Alchymic Journals

by Evan S. Connell

  I SAY THAT whatsoever fills up a man’s heart shall overflow into his mouth. And what his heart desires, that do his eyes seek after. And things irrevocably incline toward similitude because they have some rational or active virtue that directs and counsels them—as fire experiences the urge toward fire, water toward water—which accounts for the passionate flight of the soul and the body’s deep unrest. Now I say all of this will be understood by those with a legacy of interior senses while to others it must seem incomprehensible.

  I SAY THE heart is an instrument of very great magnitude whose greatness cannot be expressed. The mind as well—this is very great and nothing can emerge from its sphere that was not drawn in. And whatever the heart has attracted or whatever was drawn into the mind I say will expend itself searching for an exit. And it is perilous to live ignorant of this relationship.

  I SAY THAT six Tempers dominate the mind, whereby they govern and rule over humanity. These are passion, fright, alarm, joy, envy and desire. Therefore the imagination must be supervised since no place is too far for it to go and each mind impresses another, wherever it reaches. This is because not one being is able to survive apart from the next, nor from the Almighty, because all divide His wisdom.

  EACH BEING POSSESSES a Chaos, yet if transported elsewhere it will die. If that Chaos be subtle, its being is gross, or if gross, we find subtlety within. Therefore a corpus should be gross if it would glide unharmed through aether, much as gnomes with subtle bodies can proceed through rock. Even so, rigid matter is capable of piercing supple matter just as a stick is thrust into water or a stone may descend into the depths of a pool. Conversely, whenever the matrix does not take offense it is possible to extract a substance, which is the case when fishes are withdrawn while leaving the river unperturbed. So does base mineral hope to improve or glorify or transform its status. And that this may occur cannot be doubted. The omnipotence of God flows unrestricted.

  WHAT VAST SURFEIT of disclosures men catalogue upon deficient understanding! To assess an object below or above the animus presiding at its birth or to prize some creature more or less highly than its creator must injudiciously subvert both values, which is how we behold existences doubled by the looking-glass. Therefore we should estimate qualities not by their outwardness but by what they deposit within.

  BECAUSE EVERY ITEM is equivalent in goodness to the next, as the carbuncle is not better nor worse than tuff stone, nor evergreen than cypress, so each time we valuate gold above silver we do this out of greed. Both are excellent. Consequently our judgment is developed not through wisdom but through lamentable logic. Now, should a dog fall sick it will devour grass, but would this be suitable treatment for sick men? No. Yet how very often I remark similitudes, and I think egregious pharmacopeia astonishes me less than the gratitude of moribund patients. How is this? Possibly by virtue of imagination we are able to find what we seek, a faculty derived from above since it is evident how stars preoccupy themselves with men.

  IT IS TRUE that stars habitually sympathize with mankind, but which mercies proceed from the mansions of planets? A physician after he calculates his patient’s horoscope may deduce an origin to malignancy and prophesy its end. However, each disease boasts five causes—each subject to five aspects—thus no interpretation should be thought infallible. And it is true that proficiencies contribute to failure, so emptiness comes riding. Obstinate doctors adhere to foolish diagnoses more tenaciously than starfish clinging to a barren shelf, but as I am a prudent physician I do not gape upon antique charts drawn for musty lectures. My flesh, my blood and my bones constitute the merchandise I have given up for knowledge. And my spirit have I offered as pawn. And I believe God encourages me to know, but also to doubt.

  WHY WOULD A man be anxious to eat and drink and breathe? Because he is conjoined with elements of food, water and atmosphere. Or why does he avoid the cold? Because without warmth he would shiver miserably and complain. This is true because we are made of mutual associations since we have been coupled to all and do not live apart from rudimentary influences, just as we have criminals that flourish and profit beneath planetary conjunctions. Therefore I say the alchymist must understand cosmology because a doctor that treats only the effect or disease is like one that would excoriate and drive winter aside by brushing a little snow from his door.

  I SAY THE body demands familiar nutriment for support, albeit we need not chew bones to replenish our bones nor swallow and digest veins to regenerate our veins. The living corpus manages to subsidize each necessity, although it is hard to explain how this is accomplished. By what method does bread transmute itself into blood? Nevertheless this occurs, and upon great similarities of hermetic art we anticipate a transmutation of dross, which implies universal regeneration.

  TERRESTRIAL AND SIDEREAL worlds converge upon mankind so that if any pharmacist would mitigate or alleviate fatal consequences, such as edemata from French plague, he must learn what is implicit. Hence an understanding of herbs is good and it is wise to appreciate Laudanum which is very strong. Now, cinnabar commonly is florid but with albification it can be instructed to simulate Lead, by whose virtue it expects to acquire importance. Thus, every animate substance or creature would modify its attributes while latencies must be sought. Even so, a sapient chymist will memorize the accustomed station and rising of stars if he seeks to maintain tendencies within a pattern of their setting.

  MAN’S REALITY IS but an exposition of forces and essences identical to congeries on a higher scale which represent the firmament. And beside and within us all is reflected until we apprehend ourselves as well as the circumstances of our environment. Thus we attempt to perceive, foresee and augurate. Did not William of Paris at his laboratory construct a Brazen Head which nodded, beckoned and spoke to visitors in the voice of a man? Accordingly we manifest more than brief conjunctions drawn of flesh, bone and nerve. Upon measurable degrees we exemplify the cognizant universe. Therefore we must not be fictive but represent a palpable quintessence, which was the ambition of our Creator.

  IF WE WISH to illustrate the several properties of mankind would we not trace in miniature a precise copy or replica of our cosmos? If so, then what persuades us to reiterate and duplicate mistakes through treacherous dissimulation? Is it not more logical to collaborate toward a melioration of Lead, thereby to form and guarantee what we anticipate? By day we are wont to clasp hands and replenish our lives with honor while by night we turn obligations into cobwebs, deceiving ourselves under nets, entanglement and falsehood. What beggary is this? Have we not ourselves become beggars begging at our own door?

  OFTEN HAVE I talked with Oporinus of a path to the Citadel where an inimitable Infant slumbers, encircled by dragons. I have told Oporinus that lineage and privilege mean little, that only distress has meaning, since which of us is exempt? And I have explained how if an alchymist’s heart play false so must his prescription. Sooty empiricks puffing and blowing make wrong turnings. Divided ashes lie estranged.

  I HAVE TAUGHT Oporinus how nothing concerning us be declared irrelevant and foreign. Why has God endowed men with thought unless they should apprehend their predicament? For too many is thought considered a vacant entity, but this is misguidance. Thoughts have ponderable crystalline shapes inexplicably formed of nutritious components within the soul much as ice crystals develop in freezing water. Hence, we may impose upon all men our disposition toward maleficence or beneficence, generosity or selfishness, since thoughts being formed of quiet volition may be thrown like icicles into the mental spheres of others. Why? Because the world’s huge frame is known to encompass all and the focus of meditation appears very great.

  I HAVE ADVISED Oporinus to scrutinize ancient manuscripts because each opens against its opposite. I say he that observes, studies, and learns during his tenure on earth shall be dressed with gold during the Resurrection, while not one that has loitered should aspire to superiority. This is because exploration leads upward.

  OPORINUS WOULD HAVE our secret d
elivered into his hands. I respond by asking how he would catalogue the structure of rainbows, or if he be employed with Nilotic darkness, or if he has found absolution. Let him think privately on the melioration of nature and reflect how it is impossible to grasp what is first or last, or take hold of the first that is not also last. So do we annotate the circularity of Man and we call this ubiquitous since it is identified with its subject, and no man has discovered how to escape. Should Oporinus climb as high as heaven it would be there.

  I HAVE SAID that in God’s presence the most execrable vices of our world disseminate. How is this explained? I point out how treasure flows to chattermag niggard hucksters marketing pinchbeck remedies meant for a Lazaret while the best endure calumny, ridicule, neglect, ingratitude—but to what purpose? Look at what has occurred since the beginning.

  LET US ASSUME the throne of heaven was framed within and that every corporeal benefit has been tabulated. Say that a physician controverts himself at midnight, then he could be no itinerant hunched on the door-step of humanity. Neither is he pseudo-medicus or imposter quick to interpret the allegoric journey of a pilgrim, having met in each some hollow glory.

  MANY WILL CHARGE according to their expedient how upheavals and the deaths of kings are adumbrated by comets approaching, yet our worldly lot rests on the palm of an Indecipherable who is its commencement and its end, who displaces sceptres and crowns and tumbles down the mightiest. So must the worst and finest tumble in dust upon august authority, commingled with a universe of streaming shadows.

  DOMINANT PLANETS AND various stars spread their glory between Flanders and Brazil. Others thoughtfully conceal their light, for what emprize we do not know. Similarly, invidious spirits often deceive or hide their employments from the inquisitive novice. Yet between microcosm and macrocosm every item stands related, albeit we hear much opposed logic formed in concert with strange denial.

  I SAY THE impetus of ascending planets invigorates animals with harmonious organs no less than minerals or vegetables. We ask why. But what is planetary exhalation save its vital elixir? We see one patient get up and walk away from his bed while for no cause his neighbor vomits and writhes and dies, so it is impossible to contest the power of heavenly light. We are no more devised from insensate clay than is an herb blossoming out of mud.

  SHOULD IT BE God’s will to instruct an alchymist at his art He will dispense understanding at the appropriate season. But if by this wisdom He concludes that any man was unfit or should He decide that irrevocable mischief would ensue, then that sanction is withheld. Neither would God undertake to show one man for a principality so that others crowd up against him piteously bleating—or go trotting behind him like sheep after a ram. And he that fails to read blackness at the beginning shall fail at his magistery.

  I HAVE SAID men descry what pleases them because what appears reasonable, that is what they approve. Out of Electrum Magicum they make mirrors which are fundamentally conjoined, as Jupiter conjoins with Venus, since this is nature’s scheme and geniture. Hidden causes. Future portents.

  THE BENEFICIAL ASPECTS of numerous herbs have been concealed, as are their insalubrities, yet we know how to discover them just as we are able to perceive the dispositions of cattle which never have learned how to speak or explain themselves. Why is this? Because nothing moves on the somnolent sea-deep nor in the firmament that was ordained to thwart us, neither fish nor plant nor animal nor bird. All matter is subordinate to the enduring and imperial quest of humanity—its premise. Was not man appointed to explore? Was he not royally baptized? It has become his mission to dazzle the elements. How swiftly he strides forth dressed with jewels to confront the universe. One that wrought miracles they called Galen—Paradoxopoeus—which is the essence of every man. And I say that prodigies which exceed their measure draw destruction on their wake.

  NOW, SOME FIND great virtue in the herb Centaurea, yclept Isiphilon by Chaldees, which if powdered and intermingled with lamp-oil and the lapwing’s blood and set to burning—all those clustered around will cry how they are witches, and say of one whose face lifts toward heaven that his foot yet touches earth. But in so doing they make up a vitious black tincture which provokes almighty God. Groping, tense, men split their brains. They seek to use the wind.

  I HAVE SAID that things proceed less by lottery than election and humanity’s passage appears wrathful, senseless, aberrant, replete with desperate biting, while the stipulations of life are complex illusions resembling colors in an artist’s picture, being not in fact yellow or blue or green, merely seeming thus to the eye of the beholder.

  I BELIEVE ILLNESS substitutes for the spectrum of health its own hue—monarchical and threatening. Pliny the Elder has counted up three hundred varieties or sorts of disease but I account others, curious disaffections to every part. And I say that those afflicting us differ from those past, hence new distillations must be ordered. All objects and phenomena have their hour.

  AS THE SKY possesses constellations so is each man mightily constellated within himself. Then why is he unlike animals or plants or metals that do not deviate from what they are? Why is he alone cursed with a necessity for transmutation? What is incommensurable about him? What urges him to emulate the grison, the fox, the goat, the blood-drinking nightswift? I say that if he would reclaim the nature of his inheritance he must be born again. And I say miracles of the soul exceed heavenly dispensation.

  I BELIEVE PROVIDENCE contemplates the blind mole squirming through abysmal darkness and declares its vision adequate. Why? Because to look further would encumber this poor thing with unremitting discontent by exposing the tenebrous walls and limits of its existence. So do we observe timorous men who, perceiving that they have burrowed up toward daylight, hastily dig themselves downward into comfortable obscurity. Still others like foolish birds standing on a withered bough chatter with amazement at the dawn. Others lift both hands to praise the incipient day as night slips west. Providence apportions to each—to each man, beast, insect and mineral—the animus of its being.

  NOW, IF EARTH be a cryptogram burning with significance—the House of Man in which ubiquitous houseflies predicate brief lives—let us equate the Holy Spirit to a glow-worm. Does not the humblest caterpillar symbolize transfiguration? Therefore let us say quick-silver represents man’s conscience whose existence must be verified, having lapsed into desuetude. We see mercuric particles cling to the rim of a dusty crucible, hence we are entitled to say of our conscience that it endures, that it refuses to forget.

  MINERALS SINK, FEATHERS float, serpents upon their course change direction. We do not know why. Quick-silver escapes from alluvial gold—aureate sperm of cinnabar. Why is this? Meanwhile fumbling neophytes submit to misjudgment by Macar, by Galen, by Dioscorides. Even so, they anticipate success! But I say alchymic magistery cannot be conferred by diploma nor through philosophic reflection, nor by those souffleurs that burn charcoal, since being duped on their own ignorance they make dupes of others. I avow that as God spoke radiance was formed, departing from its limb. Then God spoke further, confused elements became separated and what was chaos understood its balance.

  RAIN FALLS TO the earth not all at once but drop after drop because if it is poured down too abundantly it would destroy everything, just as if a gardener should inundate his plants. From this it is evident how nature distributes her benefits. Therefore the soil of any province tends toward infertility through exhaustion and lies unconscious for long intervals. Similarly, those remote mines which provide silver and gold often exhaust their energy and insist upon millennia of rest before they consent to additional labor. Now this is because minerals germinate and grow like wheat from their elementary matrix, hence it must be useless to contemplate or cry aloud for valuables that do not exist.

  WHEN AT THE end of time all things throw aside their cover every chymist and physician must stand up to be recognized so that we learn which kept to the foundations of science, which did not. Then all that were conceived and flourished
emptily and stood notorious behind clap-trap recitals greasily prevaricating—I say their gullets will enlarge at the hour of their disgrace! What do they teach about Pliny’s herbs? Have they learned the three parts of wisdom? And how was it that those promising vast wealth to others are themselves importunate beggars? Cacochymists whose tongues ride before their wits like a gentleman’s usher! Alleging familiarity with Avicenna of Bokhara, with Velascus and with De Vigo—how do they call themselves learned? Times return, rhetoric yields its measure highest to lowest, logic makes a circuit. Hah! We will count how many rich and redoubtable physicians tucked flagrant ignorance beneath chit-chat to the detriment of reliable doctors. I say those that truthfully prescribed will be distinguished from muck-hill daubers and guild-hall apprentices. Each deserves his merit, so each shall acquire the palm. Proscription to such swaggering glistering rogues that exult with the title of Alchymist but oppugn the Art, boasting how they know anatomy that cannot identify tartar stuck to their own teeth. Liars! Fugitives! Horse-leech fops! Executioners! Purse-milkers! Yet as the tare is plucked out of ripening wheat so must the melody of pretence reverberate until Whitsunday. The murderer does not escape the crushing wheel, the thief a gallows-loop, the fish its appointed net, the fox his destined hunter.

  BECAUSE WE HAVE made illustrious promises let us keep them albeit the earth quiver underfoot, since to be perceptibly swallowed and wholly to disappear is less dishonorable than egregious dissimulation. There is but one single instrument laboring mightily toward perfection, which is grace within the soul. Lies corrode a susceptible heart and the universe resembles a Harp or a Lute since every occurrence resonates elsewhere, as the son is known by his father.