Alchymic Journals

his deathbed that his body be quartered and buried with manure. Afterward, as it was exhumed, the parts miraculously had grown together and I have heard that but for the nervousness of a disciple hurrying to complete this wicked rite the master would have awakened. I do not know. I am sure only that had I listened further to the torrent of his mind I would be lost.
THIS WORLD HE compared to a distillatory moulded by two hands upon which prototype physicians model alembics whose purpose is similar—healing and synopsis. I think he was borne past the frame of things. In my judgment the shadows of his mind traveled farther than himself.
HE WOULD HAVE us composed of two forms, one from the earth and one derived from the universe. He said the first, being elemental, subsides and divellicates, whereas the celestial flows back subtly toward its source, as the spirit happily returns to Him whose image it was. Therefore each chooses that medium from whence it issued. So, I think, do we fail to perceive but become a thing perceived. By some such path does light gain access to the soul.
HE SAID THAT we partake of ourselves as one envisaging Gold approximates its essence, or imagining Fire calls up himself toward revenge. And so we are sustained among discrepancies since the probity of our meditations cannot be disregarded. But is an end more than its commencement displayed, manifest and wrought out? For if not, then the end must be generated among obscure beginnings.
I PROPOSED THAT if we do not enter into an understanding of ourselves, and of those fallibilities which enchant us, how should we explain what is meant by a theology of Fall and Regeneration, or presume to liberate ignoble substance from its original curse? Attila, Theodoric, and the tyrant of Padua, Ezzelino de Romano, gained strength from Satan’s loins, just as Cain was born to Eve by a visiting incubus. If he heard, I know not. He answered by saying that mortal and immortal things never were intended to embrace nor touch nor dwell together.
DOES PERFECTION EXPRESS itself as unity? Beneath what shape shall we cast off malice? If sulfur should represent nature is the supernatural evoked by mercury? What is burning Sol but the infinite conservatory of man? How are five imperfect minerals transmuted? Iron, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver—how are they reconstituted? What alters them into alchymic gold? Lacking the breath of divinity, where do we separate good from evil? I do not know. Having studied without hope or resolution or faith, I approached the master who replied that out of all created subjects we have declared ourselves epitome, believing we were meant to secure universalities so that we would not confound things with their neighbors—because we grow toward completion externally. And for this we should anticipate no recourse since we were designated microcosm which carries heaven from its onset. And he said that because of abhorrent acts men commit there is savagery about the Lord. But fidelity cannot be divided or mixed.
HOW SHALL WE be distinguished from Cain who was driven out of a society he once enjoyed, tossed by unconscionable wind forward and backward, imperiled at every pause? Do we not lament and weep and groan and complain upward to providence while journeying through merciless kingdoms? Or in counting our possessions do we not wonder that superior texts teach opacities? Or how should extremities be joined, except by medians? Or what man was born free while enslaved to flesh? Indolent students would lap up truth at once, he said, like dogs filling their bellies from the Rhine.
BEING ASKED IF knowledge may controvert metaphysic, he said that the former can be but a digest of experience—threads drawn to various aspects. And while our Lord God has resolved to hide many things from us, they must at last be discovered since we are born with a rage to know.
HOW COULD THE fabric of theology be woven in a day? Learning deploys from loom to loom, he said, out of Byzantium and Syria to Latinate Europe, therefore mutuality is guaranteed. Enigma precedes enigma.
HOW IS IT that private magic inhabits all? Flint must hold some fiery essence or spirit because sparks appear, jubilant with motion. But why? From nine every morning until mid-day what makes the chickweed flower upright? Following the rain what makes it pendant? How do we gain by seeing gold branch within the retort? Are we left much wiser than before? Still we must ask the name of a water that does not wet the hand, identify the wingless bird, decipher messages whitely written on stone. So a promise stands before our eyes. Ante oculos stabat quidquid promiserat annus.
WE HAVE WATCHED the pelican feed her offspring new blood drawn from herself by angrily pecking at her own breast—the nacreous parent providing sustenance for its young. We observe the monarch delivering himself of vile matter, base, foul, dust and spittle, matter overlooked, divers powder. How is this? Rigorous inquiries oblige us to dream no less than Mikoiaj Kopernik’s drawing set heaven ablaze with heresy impossible to extinguish. Does harmony result from the analogy of opposites? Our thoughts dart and rush like haddock swarming in springtime that surge to and fro. We wonder how God—if He is an incomprehensible, infinite, eternal light—should manifest His presence to the world except as light.
METALS WHICH BURN and give up harmoniac to the aether become calx, yet their metallic virtues will reappear if charcoal containing sufficient harmoniac is supplied. Hence we understand how iron rusts, because what is rust except iron from which atomic consonance was extracted? What is salvation but man rescued from obliquity?
WHY SHOULD MOSS accumulating on the skull of a corpse acquire magnetic strength exceeding that of vegetables and herbs? Because wisdom steadily flows from mummial marrow, because mankind first held the seed of heaven. Thus the skull’s shape must be our universe reproduced in miniature, diminished