Alchymic Journals

by Evan S. Connell

  I THINK HE considered the monarchy of the mind to be his—pretending he never praised himself, although nature did because he was born of her and followed her directorate. He said we visit twelve ineffable cities, nevertheless no place belongs to us. Small use had I for such a tumbling cataract of mystification. Arrogance seemed his watchword. He said there lay buried at Friaul a topaz so rich that neither Carolus nor Leo could buy it despite their wealth. From his perch on a bird-limed twig he declaimed, scourging mankind, racked by his obligation to testify. Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur.

  HE SPOKE OF Umbratiles which are but distant shadows grown tangible, and of primary spirits—Xeni Nephidei which bite and guzzle the brains of men. He inquired if salvation may be had through fasting or lip-prayer, if beatings and black drapes be good, or if it be true that upon the dung marsh of hypocrisy faith flourishes. I thought he boasted over-much. Being taken by himself he neglected to distinguish rectitude from the dignity of ideals. In my opinion he regarded the title Heretic a stamp of honor—if truth begins as heresy.

  NEITHER TITLES NOR eloquence do we require, he said, nor an insidious tongue nor familiarity with saffron myths on painted scrolls, but patience to disengage difficulties until matters disclose their essence without opposition, because the most subtle understanding outweighs mountains.

  TO THE COMMONEST argument of life he seemed indifferent. Years of reflective solitude had so disordered him that oftentimes when he spoke he made meager sense—stumbling, hesitating—as if that valedictory elocution habitual to pedagogues conflicted with the repository of his mind. I have heard him compared to a man born in the Dark Ages for those cunning perceptions of life—anxious, lacerated. But I judged him renascent because of his high conviction that we were meant to engender something new.

  NEVER DID I see him submit to idleness or stroll about lost in a proud cloak, wearing plush and gray velvet with Moresque rings circling both thumbs, and gloves, while a dagger jiggled at his thigh, but he would labor diligently, and at night he sweated beside the furnace instead of promenading. And he wore a leathern garment with a pouch, with an apron foul as the devil’s arse, thrusting his fingers into horse dung, coal and lute, surprising us not with emeralds. He was a dirty man. Black as a blacksmith or collier, sooty in countenance, reeking full of scales, he did not gossip to patients and vaunt feeble remedies but swore the work glorified the workman, not vice-versa. Swollen tight with vanity he would pump his ancient bellows to undertake the magisterial yet tenebrous concept of reverberation, putrefaction, extraction, calcination, final projection, reduction and the like. None came to touch this vagrant insensible to muddy craving, estranged by some immortal curse. I never heard him laugh.

  A VARIETY OF little pills in aspect and color and size resembling mouse turds he concocted which were Opium—called after the name of a white medicament locked in the pommel of his sword, which he would prescribe for dysentery, spasm, night-walking, excrescence and similar complaints. Fame of a sort accompanied such treatment, but I suspect the voyage on which he embarked meant little to esurient apprentices. And that any physician should foist doubtful analeptics upon suffering patients caused medicasters to vilify him for contravening established usage. On account of this, I believe, whenever the unremitting progress of loathsome disease yielded to his magistery like the morning star acceding to daylight—noting as much, they despised him and crept about whispering how he was a greasy castrate fornicating with cacodemons past midnight and therefore he should be strangled. The word Azoth he had engraved on his great flat sword—a synonym for Mercurius which is the sovereign panacea gathering strength from others, Alpha to Omega.

  I HEAR OF knotted ecclesiarchs who charge him for submission and obeisance to Lucifer’s command with the aid of mineral fire—which may be. Also, it is said he fathered an homunculus without the cooperation of a woman. That he visited Byzantium on his journey to converse with infidels and purchase secrets goes unquestioned. I am told he gave orders on his deathbed that his body be quartered and buried with manure. Afterward, as it was exhumed, the parts miraculously had grown together and I have heard that but for the nervousness of a disciple hurrying to complete this wicked rite the master would have awakened. I do not know. I am sure only that had I listened further to the torrent of his mind I would be lost.

  THIS WORLD HE compared to a distillatory moulded by two hands upon which prototype physicians model alembics whose purpose is similar—healing and synopsis. I think he was borne past the frame of things. In my judgment the shadows of his mind traveled farther than himself.

  HE WOULD HAVE us composed of two forms, one from the earth and one derived from the universe. He said the first, being elemental, subsides and divellicates, whereas the celestial flows back subtly toward its source, as the spirit happily returns to Him whose image it was. Therefore each chooses that medium from whence it issued. So, I think, do we fail to perceive but become a thing perceived. By some such path does light gain access to the soul.

  HE SAID THAT we partake of ourselves as one envisaging Gold approximates its essence, or imagining Fire calls up himself toward revenge. And so we are sustained among discrepancies since the probity of our meditations cannot be disregarded. But is an end more than its commencement displayed, manifest and wrought out? For if not, then the end must be generated among obscure beginnings.

  I PROPOSED THAT if we do not enter into an understanding of ourselves, and of those fallibilities which enchant us, how should we explain what is meant by a theology of Fall and Regeneration, or presume to liberate ignoble substance from its original curse? Attila, Theodoric, and the tyrant of Padua, Ezzelino de Romano, gained strength from Satan’s loins, just as Cain was born to Eve by a visiting incubus. If he heard, I know not. He answered by saying that mortal and immortal things never were intended to embrace nor touch nor dwell together.

  DOES PERFECTION EXPRESS itself as unity? Beneath what shape shall we cast off malice? If sulfur should represent nature is the supernatural evoked by mercury? What is burning Sol but the infinite conservatory of man? How are five imperfect minerals transmuted? Iron, copper, tin, lead, quicksilver—how are they reconstituted? What alters them into alchymic gold? Lacking the breath of divinity, where do we separate good from evil? I do not know. Having studied without hope or resolution or faith, I approached the master who replied that out of all created subjects we have declared ourselves epitome, believing we were meant to secure universalities so that we would not confound things with their neighbors—because we grow toward completion externally. And for this we should anticipate no recourse since we were designated microcosm which carries heaven from its onset. And he said that because of abhorrent acts men commit there is savagery about the Lord. But fidelity cannot be divided or mixed.

  HOW SHALL WE be distinguished from Cain who was driven out of a society he once enjoyed, tossed by unconscionable wind forward and backward, imperiled at every pause? Do we not lament and weep and groan and complain upward to providence while journeying through merciless kingdoms? Or in counting our possessions do we not wonder that superior texts teach opacities? Or how should extremities be joined, except by medians? Or what man was born free while enslaved to flesh? Indolent students would lap up truth at once, he said, like dogs filling their bellies from the Rhine.

  BEING ASKED IF knowledge may controvert metaphysic, he said that the former can be but a digest of experience—threads drawn to various aspects. And while our Lord God has resolved to hide many things from us, they must at last be discovered since we are born with a rage to know.

  HOW COULD THE fabric of theology be woven in a day? Learning deploys from loom to loom, he said, out of Byzantium and Syria to Latinate Europe, therefore mutuality is guaranteed. Enigma precedes enigma.

  HOW IS IT that private magic inhabits all? Flint must hold some fiery essence or spirit because sparks appear, jubilant with motion. But why? From nine every morning until mid-day what makes the chickweed flower upright? Following the ra
in what makes it pendant? How do we gain by seeing gold branch within the retort? Are we left much wiser than before? Still we must ask the name of a water that does not wet the hand, identify the wingless bird, decipher messages whitely written on stone. So a promise stands before our eyes. Ante oculos stabat quidquid promiserat annus.

  WE HAVE WATCHED the pelican feed her offspring new blood drawn from herself by angrily pecking at her own breast—the nacreous parent providing sustenance for its young. We observe the monarch delivering himself of vile matter, base, foul, dust and spittle, matter overlooked, divers powder. How is this? Rigorous inquiries oblige us to dream no less than Mikoiaj Kopernik’s drawing set heaven ablaze with heresy impossible to extinguish. Does harmony result from the analogy of opposites? Our thoughts dart and rush like haddock swarming in springtime that surge to and fro. We wonder how God—if He is an incomprehensible, infinite, eternal light—should manifest His presence to the world except as light.

  METALS WHICH BURN and give up harmoniac to the aether become calx, yet their metallic virtues will reappear if charcoal containing sufficient harmoniac is supplied. Hence we understand how iron rusts, because what is rust except iron from which atomic consonance was extracted? What is salvation but man rescued from obliquity?

  WHY SHOULD MOSS accumulating on the skull of a corpse acquire magnetic strength exceeding that of vegetables and herbs? Because wisdom steadily flows from mummial marrow, because mankind first held the seed of heaven. Thus the skull’s shape must be our universe reproduced in miniature, diminished by suffering. To what purpose then do we overlook that rare conjunction, trafficking in useless wealth from star to star?

  DO FRAGILE PARTICLES grow agitated by our proximity? I believe they do because not one of us exists alone, so all objects must be subject to another’s posture. Then, as now, we are tied up with reciprocal currents. Yet if we were intended to embrace the moon, the sun, the planets and migrant stars, why should we embrace chaos within?

  PROBLEMS TRY THE intelligence. Through prismatic crystal I have directed beams of sunlight, marveling ignorantly at the result since the proximity of light’s vital elixir eludes the most ingenious box built to catch its animus. I feel troubled and dismayed by such compulsive liberty. I find many things that transpire below are but a diurnal reflection of majesties overhead. Now my left eye, being secular, cagastric, carnal, I will close and keep closed while my other eye, being iliastric, looks to eternity. But is this wise? If imagination turns wherever I want, how should the course of my gaze be altered?

  GRANTED THE ADMINISTRATION of our Lord, why am I distraught? Deo adjuvante, non timendum. Divinity burgeons in the heart. What is gold if not an itinerant ray of sunlight solidified? I have seen how sunshine acts against the earth, compounding metals until they sprout like crocus since everything below obtains sustenance from above. Have not diamonds multiplied in long-abandoned pits? Hence we look downward to fertility in an underground kingdom, to eternal life painting the dust. I perceive in this a mysterious arrangement of logic, albeit I know not the method. I labor at holy questions.

  I HAVE SEEN the fecund seed separate and divide itself, disintegrating, dissolving, renouncing its existence to provide a nutritious matrix for the growing plant. Does this argue that corruption leads to fulfillment? I am bound by a circumference of mystery.

  WITH WHAT GRATITUDE we look upward from ordure in the street to the glory of cathedrals, yet why is not the opposite true? Where does the dominion of conscience fall? I would inquire, but every question leads to another more paradoxical, more tenebrous. Bernard de Clairvaux, governed by his respect for the universe, sought refuge in contemplative restrictions. Anticipating guidance, I wait. I think the mind is embryonic, accumulating strength while it seeks perfection.

  DAME HILDEGARD HAS extolled humanity’s deeds for influencing celestial light while the master speaks of stellar excrement that illuminates summer evenings. Nevertheless, both define the truth as a fertilized egg. How is it that both disregard the issue? Is not the body woven of starlight? Are we conceived in water only to rise screaming against the air? I see no deliverance outside the Church. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

  NOTHING EXISTS THAT was not a consideration of our Lord, said the master, but I am weary of mysteries, of spirals. I am weary from gathering them in, I am sick. I am unsure what to think. I cannot climb up to heaven, I grow afraid of the South Sea. I know not what I am.

  SUPPOSE THE ROYALTY I invoke is but some sliding element, then is the universe unstable? Should a tree overflowing with fertility provide shade for pilgrims? Is transient good sufficient? How did the allegoric labor of Hercules fulfill philosophy’s secret? Were not Helen born to Venus would she yet be a whore? Does the moon engender lunatics? Is not the avowed purpose of each hierophant to fabricate ultimate metal from blemished, penultimate matter? Adepts proliferate, plants decay. Demons meddle beneath the glory of provocative constellations and I am but a simple novice drowning. Still I praise God.

  WATER DISPERSES ACROSS the multi-colored surface of earth, it takes up the hue and flavor of that area where it rests. So does man absorb his fundament and neglects to distinguish each thing from the next—awarding to multitudinous items equivocal shape or latitude, like a poor navigator unable to descry safe land who foolishly persists against the rim, content with one expanse.

  OUR EYES WE trust to describe what we see, our ears to interpret noise, while lesser senses similarly enact their part. Nonetheless what was heard or seen, or otherwise apprehended, must prove erroneous because we rule mistakenly. Even as the testament of Thesaurus Philosophiae declares, what we would consider self-evident is but a malicious distortion so that we grovel and writhe through perpetual darkness, indifferent to heaven except as it rains or blows.

  HAVE WE BEEN so registered that we must twist and complain, riveled of understanding, equivalent to beasts that perish ignorant? Blessed we call those resident mercuries of occult and imperial craft since without them we would be restricted to shallow sensitivities. Therefore the Jew, Philo, explains how God presides above mortal cogitation as though He dwelt in a palace. Dixit et facta sunt.

  THROUGH STAGES OF flux we plummet—dizzily revolving corks that whirl around a watery vortex—incapable of resisting our own volition yet quick and anxious to explain anagrams secured within the closet of matter, redefining symmetries that are but the meanest crust of nature. Thus has Vaughan, the Welshman, decried humanity as presumptuous or ludicrous for attempting to weigh jewels concealed in a cabinet.

  VALENTINUS ASKS WHAT are the circumstances of a thing, considering both form and matter, if neither principle nor ambience may be gathered except by rigorous trial. Yet what could be more ostentatious, more vainglorious than subjecting God’s counsel to doubt? His dimensions, being infinite, can be comprehended by our Lord alone. But I am a neophyte with moderate understanding, adrift on a limitless ocean.

  EIRENAEUS WOULD HAVE us grasp and plunge into bottomless quicksilver that which simulates gold, whose centrality cannot be revealed either below or above save by its own revelation—which I take for the center rising everywhere whose circumference bends the light. This seems admirable, implying still higher perfection.

  PLOTINUS ASKS HOW we should conceive of the illimitable. What is its idiom? How might such an image be entertained without unreason? Accordingly did he investigate himself as one among the order of beings—this reality attested by his reminiscence. Isolated by the unyielding strength of intellectual resolve from externals, gently subsiding toward the deeps of mortal rectitude, he enabled himself to apprehend a most commendable beauty and became certain that the matter of his life was excellent, more specific, more cognizant than that of trees and fishes. So to this without intermission he directed his thought.

  I ASK MYSELF if there be unequivocal truths for humanity, just as with animals a single leader is selected to reign undisputed and as the kingly sun would repudiate a rival. I think it must be the provenance of intellect to decide by ad
judication which verities to clasp, which to reject, among the plenitude of falsehoods. Is not mystery round and close? Are not men eversible, predestined to off-set obnubilities? Yet are they favored with holy bones?

  I HAVE THOUGHT on how Man loiters outside wisdom’s vestibule when I behold him chart progressions from privacy to acclaim, out of mineral accomplishment to diurnal usage—as do Turks that aspire to Paradise fall tumbling in the muck with hogs. Praise be to God, we grasp the glittering sword of knowledge to split asunder our philosophic Egg and disclose the matrix where prominent metals achieve their maturities among rock. We watch cinnabar grow into lead, graduating next to silver and continuing upward to fulfillment. So do all in extremis disclose their ambition. All speak with a loud voice.

  DOES THE MIND seize opportunities according to its purpose? Betimes have I met chymists ready to jest at transmutation, but they do not answer when asked to justify vitreous logs or petrified forests. Narrow clerics and such-like chymists I abhor, that nigrify a realm with prejudice. If the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ manifests itself out of substance like bread and wine, metallic reformation seems inevitable. If one element acquires new form, what prohibits the rest?

  LOUTS AND FOOLS and rustics may jeer at the hierophantic language of metaphysicians or denounce occult pharmacies as some crippled science because, lacking true guidance, they think such learning inconceivable. So do they mock Lingua Adamica which is the language all servants of God understand, by which they are summoned. So does gnostic fortune ebb or flow. How could the wisest proceed upward if not through transcendental art?