Bygone Beliefs Part 12

Another recent writer on the subject, my friend the late Mr ABDUL-ALI, has remarked that "he thought that, in the mind of the alchemist at least, there was something more than a.n.a.logy between metallic and psychic transformations, and that the whole subject might well be a.s.signed to the doctrinal category of ineffable and transcendent Oneness. This Oneness comprehended all--soul and body, spirit and matter, mystic visions and waking life--and the sharp metaphysical distinction between the mental and the non-mental realms, so prominent during the history of philosophy, was not regarded by these early investigators in the sphere of nature. There was the sentiment, perhaps only dimly experienced, that not only the law, but the substance of the Universe, was one; that mind was everywhere in contact with its own kindred; and that metallic trans.m.u.tation would, somehow, so to speak, signalise and seal a hidden trans.m.u.tation of the soul."(1)

(1) SIJIL ABDUL-ALI, in _The Journal of the Alchemical Society_, vol.

ii. (1914), p. 102.

I am to a large extent in agreement with this view. Mr ABDUL-ALI quarrels with the term "a.n.a.logy," and, if it is held to imply any merely superficial resemblance, it certainly is not adequate to my own needs, though I know not what other word to use. SWEDENBORG'S term "correspondence" would be better for my purpose, as standing for an essential connection between spirit and matter, arising out of the causal relations.h.i.+p of the one to the other. But if SWEDENBORG believed that matter and spirit were most intimately related, he nevertheless had a very precise idea of their distinctness, which he formulated in his Doctrine of Degrees--a very exact metaphysical doctrine indeed. The alchemists, on the other hand, had no such clear ideas on the subject.

It would be even more absurd to attribute to them a Cartesian dualism.

To their ways of thinking, it was by no means impossible to grasp the spiritual essences of things by what we should now call chemical manipulations. For them a gas was still a ghost and air a spirit. One could quote pages in support of this, but I will content myself with a few words from the _Turba_--the antiquity of the book makes it of value, and anyway it is near at hand. "Permanent water," whatever that may be, being pounded with the body, we are told, "by the will of G.o.d it turns that body into spirit." And in another place we read that "the Philosophers have said: Except ye turn bodies into not-bodies, and incorporeal things into bodies, ye have not yet discovered the rule of operation."(1a) No one who could write like this, and believe it, could hold matter and spirit as altogether distinct. But it is equally obvious that the injunction to convert body into spirit is meaningless if spirit and body are held to be identical. I have been criticised for crediting the alchemists "with the philosophic ac.u.men of Hegel,"(1b) but that is just what I think one ought to avoid doing. At the same time, however, it is extremely difficult to give a precise account of views which are very far from being precise themselves. But I think it may be said, without fear of error, that the alchemist who could say, "As above, so below," _ipso facto_ recognised both a very close connection between spirit and matter, and a distinction between them. Moreover, the division thus implied corresponded, on the whole, to that between the realms of the known (or what was thought to be known) and the unknown.

The Church, whether Christian or pre-Christian, had very precise (comparatively speaking) doctrine concerning the soul's origin, duties, and destiny, backed up by tremendous authority, and speculative philosophy had advanced very far by the time PLATO began to concern himself with its problems. Nature, on the other hand, was a mysterious world of magical happenings, and there was nothing deserving of the name of natural science until alchemy was becoming decadent. It is not surprising, therefore, that the alchemists--these men who wished to probe Nature's hidden mysteries--should reason from above to below; indeed, unless they had started _de novo_--as babes knowing nothing,--there was no other course open to them. And that they did adopt the obvious course is all that my former thesis amounts to. In pa.s.sing, it is interesting to note that a sixteenth-century alchemist, who had exceptional opportunities and leisure to study the works of the old masters of alchemy, seems to have come to a similar conclusion as to the nature of their reasoning. He writes: "The Sages... after having conceived in their minds a Divine idea of the relations of the whole universe... selected from among the rest a certain substance, from which they sought to elicit the elements, to separate and purify them, and then again put them together in a manner suggested by a keen and profound observation of Nature."(1c)

(1a) _op cit_., pp,. 65 and 110, _cf_. p. 154.

(1b) _Vide_ a rather frivolous review of my _Alchemy: Ancient and Modern_ in _The Outlook_ for 14th January 1911.

(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Humid Path_. (See _The Alchemical Writings_ of EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 59-60.)

In describing the realm of spirit as _ex hypothesi_ known, that of Nature unknown, to the alchemists, I have made one important omission, and that, if I may use the name of a science to denominate a complex of crude facts, is the realm of physiology, which, falling within that of Nature, must yet be cla.s.sed as _ex hypothesi_ known. But to elucidate this point some further considerations are necessary touching the general nature of knowledge. Now, facts may be roughly cla.s.sed, according to their obviousness and frequency of occurrence, into four groups. There are, first of all, facts which are so obvious, to put it paradoxically, that they escape notice; and these facts are the commonest and most frequent in their occurrence. I think it is Mr CHESTERTON who has said that, looking at a forest one cannot see the trees because of the forest; and, in _The Innocence of Father Brown_, he has a good story ("The Invisible Man") ill.u.s.trating the point, in which a man renders himself invisible by dressing up in a postman's uniform.

At any rate, we know that when a phenomenon becomes persistent it tends to escape observation; thus, continuous motion can only be appreciated with reference to a stationary body, and a noise, continually repeated, becomes at last inaudible. The tendency of often-repeated actions to become habitual, and at last automatic, that is to say, carried out without consciousness, is a closely related phenomenon. We can understand, therefore, why a knowledge of the existence of the atmosphere, as distinct from the wind, came late in the history of primitive man, as, also, many other curious gaps in his knowledge. In the second group we may put those facts which are common, that is, of frequent occurrence, and are cla.s.sed as obvious. Such facts are accepted at face-value by the primitive mind, and are used as the basis of explanation of facts in the two remaining groups, namely, those facts which, though common, are apt to escape the attention owing to their inconspicuousness, and those which are of infrequent occurrence. When the mind takes the trouble to observe a fact of the third group, or is confronted by one of the fourth, it feels a sense of surprise. Such facts wear an air of strangeness, and the mind can only rest satisfied when it has shown them to itself as in some way cases of the second group of facts, or, at least, brought them into relation therewith. That is what the mind--at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation".

"It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming our intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. It remains for a more sceptical type of mind--a later product of human evolution--to question obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by establis.h.i.+ng deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, or in philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, better still, by both methods.

Of the second cla.s.s of facts--those common and obvious facts which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than s.e.x. The universality of s.e.x, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the att.i.tude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people to-day, for instance, just accept s.e.x as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the divine Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-G.o.d? It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine honours to the organs of s.e.x in man and woman, or to such things as he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term "phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of s.e.x a wholly inadequate one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into immorality of a very p.r.o.nounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a s.e.xual theory of the universe.(1)

(1) "The reverence as well as the wors.h.i.+p paid to the phallus, in early and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind....

"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome and Pompeii....

"To the primitive man (the reproductive force which pervades all nature) was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm--naturally claimed his reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery.

In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him.

To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally became an object of reverence and wors.h.i.+p.

"Primitive man wants some object to wors.h.i.+p, for an abstract idea is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation most prominent, and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism as Ill.u.s.trated in Phallic Wors.h.i.+p, or the Reproductive Principle_ (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End of long footnote}

The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, had not yet observed the connection between s.e.xual intercourse and birth.

They believed that conception was occasioned by the woman pa.s.sing near a _churinga_--a peculiarly shaped piece of wood or stone, in which a spirit-child was concealed, which entered into her. But archaeological research having established the fact that phallicism has, at one time or another, been common to nearly all races, it seems probable that the Arunta tribe represents a deviation from the normal line of mental evolution. At any rate, an isolated phenomenon, such as this, cannot be held to controvert the view that regards phallicism as in this normal line. Nor was the att.i.tude of mind that not only accepts s.e.x at face-value as an obvious fact, but uses the concept of it to explain other facts, a merely transitory one. We may, indeed, not difficultly trace it throughout the history of alchemy, giving rise to what I may term "The Phallic Element in Alchemical Doctrine".

In aiming to establish this, I may be thought to be endeavouring to establish a counter-thesis to that of the preceding essay on alchemy, but, in virtue of the alchemists' belief in the mystical unity of all things, in the a.n.a.logical or correspondential relations.h.i.+p of all parts of the universe to each other, the mystical and the phallic views of the origin of alchemy are complementary, not antagonistic. Indeed, the a.s.sumption that the metals are the symbols of man almost necessitates the working out of physiological as well as mystical a.n.a.logies, and these two series of a.n.a.logies are themselves connected, because the principle "As above, so below" was held to be true of man himself. We might, therefore, expect to find a more or less complete harmony between the two series of symbols, though, as a matter of fact, contradictions will be encountered when we come to consider points of detail. The undoubtable antiquity of the phallic element in alchemical doctrine precludes the idea that this element was an advent.i.tious one, that it was in any sense an afterthought; notwithstanding, however, the evidence, as will, I hope, become apparent as we proceed, indicates that mystical ideas played a much more fundamental part in the genesis of alchemical doctrine than purely phallic ones--mystical interpretations fit alchemical processes and theories far better than do s.e.xual interpretations; in fact, s.e.x has to be interpreted somewhat mystically in order to work out the a.n.a.logies fully and satisfactorily.

As concerns Greek alchemy, I shall content myself with a pa.s.sage from a work _On the Sacred Art_, attributed to OLYMPIODORUS (sixth century A.D.), followed by some quotations from and references to the _Turba_.

In the former work it is stated on the authority of HORUS that "The proper end of the whole art is to obtain the s.e.m.e.n of the male secretly, seeing that all things are male and female. Hence (we read further) Horus says in a certain place: Join the male and the female, and you will find that which is sought; as a fact, without this process of re-union, nothing can succeed, for Nature charms Nature," _etc_. The _Turba_ insistently commands those who would succeed in the Art, to conjoin the male with the female,(1) and, in one place, the male is said to be lead and the female orpiment.(2) We also find the alchemical work symbolised by the growth of the embryo in the womb. "Know," we are told, "... that out of the elect things nothing becomes useful without conjunction and regimen, because sperma is generated out of blood and desire. For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed.... G.o.d has const.i.tuted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until the foetus is brought forth. So long as it is little, it is nourished with milk, and in proportion as the vital heat is maintained, the bones are strengthened. Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art."(3)

(1) _Vide_ pp. 60 92, 96 97, 134, 135 and elsewhere in Mr WAITE'S translation.

(2) _Ibid_., p. 57

(3) _Ibid_., pp. 179-181 (second recension); _cf_. pp. 103-104.

The use of the mystical symbols of death (putrefaction) and resurrection or rebirth to represent the consummation of the alchemical work, and that of the phallic symbols of the conjunction of the s.e.xes and the development of the foetus, both of which we have found in the _Turba_, are current throughout the course of Latin alchemy. In _The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosencreutz_, that extraordinary doc.u.ment of what is called "Rosicrucianism"--a symbolic romance of considerable ability, whoever its author was,(1)--an attempt is made to weld the two sets of symbols--the one of marriage, the other of death and resurrection unto glory--into one allegorical narrative; and it is to this fusion of seemingly disparate concepts that much of its fantasticality is due. Yet the concepts are not really disparate; for not only is the second birth like unto the first, and not only is the resurrection unto glory described as the Bridal Feast of the Lamb, but marriage is, in a manner, a form of death and rebirth. To justify this in a crude sense, I might say that, from the male standpoint at least, it is a giving of the life-substance to the beloved that life may be born anew and increase.

But in a deeper sense it is, or rather should be, as an ideal, a mutual sacrifice of self for each other's good--a death of the self that it may arise with an enriched personality.

(1) See Mr WAITE'S _The Real History of the Rosicrucians_ (1887) for translation and discussion as to origin and significance. The work was first published (in German) at Stra.s.sburg in 1616.

It is when we come to an examination of the ideas at the root of, and a.s.sociated with, the alchemical concept of "principles," that we find some difficulty in harmonising the two series of symbols--the mystical and the phallic. In one place in the _Turba_ we are directed "to take quicksilver, in which is the male potency or strength";(2a) and this concept of mercury as male is quite in accord with the mystical origin I have a.s.signed in the preceding excursion to the doctrine of the alchemical principles. I have shown, I think, that salt, sulphur, and mercury are the a.n.a.logues _ex hypothesi_ of the body, soul (affection and volition), and spirit (intelligence or understanding) in man; and the affections are invariably regarded as especially feminine, the understanding as especially masculine. But it seems that the more common opinion, amongst Latin alchemists at any rate, was that sulphur was male and mercury female. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "For the Matter suffereth, and the Form acteth a.s.simulating the Matter to itself, and according to this manner the Matter naturally thirsteth after a Form, as a Woman desireth an Husband, and a Vile thing a precious one, and an impure a pure one, so also _Argent-vive_ coveteth a Sulphur, as that which should make perfect which is imperfect: So also a Body freely desireth a Spirit, whereby it may at length arrive at its perfection."(1b) At the same time, however, Mercury was regarded as containing in itself both male and female potencies--it was the product of male and female, and, thus, the seed of all the metals. "Nothing in the World can be generated," to repeat a quotation from BERNARD, without these two Substances, to wit a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that although these two substances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone doth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, _Argent-vive_. But of this _Argent-vive_ a certain part is fixed and digested, Masculine, hot, dry and secretly informing. But the other, which is the Female, is volatile, crude, cold, and moyst."(2b) EDWARD KELLY (1555-1595), who is valuable because he summarises authoritative opinion, says somewhat the same thing, though in clearer words: "The active elements... these are water and fire... may be called male, while the pa.s.sive elements... earth and air... represent the female principle.... Only two elements, water and earth, are visible, and earth is called the hiding-place of fire, water the abode of air. In these two elements we have the broad law of limitation which divides the male from the female. ... The first matter of minerals is a kind of viscous water, mingled with pure and impure earth... Of this viscous water and fusible earth, or sulphur, is composed that which is called quicksilver, the first matter of the metals. Metals are nothing but Mercury digested by different degrees of heat."(1c) There is one difference, however, between these two writers, inasmuch as BERNARD says that "the Male and Female abide together in closed Natures; the Female truly as it were Earth and Water, the Male as Air and Fire." Mercury for him arises from the two former elements, sulphur from the two latter.(2c) And the difference is important as showing beyond question the _a priori_ nature of alchemical reasoning. The idea at the back of the alchemists' minds was undoubtedly that of the ardour of the male in the act of coition and the alleged, or perhaps I should say apparent, pa.s.sivity of the female.

Consequently, sulphur, the fiery principle of combustion, and such elements as were reckoned to be active, were denominated "male," whilst mercury, the principle acted on by sulphur, and such elements as were reckoned to be pa.s.sive, were denominated "female". As to the question of origin, I do not think that the palm can be denied to the mystical as distinguished from the phallic theory. And in its final form the doctrine of principles is incapable of a s.e.xual interpretation.

Mystically understood, man is capable of a.n.a.lysis into two principles--since "body" may be neglected as unimportant (a false view, I think, by the way) or "soul" and "spirit" may be united under one head--OR into three; whereas the postulation of THREE principles on a s.e.xual basis is impossible. JOANNES ISAACUS HOLLANDUS (fifteenth century) is the earliest author in whose works I have observed explicit mention of THREE principles, though he refers to them in a manner seeming to indicate that the doctrine was no new one in his day. I have only read one little tract of his; there is nothing s.e.xual in it, and the author's mental character may be judged from his remarks concerning "the three flying spirits"--taste, smell, and colour. These, he writes, "are the life, soule, and quintessence of every thing, neither can these three spirits be one without the other, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one, yet three Persons, and one is not without the other."(1d)

(2a) Mr WAITE's translation, p. 79.

(1b) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone_, 1683. (See _Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chymistry_, 1684, p. 92.)

(2b) _Ibid_., p. 91.

(1c) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers_. (See _The Alchemical Writings of_ EDWARD KELLY, edited by A. E. WAITE, 1893, pp. 9 and 11 to 13.)

(2c) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISa.n.u.s, _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononira, Physician to K. Charles the 8th_. (See JOHN FREDERICK HOUPREGHT: _Aurifontina Chymica_, 1680, p. 208.)

(1d) _One Hundred and Fourteen Experiments and Cures of the Famous Physitian_ THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS. _Whereunto is added... certain Secrets of_ ISAAC HOLLANDUS, _concerning the Vegetall and Animall Work_ (1652), pp. 29 and 30.

When the alchemists described an element or principle as male or female, they meant what they said, as I have already intimated, to the extent, at least, of firmly believing that seed was produced by the two metallic s.e.xes. By their union metals were thought to be produced in the womb of the earth; and mines were shut in order that by the birth and growth of new metal the impoverished veins might be replenished. In this way, too, was the _magnum opus_, the generation of the Philosopher's Stone--in species gold, but purer than the purest--to be accomplished. To conjoin that which Nature supplied, to foster the growth and development of that which was thereby produced; such was the task of the alchemist. "For there are Vegetables," says BERNARD of TREVISAN in his _Answer to Thomas of Bononia_, "but Sensitives more especially, which for the most part beget their like, by the Seeds of the Male and Female for the most part concurring and conmixt by copulation; which work of Nature the Philosophick Art imitates in the generation of gold."(1)

(1) _Op. cit_., p. 216.

Mercury, as I have said, was commonly regarded as the seed of the metals, or as especially the female seed, there being two seeds, one the male, according to BERNARD, more ripe, perfect and active, the other the female. "more immature and in a sort pa.s.sive(2) "... our Philosophick Art," he says in another place, following a description of the generation of man, "... is like this procreation of Man; for as in _Mercury_ (of which Gold is by Nature generated in Mineral Vessels) a natural conjunction

(2) _Ibid_., p. 217; _cf_. p. 236

is made of both the Seeds, Male and Female, so by our artifice, an artificial and like conjunction is made of Agents and Patients."(1) "All teaching," says KELLY, "that changes Mercury is false and vain, for this is the original sperm of metals, and its moisture must not be dried up, for otherwise it will not dissolve,"(2) and quotes ARNOLD (_ob. c_.

1310) to a similar effect.(3) One wonders how far the fact that human and animal seed is fluid influenced the alchemists in their choice of mercury, the only metal liquid at ordinary temperatures, as the seed of the metals. There are, indeed, other good reasons for this choice, but that this idea played some part in it, and, at least, was present at the back of the alchemists' minds, I have little doubt.

The most philosophic account of metallic seed is that, perhaps, of the mysterious adept "EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES," who distinguishes between it and mercury in a rather interesting manner. He writes: "Seed is the means of generic propagation given to all perfect things here below; it is the perfection of each body; and anybody that has no seed must be regarded as imperfect. Hence there can be no doubt that there is such a thing as metallic seed.... All metallic seed is the seed of gold; for gold is the intention of Nature in regard to all metals. If the base metals are not gold, it is only through some accidental hindrance; they are-all potentially gold. But, of course, this seed of gold is most easily obtainable from well-matured gold itself.... Remember that I am now speaking of metallic seed, and not of Mercury.... The seed of metals is hidden out of sight still more completely than that of animals; nevertheless, it is within the compa.s.s of our Art to extract it. The seed of animals and vegetables is something separate, and may be cut out, or otherwise separately exhibited; but metallic seed is diffused throughout the metal, and contained in all its smallest parts; neither can it be discerned from its body: its extraction is therefore a task which may well tax the ingenuity of the most experienced philosopher; the virtues of the whole metal have to be intensified, so as to convert it into the sperm of our seed, which, by circulation, receives the virtues of superiors and inferiors, then next becomes wholly form, or heavenly virtue, which can communicate this to others related to it by h.o.m.ogeneity of matter. ... The place in which the seed resides is--approximately speaking--water; for, to speak properly and exactly, the seed is the smallest part of the metal, and is invisible; but as this invisible presence is diffused throughout the water of its kind, and exerts its virtue therein, nothing being visible to the eye but water, we are left to conclude from rational induction that this inward agent (which is, properly speaking, the seed) is really there. Hence we call the whole of the water seed, just as we call the whole of the grain seed, though the germ of life is only a smallest particle of the grain."(1b)

(1) _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISa.n.u.s, _etc_. _Op. cit_. p. 218.

(2) _op. cit_., p. 22.