Alchymic Journals

by Evan S. Connell

  divellicate: to tear apart, break off

  dross: the scum that forms on the surface of molten metal

  effluvium (pl., effluvia): something especially subtle and invisible that flows out or issues forth

  endogenous: growing from or on the inside

  eremetic: like a hermit or recluse

  esurient: hungry, voracious, greedy

  eunuch: a castrated man; Paracelsus was rumored to be one; he expressed little or no interest in women throughout his life

  fabulist: one who makes fables; a storyteller, or one who invents falsehoods

  famulus: a private secretary or attendant, especially for a scholar or magician

  febrile: of or pertaining to fever

  florin: an old gold coin first struck at Florence in 1252 weighing about 54 grams and noted for the purity of its gold

  frangible: capable of being broken

  fructify: to bear fruit, become fruitful

  fustiness: mustiness; a stale-smelling state

  Galen (c. 129–199 A.D.): Greek physician; considered founder of experimental physiology; last great scientist of antiquity, courtier of rank, and the fashionable doctor of imperial Rome; demonstrated that arteries carry blood, not air; believed in the theory of the four humors of the body; of his many theories, about one hundred are extant; his works were accepted for many centuries as authoritative in Greek, Roman, and Arabic medical practice; Paracelsus violently attacked Galen’s ideas because he believed that absolute acceptance of them was hindering medical progress

  gasconade: a boast or a bluster

  geomant: one who practices divination by means of configurations of earth or by means of figures derived from even or odd numbers of dots jotted down hastily at random

  gnostic: an adherent of Gnosticism, the thought and practice of any of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries; Gnosticism was declared heretical by the Church and chiefly distinguished by the pretension to mystic and esoteric religious insights and by emphasis on knowledge rather than faith

  grimoire: a grammar book of witchcraft, or a magician’s manual for invoking demons and spirits of the dead

  Hermes Trismegistus: Hermes thrice greatest, a Greek version of the Egyptian god Thoth, identified as founder of occult science, first noted in 150 B.C.

  hermetic: relating to or dealing with occult science, especially alchemy from Hermes Trismegistus

  hermeticism: a system that incorporates both theory and magical practice, with the latter presented as natural and therefore good magic, in contrast to the evil magic of sorcery or witchcraft

  homunculus: a “little man”; Paracelsus was said to have fathered a “little man” without the aid of a woman

  ichor: the ethereal fluid, not blood, supposed to flow in the veins of the gods; a watery, acrid discharge from certain wounds and sores

  insalubrity (pl., insalubrities): something not conducive to health

  joskin: a bumpkin

  kabbalists (or cabbalists): followers of Jewish Neoplatonism of the Middle Ages; originated in Gnosticism and the apocalyptic writings of the first century A.D.; popular during Paracelsus’s time

  kickshaw: something dainty or elegant, but unsubstantial, frivolous

  Kunckel von Löwenstjern, Johann (1630?–1702): German chemist who discovered processes for making artificial ruby glass and preparing phosphorus; studied putrefaction, fermentation, and the nature of salts

  lapidify: to become or to make into stone

  laudanum: a tincture of opium

  legerdemain: sleight of hand; jugglery; conjuring tricks

  limbus: a border or an edge

  lincture: a syrupy medicine to be licked up with the tongue

  lodestone: an imaginary stone; a magnetic oxide of iron; a piece of this used as a magnet; something that attracts

  luculent: full of light, bright, shining

  Lull (Llull), Ramon (c. 1235–1316): Catalan mystic, philosopher, poet, and missionary; reared at court of Majorca, where he wrote troubadour poetry; experienced mystical visions (c. 1263), abandoned courtly life, and devoted himself to philosophy and missionary work; traveled throughout Asia Minor and North Africa attempting to convert Muslims; according to legend, he was stoned to death at Bougie; as a philosopher, he was influenced by Neoplatonic Augustinianism and opposed Averroism; his chief work, Ars magna, set out his theosophical attempt to encompass all knowledge in a Neoplatonic schema and to resolve all religious differences and establish a tranquil world

  magi (sing., magus): Zoroastrian priests or members of a hereditary priestly class among the ancient Medes and Persians, whose doctrines included belief in astrology

  magisterium: the Church’s teaching power or function

  malapert: presumptuous, impudent, saucy

  mandrake: a Mediterranean herb with whitish or purple flowers having emetic and narcotic properties; with its forked root, it resembles the human form

  manumit: to release from slavery; to set free

  marcasites: crystallized forms of iron pyrites used in the eighteenth century for ornaments

  mucor: a fungus belonging or allied to the genus Mucor, originally including all molds

  nacreous: consisting of or resembling mother-of-pearl

  Nilotic: of or relating to the Nile or the peoples of the Nile basin

  nitre: a supposed nitrous substance or element occurring especially diffused through the air

  numinous: relating to a spirit believed by animists to inhabit a natural object or phenomenon; of or relating to a dynamic or creative force or an unseen but majestic presence that inspires both dread and fascination and constitutes the nonrational element characteristic of vital religion

  obnubilate: to make cloudy of mind; to cover or obscure by or as if by clouds

  ontogeny: the history or science of the development of the individual

  orpiment: a bright yellow mineral substance, the trisulfide of arsenic, also called yellow arsenic, naturally occurring in soft masses resembling gold in color; also known as king’s gold

  Ourobouros: the tail-eating serpent, a symbol of the unity of matter

  palliative: something that lessens, abates, or eases without curing

  phial: a vessel for holding liquids; a small glass bottle, especially for liquid medicine

  philosopher’s stone: an imaginary stone, substance, or chemical preparation believed to have the power of transmuting the baser metals into gold; much sought after by alchemists

  phlogiston: the hypothetical principle of fire or inflammability regarded by the early chemists as a material substance

  piebald: of different colors, or composed of incongruent parts

  pillory: a wooden framework erected on a post or pillar, having holes through which the head and hands of an offender were thrust, in which state the offender was exposed to public ridicule and molestation

  Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.): Roman naturalist, revered encyclopedist of antiquity; known today as an uncritical collector of factual reports and tall tales

  Plotinus (205–270 A.D.): chief exponent of Neoplatonism; philosopher of Roman parentage born in Egypt

  porphyry: a beautiful and very hard rock quarried anciently in Egypt, composed of crystals of white or red feldspar embedded in a fine red groundmass

  protyle: proposed name for the hypothetical original undifferentiated matter, of which the chemical substances provisionally regarded as elements might be composed

  pseudologue: a pathological liar

  puissant: of great force or vigor

  putrescent: becoming putrid

  Quintum Esse (quintessence): the first principle of Paracelsus’s doctrine; involves the extraction of the quintessence, or philosophical mercury, from every material body; if the quintessence were drawn from each animal, plant, and mineral, the combined result would equal the universal spirit, or “astral body” in human beings, and a draught of the extract would renew youth

  rachitic: relating t
o or affected by rickets

  refulgence: the quality of shining with, or reflecting, a brilliant light; radiant, resplendent, gleaming

  rennet: a mass of curdled milk found in the stomach of an unweaned calf or other animal and used to curdle milk for cheese making; anything used to curdle milk

  Rhases, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya, or Razi (c. 865–923 or 935 A.D.): Persian physician and philosopher considered the greatest physician of the Islamic world; chief physician of hospitals in Rayy and Baghdad; believed in atomist theory of nature; wrote numerous treatises in medicine, especially a survey of Greek, Syrian, and early Arabic medicine and a treatise on smallpox and measles, on philosophy, and on alchemy; some of his works were translated into Latin and had great influence on medical science in the Middle Ages

  roil: to roam or to agitate

  rubefaction: the process of heating to redness

  salammoniac: ammonium chloride

  sapient (sapientia): wisdom; Paracelsus used the term to mean science and philosophy; he believed that knowledge is attained by experience, that wisdom lies hidden in all beings

  scolopendra: a fabulous sea fish; a centipede or millipede

  scrivener: professional penman; scribe, copyist

  scrofulous: afflicted with swellings of the lymph glands of the neck

  sectarian: an adherent of a particular religious sect; confined to the limits of one religious group; limited in character or scope

  secundine: afterbirth; in botany, second of two coats or integuments of an ovule

  selenite: a stone described by ancient writers, now considered a mineral; a moonstone supposed to wax or wane with the moon

  seraphic: resembling a seraphim, which in biblical use is a six-winged living creature with hands and feet and a presumably human voice; seen in Isaiah’s vision as hovering above the throne of God; by Christian interpreters, the highest class of angels of the nine orders; from the Hebrew root word meaning “to burn,” seraphim are specially distinguished by their fervor of love and by the symbolic use of red as the color appropriate to them in artistic representations

  sextile: astrologically, the aspect of two heavenly bodies that are 60 degrees (or one-sixth part of the zodiac) distant from each other

  sidereal body: “astral body”; a part of the human body, consisting of fire and air, that receives the impressions of “the stars” and is responsible for the body’s vital motions

  sigil: a sign, word, or device of supposed occult power in astrology or magic

  simulacrum (pl., simulacra): an image (of a god, etc.) to which honor or worship is rendered

  sophistry: reasoning that is deceptive

  sophists: pseudoscientists who lead the public astray by many ingenious words, and especially physicians who deceive their patients

  spagyri (adj., spagyric): alchemists

  stibnite: native trisulfide of antimony; “gray antimony,” the most common ore of the metal

  sublimation: the chemical action or process of converting a solid substance by means of heat into vapor, which resolidifies on cooling

  sublunary: existing or situated beneath the moon; belonging to this world, earthly

  succedaneum: a substitute; a drug frequently of inferior efficacy substituted for another

  succubus (pl., succubi): a demon in female form supposed to have carnal intercourse with men in their sleep; a demon, an evil spirit

  talisman: a stone, a ring, or another object engraved with figures or characters to which are attributed the occult powers of the planetary influences and celestial configurations under which it was made; usually worn as an amulet to avert evil from, or bring fortune to, the wearer; also used medicinally to impart healing virtue; hence, any object held to be endowed with magic virtue, a charm

  tapster: one employed to dispatch liquors in a barroom

  taradiddle: a colloquial euphemism for a lie or fib

  telluric: of or relating to the earth; something containing tellurium, a semimetallic element related to sulfur and selenium

  tenebrous: shut off from the light or hard to understand; dark, murky

  terraqueous: consisting of, or formed of, land and water; living in land and water, as a plant

  Thales (625–547 B.C.): Greek philosopher and scientist. One of the seven wise men of Greece; gained fame in his own day by predicting an eclipse of the sun for May 28, 585 B.C.; considered the father of Greek philosophy by Aristotle; taught that water, or moisture, was the one element from which the world was formed

  thaumaturgic: performing miracles

  theriac: an antidote to poison, especially to the bite of a venomous snake

  tincture: a dye; any fluid that can bring about a transmutation; also, a fluid occult remedy

  trine: threefold, triple; astrologically denoting the aspect of two heavenly bodies that are a third part of the zodiac (i.e., 120 degrees) distant from each other; figuratively: favorable or benign

  turbith: a mineral, basic sulfate of mercury

  turgid: swollen, distended, puffed out; in reference to language: inflated, grandiloquent, pompous, bombastic

  Ultima Thule: ancient Greek or Latin name for a land six days’ sail north of Britain, which the Greek historian Polybius (c. 200–118 B.C.) supposed to be the most northerly region of the world; the extreme limit of travel and discovery; the highest or uttermost point or degree attained or attainable

  umbratile: carried on in seclusion, or of an insubstantial nature

  unction: the action of anointing with oil as a religious rite or symbol

  unguent: an ointment or a salve

  velleity: the fact or quality of merely willing, wishing, or desiring without any effort or advance toward action or realization

  venery: pursuit of, or indulgence in, sexual pleasures

  vermifuge: serving to destroy or expel parasitic worms, especially of the intestine

  Villa Nova, Arnold di (c. 1235–1312): Catalan physician, astrologer, alchemist; taught at Barcelona, Montpellier, Paris; counselor to Pope Clement V; discovered poisonous property of carbon monoxide and of decayed meat

  vitreous: related to or consisting of glass

  vitriol: one or another of various native or artificial sulfates of metals used in the arts or medicinally, especially iron sulfate

  Whitsunday: White Sunday, probably from the custom of wearing white robes by the newly baptized