, albeit he could not by any method analyze the constituents of his gift nor saw his benefactor again. O mercy! So did Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Vitruvius call this elusive substance their tenement. Democritus fabricated jewels at Memphis while Cneius Pompeius Magnus returned triumphantly to Rome from Syria with an optic Lens through which he descried multitudes of distant soldiers! Miracle succeeds miracle. Ah, but we suspect we testify enough against putative testament, more than enough to question each supposed triumph, hazarding that metamorphosis resemble the Friar’s Lantern—ignis fatuus—a migrant globe.