Alchymic Journals

project, to purify. Thus the first step is calefaction of dross whereby we elevate lead toward that fulfillment which proceeds from annihilation of the self. And this may be achieved with the aid of remedial art so long as man governs the earth, however limited his body, which is why we look to each meridian.
TO THE APPRENTICE disavowing telluric life through malice or indifference, no success is conceivable. Nor should talent compensate for one that hesitates while regenerating his soul. Truly are we advised by the philosophist to extract and hold within a cup that rare tincture, since at length it is given provided the supplicant prove worthy. But if we would succumb to false magistery, thirst or blindness may ensue. Adamantine walls separate Neophyte from Adept and roiling seas intervene, lest a novice set foot on iridescent sand.
WOULD A MAN who owned a goose agree to pluck it and cook it, hold it up to his neighbor’s teeth and wipe away the grease? Assuredly not. Then what alchymist should encourage the lame or lead the blind? We think no seminarian depending openly on his senses was meant to profit from the puissant magistery of intuitive art, a subject wise men considered too precious for public expenditure. Nor is there benefit for sectarians, idolators, fanatics or dilettantes. Adepts avow that ancient riddles become two-edged instruments which carve out dainties for reverent initiates, yet slash the thumbs of greedy fools. Are not our lives varied and manifold and mightily surpassing measurement? Truly does Horatius say we have not been ordered to know everything. Nec scire fas est omnia.
PERFECT APPREHENSION OF mortal affairs was not bequeathed us since the objects of our sublunary world continually change. Yet I think all concepts and substances must be harmoniously balanced. How else could we justify pyramids of office and of class and of rank? By itself every microcosm responds for an entirety, which enables us to cross toward the next. Matters interweave to separate afresh, blooming, flowering, commingling, mixed and unmixed. Why should not the lectern become an altar?
IF, AS WE are taught, the earth was but recently formed, Man must be incomplete, destined to undergo three metamorphoses. Accordingly each neophyte seeks his place on the Catena Aurea, that resplendent chain of metaphysical theosophers descending from Ianna the Mesopotamian to Orpheus, Persephone, Odysseus and to our Lord. But what of myself? What of me, Lord Jesus? When shall I behold the tutelary angel? Swollen with desire yet denied Thy privilege, I become arrogant in my dejection. Still I look up to the high vault of Christianity.
I TAKE THE cross surmounted by the rose to be the heraldic device of heretics, therefore Rosicrucians must be disciples of Martin Luther despatched to promulgate this most noxious and abominable faith. Abbé Gaultier has preached the subject. I wonder that men crouch behind such palisades of ignorance. Mounted upon lame donkeys they go galloping after the wind. Their spirits must be twisted, lapped in lead, dry cordage. See them flutter over books. Some believe the teeth of Jesus Christ were exhibited in Jerusalem beside a thumb of the Holy Ghost, a phial of St. Michael’s sweat, a gleam from that star followed by three Orient kings to Bethlehem. How are men induced, age after age, to confirm and reiterate unspeakable falsehood? I myself ask not where heaven stands. How could I demand the presence of my Lord?
BECAUSE EVERYTHING FLOWS toward us from a single fountain with each compounded of primordial essence, it must follow that all stand related—all must be conjoined materially and spiritually, while dissimilarities that possibly exist or appear to exist between animate and inanimate entities must result from divergent growth. Yet where is the cause of ontogeny? Bernardino Telesio encourages us to inquire not through recapitulating sterile argument but employing the logical use of natural senses toward our surrounding—if heaven and earth be half-synonymous. And that being so, what choice have men but to praise their benefactor? Tullus Hostilius spurned his gods, only to recant when distraught. I wonder how God contrives to love those abjuring faith.
THROUGH MEDITATION WOULD we become visible confidants of God, of involute mystery proceeding not from evident impressions, as we have seen the astral spirits of leaves brought to life out of ashes, so in time we may be likened to Christian apostles. And therefore I think that with the highest causes some exuberance of power must be present, just as the mystic transfiguration of a silk-worm holds within some enlistment to baffle reason, diverting the mind of an observer from philosophy to divinity.
PROVIDENCE SUPPLIES OUR refuge, it provides a sanctuary upon which we depend, guiding our thought past egregious misapprehension by directing us gently toward the house of our Creator, to whom we appeal like thirsting animals gathered by the mighty dispensation of a limitless ocean. Yet how should the sweet blessing of divinity be limited to a restricted universe? Is not the eye of God attentive to His inimitable work? Was not all intuitively foreseen by an omniscient workman who makes no mistake? Pythagoras endeavors to persuade us how the earth resembles a planet similar to the moon where infinite mercy rules by virtue of which things frame their environment, holding shadows or vestiges or traces of indecipherable nature. I myself travel crookedly, questioning much. How can it be with men that no two lift similar prayers?
DO WE NOT hang and tremble upon the hour? Yet in all things have we found theology, though the heart be mailed with oak and bronze and we have admired fruit pendulous on the bough. I believe holy indulgence coincides with mortal aspiration since we do not mount to heaven by a ladder, but we inquire and ask what should be resolved while the penitent abstains from dreaming, while the river slides and rolls.
WHAT IS MORE prophetic than lost equilibrium? I have seen gold branch within the aludel. I have watched the Princess