by Colin Wilson
Joe Cooper finally published most of these accounts in his book Modern Psychic Experiences, together with many more. A New Zealand medium named Dorothy described how she used to play with a “spirit” girl named Mabel as a child and how she had first seen fairies, who came from under plants. One day she came home to find her father unconscious on the floor – a gastric ulcer had perforated – and the fairies took charge and escorted her to the doctor’s house. Joe Cooper’s own niece, Jo, who was in her thirties, described how, at the age of sixteen, she had seen three little men crouching on top of a wall.
When I wrote about the Cottingley fairies in Poltergeist (before Frances had “confessed”), I also went to some trouble to find accounts of “real” fairies. I described being interviewed on television at the 1978 Edinburgh Festival by a man named Bobbie (whose surname I forgot to note in my journal); in the pub next door he told me casually that he had once seen a gnome standing on the pavement outside a convent gate and that it had “scared the hell out of him”.
My friend Marc Alexander, author of many books on the paranormal, told me a story of a friend in New Zealand named Pat Andrew, who claimed to have seen a pixie when he was six. Years later, after seeing a stage hypnotist, Marc and Andrew began experimenting with hypnosis on each other. Marc had no doubt that Andrew was genuinely hypnotized, and one day he decided to try and “regress” him to the age at which he saw the pixie. The result was an amazing one-sided conversation that left Marc in no doubt whatever that, whether Andrew had really seen a pixie or not, he undoubtedly believed he had.
One of the most convincing accounts I know of is an encounter with a pixie as recounted by another friend, Lois Bourne, in her book Witch Among Us. Lois is a “witch” in the sense that she possesses odd psychic powers, of whose reality I have not the slightest doubt. She is an extremely sensible and down-to-earth woman. And in her book, among many stories that psychical researchers will find credible enough, she tells a story that will obviously cause most readers to doubt her truthfulness or her sanity. While on holiday at a cottage at Crantock, in Cornwall, she met a member of a “wicca” coven and spent an evening at her home. The woman’s husband, Rob, asked her if she would like to see a goblin, explaining that one appeared among the rushes of the millstream at Treago Mill, Cuberts Heath, every morning at sunrise; if she wanted to see him, she had to be up early. The next morning Lois and her husband, Wilfred, joined Rob at the mill gate, and they crept up to the stream. Bourne writes:
I have never been able to decide, and still cannot decide, whether I really saw that goblin, or if Rob made me see it . . . Whatever it was, there, sitting on a stone calmly washing his socks, was an elfin creature with a red hat, green coat and trews, one yellow sock on, and one in his tiny hands in the process of being washed. I remember thinking at the time, in my sleepy, befuddled, but practical way, “What an atrocious colour combination”. Suddenly he saw us and he disappeared . . . “Now do you believe me”? asked Rob.
I have known Lois for years. I may be gullible and she may be a liar, but I believe her. She is not the type to invent such a silly story. And her husband, Wilfred – who also saw it – is not the type to support a downright lie.
As already mentioned, the poet W.B. Yeats had been convinced of the existence of fairies ever since he and Lady Gregory went door to door collecting information from the local peasants. They recorded these interviews in a 1920 book entitled Visions and Beliefs. Evans Wentz concludes his Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by acknowledging: “We seem to have arrived at a point . . . where we can postulate scientifically . . . the existence of such invisible intelligences as gods, genii, daemons, all kinds of true fairies, and disembodied men”. (By the latter he means ghosts.) And he goes on to cite the very sound evidence for the existence of the poltergeist. George Russell (AE) and Evans Wentz emphasize that these entities are seen only by “psychics”, and Russell believes that such beings are not “individuals” in the human sense: “Theirs is a collective life, so unindividualised and so calm that I might have more varied thoughts in five hours than they would have in five years”.
When all of this is taken into account, we may feel that the notion that Frances really saw fairies by the stream in Cottingley no longer seems quite so absurd.
17
Fulcanelli and the Mysteries of Alchemy
In the autumn of 1926 there appeared in Paris a limited edition of a book called The Mystery of the Cathedrals – La Mystère des Cathédrales – whose author was named on the title page simply as “Fulcanelli”. It was a book written by a man who claimed to be an alchemist, and was addressed to his fellow-alchemists. Its thesis is that the great Gothic cathedrals are not simply temples of the Christian religion but are also “stone books” whose pages contain the encoded secrets of alchemy. According to Fulcanelli, the word “Gothic” is not derived from the Germanic people known as the Goths but from the word argot, meaning slang. Arts gothiques – Gothic art – should be spelt argotiques: for argot is a language used by those who do not wish their meaning to be understood by outsiders. The rest of the book is an elegant exposition of some of the “stone secrets” of the cathedrals of Notre Dame, Amiens and Bourges.
The preface to the first edition was written by one “Eugene Canseliet”, who declares that the author of the book, his “Master”, has now disappeared. “Having achieved the pinnacle of knowledge, could he refuse to obey the commands of Destiny”? “Fulcanelli is no more”, says Canseliet, and then goes on to thank the artist, Julien Champagne, “to whom my master has entrusted the illustration of his work”.
Although printed only in an edition of three hundred copies – or possibly because of this – the reputation of Mystery of the Cathedrals continued to grow, so that another edition was called for in 1957. In his new preface Canseliet admits that “Fulcanelli” is a pseudonym under which his master has chosen to conceal his identity, and he quotes a long letter from Fulcanelli to his master, congratulating him on finally achieving the “Gift of God” or the “Great Work”, the Philosopher’s Stone of the alchemists.
When the book was translated into English in 1971 it contained an additional introduction by the translator’s husband, Walter Lang – the pseudonym of Edward Campbell – in which he reveals that he has met Canseliet, and learned that Canseliet had seen Fulcanelli after his “disappearance” in 1922. That meeting occurred thirty years later, yet according to Canseliet, his master appeared to be thirty years younger than when he had last seen him. Fulcanelli had been eighty in 1924; now he looked a mere fifty. What was stranger still was that Fulcanelli was now dressed as a woman. Canseliet’s story was that he had received a summons from Fulcanelli, and journeyed to a château in the mountains. There he was greeted by Fulcanelli in his normal male guise, and assigned an alchemical labouratory to work in. A few days later he strolled downstairs early in the morning and stood in his braces. Across the courtyard he saw a group of three women dressed in the style of the sixteenth century. As they passed him one of them turned, and he recognized Fulcanelli. But later Canseliet recollected that one of the basic symbols of alchemy is the androgyne or hermaphrodite, and that this is sometimes used as a symbol of the “completed work” – the achievement of the philosopher’s stone. Was Fulcanelli telling him that he had now achieved the aim of a lifetime?
By the time Mystery of the Cathedrals appeared in English, Fulcanelli had achieved a legendary status, rather like that of the Comte de Saint-Germain (see chapter 47). This was largely due to the role he plays in a best-selling work by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians (1960), which was largely responsible for the “occult revival” of the 1960s. According to Pauwels, his friend Bergier was studying chemistry in 1933 when he confided to his professor his desire to study alchemy – and was instantly and predictably rebuffed. The student protested that one form of alchemy – nuclear energy – should be possible, but the professor assured him that this was also an impossibility. All the same, Bergier cont
inued to study alchemy. From 1934 to 1940 he worked with André Helbronner, the distinguished physicist who died in Buchenwald. And among Helbronner’s acquaintance there were many pseudo-alchemists, and at least one genuine alchemist, whose name Bergier never learned. “The man of whom we are speaking disappeared some time ago without leaving any visible traces, to lead a clandestine existence, having severed all connection between himself and the century in which he lived”. Bergier can only guess that he may have been the man who, under the pseudonym of Fulcanelli, wrote “two strange and admirable books, Les Demeures Philosophales and La Mystère des Cathédrales . . .”
Pauwels goes on to tell how, one afternoon in June 1937, Bergier thought he was in the presence of Fulcanelli. At Helbronner’s request Bergier met the “alchemist” at the labouratory of the Gas Board in Paris. What the man had to tell him was that Helbronner’s researches into nuclear energy were very close to success, and that “the research in which you and your colleagues are engaged is fraught with terrible dangers . . . for the whole human race”. Radioactivity, said the alchemist, could poison the atmosphere of the planet, and a few grams of metal could produce enough energy to destroy a whole city. “Alchemists have known it for a very long time”. Picking up Soddy’s book The Interpretation of Radium, he read aloud a paragraph suggesting that earlier civilizations (Atlantis?) had been destroyed by atomic radiation.
But the most interesting part of the account lies in the alchemist’s reply to Bergier’s question about the nature of his researches.
I can tell you this much: you are aware that in the official science of today the role of the observer becomes more and more important . . . The secret of alchemy is this: there is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call a “field of force”. This field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the Universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call “The Great Work”.
“But what about the philosopher’s stone? The fabrication of gold”?
“These are only applications, particular cases. The essential thing is not the transmutation of metals, but that of the experimenter himself. It’s an ancient secret that a few men rediscover once in a century”.
Jacques Sadoul, another modern student of alchemy, makes the same point in his book Alchemists and Gold.
Actually the transmutatory powder was simply an experiment carried out at the end of the Master Work, to make certain that the substance manufactured was indeed the Philosopher’s Stone . . . Their aim, after having transmuted a metal, was to transmute themselves by swallowing a homoeopathic dose of the Stone twice a year.
When he swallows this dose, the alchemist loses all his hair, nails and teeth; but they grow again, stronger and healthier than before. The adept becomes younger, and no longer needs food although he may still eat for enjoyment.
Most modern readers will be understandably sceptical about all this, and the only full-length book on Canseliet’s mysterious Master, The Fulcanelli Phenomenon by Kenneth Raynor Johnson (1980), will do little to undermine his scepticism. He tells how in the 1930s a student of the occult named Robert Ambelain became so intrigued by Fulcanelli’s books (the second, The Dwelling Places of Philosophy, is an expansion of the ideas of the first) that he set out to try to track him down. He called on the publisher, Jean Schemit, to ask permission to quote Fulcanelli’s books in a work of his own, In the Shadow of the Cathedrals. Schemit told him how, in the early part of 1926, he was visited by a shortish man with a long Gallic moustache. The stranger began talking to Schemit about Gothic architecture, and claimed that it was a kind of code (“argot”), known as the “green language”. He went on to argue that slang contained many plays on words and puns that actually indicated a profound philosophical depth: in fact, it was the ancient hermetic language, the “Language of the Birds” – that is to say, of the initiates. He then left. A few weeks later Canseliet appeared in Schemit’s office, and left with him the manuscript of The Mystery of the Cathedrals. Schemit read it, and recognized the speech patterns of his previous visitor. He decided to publish it. Soon after, Canseliet called again, bringing with him the artist who would illustrate the book, Jean-Julien Champagne. And in Champagne Schemit recognized his previous visitor. Canseliet showed him “extraordinary respect and admiration, addressing him one minute as “Master”, the next as “my Master”. Canseliet also referred to Champagne as “my Master” in his absence. Schemit consequently reached the conclusion that Fulcanelli was Champagne.
Canseliet always insisted that his friend Champagne was simply an illustrator, but this was flatly contradicted by an article in a popular occult magazine containing a description of an illustration by Champagne; the illustration was full of alchemical symbols, and the author of the article admitted that the description was by Champagne himself. The same author, a man called Jules Boucher, told Ambelain that Champagne possessed a biscuit tin containing gum resin, and that Champagne would often inhale its odours deeply, telling Boucher that it possessed some magical quality that enabled him to gain “intuitive insights into the knowledge he sought”. Boucher also said that Champagne could induce “OBE’s” – “out-of-the-body experiences” – at will.
Champagne had died in 1932, in his mid-sixties. His former landlady told Ambelain that Canseliet and Champagne had occupied rooms at 59 bis rue de Rochechouart – the attic – and that Canseliet treated Champagne with great respect, addressing him as Master. So it would seem to be a logical conclusion that Champagne was Canseliet’s “master” – i.e., Fulcanelli.
Boucher – who was also a “pupil” of Champagne – had no doubt that Champagne and Fulcanelli were the same person. When Champagne was correcting the proofs of The Mystery of the Cathedrals he became extremely indignant at printing errors, and the proofs of the two books “were redrafted eight times under the watchful eyes of their author”. Moreover, said Jules Boucher, Champagne wrote the introductions to the books, which he asked Canseliet to sign.
Canseliet, predictably, denies all this. He claims that Schemit never met Champagne, and insists that he himself wrote the introductions. He tends to be dismissive of Boucher’s claims to have known Champagne intimately. But then if Champagne and Canseliet invented Fulcanelli between them, this would be perfectly understandable. Having gone to the trouble of creating a modern myth – not unlike that of Saint-Germain – why should he admit that the whole thing is a straightforward piece of mystification?
Kenneth Raynor Johnson’s arguments against the Champagne-Fulcanelli identification are also unconvincing. He points out that Champagne was a well-known practical joker, as well as an alcoholic. As an example of Champagne’s sense of humour, he tells how Champagne advised a gullible student that the first step in alchemy was to fill his room with bags of coal. When the student had heaved sack after sack up several flights of stairs, and had scarcely enough room left to lie down on his bed, Champagne told him that the search for the philosopher’s stone was a waste of time, and that he had better forget it. This suggests that Champagne’s sense of humour was both puerile and cruel. This, Johnson argues, hardly sounds like the author of The Mystery of the Cathedrals, to which the obvious answer is: why not? Immersion in magic and “occultism” seems to demand a peculiar temperament; it can be seen in a dozen cases, from Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa to Macgregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley, all of whom combined the temperament of a genuine “seeker after truth” with that of a confidence trickster. Contemporary accounts reveal that the “great adept” Saint-Germain was vain, talkative and boastful, and among “adepts” this seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
Does this mean then that alchemy should be regarded as a fantasy or a waste of time? The commonsense answer should obviously be yes. But common sense can easily lead us into error, as when it tells us that the sun revolves round the earth or that matter is solid. Jung’s
studies of alchemy led him to conclude – like Bergier’s mysterious alchemist – that the real purpose of alchemy is to transform the alchemist: in other words, that it is, like yoga or mysticism, a spiritual discipline. The main difference between Jung and Freud was that for Freud the world is divided into sick people and “normal” people, while Jung had always been fascinated by “supernormal” people – saints and men of genius. Jung wanted to find a connection between “depth psychology” and supernormal people, and thought that he might have found it in alchemy, which like certain earlier researchers he was inclined to see as a “mystery religion”. But after studying obscure alchemical texts for many years, and attempting to “interpret” them as if they were full of dream symbolism, he reached the somewhat disappointing conclusion that the alchemist “projected” his own basic obsessions into his experiments, much as we might “see” faces in the clouds, so that alchemy became a kind of mirror in which he saw his own hidden depths. In other words, it was a kind of unconscious self-deception.
Yet in his later work on synchronicity (see Chapter 54) Jung had stumbled on some vital clues to this problem. By synchronicity Jung meant “meaningful coincidence as, for example, when we hear a name for the first time, then hear it half a dozen times more over the next twenty-four hours, almost as if “fate” is trying to make sure we learn it by heart. Jung tried hard to find “scientific” explanations for such coincidences, talking about an “acausal connecting principle” and about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Critics like Arthur Koestler have suggested that Jung was merely trying to dress up “occult” ideas in acceptable scientific terminology.
But it is generally agreed that the basis of “occultism” is the statement attributed to Hermes Trismegistos (after whom the “hermetic art” is named) “As above, so below”, which means the pattern of the greater universe is repeated in the smaller universe of the human soul (microcosm). In Alchemists and Gold Jacques Sadoul begins by quoting a translation of the so-called Emerald Tablet of Hermes by Fulcanelli: “As below, so above; and as above, so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles”.