Chapter VIII: Appendix: 307 (6)

In 1585 we find them at Prague, then the metropolis of alchemy, and the headquarters of adepts and adeptship. Edward Kelly and his companions presently abounded in money, and the owner of the Hermaic Benediction made no secret of his prize or his powers, indulged in all kinds of extravagance, performed continual projections for himself and his friends, as well as for many persons of distinction who sought his acquaintance. Much of the result was distributed. The transmutations of Kelly at this period are attested by several writers, including Gassendus. The most authenticated and remarkable, according to Figuier, is that which took place in the house of the imperial physician, Thaddeus de Hazek, when, by the mediation of a single drop of a red oil, Kelly transmuted a pound of mercury into excellent gold, the superabundant virtue of the agent leaving in addition at the bottom of the crucible a small ruby. Dr Nicholas Barnaud, the assistant of Hazek, and an alchemical writer, whose works are as rare as they are reputable, was a witness of this wonder, and subsequently himself manufactured the precious metal, the _désir désiré_, with the assistance of Edward Kelly.

The report spread, and the adept was invited by the Emperor Maximilian II. to the Court of Germany, where his transmutations raised him into highest favour; he was knighted, and created Marshal of Bohemia. Now perfectly intoxicated, he posed as a veritable adept, who was able to compose the inestimable projecting powder. This gave a handle to the enemies whom his exaltation had made him; they persuaded the Emperor to practically imprison this living philosophical treasure, and to extract his alchemical secret. His misfortunes now began. Absolute inability to obey the imperial mandate and compose a considerable quantity of the stone philosophical, was interpreted as a contumacious refusal; he was cast into a dungeon, but on engaging to comply with the demand if he had the liberty to seek assistance, he was speedily set free, whereupon he rejoined Dr Dee, and they again set to work in concert. The Book of St Dunstan indicated the use but not the preparation of the powder, and their experiments, vigilantly overwatched to prevent the escape of Kelly, proved entirely futile. In the desperation which succeeded their failure, the outrageous disposition of Kelly broke out, and he murdered one of his guards. He was again imprisoned, his companion, for the most part, remaining unmolested, and employing his opportunities, it is said, to interest Queen Elizabeth in the fate of the Emperor’s prisoner. She claimed the alchemist as her subject, but his recent crime had rendered him obnoxious to the laws of the empire, and he was still detained in his dungeon.

In 1589, Dr Dee set out himself for England. He halted at Bremen, and was there visited by Henry Khunrath, one of the greatest adepts of the age. The Landgrave of Hesse sent him a complimentary letter, and was presented in return with twelve Hungarian horses. Dr Dee arrived in England after an absence of six years; he was received by the Queen, who subsequently visited him at his house, presented him with two hundred angels to keep his Christmas, and gave him a license in alchemy. Sir Thomas Jones offered him his Castle of Emlin, in Wales, for a dwelling; he was made Chancellor of St Paul’s, and in 1595, Warden of Manchester College. He repaired thither with his wife and children, and was installed in February 1596. He does not appear to have accomplished any transmutation after his return to England. In 1607 we again find him at Mortlake, living on the revenue which he derived from Manchester, but subject to much persecution by the Fellows of that College. He died in 1608, at the age of eighty years.

The Hermetic abilities of Kelly were always believed in by the Emperor; he continued to detain him, hoping to extract his secret. Some friends of the unfortunate alchemist endeavoured, in the year 1597, to effect his escape by means of a rope, but he fell from the window of his prison, and died of the injuries which he received.

During his confinement he composed a treatise on the philosophical stone, and the Diary of Dr Dee was published from a genuine Ashmolean manuscript in 1604. The son of John Dee became physician to the Czar at Moscow, and in his _Fasciculus Chemicus_, he states that, in early youth, he witnessed transmutation repeatedly for the space of seven years.

The metrical account of Sir Edward Kelly’s work in the _Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum_ informs all who are broiling in the kitchen of Geber to burn their books “and come and learn of me,” for they can no more compound the _Elixir Vitæ_ and the precious stone than they can manufacture apples. The progenitor of magnesia, wife to the gold of the philosophers, is not a costly thing. The philosophical gold is not common but Hermetic sulphur, and magnesia is essential mercury.

The _Testamentum Johannis Dee Philosophi Summi ad Johannem Gwynn, transmissum 1568_, is lucidly worded as follows in its reference to the _magnum opus_:--

“Cut that in Three which Nature hath made one,
Then strengthen yt, even by it self alone;
Wherewith then cutte the powdered sonne in twayne,
By length of tyme, and heale the wounde againe.
The self same sonne troys yet more, ye must wounde,
Still with new knives, of the same kinde, and grounde;
Our monas trewe thus use by Nature’s Law,
Both binde and lewse, only with rype and rawe,
And aye thank God who only is our Guyde,
All is ynough, no more then at this tyde.”

FOOTNOTES:

[X] Morhof, _Epistola ad Langlelotum de Metallorun Transmutatione_.

HENRY KHUNRATH.

This German alchemist, who is claimed as a hierophant of the psychic side of the _magnum opus_, and who was undoubtedly aware of the larger issues of Hermetic theorems, must be classed as a follower of Paracelsus. He was a native of Saxony, born about the year 1560. He perambulated a large portion of Germany, and at the age of twenty-eight received the degree of medical doctor at the University of Basle. He practised medicine at Hamburg and afterwards at Dresden, where he died in obscurity and poverty, on the 9th of September 1601, aged about forty-five years. The _Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Æternæ solius veræ, Christiano Kabbalisticum divino magicum_, &c., published in folio in 1609, is the most curious and remarkable of his works, some of which still remain in manuscript.[Y] It was left unfinished by its author, appearing four years after his decease, with a preface and conclusion by his friend Erasmus Wohlfahrt.

The prologue directs the aspirant to the supreme temple of everlasting wisdom to know God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent, to know also himself, and the mysteries of the macrocosmos. The whole treatise is purely mystical and magical. The seven steps leading to the portals of universal knowledge are described in an esoteric commentary on some portions of the Wisdom of Solomon. The _lapis philosophorum_ is declared to be identical with the Ruach Elohim who brooded over the face of the waters during the first period of creation. The Ruach Elohim is called _vapor virtutis Dei_, and the internal form of all things. The perfect stone is attained through Christ, and, conversely, the possession of that treasure gives the knowledge of Christ. The _Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Æternæ_ seems to be the voice of the ancient chaos, but its curious folding plates are exceedingly suggestive.

FOOTNOTES:

[Y] Chausepié, _Dictionnaire_.

MICHAEL MAIER.

This celebrated German alchemist, one of the central figures of the Rosicrucian controversy in Germany, and the greatest adept of his age, was born at Ruidsburg, in Holstein, towards the year 1568. In his youth he applied himself closely to the study of medicine, and establishing himself at Rostock, he practised that art with so much success that he became physician to the Emperor Rudolph II., by whom he was ennobled for his services. Some adepts, notwithstanding, succeeded in enticing him from the practical path which he had followed so long into the thorny tortuosities of alchemical labyrinths. _Il se passionna pour le grand œuvre_ and scoured all Germany to hold conferences with those whom he imagined to be in possession of transcendent secrets. The _Biographie Universelle_ declares that he sacrificed his health, his fortune, and his time to these “ruinous absurdities.” According to Buhle,[Z] he travelled extensively; and on one occasion paid a visit to England, where he made the acquaintance of the Kentish mystic, Robert Fludd.

He appears as an alchemical writer a little before the publication of the Rosicrucian manifestoes. In the controversy which followed their appearance, and which convulsed mystic Germany, he took an early and enthusiastic share, defending the mysterious society in several books and pamphlets. He is supposed to have travelled in search of genuine members of the “College of Teutonic Philosophers R.C.,” and, failing to meet with them, is said to have established a brotherhood of his own on the plan of the _Fama Fraternitatis_. These statements rest on inadequate authority, and there is better ground for believing that he was initiated, towards the close of his life, into the genuine order. A posthumous tract of Michael Maier, entitled “Ulysses,” was published in 1624 by one of his personal friends, who added to the same volume the substance of two pamphlets which had already appeared in German, but which, by reason of their importance, were now translated into Latin for the benefit of the literati of Europe. The first was entitled _Colloquium Rhodostauroticum trium personarum, per Famam et Confessionem quodamodo revelatam de Fraternitate Roseæ Crucis_. The second was an _Echo Colloquii_, by Benedict Hilarion, writing in the name of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. It appears from these pamphlets that Maier was admitted into the mystical order, but when or where is uncertain. He became the most voluminous alchemical writer of his period, publishing continually till his death in the year 1622.

Many of his works are Hermetic elaborations of classical mythology, and are adorned with most curious plates. They are all hopelessly obscure, if his Rosicrucian apologies be excepted; the latter are not deficient in ingenuity, but they are exceedingly laboured, and, of course, completely unsatisfactory. He does not appear to have been included among the adepts, and he is now almost forgotten. His chemical knowledge is buried in a multitude of symbols and insoluble enigmas, and believers in spiritual chemistry will not derive much comfort or profit from his writings.

FOOTNOTES:

[Z] See De Quincey’s “Rosicrucians and Freemasons.”

JACOB BÖHME.

After the publication of the psycho-chemical philosophy of the illuminated shoemaker of Görlitz, the adepts are believed to have despaired of any longer retaining their secrets, and in their own writings they began to speak more freely. In this way the mystery of the _vas philosophorum_ is said to have become less impenetrable than previously, when it was considered a divine secret in the keeping of God and his elect.

Jacob Böhme, who may perhaps be considered as the central figure of Christian mysticism, was born in the year 1575, at Old Seidenberg, a village near Görlitz, in what was then called German Prussia. His parents were poor but honest and sober peasants, and were unable to procure him more than the usual religious schooling and the most simple elements of common education. In his spare time he tended cattle with other boys of the village. “He was a quiet, introspective lad,” says one of his latest biographers, “whose face bore somewhat of the dreamy expression which is frequent in poetic natures.” Even at this early age he was rich in inward visions. On one occasion he retired into a cave, in the rock called Land’s Crown, and discovered a large wooden vessel full of money, from which he precipitately retired without touching it, as though it were something diabolical. He told his companions, but there was no such cavern to be found at the place in question, though they often visited the spot in search of the concealed treasure.

On leaving school, Jacob was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and while he was one day serving in the shop during the absence of his master, an old man, of remarkable and benevolent mien, entered and asked for some shoes, for which the lad, fearing to conclude a bargain without his employer, demanded an extravagant price to deter the stranger from buying. The latter, however, paid the sum asked, and then calling him by his name, beckoned him into the street, when taking him by the hand, with sparkling eyes and earnest, angelical countenance, he said:--

“Jacob, thou art as yet but little; nevertheless, the time will come when thou shalt be great, and the world shall marvel at thee. Therefore, be pious, fear God, and reverence the Word. Read the Holy Scriptures diligently; in these thou shalt have comfort and instruction through the misery, poverty, and persecution which are in store for thee. Be courageous and persevere; God loves thee, and is gracious unto thee.”

The stranger then disappeared, or departed, leaving Jacob more serious and devotional than ever. The words of instruction and inspired admonition which he was frequently prompted to give to his fellow apprentices brought him into disputes with his master, and eventually led to his dismissal. He became a journeyman shoemaker, but returned to Görlitz in 1594, where he married the daughter of a tradesman, by whom he had four children.

In 1598 he imagined himself to be surrounded with the divine light for several consecutive days; he beheld the virtue and nature of the vegetable world, gazing into the very heart of creation, and learning the secrets of the physical cosmos by means of the self-interpreting “signatures” which seemed to be impressed on all around him. A similar experience recurred in 1600, when he passed into the hypnotic state by accidentally fixing his eye on a burnished pewter dish. These visions did not interfere with his capacity for work, or with his attention to his domestic affairs. Ten years passed away, and his psychic perceptions became suddenly clearer. “What he had previously seen only chaotically, fragmentarily, and in isolated glimpses, he now beheld as a coherent whole and in more definite outlines.” He wrote what he experienced under a fervour of inspiration, and in this way his first book was produced--“Aurora, the Day Spring, or Dawning of the Day in the East, or Morning Redness in the Rising of the Sun.” It was not originally intended for publication, but manuscript copies were circulated by one of his friends, and he suffered much consequent persecution from the ecclesiastical authorities of Görlitz. He was forbidden to write any more books, and was commanded to stick to his trade. For five years he meekly obeyed the tyrannous mandate, and afterwards contented himself with writing simply for his intimate friends. From 1619 to 1624 he produced a number of voluminous treatises, of which the book of the “True Principles,” the “Mysterium Magnum,” and the “Signatura Rerum” are perhaps the most characteristic and important. The publication, apparently surreptitious, of his “Way to Christ” again brought him into conflict with the orthodoxy of Görlitz, and led to his temporary exile. He was invited to the electoral court at Dresden, where a conference of eminent theologians examined him, and was so greatly impressed by the man that they declared themselves incompetent to judge him.

In 1624 he was attacked by a fever at the house of a friend in Silesia, was carried at his own request to his native town, and there on the 22nd November he expired in a semi-ecstatic condition.

While serving his apprenticeship at Görlitz, Jacob Böhme acquired some knowledge of chemistry, and he subsequently made use of Hermetic terminology in a transfigured and spiritual sense. His example was followed by his disciples, including the illustrious Saint Martin, Dionysius Andreas Freher, and William Law. The second-named writer has treated of the analogy in the process of the philosophic work to the Redemption of man through Christ Jesus, as unfolded by Jacob Böhme.

A treatise on metallurgy is ascribed to the theosophist himself, and there are several alchemical references in his numerous private epistles. The Holy Ghost is stated to be the key to alchemy; there is no need of hard labour and seeking (presumably among physical substances). “Seek only Christ, _and you will find all things_.” He describes the philosophers’ stone as dark, disesteemed, and grey in colour. It contains the highest tincture. Like Henry Khunrath before him, he deprecates any expenditure beyond that of the time and cost of the operator’s maintenance. “It doth not cost any money, but what is spent upon the time and the maintenance, else it might be prepared with four shillings. The work is easy, the act simple. A boy of sixteen years might make it, but the wisdom therein is great, and it is greatest mystery.”

The seal of God is elsewhere declared to be set on the secret of alchemy, “to conceal the true ground of the same upon pain of eternal punishments, unless a man know for certain that it shall not be misused. There is also no power to attain it, no skill or art availeth; unless one give the tincture into the hands of another, he cannot prepare it, except he be certainly in the new birth.”

* * * * *

The following lines, copied from a manuscript inserted in a volume of his works, are included in the original edition of the “Lives of Alchemysticall Philosophers”:--

“Whate’er the Eastern Magi sought,
Or Orpheus sung, or Hermes taught,
Whate’er Confucius could inspire,
Or Zoroaster’s mystic fire;
The symbols that Pythagoras drew,
The wisdom God-like Plato knew;
What Socrates debating proved,
Or Epictetus lived and loved;
The sacred fire of saint and sage
Through every clime, in every age,
In Bohmen’s wondrous page we view
Discovered and revealed anew.
‘Aurora’ dawned the coming day:
Succeeding books meridian light display.
Ten thousand depths his works explore,
Ten thousand truths unknown before.
Through all his books profound we trace
The abyss of nature, GOD, and grace;
The seals are broke, the mystery’s past,
And all is now revealed at last.
The trumpet sounds, the Spirit’s given,
And Bohmen is the voice from Heaven.”

J. B. VAN HELMONT.

In the year 1557, at Bois le Duc, in Brabant, John Baptist van Helmont was born of a noble family. He studied at Louvain, and became eminent in mathematics, algebra, the doctrines of Aristotle and Galen, and the medicine of Vopiscus and Plempius. At seventeen he lectured on physics as prælector, and took his degree of medical doctor in 1599. He read Hippocrates and the Greek and Arabian authors before he was twenty-two years old. He then passed ten years in the unsuccessful practice of physic, until he met a Paracelsian chemist, who discovered various chemical medicines to him. He retired thereupon to the castle of Vilvord, near Brussels, and laboured with unremitting diligence in the chemico-experimental analysis of bodies of every class. He passed his life in retirement, and was almost unknown to his neighbours, whom he, nevertheless, attended in illness, without accepting a fee. He declined an invitation and flattering offers from the Emperor and the Elector Palatine, and after writing several tracts, which even at this day are held in considerable estimation, he died in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

This author, so illustrious throughout Europe for his scientific knowledge, and no less celebrated for his noble rank than by the probity of his character, testifies in three different places that he has beheld, and himself performed, transmutation. In his treatise, _De Vita Eterna_, he declares himself as follows:--“I have seen and I have touched the philosophers’ stone more than once; the colour of it was like saffron in powder, but heavy and shining like pounded glass. I had once given me the fourth part of a grain--I call a grain that which takes six hundred to make an ounce. I made projection therewith, wrapped in paper, upon eight ounces of quicksilver, heated in a crucible, and immediately all the quicksilver, having made a little noise, stopped and congealed into a yellow mass. Having melted it in a strong fire, I found within eleven grains of eight ounces of most pure gold, so that a grain of this powder would have transmuted into very good gold, nineteen thousand one hundred and fifty-six grains of quicksilver.”

Had Helmont possessed the art of making the transmuting powder, his testimony might be open to suspicion. He says, on another occasion, that an adept, after a few days of acquaintance, presented him with half a grain of the powder of projection, with which he transmuted nine ounces of quicksilver into pure gold. He tells us further, that he many times performed a similar operation in the presence of a large company, and always with success. On these grounds he believed in the certainty and in the prodigious resources of the art, citing his acquaintance with an artist who had so much of the red stone as would make gold to the weight of two hundred thousand pounds.

Though ignorant of the nature of this powder of projection, Helmont professed the knowledge of the alcahest, and the methods of preparing medicines of transcendent efficacy by its means.

BUTLER.

In the reign of James the First the attention of the curious was attracted by a report of several transmutations performed in London by an artist of the above name. He was an Irish gentleman, who had recently returned from his travels. It was said that he was not himself acquainted with the secret of the stone, so far as regards its manufacture. To account for possessing it, the following story was related:--The ship in which he took passage during one of his voyages was captured by an African pirate, and on arriving in port he was sold as a slave to an Arabian, who was an alchemical philosopher. Butler, appearing to his master skilful and ingenious, was employed in most difficult operations in the laboratory. Having a perfect knowledge of the importance of the process, as soon as it was finished he bargained with an Irish merchant for his ransom, and made his escape, taking with him a large portion of the red powder.

The performers of public transmutations generally found it necessary to conceal their real knowledge by similar inventions. A physician, who was a countryman of Butler, however formed a plan for discovering his secret. He presented himself as a servant in search of a place, and was hired in that capacity by Butler. He found the philosopher so circumspect that he sought in vain for some circumstance to justify the public report of his treasures, until at last Butler sent him into the city to purchase a large quantity of lead and quicksilver.

The disguised doctor now hoped to make a discovery. He executed his commission with dispatch, and prepared a little hole in the wall of his master’s room, through which, from the adjoining apartment he could see what was going on. He soon perceived Butler taking something out of a box, which he put on the melted lead, and deposited the box in a concealed place under the floor of his room. At this moment the table and chair on which the doctor was elevated to the spy-hole, gave way, and he fell with a loud noise to the ground. Butler rushed out of his room to learn the cause of this disturbance, and perceiving the spy-hole, he with difficulty refrained from running his servant through the body with his sword.

Finding there was no hope of obtaining anything from Butler, the doctor expected to surprise his treasures by reporting to the officers of justice that he was a coiner of false money. A vigilant search was made according to his directions, but nothing was found, for Butler had already removed whatever could betray him--his furnace, crucibles, and eighty marks of gold were all he appeared to possess. He was therefore liberated from the prison in which he had been confined during the investigation.

Butler was afterwards entombed in the Castle of Vilvord, in Flanders, where he is said to have performed wonderful cures by means of Hermetic medicine. A monk of Brittany, who was one of his fellow-prisoners, having a desperate erysipelas in his arm, was restored to health in an hour by drinking almond milk in which Butler had merely dipped the stone. The next day at the rumour of this circumstance, the celebrated Helmont, who abode in the neighbourhood, went with several noblemen to the prison, where Butler cured, in their presence, an aged woman of a megrim by dipping the stone into oil of olives and then anointing her head. An abbess, whose arm was swelled, and whose fingers had been stiff for eighteen years, was also cured by a few applications of the same stone to her tongue.

These cases are attested by the illustrious van Helmont in his works.

JEAN D’ESPAGNET.

This Hermetic philosopher is known to us by two treatises--_Enchiridion Physicæ Restitutæ_ and _Arcanum Philosophiæ Hermeticæ_, which, however, has also been claimed as the production of an unknown individual who called himself the _Chevalier Impérial_.[AA] “The Secret of Hermetical Philosophy” comprises the practical part of the _magnum opus_ and the Enchiridion, the physical theory on which the possibility of transmutation is founded. D’Espagnet is also the author of the preface to the _Tableau de l’Inconstance des Démons_, by Pierre Delancre.

“The Arcanum of Hermetic Philosophy” is better known under the title of the “Canons of Espagnet,” and, as I have shown in the Introduction, it is claimed as a treatise on mystical alchemy. The author, however, very plainly states that “the science of producing Nature’s grand Secret is a perfect knowledge of Nature universally and of art, concerning the realm of metals; the practice whereof is conversant in finding the principles of metals by analysis.” Moreover, the authors whom Espagnet recommends as a guide to the student include those who, like Trévisan, are known to have spent their existence in practical alchemy. The Sethon-Sendivogius treatises are also respectfully cited. At the same time, it may be freely granted that much of the matter in the canons, though treating of a physical object, may be extended to the psychic side of the Hermetic art.

FOOTNOTES:

[AA] Ce chevalier, très-révérée des alchimistes, est mentionnée souvent dans la _Trompette Française_, petit volume, contenant une _Prophétic de Bombast sur la Naissance de Louis XIV._ On a, du Chevalier Impérial, le _Miroir des Alchimistes_, avec instructions aux dames pour dorénavant être belles sans plus user de leurs dards venimeux, 1609, 16mo. _Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes._

ALEXANDER SETHON.

None of the adepts suffered from imprudent exposure of their power more than the subject of this article. He was a native of Scotland, and is supposed to have inhabited a mansion at a village in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and close to the sea-shore.[AB] In the summer of 1601 a Dutch vessel was wrecked upon the coast, and some of the crew were saved through the instrumentality of Sethon, who received them into his house, treated them with great humanity, and provided them with the means to return to Holland. One year later he visited James Haussen, the pilot of the ship, one of the rescued persons, at Erkusen, in that country. The sailor received him with joy, and detained him for several weeks in his house, during which period he beheld with astonishment several transmutations performed by his guest, who confessed that he was an alchemical adept. He was bound in gratitude and friendship to the most inviolable secrecy, but he could not refrain from confiding the wonder which he had witnessed to Venderlinden, the physician of Enkhuysen, who was a man of integrity and prudence, and to whom he presented a piece of gold, which had been transmuted in his presence from lead on the 13th March 1602. This curiosity came into the hands of the doctor’s grandson, who showed it to the celebrated George Morhoff, by whom it was mentioned, with its history, to Langlet du Fresnoy, in an epistle on the transmutation of metals.

From Enkhuysen, Sethon proceeded to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, subsequently embarking for Italy, where, after a short stay, he passed into Switzerland, and so entered Germany, accompanied by Wolfgang Dienheim, an adversary of Hermetic philosophy, whom by ocular demonstration he convinced of his error, in presence of several distinguished persons of Basle.

To this adversary we are indebted for a description of Sethon, whom he declared eminently spiritual in appearance, short in stature, but very stout, having a high colour, and a beard of the French style. He calls him Alexander Sethonius, and states that he was a native of Molier, “in an island of the ocean.”

The lead required for the transmutation was brought by Jacob Zwinger from his own house, a crucible was borrowed from a goldsmith, and common sulphur was purchased on the road to the house where the operation was to be performed. During the whole course of the experiment, Sethon touched nothing, simply supplying the small packet which contained the powder of projection, and which transformed the base metal into gold of the purest quality, equivalent in weight to the original lead.

The experiment was repeated on another occasion with the same brilliant success, and, in addition to the testimony of Dienheim, we have also that of Zwinger, a name highly respected by the Germans in the history of medicine.[AC]

Alexander Sethon departed from Basle, and went under an assumed name to Strasbourg, whence he proceeded to Cologne, and abode with an amateur alchemist named Anton Bordemann, by whom he was brought into acquaintance with the other souffleurs of that city. He began a kind of alchemical crusade among them, imprudently exposing his knowledge to credulous and sceptical alike, and producing on one occasion six ounces of the precious metal by means of a single grain of his great philosophical tincture.[AD]

Leaving Cologne altogether petrified by his marvellous operations, the illustrious hierophant of the art Hermetic betook himself to Hamburg, where his further amazing projections are described by George Morhoff. At Munich, the next stage in his alchemical pilgrimage, he performed no transmutations, suddenly disappearing with the daughter of one of its citizens, whom he appears to have legally married, and to whom he was henceforth most devotedly attached.

The renown of Sethon about this time attracted the attention of Christian II., the young Elector of Saxony. He sent for the alchemist, but the latter, absorbed by his passion, had merged the Hermetic propagandist in the lover, and sent William Hamilton, his apparent domestic, but in reality a confidant and friend, to convince the Elector of the verity of alchemical operations by ocular evidence. A projection was performed by Hamilton with perfect success in the presence of the whole court, and the gold then manufactured resisted every test.[AE]

The Elector, previously a sceptic, was now more desirous than ever to behold the adept. Sethon reluctantly consented, and at this juncture seems to have been deserted by Hamilton. He was received with distinction and favour, and presented a small quantity of the powder to Christian II., who soon endeavoured to possess himself of the whole secret of the philosopher. Sethon refused to gratify him, and was deaf to persuasions and menaces; but the Elector, convinced that he was in possession of a living treasure, determined to overcome his reluctance, whatever the means employed. He imprisoned him in a tower, which was guarded by forty soldiers, who had strict orders to keep a constant watch on him. The unfortunate adept was subjected to every torment which covetousness and cruelty could suggest. He was pierced with pointed iron, scorched with molten lead, burnt by fire, beaten with rods, racked from head to foot, yet his constancy never forsook him. At length he outwearied his torturers, and was left in solitary confinement.

At this time Michael Sendivogius, a Moravian gentleman, generally resident at Cracovia, in Poland, chanced to be tarrying at Dresden. He was a skilful chemist, who, like others of his period, was in search of the philosophical stone, and who naturally took interest in the case of Alexander Sethon. Having some influence at the court of the Elector, he obtained permission to see him; and after several interviews, at which the adept was exceedingly reserved on all subjects connected with the divine science, he proposed to contrive his escape. The tortured alchemist gladly consented to his plans, and promised to assist him in his Hermetic pursuits. As soon as the resolution was formed, Sendivogius departed to Cracovia, sold his house in order to raise money, and returning to Dresden, established himself in the vicinity of the prison, gaining the favour of its warders by his prodigality and indirect bribes. At length the day came for the execution of his plan; he regaled the guards better than usual, and when they were all drunk, he carried Sethon, who was unable to walk, on his back to a post-chaise, in which they proceeded without discovery. They called at the house of Sethon for his wife, who was in possession of a quantity of the transmuting powder, and then made all haste to reach Cracovia. There Sendivogius required from the alchemist the fulfilment of his promise, but was blankly refused by the adept, who referred him to God, saying that the revelation of so awful a mystery would be a heinous iniquity.

“You see what I have endured,” he continued, “my nerves are shrunk, my limbs dislocated; I am emaciated to the last extremity, and my body is almost corrupted; even to avoid all this I did not disclose the secrets of philosophy.”

Sendivogius was not, however, destined to be deprived of all recompense for his pains and self-sacrifice. Alexander Sethon did not long enjoy the liberty which his friend had obtained for him, and on his death, which occurred two years after his escape, he presented his preserver with the remains of his transmuting powder.

FOOTNOTES:

[AB] The names Seton or Seatoun have been given as that of the village in question, but in Camden’s “Britannia” it appears as the name of the house itself. The alchemist himself is sufficiently myrionimous, being variously denominated Sethon, Sidon, Sethonius, Scotus, Sitonius, Sidonius, Suthoneus, Suethonius, and even Seehthonius.

[AC] _Epistola ad doctorem Schobinger_, printed by Emmanuel Konig in his _Ephemerides_.

[AD] Théobald de Hoghelande, _Historiæ aliquot Transmutationis Mettalicæ pro defensione Alchemiæ contra Hostium Rabrein_. Cologne, 1604.

[AE] Galdenfalk, “Alchemical Anecdotes.”

MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS.

Sendivogius, whose true name was Sensophax, was born at Moravia in 1566, and was therefore about thirty-eight years of age on the death of his taciturn master. He is said by some of his biographers to have been the natural son of a Polish nobleman, named Jacob Sendimir. His life has been written at some length by his advocate, an anonymous German, who, however, produced a romance rather than a history, among other fictions representing his hero to have been sent by the Emperor Rodolph II. to the east, where he received from a Greek patriarch the revelation of the grand mystery. As a matter of fact, Sendivogius had made no progress in alchemy before his acquaintance with Sethon.

Having almost exhausted his fortune to obtain the liberation of that adept, and having a taste for extravagant living, he was dissatisfied with the mere possession of a portion of the transmuting powder, and was more eager than ever to penetrate the mysteries of the Hermetic art. He married the widow of Sethon, but she was wholly unacquainted with the process, and her only possession was the manuscript of that celebrated treatise, “The New Light of Alchemy,” with the dialogue of Mercury and the alchemist, which Sendivogius appropriated and eventually published as his own composition. From this work the uninitiated inquirer believed himself to have discovered a method of augmenting the powder, but he only succeeded in diminishing it.

Foiled in this attempt, he was still anxious at any rate to appear as an adept, and acquired an immense reputation by incessant projections, which, assisted by his sumptuous living, made him pass for a great hierophant. At Prague he presented himself to the Emperor Rodolph II., and, in presence of several nobles, the king himself made gold by projection, and overjoyed at the success of the operation he appointed Sendivogius as one of his counsellors of state. A marble tablet with the inscription--

_Faciat hoc quispiam alius
Quod fecit Sendivogius Polonus_,

was set up in the chamber where the transmutation had been performed, and the occasion was celebrated in verse by the court poet, Mardochie de Delle.

This achievement Sendivogius followed by printing at Prague the treatise written by Sethon under the name of Cosmopolita. It passes for the work of its editor, as he included his name anagrammatically on the title-page, in the motto--_Divi Leschi genus amo_, and gave no information concerning the real author. Some time after he issued a tract on sulphur, which was probably his own composition. The motto on the title-page--_Angelus doce mihi jus_--is another anagram of his name. There are discrepancies between this tract and the twelve treatises which comprise the work of Sethon. This Sendivogius perceived, and in the second edition of the latter work he made alterations in its text.

From the Court of Rodolph II. the alchemist proceeded to that of Poland. As he passed on his way through Moravia, a lord of the country, who had heard of his transmutations at Prague, and suspected that he had abundance of the transmuting powder, laid an ambush for him on the road, seized him, and secretly imprisoned him, with the threat that he should never be liberated until he communicated the secret of his treasure. Sendivogius, dreading the fate of Sethon, cut through the iron bar that crossed the window of his dungeon, and making a rope of his clothes, he escaped almost naked from the power of the little tyrant, whom he summoned to the emperor’s court, where he was condemned to be fined, a village on his estate was confiscated and transferred to Sendivogius, who afterwards gave it as dower with his daughter at her marriage.

Sendivogius made several transmutations at Varsovia, but his powder was visibly diminishing. Duke Frederick of Würtemberg invited him to visit him, and two projections took place in the presence of this noble, who, to place him on the footing of a prince of the blood, gave him the territory of Nedlingen.

He was destined, however, to meet with a severe reverse at Würtemberg through the machinations of an envious alchemist already attached to the Court, and who persuaded him that the Duke Frederic had formed plans which menaced the freedom of his guest and the safety of his transmuting treasure. Sendivogius, once more vividly reminded of the fate of his master, precipitately fled, only to be pursued by his treacherous brother in science, who overtook him with twelve armed men, well mounted, arrested him in the name of the prince, robbed him of the philosophical treasure, and caused him to be cast into prison. Then this infamous souffleur, whose star had been overwhelmed by the sun of Sendivogius, proceeded to perform transmutations, more than regaining his lost reputation; but the report of this discreditable transaction spread, public opinion decided that the duke was a party to it, and the wife of the victim applying to the King of Poland, soon obtained the liberty of alchemist.

Once more Sendivogius appealed for redress to the Emperor Rodolph, who demanded the person of the souffleur from the Duke of Würtemberg. The possessions of Sendivogius were at once restored, with the exception of the powder, all knowledge of which was denied. The souffleur was hanged by the duke, but from this time the pupil of Sethon perceived his sign descending. He had but an infinitesimal quantity of the powder in his possession, which, ever in search of notoriety, he dissolved in spirits of wine, carefully rectified, and began to astonish the physicians of Cracovia, whither he had again repaired, by the marvellous cures which he performed with this for a medicine. Desnoyers, secretary to the Queen of Poland, and one of the alchemist’s biographers, was in possession of a crown piece which Sendivogius dipped red-hot into the same spirit, in the presence of Sigismund III., King of Poland, and which was partially transformed into gold.[AF] The elixir relieved the same king from the effects of a serious accident.

When every particle of his powder was expended, Sendivogius appears to have degenerated into a mere charlatan, obtaining large sums on the pretence of manufacturing the powder of projection. On one occasion he so far descended as to silver a piece of gold, and pretending that he possessed the elixir, he caused the silver to disappear by a chemical process, which he imposed on the ignorant as a projection of the tincture and a conversion of silver into gold.

His confidential servant, Bodowski, explains this deception as a finesse to conceal his real character, having learned from experience the necessity of defending himself from the violence of covetous men. He sometimes feigned poverty, or lay in bed as one attacked with the gout or other sickness. By these means he diverted the general suspicion that he possessed the philosophers’ stone, preferring to pass for an impostor than for one in the enjoyment of illimitable wealth. He frequently travelled in a servant’s livery, concealing most of his red powder in the footstep of his chariot, and causing one of his servants to sit inside. He kept some of the powder in a small gold box, and with a single grain of it would convert so much mercury into gold as would sell for five hundred ducats.[AG]

He was at his castle of Groverna, on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia, when he was visited by two strangers, one of whom was old while the other was young. They presented him with a letter bearing twelve seals, and addressed to Sendivogius. He declared that he was not the person whom they sought, but was at length persuaded to open the document, and learned that they were a deputation from the Rosicrucian Society, who wished to initiate him. He pretended not to understand them when they spoke of the stone of the philosophers, but they drew him into conversation on several abstruse subjects, he, however, declining to the last the initiation which was offered him.

Michael Sendivogius died at Parma in 1646, aged eighty-four years, having been counsellor of state to four emperors successively. His only daughter had married an army captain against her father’s wish. He left her nothing but a “Treatise on the Salt of the Philosophers,” which has never been printed, and, therefore, must not be confused with a spurious work which has been ascribed to him under a similar title.

* * * * *

The Sethon-Sendivogius treatises are generally known under the collective title, “A New Light of Alchemy.” They were written to counteract the many adulterated and false receipts composed through the fraud and covetousness of impostors. The procedure they indicate is declared to be the result of manual experience. “Many men, both of high and low condition, in these last years past, have to my knowledge seen Diana unveiled. The extraction of the soul out of gold or silver, by what vulgar way of alchymy soever, is but a mere fancy. On the contrary, he which, in a philosophical way, can, without any fraud and colourable deceit, make it that it shall really tinge the basest metal, whether with gain or without gain, with the colour of gold or silver (abiding all requisite tryals whatever), hath the gates of Nature opened to him for the enquiring into further and higher secrets, and with the blessing of God to obtain them.”

It is thus in the writings of the alchemists that we are continually glimpsing or hearing of altitudes beyond transmutation, of regions of achievement which nothing in the pages of the adepts prove them to have actually explored, but which in possession of a comprehensive theory of organic and inorganic development they beheld as a Promised Land.

The “New Light of Alchemy” insists on the existence of a sperm in everything, and that all Nature originated at the beginning from one only seed. It treats of the generation of metals and the manner of their differentiation, of the extraction of their seed, and of the manufacture of the stone or tincture.

FOOTNOTES:

[AF] See Desnoyer’s Letter in Langlet du Fresnoy’s _Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique_. Borel, in his Gallic Antiquities, recounts that he, with many others at Paris, saw this crown-piece. He describes it as partly gold, so far only as it was steeped in the elixir. The gold part was porous, being specifically more compact than in its silver state. There was no appearance of soldering, or of the possibility of deception.

[AG] See _Vie de Sendivogius, tirée de la Rélation de Jean Bodowski_.

GUSTENHOVER.

A respectable goldsmith, named Gustenhover, resided at Strasburg in 1603. In a time of great peril he gave shelter to a certain M. Hirschborgen, who is described as good and religious. On leaving his house after a considerable stay, this person presented his humane host with some powder of projection, and then, departing on his journey, was heard of no more.

Gustenhover imprudently made transmutations before numerous people, and the fact was reported to the Emperor Rodolph II., himself an amateur in alchemy. He wrote to the magistrates of Strasburg, directing that the goldsmith should be forthwith sent to him. The order was zealously obeyed, the man arrested, and guarded with vigilance from all possibility of escape. When he discovered that the intention of his imprisonment was to send him to the Emperor at Prague, he divined the whole of the business, and invited the magistrates to meet together, desiring them to bring a crucet and charcoal, and without his approaching to melt some lead. Musket balls were used for the purpose, and when the metal was molten, he handed them a small portion of red powder, which they cast into the crucet, and the result of their calcination was a considerable quantity of pure gold.

When he was brought into the presence of the gold-seeking Emperor, Gustenhover was forced to admit that he had not himself prepared the miraculous powder, and that he was in total ignorance about its nature and composition. The monarch regarded this merely as one of the subterfuges which were common in his experience of jealous adepts. The goldsmith reiterated his protestations in vain; the whole of his powder was speedily exhausted, yet he found himself still set to the now impossible task of making gold. He sought a refuge from the fury of the avaricious wretch, who has been denominated the German Hermes by an alchemical blasphemy accursed by all sons of the doctrine; but he was pursued, dragged back, and immured in the White Tower, where the imperial dragon, blindly and obstinately convinced that the alchemist was concealing his secret, detained him for the rest of his life.

The adept who presented the goldsmith with the auriferous gift of misery, the so-called Hirschborgen, is supposed to be identical with Alexander Sethon, at that period errant, under various disguises, in Germany.

BUSARDIER.

Few particulars are recorded of this adept. He dwelt at Prague with a lord of the Court, and, falling sick, he perceived that his immediate death was inevitable. In this extremity he wrote a letter to his chosen friend Richtausen, at Vienna, begging him to come and abide with him during his last moments. On the receipt of this letter, Richtausen set out, travelling with all expedition, but, on arriving at Prague, he had the mortification to find that the adept was no more. He inquired diligently if he had left anything behind him, and he was informed by the steward of the nobleman with whom he had lodged that a powder alone had been left, which the nobleman seemed anxious to preserve, but which the steward did not know how to use. Upon this information, Richtausen adroitly got possession of the powder, and then departed. The nobleman, hearing of the transaction, threatened to hang his steward if he did not recover the powder, and the latter, judging that no one but Richtausen could have taken it, pursued him, well-armed. He overtook him on the road and presented a pistol to his head, saying he would shoot him if he did not return the powder. Richtausen, seeing there was no other way to preserve his life, acknowledged his possession of the treasure, and pretended to surrender it, but, by an ingenious contrivance, he abstracted a considerable quantity.

He was now the owner of a substance the value of which was fully known to him. He presented himself to the Emperor Ferdinand III., who was an alchemist, and who, aided by his mine-master, Count Russe, took every precaution in making projection with some of the powder given him by Richtausen. He converted three pounds of mercury into gold with one grain. The force of this tincture was one upon 19,470. The emperor is said to have caused a medal to be struck, bearing the effigy of Apollo with the caduceus of Mercury, and the motto--_Divina metamorphosis exhibita Praguæ, Jan. 15, anno 1648, in præsentia Sac. Cæs. Majest. Ferdinandi Tertii_. The reverse bore another inscription--_Raris hæc ut hominibus est ars; ita raro in lucem prodit, laudetur Deus in æternum, qui partem suæ infinitæ potentiæ novis suis abjectissimis creaturis communicat_.

Richtausen was ennobled by the title of Baron Chaos.

Among many transformations performed by the same powder was one by the Elector of Mayence in 1651. He made projection with all the precautions possible to a learned and skilful philosopher. The powder, enclosed in gum tragacanth to retain it effectually, was put into the wax of a taper, which was lighted, the wax being then placed at the bottom of a crucet. These preparations were undertaken by the Elector himself. He poured four ounces of quicksilver on the wax, and put the whole into a fire covered with charcoal, above, below, and around. Then they began blowing to the utmost, and in about half an hour, on removing the coals, they saw that the melted gold was over red, the proper colour being green. The baron said that the matter was yet too high, and it was necessary to put some silver into it. The Elector took some coins out of his pocket, put them into the melting-pot, combined the liquefied silver with the matter in the crucet, and having poured out the whole when in perfect fusion into a lingot, he found, after cooling, that it was very fine gold, but rather hard, which was attributed to the lingot. On again melting, it became exceedingly soft, and the master of the mint declared to his highness that it was more than twenty-four carats, and that he had never seen so fine a quality of the precious metal.

ANONYMOUS ADEPT.

Athanasius Kircher, the illustrious German Jesuit, records, in his _Mundus Subterraneus_, that one of his friends, whose veracity he could not doubt, made him the following relation:--

“From my youth I made a peculiar study of alchemy, without ever attaining the object of that science. In my course of experiments I received a visit from a man who was entirely unknown to me. He asked very politely what was the object of my labours, and said, without giving me time to reply, ‘I see very well by these glasses and this furnace that you are engaged in a search after something very great in chemistry, but, believe me, you never will in that way attain to the object of your desire.’

“I said to him--‘Sir, if you have better instructions, I flatter myself that you will give them.’

“‘Willingly,’ replied this generous unknown.

“Immediately I took a pen and wrote down the process he dictated.

“‘To show you the result,’ said the stranger, ‘let us both work together according to what you have written.’

“We proceeded, and our operation being finished, I drew from the chemical vessel a brilliant oil; it congealed into a mass, which I broke into a powder. I took part of this powder and projected it on three hundred pounds of quicksilver; it was in a little time converted into pure gold, much more perfect than that of the mines; it endured all the proofs of the goldsmiths.

“A prodigy so extraordinary struck me with surprise and astonishment. I became almost stupid, and, as another Crœsus, fancied I possessed all the riches in the universe. My gratitude to my benefactor was more than I could express. He told me that he was on his travels and wanted nothing whatever; ‘but it gratifies me,’ said he, ‘to counsel those who are unable to complete the Hermetic work.’ I pressed him to remain with me, but he retired to his inn. Next day I called there, but what was my surprise at not finding him in it, or at any place in the town! I had many questions to ask him which left me in doubt. I returned to work according to the receipt, but failed in the result. I repeated the process with more care; it was all in vain! Yet I persevered until I had expended all the transmuted gold and the greater part of my own property.”