Alchymic Journals

brought forth rejuvenating essences, and at his pleasure undertook commerce with witches, afreets and dwarfs while traveling from town to town on a white horse saddled by Beelzebub. Could such a magician disappear? Perhaps all things that we consign to loss are transmuted, otherwise they must vanish into nonentity. Then where should we search for remnants of generation? No doubt all complete their turn, yet I think that upon each dissolution we mark a new ascendant, a new beginning.
I SUPPOSE ALL perishable things revert to their origin while the sentiments that had excited them perish also—possibly excluding the heart. I have been told of thieves who assaulted the master after a banquet, and robbed him and threw him over a cliff, which brought about his death. Yet others have said he drank a cup of powdered diamond. In any case I look for him to return since the integrity of his being corresponds to the unity of the world.
I AM TOLD he wrote many books, although just five or six authentic manuscripts gray with mildew have been recovered from queer places—attics, cupboards, scuttles, hollow walls. Habent sua fata libelli. The unbounded torrent of his thought I could not appreciate. Concerning his sword, which disciple inherited such a rusty weapon? No matter. As in chiaroscuro where is the light without shadow?
HE ASSERTED THAT alchymy was founded at that quadrivium where astronomy, philosophy, and ethics conjoin with our Noble Art—which prevails since it is suffused by sympathetic reflection. But if so, why do we persevere at enormities? Misapprehending the world, do we seize a broken ladder ascending from hell to a sanctuary overhead? If man is but halfway from an abyss why should he choose obstructions?
SAY THE MAGISTERIUM has been explored, what remains occluded must be the nature of its progress—which cannot be described for upon it lies the seal of omnipotence prohibiting mankind from mighty acquisitions that harbor the lodestone of misuse. Bejeweled queens, sceptered regents, aged couples copulating, hermaphrodites, venomous serpents, fiery hoops, dismembered dragons, galloping horsemen, flowers, rams, wedding, divorce, calendars and citadels, regenerate salamanders, human corpses—thus have I heard the master testify to what was best or least within the fructifying vocabulary of symbol. Beset by angelic dreams, I think he was born to subdivide and cast the horoscope of our intransigent world.
NOT UNTIL THE solution has been met with adequate proportion shall matters disclose themselves to the novitiate, he said. Hence, no man is entitled to complain that bitter misfortune has thrust him apart nor look to a bright wheel rising. No, we reimburse ourselves. Luck walks a crooked line, granted. Still, very much of what I hear I subject to long probation.
THINGS HAVE BEEN left unfinished for their purpose, nothing can be complete, he said, stroking his bald head. Trees sprout individually, yet do not make boards alone, neither does clay left to itself become a finished pot, nor is mankind different. Say we look up to the firmament for guidance, what is there to apprehend our necessity? Toward the reaches of insensate chaos we exert ourselves without hope. Our lot is not three but one. So he spoke, and by such logic does evil intertwine with good.
NOW SAY YOU were elevated to Knighthood, he proposed, of what value would be gilded spurs or a golden bridle? Of what use is authority that punishes and castigates—satisfied within itself to boast and revel or to feast and blow shining trumpets? Because heaven’s provenance was, is, and forever must be the heart, why should God look down to applaud vain pageants?
WHAT IS HUMANITY, he asked, if not some barbarous exhibit? Dependent upon jewels, prototypes of miscreation desperate for accomplishment, avid, desirous, half-gowned in purple, offering philosophies cheaper than seaweed, what are we but painted walls agreeable to see which crumble rottenly within? Galled, fortuitous, mummers swallowing rhubarb and turbith, haled in pieces by envy, driven down headfirst to perdition and riveled, mice that selfishly snatch up another’s bread, do we not rake the earth to banquet on our cousin’s anguish? Glozing titles, are we more than apostles of useless discord with thundering bowels? So he discoursed, dragging one foot, weary and sick. I doubt that he could be persuaded to honor what others do. Deprived of rapture in a darkened universe, stripped of hope, he compared mortals to insentient insects which at the penultimate hour of life develop wings. As for evidence he cited none. Once I heard him say the Lion tawny with pride stands immaculate against the light, resplendent in gold. But of proof? Cetera desunt.
DISCIPLES HE TAUGHT to examine Mercaba’s blistering chariot, the magnet of Helvetius, Aupuleius’ midnight moon—binding moral geography with foolish dreams. Let us extract from the rampant King rose-colored blood, from the ascendant Queen pale gluten that we might display the stone inscribed Tinctura Physicorum! Thus he skipped about lecturing, raving. Yet no likeness of himself did he bring to Cardan. Fomalhaut does not pronounce his fame nor will those resonant treatises find their way to ladies’ tables. Mayhap he thought it best to speak on the birthplace of Scolopendra, of how camerith burns, the flavor of Man, vapors and effluxions and aliment and the indelible colors of Egypt, of saxatilic spirits and six corners of the universe. On so much he chose to expound in lieu of court etiquette. Perhaps, like meat in the belly, life had lost its taste.
I HEARD HIM discourse on a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela that had a great Bell cast from electrum out of which swarmed Apparitions which hurried to obey him when he rang this bell. Divers creatures stood forth—ghosts, animals and flying fish came attracted to the sound—but as not so many were employed this sorcerer dispersed them by uttering blasphemous syllables. In my judgment the master grew rapt with thaumaturgic allegory. I suspect he was born at eight months.
HE SAID THAT instruction rings more agreeably than silver, wisdom weighs more heavily