Bygone Beliefs Part 13

(3) _Ibid_., p. 16.

(1b) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 238-240.)

To say that "PHILALETHES'" seed resembles the modern electron is, perhaps, to draw a rather fanciful a.n.a.logy, since the electron is a very precise idea, the result of the mathematical interpretation of the results of exact experimentation. But though it would be absurd to speak of this concept of the one seed of all metals as an antic.i.p.ation of the electron, to apply the expression "metallic seed" to the electron, now that the concept of it has been reached, does not seem so absurd.

According to "PHILALETHES," the extraction of the seed is a very difficult process, accomplishable, however, by the aid of mercury--the water h.o.m.ogeneous therewith. Mercury, again, is the form of the seed thereby obtained. He writes: "When the sperm hidden in the body of gold is brought out by means of our Art, it appears under the form of Mercury, whence it is exalted into the quintessence which is first white, and then, by means of continuous coction, becomes red." And again: "There is a womb into which the gold (if placed therein) will, of its own accord, emit its seed, until it is debilitated and dies, and by its death is renewed into a most glorious King, who thenceforward receives power to deliver all his brethren from the fear of death."(1)

(1) EIRENAEUS PHILALETHES: _The Metamorphosis of Metals_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 241 and 244.)

The fifteenth-century alchemist THOMAS NORTON was peculiar in his views, inasmuch as he denied that metals have seed. He writes: "Nature never multiplies anything, except in either one or the other of these two ways: either by decay, which we call putrefaction, or, in the case of animate creatures, by propagation. In the case of metals there can be no propagation, though our Stone exhibits something like it.... Nothing can be multiplied by inward action unless it belong to the vegetable kingdom, or the family of sensitive creatures. But the metals are elementary objects, and possess neither seed nor sensation."(1)

(1) THOMAS NORTON: _The Ordinal of Alchemy_. (See _The Hermetic Museum_, vol. ii. pp. 15 and 16.)

His theory of the origin of the metals is astral rather than phallic.

"The only efficient cause of metals," he says, "is the mineral virtue, which is not found in every kind of earth, but only in certain places and chosen mines, into which the celestial sphere pours its rays in a straight direction year by year, and according to the arrangement of the metallic substance in these places, this or that metal is gradually formed."(2)

(2) _Ibid_., pp. 15 and 16.

In view of the astrological symbolism of these metals, that gold should be masculine, silver feminine, does not surprise us, because the idea of the masculinity of the sun and the femininity of the moon is a bit of phallicism that still remains with us. It was by the marriage of gold and silver that very many alchemists considered that the _magnum opus_ was to be achieved. Writes BERNARD of TREVISAN: "The subject of this admired Science (alchemy) is _Sol_ and _Luna_, or rather Male and Female, the Male is hot and dry, the Female cold and moyst." The aim of the work, he tells us, is the extraction of the spirit of gold, which alone can enter into bodies and tinge them. Both _Sol_ and _Luna_ are absolutely necessary, and "whoever...shall think that a Tincture can be made without these two Bodyes,... he proceedeth to the Practice like one that is blind."(1)

(1) BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: _A Treatise, etc., Op. cit_. pp. 83 and 87.

KELLY has teaching to the same effect, the Mercury of the Philosophers being for him the menstruum or medium wherein the copulation of Gold with Silver is to be accomplished. Mercury, in fact, seems to have been everything and to have been capable of effecting everything in the eyes of the alchemists. Concerning gold and silver, KELLY writes: "Only one metal, viz. gold, is absolutely perfect and mature. Hence it is called the perfect male body... Silver is less bounded by aqueous immaturity than the rest of the metals, though it may indeed be regarded as to a certain extent impure, still its water is already covered with the congealing vesture of its earth, and it thus tends to perfection. This condition is the reason why silver is everywhere called by the Sages the perfect female body." And later he writes: "In short, our whole Magistery consists in the union of the male and female, or active and pa.s.sive, elements through the mediation of our metallic water and a proper degree of heat. Now, the male and female are two metallic bodies, and this I will again prove by irrefragable quotations from the Sages."

Some of the quotations will be given: "Avicenna: 'Purify husband and wife separately, in order that they may unite more intimately; for if you do not purify them, they cannot love each other. By conjunction of the two natures you get a clear and lucid nature, which, when it ascends, becomes bright and serviceable.'... Senior: 'I, the Sun, am hot and dry, and thou, the Moon, are cold and moist; when we are wedded together in a closed chamber, I will gently steal away thy soul.'...

Rosinus: 'When the Sun, my brother, for the love of me (silver) pours his sperm (_i.e_. his solar fatness) into the chamber (_i.e_. my Lunar body), namely, when we become one in a strong and complete complexion and union, the child of our wedded love will be born.... 'Rosary': 'The ferment of the Sun is the sperm of the man, the ferment of the Moon, the sperm of the woman. Of both we get a chaste union and a true generation.'... Aristotle: 'Take your beloved son, and wed him to his sister, his white sister, in equal marriage, and give them the cup of love, for it is a food which prompts to union.' "(1a) KELLY, of course, accepts the traditional authors.h.i.+p of the works from which he quotes, though in many cases such authors.h.i.+p is doubtful, to say the least. The alchemical works ascribed to ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.), for instance, are beyond question forgeries. Indeed, the symbol of a union between brother and sister, here quoted, could hardly be held as acceptable to Greek thought, to which incest was the most abominable and unforgiveable sin.

It seems likelier that it originated with the Egyptians, to whom such unions were tolerable in fact. The symbol is often met with in Latin alchemy. MICHAEL MAIER (1568-1622) also says: "_conjunge fratrem c.u.m sorore et propina illis poculum amoris_," the words forming a motto to a picture of a man and woman clasped in each other's arms, to whom an older man offers a goblet. This symbolic picture occurs in his _Atalanta Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de Secretis Naturae Chymica, etc_.

(Oppenheim, 1617). This work is an exceedingly curious one. It consists of a number of carefully executed pictures, each accompanied by a motto, a verse of poetry set to music, with a prose text. Many of the pictures are phallic in conception, and practically all of them are anthropomorphic. Not only the primary function of s.e.x, but especially its secondary one of lactation, is made use of. The most curious of these emblematic pictures, perhaps, is one symbolising the conjunction of gold and silver. It shows on the right a man and woman, representing the sun and moon, in the act of coition, standing up to the thighs in a lake. On the left, on a hill above the lake, a woman (with the moon as halo) gives birth to a child. A boy is coming out of the water towards her. The verse informs us that: "The bath glows red at the conception of the boy, the air at his birth." We learn also that "there is a stone, and yet there is not, which is the n.o.ble gift of G.o.d. If G.o.d grants it, fortunate will be he who shall receive it."(1)

(1a) EDWARD KELLY: _The Stone of the Philosophers, Op. cit_., pp 13, 14, 33, 35, 36, 38-40, and 47.

(1) _Op. Cit_., p. 145

Concerning the nature of gold, there is a discussion in _The Answer of_ BERNARDUS TREVISa.n.u.s _to the Epistle of Thomas of Bononia_, with which I shall close my consideration of the present aspect of the subject.

Its interest for us lies in the arguments which are used and held to be valid. "Besides, you say that Gold, as most think, is nothing else than _Quick-silver_ coagulated naturally by the force of _Sulphur_; yet so, that nothing of the _Sulphur_ which generated the Gold, doth remain in the substance of the Gold: as in an humane _Embryo_, when it is conceived in the Womb, there remains nothing of the Father's Seed, according to _Aristotle's_ opinion, but the Seed of the Man doth only coagulate the _menstrual_ blood of the Woman: in the same manner you say, that after _Quick-silver_ is so coagulated, the form of Gold is perfected in it, by virtue of the Heavenly Bodies, and especially of the Sun."(1) BERNARD, however, decides against this view, holding that gold contains both mercury and sulphur, for "we must not imagine, according to their mistake who say, that the Male Agent himself approaches the Female in the coagulation, and departs afterwards; because, as is known in every generation, the conception is active and pa.s.sive: Both the active and the pa.s.sive, that is, all the four Elements, must always abide together, otherwise there would be no mixture, and the hope of generating an off-spring would be extinguished."(2)

(1) _Op. cit_., pp. 206 and 207.

(2) _Ibid_., pp. 212 and 213.

In conclusion, I wish to say something of the role of s.e.x in spiritual alchemy. But in doing this I am venturing outside the original field of inquiry of this essay and making a by no means necessary addition to my thesis; and I am anxious that what follows should be understood as such, so that no confusion as to the issues may arise.

In the great alchemical collection of J. J. MANGET, there is a curious work (originally published in 1677), ent.i.tled _Mutus Liber_, which consists entirely of plates, without letterpress. Its interest for us in our present concern is that the alchemist, from the commencement of the work until its achievement, is shown working in conjunction with a woman. We are reminded of NICOLAS FLAMEL (1330-1418), who is reputed to have achieved the _magnum opus_ together with his wife PERNELLE, as well as of the many other women workers in the Art of whom we read. It would be of interest in this connection to know exactly what a.s.sociation of ideas was present in the mind of MICHAEL MAIER when he commanded the alchemist: "Perform a work of women on the molten white lead, that is, cook,"(1a) and ill.u.s.trated his behest with a picture of a pregnant woman watching a fire over which is suspended a cauldron and on which are three jars. There is a cat in the background, and a tub containing two fish in the foreground, the whole forming a very curious collection of emblems. Mr WAITE, who has dealt with some of these matters, luminously, though briefly, says: "The evidences with which we have been dealing concern solely the physical work of alchemy and there is nothing of its mystical aspects. The _Mutus Liber_ is undoubtedly on the literal side of metallic trans.m.u.tation; the memorials of Nicholas Flamel are also on that side," _etc_. He adds, however, that "It is on record that an unknown master testified to his possession of the mystery, but he added that he had not proceeded to the work because he had failed to meet with an elect woman who was necessary thereto"; and proceeds to say: "I suppose that the statement will awaken in most minds only a vague sense of wonder, and I can merely indicate in a few general words that which I see behind it. Those Hermetic texts which bear a spiritual interpretation and are as if a record of spiritual experience present, like the literature of physical alchemy, the following aspects of symbolism: (_a_) the marriage of sun and moon; (_b_) of a mystical king and queen; (_c_) an union between natures which are one at the root but diverse in manifestation; (_d_) a trans.m.u.tation which follows this union and an abiding glory therein. It is ever a conjunction between male and female in a mystical sense; it is ever the bringing together by art of things separated by an imperfect order of things; it is ever the perfection of natures by means of this conjunction. But if the mystical work of alchemy is an inward work in consciousness, then the union between male and female is an union in consciousness; and if we remember the traditions of a state when male and female had not as yet been divided, it may dawn upon us that the higher alchemy was a practice for the return into this ineffable mode of being. The traditional doctrine is set forth in the _Zohar_ and it is found in writers like Jacob Boehme; it is intimated in the early chapters of Genesis and, according to an apocryphal saying of Christ, the kingdom of heaven will be manifested when two shall be as one, or when that state has been once again attained. In the light of this construction we can understand why the mystical adept went in search of a wise woman with whom the work could be performed; but few there be that find her, and he confessed to his own failure. The part of woman in the physical practice of alchemy is like a reflection at a distance of this more exalted process, and there is evidence that those who worked in metals and sought for a material elixir knew that there were other and greater aspects of the Hermetic mystery."(1b)

(1a) MICHAEL MATER: _Atalanta Fugiens_ (1617), p. 97.

(1b) A E. WAITE: "Woman and the Hermetic Mystery," _The Occult Review_ (June 1912), vol. xv. pp. 325 and 326.

So far Mr WAITE, whose impressive words I have quoted at some length; and he has given us a fuller account of the theory as found in the _Zohar_ in his valuable work on _The Secret Doctrine in Israel_ (1913).

The _Zohar_ regards marriage and the performance of the s.e.xual function in marriage as of supreme importance, and this not merely because marriage symbolises a divine union, unless that expression is held to include all that logically follows from the fact, but because, as it seems, the s.e.xual act in marriage may, in fact, become a ritual of transcendental magic.

At least three varieties of opinion can be traced from the view of s.e.x we have under consideration, as to the nature of the perfect man, and hence of the most adequate symbol for trans.m.u.tation. According to one, and this appears to have been JACOB BOEHME'S view, the perfect man is conceived of as non-s.e.xual, the male and female elements united in him having, as it were, neutralised each other. According to another, he is pictured as a hermaphroditic being, a concept we frequently come across in alchemical literature. It plays a prominent part in MAIER'S book _Atalanta Fugiens_, to which reference has already been made. MAIER'S hermaphrodite has two heads, one male, one female, but only one body, one pair of arms, and one pair of legs. The two s.e.xual organs, which are placed side by side, are delineated in the ill.u.s.trations with considerable care, showing the importance MAIER attached to the idea.

This concept seems to me not only crude, but unnatural and repellent.

But it may be said of both the opinions I have mentioned, that they confuse between union and ident.i.ty. It is the old mistake, with respect to a lesser goal, of those who hope for absorption in the Divine Nature and consequent loss of personality. It seems to be forgotten that a certain degree of distinction is necessary to the joy of union.

"Distinction" and "separation," it should be remembered, have different connotations. If the supreme joy is that of self-sacrifice, then the self must be such that it can be continually sacrificed, else the joy is a purely transitory one, or rather, is destroyed at the moment of its consummation. Hence, though sacrificed, the self must still remain itself.

The third view of perfection, to which these remarks naturally lead, is that which sees it typified in marriage. The mystic-philosopher SWEDENBORG has some exceedingly suggestive things to say on the matter in his extraordinary work on _Conjugial Love_, which, curiously enough, seem largely to have escaped the notice of students of these high mysteries.

SWEDENBORG'S heaven is a s.e.xual heaven, because for him s.e.x is primarily a spiritual fact, and only secondarily, and because of what it is primarily, a physical fact; and salvation is hardly possible, according to him, apart from a genuine marriage (whether achieved here or hereafter). Man and woman are considered as complementary beings, and it is only through the union of one man with one woman that the perfect angel results. The altruistic tendency of such a theory as contrasted with the egotism of one in which perfection is regarded as obtainable by each personality of itself alone, is a point worth emphasising. As to the nature of this union, it is, to use SWEDENBORG'S own terms, a conjunction of the will of the wife with the understanding of the man, and reciprocally of the understanding of the man with the will of the wife. It is thus a manifestation of that fundamental marriage between the good and the true which is at the root of all existence; and it is because of this fundamental marriage that all men and women are born into the desire to complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol of s.e.xual intercourse is a legitimate one to use in speaking of this heavenly union; indeed, we may describe the highest bliss attainable by the soul, or conceivable by the mind, as a spiritual o.r.g.a.s.m. Into conjugal love "are collected," says SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which could possibly be conferred upon man by the Lord the Creator."(1) In another place he writes: "Married partners (in heaven) enjoy similar intercourse with each other as in the world, but more delightful and blessed; yet without prolification, for which, or in place of which, they have spiritual prolification, which is that of love and wisdom."

"The reason," he adds, "why the intercourse then is more delightful and blessed is, that when conjugial love becomes of the spirit, it becomes more interior and pure, and consequently more perceptible; and every delightsomeness grows according to the perception, and grows even until its blessedness is discernible in its delightsomeness."(1b) Such love, however, he says, is rarely to be found on earth.

(1) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _The Delights of Wisdom relating to Conjugial Love_ (trans. by A. H. SEARLE, 1891), SE 68.

(1b) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Op. cit_., SE 51.

A learned j.a.panese speaks with approval of Idealism as a "dream where sensuousness and spirituality find themselves to be blood brothers or sisters."(2) It is a statement which involves either the grossest and most dangerous error, or the profoundest truth, according to the understanding of it. Woman is a road whereby man travels either to G.o.d or the devil. The problem of s.e.x is a far deeper problem than appears at first sight, involving mysteries both the direst and most holy. It is by no means a fantastic hypothesis that the inmost mystery of what a certain school of mystics calls "the Secret Tradition" was a s.e.xual one. At any rate, the fact that some of those, at least, to whom alchemy connoted a mystical process, were alive to the profound spiritual significance of s.e.x, renders of double interest what they have to intimate of the achievement of the _Magnum Opus_ in man.

(2) YONE NOGUCHI: _The Spirit of j.a.panese Art_ (1915), p. 37.

XI. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION

IT has been said that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country." Thereto might be added, "and in his own time"; for, whilst there is continuity in time, there is also evolution, and England of to-day, for instance, is not the same country as England of the Middle Ages. In his own day ROGER BACON was accounted a magician, whose heretical views called for suppression by the Church. And for many a long day afterwards was he mainly remembered as a co-worker in the black art with Friar BUNGAY, who together with him constructed, by the aid of the devil and diabolical rites, a brazen head which should possess the power of speech--the experiment only failing through the negligence of an a.s.sistant.(1) Such was ROGER BACON in the memory of the later Middle Ages and many succeeding years; he was the typical alchemist, where that term carries with it the depth of disrepute, though indeed alchemy was for him but one, and that not the greatest, of many interests.

(1) The story, of course, is entirely fict.i.tious. For further particulars see Sir J. E. SANDYS' essay on "Roger Bacon in English Literature," in _Roger Bacon Essays_ (1914), referred to below.

Ilchester, in Somerset, claims the honour of being the place of ROGER BACON'S birth, which interesting and important event occurred, probably, in 1214. Young BACON studied theology, philosophy, and what then pa.s.sed under the name of "science," first at Oxford, then the centre of liberal thought, and afterwards at Paris, in the rigid orthodoxy of whose professors he found more to criticise than to admire. Whilst at Oxford he joined the Franciscan Order, and at Paris he is said, though this is probably an error, to have graduated as Doctor of Theology. During 1250-1256 we find him back in England, no doubt engaged in study and teaching. About the latter year, however, he is said to have been banished--on a charge of holding heterodox views and indulging in magical practices--to Paris, where he was kept in close confinement and forbidden to write. Mr LITTLE,(1) however, believes this to be an error, based on a misreading of a pa.s.sage in one of BACON'S works, and that ROGER was not imprisoned, but stricken with sickness. At any rate it is not improbable that some restrictions as to his writing were placed on him by his superiors of the Franciscan Order. In 1266 BACON received a letter from Pope CLEMENT asking him to send His Holiness his works in writing without delay. This letter came as a most pleasant surprise to BACON; but he had nothing of importance written, and in great haste and excitement, therefore, he composed three works explicating his philosophy, the _Opus Majus_, the _Opus Minus_, and the _Opus Tertium_, which were completed and dispatched to the Pope by the end of the following year. This, as Mr ROWBOTTOM remarks, is "surely one of the literary feats of history, perhaps only surpa.s.sed by Swedenborg when he wrote six theological and philosophical treatises in one year."(1b)