Alchymic Journals

by Evan S. Connell

  BE DILIGENT, I have told Oporinus, because the mind proves adroit at generating monsters, since as we draw shapes upon canvas or wood and reconstruct our similitudes with marble so does the mind formulate basilisks which act against us—contriving aspects and molds of grim apprehension. But why? Because nature acts out of habit, she considers only one way suitable and from this she departs with reluctance to create aberrations. Why is this? We could as well ask what accounts for the soft and feline influence of the moon.

  I WOULD HAVE Oporinus learn how undines beneath the surface long for sunshine and how their magnetism contrives to pass through impregnable rock for the pleasure of gnomes. Nor should this be disputed, since we know all things aspire to consanguinity. All experience summer and have their winter, all know the taste of fruit.

  I SAY WE are kept from seeing aetherea by the fallibility of our senses and therefore the mind’s eye opens to assist these inadequate organs. Now this is most true with herbs or plants because they teach better lessons than stultified pedagogues pawing and braying from the rostrums of colleges. So have I taught Oporinus about this herb called Matuchiol yclept Heliotropium, which revolves according to the sun. If collected beneath the sign of Leo and wrapped in fescue or laurel and accompanied by the sharpened tooth of a wolf, then no man shall hear a single word uttered against him, only peaceable words. And if he fall asleep on this herb then he could not lose his property to a thief. Moreover, if this herb should be secreted in a chapel where women go that have slighted their vows with copulation—well, they cannot walk past. Or a woman that has clasped Urtica to her breast—she would not succumb to deleterious fancy. Also, there is an herb called Celandine which is gathered where swallows nest, or eagles, that if any man accept it together with a badger’s heart he will beat back enemies, annihilating them in argument. Furthermore this same herb if it be laid against a sick man’s brow—if he should die he would rise up singing with a great voice. Or the leaf of Periwinkle if eaten together by any man with his wife, they will lie down in love. This much is true and natural. But of the Mandrake which is alleged to groan or shriek when it is torn out of the earth, I am not persuaded. I do not claim to have heard this voice, albeit I listen for cries of anguish. I am positive that God has given to these herbs inexplicable virtues and powers which free men from infirmities to the end that they might sojourn a little longer. And I am convinced of how death itself cannot imagine the fatal circumstance, but strives eagerly and diligently in order that it may not overlook the appointed minute, proving obedient to its master.

  I HAVE SAID that all metals labor with disease, except gold which enjoys perfect health by the grace of elixir vitae. I have taught Oporinus how this metal is sweet and exhibits such goodly luster that multitudes would look toward gold instead of the generous sun overhead. In fixity or permanence this substance cannot be exceeded and therefore it must gleam incorruptibly, being derived from an imperial correspondence of primary constituents which makes it capable of magnifying every subject, of vivifying lepers, of augmenting the heart. Conceived by our gracious Lord, it is a powerful medicament. False gold, which is a simulacrum boasting no remedial virtue, assaults internal organs and therefore it should be abjured, since the alchymic physician repudiates meretricious matter. We must not keep true gold beyond its measure but distribute what we hold, allegorically reminding each man of an earthly choice he is obligated to make between damnation and bliss.

  OPORINUS LONGS TO know the components of imperative minerals. So do many dig deep yet glance by the royal vein, mistakenly posting their elevation against some shadow cast at daybreak. I have explained how seven metals coalesce in a private hour, which is the mystery of electrum and a source of corrective medallions, of sigils and bells to benefit the impropriator. Now, if a paralytic wears a ring pressed from this metal he will rise up and stagger away without assistance. Epileptics or spastics will recoup their faculties. Others also profit, because this substance defies corrupt or antipathetic regents while radiating and condensing the influence of host planets. That is why electrum was utilized by the Magi and Chaldeans. But I would teach Oporinus how men undo themselves in the egg which hatched them. So are they brought to assize.

  I HAVE WARNED my famulus to note how stars on their progress confer blessings. Still, like the mind they subject humanity to various deceits and provide less guidance than surpassing folly. Therefore, with sidereal phenomena infinite patience may be required to identify and solicit one unwavering light among fickle multitudes. And such is the legacy I would leave which I admonish him to respect, since whatever a man thinks or accomplishes, or what he teaches or what he hopes to learn, must have its right proportion. I say it must follow its line and hold within the circle to the end that nothing may exceed its circle, so that there be no crooked thing and the balance be preserved. Water rushes downhill full of desire to unite with the ocean. Heaven exhausts itself, new times come.

  NOW I AM grown old. It is useless to swim against a current, I will turn and go home. I will go to the place I know best—Einsiedeln—to the episcopal see on the tumultuous Salzach, and I will live in the corner house. I will return to the Hermitage where in the water sliding beneath my window I will see reflected the stones of Hohensalzburg fortress. It is time.

  NEVER HAVE I known Thy peace, Lord. I have not been touched. All of my life was I a pilgrim, a stranger. I was a stranger, alien, a pilgrim. So let there be sung the first and seventh and thirtieth psalms, and let a penny be given to a poor man by the door with each singing. Such is my will and testament who was christened to honor the Greek from Eresus—Tyrtamos. And I have descended from the soldier that was Conrad Bombast, feudal tenant to a count of Wirtemberg, and my father Wilhelm, who was no community bath-chirugeon but an illustrious doctor that got his licentiate at Tübingen. Aureolus am I nominated by feckless disciples licking my heels hoping to flatter me. And my members have been carved out by God with my conditions and properties and habits bequeathed from that in-breathing of life where things are awarded to men. I do not fear death. Has not the serpent Ourobouros sacrificed himself to himself for the birth of knowledge? Does not wisdom born of adversity dispel subsequent affliction? So much do I understand without understanding, who was christened Theophrastus von Hohenheim, because I would not argue the proceedings of God.

  ARRIVED THIS DAY out of emptiness some scrofulous itinerant with his remedy for universal mischief. Serious in aspect, pocked like one half-dead of plague, looped about his neck a green silk ribbon with three octangular medals displaying a new moon and the sun beneath an unfamiliar constellation whose relevance I could not guess. His clear pitiless eyes did not blink—consummate proof of a rogue without goodness to his being, on whose tongue the Lord’s Prayer would fester like monkshood. Should a man’s soul be scourged he may quote celestial spirits and make diagnoses, but as he shall depart from rectitude so must he be absent from paradise. Therefore my visitant was no physician.

  Rumors of a wandering magus . . .

  I REMEMBER THAT HE CAST NO SHADOW when he shuffled toward us fragrant as a dead mouse or a sulfur pit, rich in shabby rags grilled by the sun—one hand trembling, rachitic, putrescent, colorless eyes plucked out of yesterday’s corpse. Children whistled, dancing behind his back. Women held their skirts. Men stood bewildered and unquiet, worried over ambiguities contrary to reason in the pour of the light. If our gracious Lord be omniscient how should this contradiction be devised?

  BY SOME PRIVATE impenetrable sign he signaled to a familiar in the marketplace, so I reflect upon the ways men recognize and notify their equals. Do we frame ourselves at will?

  I WATCHED HIM at twilight scribble the name of a spectre with a seal in the hour of Mars which he gave to a crow and muttering over this bird he commanded it to be gone, whence followed from that region where it flew dreadful thunderclaps, evil clouds and rain and reddish phantoms in bursts of splendor, as though he brought a plurality of worlds.

  THEY SAY HIS journey began when he f
led his father’s house at the age of twelve like a butterfly tethered to a string, racked and furious—secreted inside the pommel of his sword that conducive white powder Laudanum—a child eunuch crowned with ivy and foxglove, surging irresistibly toward the ages. He was not engendered like other mortals, I think, nor would have it so. How else does one explain repetitive misfortune?

  I HAVE HEARD that by mystic intercourse with Jews, shepherds, barbers, Romanies, hangamen, acrobats, herbalists, geomants and minnesingers he drew forth knowledge. And each met quick welcome since not one but had a singular message to impart. Consort of rogues, peasants, tapsters, wheelwrights, thieves, jugglers and sectarians, at ease with the devout or impious, vulgar or learned, like some clumsy windy peevish draft-horse he drank, stamped, and belched along the highroad to reproach all that stood amazed. And the preservation of a tortured body some believe he confided to his mind.

  OPORINUS HAS TOLD me how he avoided women, that he disdained venery, but I hear he found good reason since he was gelded at a secluded place where three ways meet by an unknown hag while he was a youth. Thus he grew up impotent, emasculated. In his work he fulminated against women—cursing, spewing venomous hate—until at last overwhelmed with disappointment he returned to the village of his birth. There he scribbled and raged and denounced the world. In his forty-seventh year on a chimney corner bench of the White Horse Inn at Salzburg some swift complaint or miasma befell him and without a word he died, having three days previous dictated to the notary Hans Kalbsohr his last testament which I think was duly heard by five Salzburg men and one Steffan Waginger of Reichenthal, and the servant Clauss. His precious implements, palliatives and medical texts he bequeathed to a Salzburg doctor, Andree Wendl. Twelve guldens in coin he left to his executors, Georg Teyssenperger and Michael Setznagel. And to the six witnesses another twelve guldens each. It was the day of Saint Rupert’s festival when he died, which in that year fell upon Saturday. He chose to be laid where the poor are buried.

  THAT HE IS gone seems unnatural. Here was one that had urged gold out of idle brass, brought forth rejuvenating essences, and at his pleasure undertook commerce with witches, afreets and dwarfs while traveling from town to town on a white horse saddled by Beelzebub. Could such a magician disappear? Perhaps all things that we consign to loss are transmuted, otherwise they must vanish into nonentity. Then where should we search for remnants of generation? No doubt all complete their turn, yet I think that upon each dissolution we mark a new ascendant, a new beginning.

  I SUPPOSE ALL perishable things revert to their origin while the sentiments that had excited them perish also—possibly excluding the heart. I have been told of thieves who assaulted the master after a banquet, and robbed him and threw him over a cliff, which brought about his death. Yet others have said he drank a cup of powdered diamond. In any case I look for him to return since the integrity of his being corresponds to the unity of the world.

  I AM TOLD he wrote many books, although just five or six authentic manuscripts gray with mildew have been recovered from queer places—attics, cupboards, scuttles, hollow walls. Habent sua fata libelli. The unbounded torrent of his thought I could not appreciate. Concerning his sword, which disciple inherited such a rusty weapon? No matter. As in chiaroscuro where is the light without shadow?

  HE ASSERTED THAT alchymy was founded at that quadrivium where astronomy, philosophy, and ethics conjoin with our Noble Art—which prevails since it is suffused by sympathetic reflection. But if so, why do we persevere at enormities? Misapprehending the world, do we seize a broken ladder ascending from hell to a sanctuary overhead? If man is but halfway from an abyss why should he choose obstructions?

  SAY THE MAGISTERIUM has been explored, what remains occluded must be the nature of its progress—which cannot be described for upon it lies the seal of omnipotence prohibiting mankind from mighty acquisitions that harbor the lodestone of misuse. Bejeweled queens, sceptered regents, aged couples copulating, hermaphrodites, venomous serpents, fiery hoops, dismembered dragons, galloping horsemen, flowers, rams, wedding, divorce, calendars and citadels, regenerate salamanders, human corpses—thus have I heard the master testify to what was best or least within the fructifying vocabulary of symbol. Beset by angelic dreams, I think he was born to subdivide and cast the horoscope of our intransigent world.

  NOT UNTIL THE solution has been met with adequate proportion shall matters disclose themselves to the novitiate, he said. Hence, no man is entitled to complain that bitter misfortune has thrust him apart nor look to a bright wheel rising. No, we reimburse ourselves. Luck walks a crooked line, granted. Still, very much of what I hear I subject to long probation.

  THINGS HAVE BEEN left unfinished for their purpose, nothing can be complete, he said, stroking his bald head. Trees sprout individually, yet do not make boards alone, neither does clay left to itself become a finished pot, nor is mankind different. Say we look up to the firmament for guidance, what is there to apprehend our necessity? Toward the reaches of insensate chaos we exert ourselves without hope. Our lot is not three but one. So he spoke, and by such logic does evil intertwine with good.

  NOW SAY YOU were elevated to Knighthood, he proposed, of what value would be gilded spurs or a golden bridle? Of what use is authority that punishes and castigates—satisfied within itself to boast and revel or to feast and blow shining trumpets? Because heaven’s provenance was, is, and forever must be the heart, why should God look down to applaud vain pageants?

  WHAT IS HUMANITY, he asked, if not some barbarous exhibit? Dependent upon jewels, prototypes of miscreation desperate for accomplishment, avid, desirous, half-gowned in purple, offering philosophies cheaper than seaweed, what are we but painted walls agreeable to see which crumble rottenly within? Galled, fortuitous, mummers swallowing rhubarb and turbith, haled in pieces by envy, driven down headfirst to perdition and riveled, mice that selfishly snatch up another’s bread, do we not rake the earth to banquet on our cousin’s anguish? Glozing titles, are we more than apostles of useless discord with thundering bowels? So he discoursed, dragging one foot, weary and sick. I doubt that he could be persuaded to honor what others do. Deprived of rapture in a darkened universe, stripped of hope, he compared mortals to insentient insects which at the penultimate hour of life develop wings. As for evidence he cited none. Once I heard him say the Lion tawny with pride stands immaculate against the light, resplendent in gold. But of proof? Cetera desunt.

  DISCIPLES HE TAUGHT to examine Mercaba’s blistering chariot, the magnet of Helvetius, Aupuleius’ midnight moon—binding moral geography with foolish dreams. Let us extract from the rampant King rose-colored blood, from the ascendant Queen pale gluten that we might display the stone inscribed Tinctura Physicorum! Thus he skipped about lecturing, raving. Yet no likeness of himself did he bring to Cardan. Fomalhaut does not pronounce his fame nor will those resonant treatises find their way to ladies’ tables. Mayhap he thought it best to speak on the birthplace of Scolopendra, of how camerith burns, the flavor of Man, vapors and effluxions and aliment and the indelible colors of Egypt, of saxatilic spirits and six corners of the universe. On so much he chose to expound in lieu of court etiquette. Perhaps, like meat in the belly, life had lost its taste.

  I HEARD HIM discourse on a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela that had a great Bell cast from electrum out of which swarmed Apparitions which hurried to obey him when he rang this bell. Divers creatures stood forth—ghosts, animals and flying fish came attracted to the sound—but as not so many were employed this sorcerer dispersed them by uttering blasphemous syllables. In my judgment the master grew rapt with thaumaturgic allegory. I suspect he was born at eight months.

  HE SAID THAT instruction rings more agreeably than silver, wisdom weighs more heavily than gold, and this world is but a materiate transcript of some invisible pattern fabricated by God to recapitulate His spiritual universe—that we might altogether comprehend His teaching. And thus we watch heaven reflected in nature as though we watched it through a look
ing-glass. And so we pursue alchymic science not for mineral wealth but for the acquisition of knowledge, being always vigilant, quick to falsify or dissimulate lest prodigious mysteries be considered by insignificant men that might look upon our revelations with illiterate contempt. Magians from the past such as Porphyry, Pythagoras, Orpheus, Plato and the Cabalists—did they not enjoin mystification? Did not Jesus disguise truth with parable? But what counsel does such inquiry make? I am divided by doubt. Toward midnight did the master expose clawed hands?

  THAT HE KNEW the constituents of the Philosopher’s Stone seems undeniable, describing it as unlike rough stone nor any sort of gamaheus, except by puissant resistance to the activities of fire. All claim it resembles gold—inconceivably pure gold—being simultaneously immanent and incombustible with a delicate aspect. Neither gypsum nor galena nor hematite nor malachite nor potash nor alum nor sulfur nor any recognizable element may be detected, because it is sweet to the taste and indwelling, fragrant and unctuous and positive, therefore it must be fundamental. Many define it as consensitive with art, spiritual, tenuous, penetrative, indissolubly restorative, by such virtues urging lesser metals toward consummation. Yet to say of it that it is materiate or incorporate would negate its value. Except for a human soul the Stone appears our noblest agent of restitution, which is why at the time of this beneficence all mankind shall clap hands in unison. So said the master. But the days of hermetic chymists are differently reckoned, being more or less than common days.