English
Nothing tends more forcibly than an appreciative study of the alchemists to make us also appreciate at its true worth the blind conceit that has passed current for intelligence in the latter half of this expiring century. I will now take an example of more obscure alchemical writing from Thomas Vaughan’s ‘Aula Jucis.” Vaughan wrote generally under the name Eugenius Philalethes in the middle of the seventeenth century. THE THEOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 385 Some writers, he says, at the outset have rather buried the truth than dressed it. He proposes to observe a mean way, neither too obscure nor too open, but modern readers will probably conceive that he was principally careful not to be too open. Of the philosopher’s stone —-the Divine spirit required to transmute the lower nature of man, he says, ‘“‘It is a subtile mineral moisture, a water so extremely thin and spiritual, with such a transcendent incredible brightness there is not in all Nature any liquor like it, but itself. . . . I say they called it a stone to the end that no man might know what it was they called so.’ Of the “ first matter” which he says may be described by contraries without inconvenience—very weak and yet most strong, fire that burns not, water that wets not, and so on—he proceeds to discourse at length, calling it mercury, the laughter of fools and the wonder of the wise. This is here evidently intended to represent the conscience ; spiritual aspiration in the incarnate man; the first influence of the Higher Self in the physical conscious- ness. Then varying the metaphor he calls the subject of which he is discoursing “our sealed fountain.” “In the bottom of this well lies an old dragon stretched along and fast asleep. Awake her if you can and make her drink, for by this means she will recover her youth and be serviceable to you for ever. In a word separate the eagle from the green lyon, then clip her wings and vou have performed a miracle. . . . The eagle is the water, for it is volatile and flies up in the clouds as an eagle doth; but I speak not of any common water whatsoever. ‘The greene lion is the body or BB 386 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. magicall earth with which you must clip the wings of the-eagle, that is to say, you must fix her so that shee may fly no more.” Most assuredly the constantly wavering and fluctuating allegories of the alchemists do not lend themselves readily to any direct translation into plain language, but it is none the less obvious that Vaughan is speaking here of the higher psychic faculties which may be taught to acquire consciousness on some superior spiritual plane of Nature, while still keeping up their relations with the bodily consciousness. In a very fantastic treatise of the eighteenth century, called “‘ The Hermetical Triumph,” the usual warning is given very emphatically in the course of a dialogue between ‘‘Gold” and ‘The Stone.’ Gold is per- sistently maintaining the materialistic view of the science, and The Stone is continually reiterating such ideas as these :— “But when they—the true philosophers—plainly name gold and mercury as the principles of their art. they only make use of these terms thereby to hide the knowledge from the ignorant, and from those who are unworthy, for they very well know that such vulgar wits mind only the names of things, the receipts, and the processes which they find written, without examining whether there be any solid foundation in what they put into practice. But the wise men consider all things with prudence, examine how consonant and how agreeing one thing is with another, and by these means they penetrate into the foundation of the art.” The extracts given so far I have selected myself from the various books referred to; but similar quota- THE THEOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 387 tions in greater volume might be taken at second hand from either of two books of more recent date which are directed to an exposition of the true meaning and mystery of the Hermetic or alchemical art. To these books I would now refer all who are desirous of pursuing the subject further, and of obtaining a complete grasp of the principles I have roughly laid down. The first and most important is of great rarity, and has, I believe, been as far as possible withdrawn from circulation by the author, under the impression that its explanation sinned too much against the rule, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.” The full title of this work is “ A Sug- gestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery; with a Dissertation on the more celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers, being an attempt towards the recovery of the ancient experiment of Nature.’ The treatise was published anonymously in 1850. It contains a very interesting mass of testimony concerning the cases in which some of the true alchemists—those who by their own spiritual growth had first become adepts in the manipulation of the hidden forces of Nature—have actually accomplished the physical experiment of alchemy, so vainly attacked by all those who were not adepts ; and it also goes at great length into the more esoteric view of the subject, furnishing, in connexion with a very extensive review of alchemical literature, abundant quotations bearing out the spiritual signi- ficance of the whole allegory. Amongst other extracts it supplies us with a trans- ation of the Tractatus Aureus, or golden treatise of 388 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. Hermes, concerning the physical secret of the Philoso- pher’s Stone, which it says “ has been considered to be one of the most ancient and complete pieces of alchemical writing extant,’ and “an exposition in epitome of the whole art.”’ This is not what would be considered in the present day a luminous treatise. As for example, we read :— ‘Know, then, that the division that was made upon the water by the ancient philosophers separates it into four substances: one into two and three into one, the third part of which is colour, as it were, a coagu- lated moisture; but the second and third waters are the weights of the Wise.” Still, however, even in the Tractatus Aureus we come constantly upon the usual warnings that we know how to interpret. Thus :— “Know that this matter I call the stone; but it is also named the feminine of magnesia, or the hen, or the volatile milk, or the incombustible oil, in order that it may be hidden from the inept and the ignorant.” Again :— “Ye sons of Wisdom, burn then the Brazen Body with an exceeding great fire, and it will yield gratefully what you desire. And see that you make that which is volatile so that it cannot fly, and by means of that which flies not.” Here we have merely another version of Vaughan’s Green Lion and Eagle—a veiled reference to the possi- bilities connected with the cultivation of the higher psychic faculties. Apparently without having come across the Sugges- THE THEOSOPHY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 389 tive Inquiry, an American writer, named Hitchcock, published a little book in 1857—an amplification of a small pamphlet on the same subject, written two years previously, called ‘“‘ Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists.” The remainder of a somewhat old- fashioned title-page foreshadows the convictions which the author proceeds to set forth. He describes his book as “ Indicating a method of discovering the true nature of Hermetic Philosophy, and showing that the search after the Philosopher’s Stone had not for its object the discovery of an agent for the transmutation of metals. Being also an attempt to rescue from undeserved opprobrium the reputation of a class of extraordinary thinkers in past ages.” At the outset of the book itself he says the object of his original pamphlet was to throw out an idea with which he had become strongly impressed, that the Philosopher’s Stone was a mere symbol, and that the alchemists were not in pursuit of gold but wisdom, carefully and conscientiously leaving the latter word undefined. This pamphlet having been violently and stupidly attacked in the Westminster Review, in 1856 the author came forward with a renewed justification of his argument, and this expanded into the book now before us. “I affirm,” he says, ‘‘ that the whole subject of Alchemy is Man. But each writer for the most part designates him by a word of his own choosing, hence one writes of antimony, another of lead, another of zimc, another of arsenic.” And he quotes one of the alchemical writers as saying, ‘‘ The work while yet crude is called our water permanent, our lead, our Saturn, our Jupiter; when 390 THE GROWTH OF THE SOUL. better decocted, then it is argent, then magnesia and white sulphur; when it is red it is called auri-pigment coral, gold, ferment, or stone, a lucid water of celestial colour.’’ 5 Mr. Hitchcock’s pursuit of these intricate metaphors through the mazy wanderings of the two hundred separate alchemical books which he tells us he has accumulated, is very interesting and instructive. And I cannot understand how any reader of any reflective intelligence can follow him to the end and fail to be convinced that he is on the right track of interpretation. Mr. Hitchcock has not been occultist enough to divine all that resides in the alchemical philosophy, but although the Theosophist of the present generation, if he has taken advantage of all the opportunities held out to him, is in a position to see much more in alchemy than even Mr.