The authors were probably responding to the crisis of faith in the Holy Roman Empire, which had become of patchwork of domains in which Catholicism and various flavors of Calvinism and Lutheranism were officially endorsed according to the preference of the local ruler, a situation that would contribute to the outbreak of the Thirty Years War in 1618. The manifestos are strongly anti-Papist and can be regarded as a reaction to the crackdown on Protestantism following the succession of Rudolf II — who had been an enthusiastic supporter of alchemical and Paracelsian scholarship — by Matthias of Austria, who became emperor in 1612. After Rudolf’s death the mantle of patronage for alternative paths of knowledge passed to Frederick V, who was based in Heidelberg. Frederick was encouraged by supporters to expand his domain and carry Protestantism to more of the Empire. His marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of King James of England, was a step in this direction since he hoped England would lend its support to his cause. Frances Yates, who pioneered research into the political contexts of Rosicrucianism, argues that the manifestos express a desire for a new age of Protestant tolerance under Frederick and Elizabeth. The first manifesto appeared the year after the monarchs’ wedding. But Frederick overplayed his political hand and reigned only until 1620. It is suggestive that the period of his reign coincides with the initial wave of Rosicrucian activity.
Perhaps lending support for Andreae’s assertion that he composed only the third of the manifestos, the version of Christian Rosenkreutz’s life given there does not match that given in the earlier pamphlets. There is no mention in it of a secret brotherhood; instead, Rosenkreutz is presented as an elderly hermit. But it was a simple matter for proponents of the Rosicrucian cause to present the narrative as symbolically rather than literally true.
The Chemical Wedding is the most interesting of the three so-called manifestos from a literary point of view. The narrative takes place over seven days. On the first day Rosenkreutz is invited to a royal wedding by an angelic figure bedecked with golden stars. Her wings are covered with eyes, and she bears a trumpet and a sheaf of letters in all the languages of the world. The invitation begins with these words:
Today — Today — Today
Is the wedding of the King.
If you are born for this,
Chosen by God for joy,
You may ascend the mount
Whereupon three temples stand
And see the thing yourself.
On the second day, dressed in white linen and with roses in his hat, the hermit journeys eastward, arriving at sunset at the castle where the wedding is to be held; it rises into the air atop a high mountain. There he succeeds in passing through various gates and obstacles to arrive at a banquet hall. On the third day all of the guests are weighed on scales balanced against a variety of moral virtues, and Rosenkreutz is determined to be worthy. He is given a favorable place at the banquet and is shown the wonders of the castle, which include a globe of the world and a clockwork device that shows the motions of the heavens. On the fourth day a “merry comedy” in seven acts is presented before the king and queen and the guests by a troup of “artists and students.” The play concerns a princess who is captured by a Moor but is freed and is married to a prince, whereupon all join in a “Song of Love.” On day five Rosenkreutz discovers a secret vault covered with mysterious symbols and inscriptions. Meanwhile, three royal couples are beheaded for reasons that are unclear. On the sixth day royal alchemists succeed in creating a living bird in their laboratory. The bird is fed the blood of the beheaded royals and undergoes a series of changes of colors. Then it too is beheaded. From its ashes grow a boy and girl who are fed the bird’s blood. Finally, on the seventh day, the guests are ushered into twelve ships bearing flags on which the signs of the zodiac are displayed. Rosenkreutz is told that he has become a knight of the Order of the Golden Stone, ready for “the good warfare of the faith,” and he returns home.
The story is an allegory of an inner journey of the soul, colored by alchemical concepts. The royal marriage expresses an alchemical fusion, and other story elements suggest the alchemical concept of nigredo, or blackness, in which elements are broken down in order to be transformed and raised to a higher level. Though grounded in the traditions of alchemy, it is sufficiently obscure that each reader drawn to its puzzles could extract some personal guidance from it.
Diagram of Perception, 1619, by Robert Fludd, from The Metaphysical, Physical, and Technical History of the Two Worlds, Namely the Greater and the Lesser (Utriusque Cosmi Maioris Scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica).
Fludd, along with Michael Maier, helped to promote Rosicrucianism in England and lay the groundwork for the Freemason movement that arose later in the seventeenth century.
Fludd’s scientific activities included study of the circulation of the blood and the nature of perception. He divided perception into sensual, imaginable, intellectual, and sensible realms, which in turn were governed by three pairs of faculties, science and imagination, conscience and reflection, and memory and motive. He proposed that science and imagination are governed by the frontal lobe, reflection by the center of the brain, and memory by the back.
Among those who responded enthusiastically was Robert Fludd, an English physician, who published a influential defense of Rosicrucianism, called Apologia Compendaria, in 1616. He would go on to publish two more works on Rosicrucian topics, as well as an encyclopedia of esoteric subjects called the History of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. Johannes Kepler, in an appendix to his Harmony of the World, contrasted his work with Fludd’s and rejected the concept of macrocosm and microcosm. Fludd took offense at this and published a pamphlet attacking Kepler, in which he claimed that Kepler was only interested in the outer surface of things and not their inner nature. Inner truth, he said, remains invisible to vulgar mathematicians, who measure only the shadows that reality casts. To this Kepler (who wrote in a letter around this time “I hate all kabbalists”) published his own sarcastic reply. “One sees that Fludd takes his chief pleasure in incomprehensible picture puzzles of reality, whereas I go forth from there, precisely to move into the bright light of knowledge the facts of nature, which are veiled in darkness.” Elsewhere he added, “What kind of unblanced swarm of mental freaks now come flying with this Fama Fraternitatis…. When, by God’s decree, the devil tries to play blind man’s bluff with humans, then he needs such a cloak of fanatic opinion with which to cover the eyes of reason.” Fludd was not one to let this rest, and he published yet another reply, but Kepler had had his say and chose not to continue the debate.
Fludd’s massive work on the macrocosm / microcosm theory amounted to its last gasp as something approaching a mainstream philosophy in the West. The theory, which had appeared in classical times (though without dominating ancient philosophical discourse), had reached its apogee in the sixteenth century with the work of Paracelsus (Paracelsus is best remembered today for his alchemical work but he could also be viewed as a pioneer of modern medical theory — he rejected the idea that disease was caused by an internal imbalance of humors and suggested that it was the result of outside influences, and that it could be chemically treated). During the medieval period, the macrocosm / microcosm theory had figured, notably, in the Zohar, a key text of kabbalah, and in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity produced by an Islamic religious society based in Basra near the Persian Gulf. Classical, Jewish, and Islamic influences mixed with Western theological speculations to culminate in the theories of Paracelsus. The essential forms of the universe and the human being, he said, were echoes of each other — the heavens, for example, were like the skin of the human body. Both the body and the universe were composed of the four basic elements: People eat because they are of earth, drink because they are of water, breathe because they are of air, and require warmth because they are of fire.
By Fludd’s time the influence of Paracelsus was starting to wane. Increasingly, Western physicians, building on West Asian precedents, viewed the body as a system of hydraulic and
pneumatic machines; this would result in the explanation of the circulatory system by William Harvey, physician to King James of England, in the 1620s. But in China a concept not unlike the Paracelsian notion of the macrocosm and microcosm was and would continue to be a vital strain of Taoist philosophy. The Hongwu emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty, had explicitly sanctioned the coexistence of the “Three Teachings” of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism (although he later took steps to limit the influence of organized religion). While subsequent Ming emperors favored one or another of the teachings, in general all three continued to thrive simultaneously. Confucian texts were the basis of the imperial examinations, and in theory they provided the moral guidance required by the educated elite. Buddhism, with its vision of release from the cycle of suffering, was popular among ordinary people, and Buddhist priests performed essential rituals such as funeral services. Taoism (which is difficult to separate from the innumerable folk beliefs embraced throughout China’s immense domain) was also widely respected, although by and large it lacked something of the status of the other teachings. It was possible, and indeed common, for a person to incorporate elements from all three teachings, in effect picking and choosing as the occasion demanded. Taoists were consulted for geomancy, the determination of auspicious locations, and for astrology, the determination of auspicious dates. Alchemy also fell within the purvue of Taoism. The Jiajing emperor, who reigned in the mid-sixteenth century, was an enthusiastic supporter of Taoism who experimented with a variety of elixirs in an effort to obtain immortality. Unfortunately for him, however, the elixirs, some of which contained mercury and other toxic ingredients, had the opposite effect and were probably responsible for his death.
By the time of the Wanli emperor Taoism was enjoying a revival of influence. The emperor himself commissioned a supplement to the official canon of Taoist texts. Taoists continued their work with elixirs, but they complemented this “outer alchemy” with a corresponding “inner alchemy,” the goal of which was to transform the subject’s spiritual essence through meditation, breath control, and other practices in order to bring the body’s internal energies into harmony with the elemental energy (qi) of the universe. In effect, the body would thereby produce its own transformative elixir within the crucible of its organs to bring about its spiritual rebirth. This inner alchemy became the basic metaphor for Taoist medicine, which sought to bring into balance the male and female principles, the yin and the yang, with the ultimate goal of achieving union with the Tao.
In China as in Europe there was a tendency to move away from the “outer alchemy” of laboratory processes and to devote more attention to the “inner alchemy” that focused on the symbolic values of the core alchemical principles of rending, uniting, and transforming. In part this may have reflected a disillusionment with the results of laboratory alchemy. In England John Donne wrote in “Loves Alchymie”:
And as no chymiques yet th’Elixar got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinall,
So, lovers dreame a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summers night.
In the inner alchemy of Taoism, however, alchemical concepts are not merely metaphors for spiritual development (as they often seem to be in the West) but refer to specific physical aspects of the body; inner alchemy was both medicine and regimen for hygiene and health.
From the Tashrih-i-mansuri, seventeenth century, by Mansur ibn Muhammed Ahmad. Persia. Majles Library, Tehran, ms. no. 5266. From Directions for Endowment and Vitality, 1615. China. Woodblock-illustrated book. British Library, London (15113.e.6). Illustration of Inner Circulation, 19th century. China. Richard Rosenblum Family Collection, Newton Center, Massachusetts.
While the Persian illustration is mechanical and analytical, the symbolic Chinese illustrations of “inner alchemy” concern flow of energy. The goal was to effect the “elixir within,” which is represented in the diagram by a symbolic crucible in the abdomen. The inner alchemy remained popular in China for centuries as shown by the illustration opposite.
The Directions for Endowment and Vitality, first printed in 1615 and often reprinted thereafter, is a Taoist text describing the processes of inner alchemy. The author details a variety of approaches aimed at bringing the secondary energies of the body into alignment with the primary life energy. China scholar Joseph Needham called this text “the Summa of physiological alchemy.” The book is attributed to a certain Gaodi, said to be a disciple of “Master Yin”; both figures remain obscure. The text describes what it calls the most important of the three thousand six hundred techniques for preparing “the elixir within.”
The foundation of inner alchemy was the idea that everything is made up of admixtures of yin and yang. These elements, moreover, are not stable but are always trying to change into their opposite. The adept’s goal was to bring them together. As an alchemical text from the tenth century said:
If the water is true water, and the fire is true fire,
And if you can bring them to bed together,
Then you will never see old age.
Speaking of bringing things to bed, sexual fulfillment was a major component of the inner alchemy. Taoist adepts prescribed a regimen of retention of bodily fluids (the teeth should be gnashed to create saliva which should not be spit out; the male sex partner should hold back from ejaculation) and frequent change of sex partners. “He who can make several dozen unions in a day and night without once emitting semen,” one Taoist text said, “will be cured of all diseases, and benefit himself by augmentation of longevity.” The Taoist recommendation that a man have many sexual partners should not be confused with libertinism. Rather, it reflects the practice of concubinage, which was conventional in China. Still, one Chinese writer did delve into licentiousness, at enormous length. In so doing he created a novel that is considered one of the masterworks of Chinese prose fiction.
Tang Xianzu, who died in 1616 at the age of sixty-six, was the leading playwright of the Wanli era. His major plays are sometimes called the Four Dreams, because dreaming plays a role in each. The plays are often performed as operas: one, The Peony Pavilion, was presented at Lincoln Center in 1999 in a six-part, nineteen-hour production that won critical acclaim. Tang retired from a low-level civil service job in 1598 and retired to his home in southern China. How did he spend his eighteen years of retirement?
In the opinion of David Tod Roy, Tang spent much of those years composing the massive — 2,923 pages in the original blockprint edition, which was printed between 1610 and 1618 — classic novel The Plum in the Golden Vase, which Roy is translating in five volumes (the first volume was published in 1993, the fourth appeared in July 2011). The book is attributed only to “The Scoffing Scholar of Lanling,” and Tang’s authorship of it remains unproven. The title, Jin Ping Mei, which could also be translated, perhaps more conventionally, as “Plum Blossoms in a Golden Vase,” is made up of the names of three of the main female characters. It is also a pun on a phrase that means something like “The Glamour of Entering the Vagina,” and the book’s erotic content, including more than seventy sex scenes, is the first thing that has struck many of its readers.
The story, set in the historical past during the Song dynasty, charts the rise and fall of an ambitious but decadent merchant, Ximen Qing, who has inherited a wholesale pharmaceutical business. Other primary figures are Ximen’s six wives, but over the course of the novel he also beds thirteen additional women. The book comprises one hundred chapters. The plot hinges on an episode in the forty-ninth and fiftieth chapters in which Ximen obtains a powerful aphrodisiac from a mysterious Indian monk, who is presented as the personification of a penis. From that point on Ximen’s excesses lead him down a path that will end with his death at the age of thirty-three.
The author uses a merchant’s household in a provincial town as a microcosm of greater Chinese society. Ximen’s six wives are probably mea
nt to recall the “six traitors” who were blamed for the fall of the Song dynasty. Ends of dynasties were traditionally associated with moral failings, because they represent the loss of the mandate of heaven. By showing the effects of decadence and cupidity on Ximen, the head of the microcosmic household, the author implies a criticism of Chinese governance that he would not have been allowed to make directly. He is careful to show that Ximen’s unrestrained ambition found outlets not only in the sexual but also in the economic and political spheres, the areas in which the Wanli emperor was likely to have been criticized. A key episode in the novel concerns Ximen’s affair with Pan Jinlian, whose husband he would murder and whom he would then take as one of his wives. A poem describes their intercourse:
When pleasure reaches its height passions are
intense, and feelings know no bounds,
as the mouth of the divine turtle
disgorges its silvery stream.
The “divine turtle,” David Tod Roy tells us in an analysis of this passage, is a euphemism for penis. The allusion to the “silver” it emits is not incidental; a following line repeats that Ximen “left behind a few pieces of loose silver.” The implication is that unrestrained sexual striving could be compared to economics in the new silver-based economy of China, which produced luxuries for the indulgence of the emperor but disrupted many aspects of the conventional order. The author was probably a Neo-Confucian but, considering that aspects of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were often mixed together during the late Ming, he was likely influenced by Taoist inner alchemy in valuing retention of bodily fluids, which would suggest a parallel in moderation on the level of the larger society. One of the themes of the book, according to Roy, is that “if the resources of the human body are not adequately distributed, but are constantly being drawn upon to replenish the supply of semen in the testicles, because it is being prodigally wasted, the result will be death for the individual.” Immoderate sexual activity, another scholar, Katherine Carlitz, agrees, “is destructive both of the individual self and the fabric of social relations. In this it functions exactly like the drives for wealth and power…. Immoderate drives for or exercise of sex, wealth, and power are equivalent in outcome … they are inextricably linked throughout the book, in part by the image of the bad last ruler.”
1616 Page 26