CHAPTER I.

A Preliminary Account of the Hermetic Philosophy,
with the more salient Points of its Public History.

THE Hermetic tradition opens early with the
morning dawn of philosophy in the eastern
world. All pertaining thereto is romantic and
mystical. Its monuments, emblems, and numerous
written records, alike dark and enigmatical, form
one of the most remarkable episodes in the history
of the human mind. A hard task were it indeed and
almost infinite to discuss every particular that has
been presented by individuals concerning the art
of Alchemy ; and as difficult to fix with certainty
the origin of a science which has been successively
attributed to Adam, Noah and his son Cham, to
Solomon, Zoroaster, and the Egyptian Hermes.
Nor, fortunately, does this obscurity concern us
much in an inquiry which rather relates to the
means and principles of occult science than to the
period and place of their reputed discovery.
Nothing, perhaps, is less worthy or more calculated
to distract the mind from points of real importance
than this very question of temporal origin, which,
when we have taken all pains to satisfy and
remember, leaves us no wiser in reality than we
were before. What signifies it, for instance, that
we attribute letters to Cadmus, or trace oracles to
Zoroaster, or the Kabalah to Mojses, the Eleusinian
mysteries to Orpheus, or Free-masonry to Noah ;
whilst we are profoundly ignorant of the nature

4 Exoteric View.

and true beginning of smy one of these things, and
observe not how truth, being everywhere eternal,
does there always originate where it is understood ?

We do not delay, therefore, to ascertain, even
were it possible, whether the Hermetic Science was
indeed preserved to mankind on the Syriadic pillars
after the flood, or whether Egypt or Palestine may
lay equal claims to the same ; or, whether in truth
that Smaragdine table, whose singular inscription
has been transmitted to this day, is attributable to
Hermes or to any other name. It may suffice the
present need to accept the general assertion of its
advocates, and consider Alchemy as an antique
artifice coeval, for aught we know to the contrary,
with the universe itself. For although attempts
have been made, as by Herman Conringius,1 to
slight it as recent invention, and it is also true that
by a singularly envious fate, nearly all Eg3^ptian
record of the art has perished ; yet we find the
original evidence contained in the works of A.
Kircher,2 the learned Dane Olaus Borrichius,3 and
Robert Vallensis in the first volume of the Theat-
rum Chemicumf more than sufficient to balance
every objection of this kind, besides ample
collateral probability bequeathed in the best Greek
Authors, historical and philosophic.

In order to show that the propositions we may
hereafter have occasion to offer are not gratuitous
as also with better effect to introduce a stranger
subject, it will be requisite to run through a brief
account of the Alchemical philosophers, with the
literature and public evidence of their science ;
the more so, as no one of the many histories of
philosophy compiled or translated into our language

1 De Hermetica /Egyptior. vetere et Paracelsicor. Nova Me-
dicina.

2 (Edipus iEgyptiacus. Idem, de Lapide Philos. Dissert.

3 De Ortu et Progressu Chemise. Idem, JEgyptior. et
Chemicor. Sapientia, ab H, Conringii Animad. vindic.

4 De Veritate et Antiquitate Artis Chemise.

Preliminary Account. 5

advert to it in such a manner as, considering the
powerful and widespread influence this branch'
formerly exercised on the human mind, it certainly
appears to deserve.

This once famous Art, then, has been represented
both as giving titles and receiving them from its
mother land, Cham ; for so, during a long period,
according to Plutarch, was Egypt denominated,
or Chemia, on account of the extreme blackness
of her soil : — or, as others say, because it was there
that the art of Vulcan was first practised by Cham,
one of the sons of the Patriarch, from whom thev
thus derive the name and art together. But b}7 the
word Chemia, says Plutarch, the seeing pupil
of the human eye was also designated, and other
black matters, whence in part perhaps Alchemy,
so obscurely descended, has been likewise stig-
matized as a Black Art.5

Etymological research has doubtless proved
useful in leading on and corroborating truths once
suggested, but it is not a way of first discovery ;
derivations may be too easily conformed to any
bias, and words do not convey true ideas unless
their proper leader be previously entertained.
Without being able now, therefore, to determine
whether the art gave or received a title from Cham,
the Persian prince Alchimin, as others have con-
tended, or that dark Egyptian earth ; to take a
point of time, we may begin the Hermetic story
from Hermes, by the Greeks called Trismegistus,
Egypt's great and far-reputed adeptist king, who,
according to Suidas, lived before the time of the
Pharaohs, about four hundred years previous to
Moses, or, as others compute, about 1900 before
the Christian era.6

5 See Plutarch de Iside et Osiride, sub init., and Bryant's
Analysis of Ancient Mythology, vol. ii.

6 See Suidas de Verbo Chemeia, " Credo Mercurium Trisme-
gistum, sapientem /Egyptium, floruisse ante Pharaonem," etc.

6 Exoteric View.

This prince, like Solomon, is highly celebrated
by antiquity for his wisdom and skill in the secret
operations of nature, and for his reputed discovery
of the quintessential perfectibility of the three
kingdoms in their homogeneal unity ; whence he is
called the Thrice Great Hermes, having the
spiritual intelligence of all things in their universal
law.7

It is to be lamented that no one of the many
books attributed to him, and which are named in
detail b}^ Clemens Alexandrinus, escaped the de-
stroying hand of Dioclesian ;8 more particularly
if we judge them, as Jamblicus assures us we may,
by those Asclepian Dialogues and the Divine
Pcemander, which yet pass current under the name
of Hermes.9 Both are preserved in the Latin of
Ficinus, and have been well translated into our
language by Dr. Everard. The latter, though a
small work, surpasses most that are extant for
sublimity of doctrine and expression : its verses
flow forth eloquent, as it were, from the fountain
of nature, instinct with intelligence ; such as
might be more efficacious to move the rational
sceptic off from his negative ground into the
happier regions of intelligible reality, than many
theological discourses which, of a lower grade of
comprehension, are unable to make this highly
affirmative yet intellectual stand. But the subjects
treated of in the books of the Pcemander and
Asclepias are theosophic and ultimate, and denote
rather our divine capabilities and promise of

7 See Tertullianus de Anima, cap. ii. adversus Valentinianusr
cap. xv. Hermetem vocat Physicorum Magistrum.

8 Chimia est auri et argenti confectio, cujus libros Diocle-
sianus perquisitos exussit eo quod Egyptii res novas contra Dio-
clesianum moliti fuerant, duriter atque hostiliter eos tractavit.
Quo tempore etiam libros de chimia, auri et argenti a veteribus
conscriptos, conquisivit et exussit, ne deinceps Egyptiis
divitiae exfiuentia confisi in posterum Romania rebellarent.
(Suidas in Verbo Chemeia).

9 See Jamblicus de Mysteriis, sect. viii. cap. iv. &c.

Preliminary Account. 7

regeneration than the physical ground of either ;
this, with the practical method of alchemy being
further given in the Tractatus Aureus, or Golden
Treatise, an admirable relic, consisting of seven
chapters, attributed to the same author.10 The
Smaragdine Table, which, in its few enigmatical
but remarkable lines, is said to comprehend the
working principle and total subject of the art, we
here subjoin : from the original Arabic and Greek
copies, it has been rendered into Latin by Kirch er
as follows : —

TABULA SMARAGDINA HERMETIS.
Verum sine mendacio certum et verissimum ; quod est superius
est sicut quod est inferius ; et quod est inferius est sicut quod est
sttperius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius : et sicut omnes res
fuerunt ab uno, mediatione unius, sic omnes res nottt fuerunt ah
Juic una re adaptatfone. Pater ejus Sol est, mater vera Luna ;
portavit id ventus in ventre suo, nutrix ejus terra est ; pater
omnis telesmi, sive consummatio totius mundi est hie. Vis ejus
Integra est si versa fuerit in terram. Separabis terram ab igne,
subtile a spisso, suaviter cum multo ingenio ; ascendit a terra in
cazlum, inter umque descendit in terram, recipitque vim superior -
um et inferiorum. Sic habebis gloriam totius mundi, ideb fugit a
te omnis obscuritas ; hie est totius fortitudinis fortis, qui vincet
omnem rem subtilem omnemque solidam penetrabit. Sicut
mundus creatus est. Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles quorum
modus est hie 1 toque vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus.
habens tres partes philosophic^ totius mundi. Completum
est quod dixi de operatione Solis.

We shall have occasion to revert to this tablet
and its applicability hereafter, when we come to a
particular examination of the philosophic subject
in its active and passive relations, and the intimate
mystery of those Hermetic luminaries in conjunc-
tion. The inscription may be thus rendered.

THE SMARAGDINE TABLE OF HERMES.

True, without error, certain and most true; that which is above
is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is
above, for performing the miracles of the One Thing ; and as all-
things were from one, by the mediation of one, so all things arose

10 Hermetis Trismegisti Tractatus Aureus de Lapidis physic i
secreto.

8 Exoteric View.

from this one thing by adaptation ; the father of it is the Sun, the
mother of it is the Moon ; the wind carries it in its belly ; the
nurse thereof is the Earth. This is the father of all perfection, or
consummation of the whole world. The power of it is integral, if
it be turned into earth. Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire,
the subtle from the gross, gently with much sagacity ; it ascends
from earth to heaven, and again descends to earth : and receives
the strength of the superiors and of the inferiors — so thou hast the
glory of the whole world ; therefore let all obscurity flee before
thee. This is the strong fortitude of all fortitudes, overcoming
every subtle and penetrating every solid thing. So the world was
created. Hence were all wonderful adaptations of which this is
the manner. Therefore am I called Thrice Great Hermes, having
the Three Parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That
which I have written is consummated concerning the operation of
the Sun.

This Emerald Table, unique and authentic as it
may be regarded, is all that remains to us from
Egypt of her Sacred Art. A few riddles and fables,
all more or less imperfect, that were preserved by
the Greeks, and some inscrutable hieroglyphics are
still to be found quoted in certain of the alchemical
records : but the originals are entirely swept away.
And — duly considering all that is related by the
chroniclers of that ancient dynasty, her amazing
reputation for power, wealth, wisdom, and magic
skill ; — and, even when all these had faded, when
Herodotus visited the city, after the priestly
government of the Pharaohs had been overthrown
by Cambyses, and that savage conqueror had
burned the temples and almost annihilated the
sacerdotal order, — after the influx of strangers had
been permitted, and civil war had raged almost to
the fulfilment of the Asclepian prophecy, — the
wonders then recorded by the historian of her
remaining splendour and magnificence ; — what
shall we now conclude, when, after the lapse of so
many more destroying ages, we review the yet
mightily surviving witnesses of so much glory,
surpassing and gigantic even in the last stage of
their decay ? Shall we suppose the ancient
accounts fallacious because they are too wonderful

Preliminary Account. 9

to be conceived ; or have we not now present
before our eyes the plain evidence of lost science
and the vestiges of an intelligence superior to our
own ? For what did the nations flock to Memphis ?
For what did Pythagoras, Thales, Democritus, and
Plato become immured there for several solitarv
years, but to be initiated in the wisdom and
learning of those Egyptians ? For what else, but
for the knowledge of that mighty Art with which
she arose, governed, and dazzled the whole co-
temporary world ; holding in strong abe3^ance
the ignorant, profane, vulgar, until the evil day of
desolation came with self-abuse, when, neglecting
to obe}^ the law by which she governed, all fell, as
was foretold, and sinking gradually deeper in crime
and presumption, was at last annihilated, and
every sacred institution violated by barbarians,
and despoiled ? " Oh, Egypt ! Egypt ! Fables
alone shall remain of thy religion, and these such
as will be incredible to posterity, and words alone
shall be left engraved in stones narrating thy pious
deeds. The Scythian also, or Indian, or some other
similar nation, shall inhabit Egypt. For divinity
shall return to heaven, all its inhabitants shall die,
and thus Egypt bereft both of God and man shall
be deserted. Why do you weep, 0 Asclepias ?
Egypt shall experience }^et more ample evils ; she
was once holy, and the greatest lover of the gods
on earth, by the desert of her religion. And she,
who was alone the reductor of sanctity and the
mistress of piety, will be an example of the greatest
cruelty. And darkness shall be preferred to light,
and death shall be judged to be more useful than
life. No one shall look up to heaven. The religious
man shall be counted insane ; the irreligious shall
be thought wise ; the furious, brave ; and the
worst of men shall be considered good. For the
soul, and all things about it, by which it is either
naturally immortal, or conceives it shall attain to
immortality, conformably to what I have ex-

10 Exoteric View.

plained to you, shall not only be the subjects of
laughter, but shall be considered as vanity. Believe
me, likewise, that a capital punishment shall be
appointed for him who applies himself to the
Religion of Intellect. New statutes and new laws
shall be established, and nothing religious, or
which is worthy of heaven or celestial concerns,
shall be heard or believed in by the mind. Every
divine voice shall, by a necessary silence, be dumb :
the fruits of the earth shall be corrupted ; and the
air itself shall languish with a sorrowful stupor.
These events, and such an old age of the world as
this, shall take place — such irreligion, inordination,
and unseasonableness of all good."11

Such is the substance of a prediction which, as it
was supposed to have reference to the Christian era,
has been abused and reputed a forgery by the
faithless learned of modern times. It is, however,
difficult to conceive why it should have been con-
sidered so obnoxious, for the early history of
Christianity certainly does not fulfil it ; it was a
falling off from Divinity that was predicted, and
not such a revival as took place upon the teaching
of Jesus Christ and his apostles. At that period
philosophy too flourished, and the Spirit of the
Word was potent in faith to heal and save. If the
prediction had been a forgery of Apuleius, or other
cotemporary opponent of Christianity, the early
fathers must have known it, which they did not as
is plain from Lactantius, and St. Augustin men-
tioning, without expressing any doubt about its
authenticity ; and though the latter (then adopt-
ing probably the popular notion) esteemed it
instinctu fallacis spiritus,12 he might subsequently
perhaps have thought otherwise, had he lived so
long. Christianity was yet in his time glowing,

11 From the Asclepian Dialogue of Hermes, by Ficinus, as
rendered by T. Taylor.

12 See Taylor's notes to the Prophecy, in Plotinus' Select
Works, at the end, p. 557, &c.

Preliminary Account. 11

bright, and efficacious, from the Divine Fountain ;
faith was then grounded in reality and living opera-
tion, and the mystery of human regeneration, so
zealously proclaimed, was also rationally under-
stood. The fulfilment, with respect to Egypt,
appears to have taken place in part long previously,
and in part to have been reserved to later times,
when sacred mysteries, too openly exposed to the
multitude, became perverted and vilified by their
abuse.

But this prophecy carries us out of all order of
time : it will be necessary, in tracing the progress
of our science, to pass again to Egypt. The period
of her true greatness is, as is well known, shrouded
in oblivion ; but, during the succession of the
Ptolemies, the influx of strangers, so long before
successfully prohibited, became excessive : her
internal peace was destroyed, but her Art and
Wisdom spread abroad with her renown : foreign-
ers obtained initiation into the Mysteries of Isis ;
and India, Arabia, China, and Persia vied with
her and with each other in magian skill and prowess.

Pliny informs us that it was Ostanes, the Persian
sage accompanying the army of Xerxes, who first
inoculated Greece with the portentous spirit of his
nation.13 Subsequently the Greek Philosophers,
both young and old, despising the minor religion
of their own country, became anxious to visit the
eastern temples, and that of Memphis above all,
in order to obtain a verification of those hopes
to which a previous spirit of inquiry and this new
excitement had abundantly given rise.

Amongst the earliest mentioned of these, after
Thales, Pythagoras, and a few others, whose
writings are lost, is Democritus of Abdera, who has
been frequently styled the father of experimental
philosophy, and who, in his book of Sacred Physics*

13 De Ostane Magno, vide Plinium, Histor. Nat. lib. xxx.
cap. i.

12 Exoteric View.

treats especially of the Hermetic art, and that
occult discovery on which the systems of ancient
philosophy appear to have been very uniformly
based.14 Of this valuable piece there are said to be
several extant editions, and Synesius has added
to it the light of a commentary.15 Nicholas Flam-
mel also, of more recent notoriety, has given
extracts from the same at the conclusion of a very
instructive work.16 That its authenticity should
have been disputed by the ignorant is not wonder-
ful ; but the ancients are nowhere found to
doubt about it. Pliny bears witness to the experi-
mental fame of Democritus, and his skill in the
occult sciences and practice of them, both in his
native city of Abdera and afterwards at Athens,
when Socrates was teaching there. Plenum
miraculi et hoc pariter utrasque artes effloruisse,
medicinam dico, magiciemque eadem aetate, illam
Hippocrate hanc Democrito illustrantibus, &c.17
Seneca also mentions his artificial confection of
precious stones ;18 and it is said that he spent all
his leisure, after his return home, in these and
such-like hyperphysical researches.19

During the sojourn of Democritus at Memphis,
he is said to have become associated in his studies
with a Hebrew woman named Maria, remarkable
at that period for the advances she had made in
Philosophy, and particularly in the department
of the Hermetic Art. A treatise entitled Sapient i*-
sima Maria de Lapide Philosophica Prazscripta is
extant ; also Maria Practica, a singularly excellent

14 Democriti Abderitae de Arte Sacra, sive de rebus naturali-
bus et mysticis libellus, ex venerandae Graecae vetustatis de
Arte Chimica reliquiis erutus.

15 Synesius in Democritum Abderitam de Arte Sacra.

16 Flammelli Summario Philosophico.

17 Hist. Nat. lib. xxx. cap. i.

18 Epistola, xci.

19 Petronius Arbiter in Satyrico.

Preliminary Account. 13

and esteemed fragment, which is preserved in the
alchemical collections.20

But amongst the Greeks, next Democritus,
Anaxagoras is celebrated as an alchemist. The
remains of his writings are unfortunately scanty,
and even those to be found in manuscript only,
with exception of some fragments which have been
accidentally translated. From these, however, we
are led to infer favourably of the general char-
acter of his expositions, which Norton, our country-
man also, in the Proheme to his quaint Ordinal of
Alchemy, lauds, thus holding him up in excellent
comparison with the envious writers of his age.

All masters that write of this solemn werke,
Have made their bokes to manie men full derke.
In poysies, parables, and in metaphors alsoe,
Which to schollors causeth peine and woe ;
For in their practise when they would assaye
They leefe their costs, as men see alle daye.
Hermes, Rasis, Geber, and Avicen,
Merlin, Hortolan, Democrit and Morien,
Bacon and Raymond with many moe
Wrote under coverts and Aristotle alsoe.
For what hereof they wrote cleare with their pen,
Their clouded clauses dulled ; fro manie men
Fro laj^men, fro clerks, and soe fro every man
They hid this art that noe man find it can.
By their bokes thei do shew reasons faire,
Whereby much people are brought to despaire :
Yet Anaxagoras wrote plainest of them all
In his boke of Conversions Nat u rail ;
Of the old Fathers that ever I founde,
He most discloses of this science the grounde ;

20 Democriti Abderito? physici philosophi prasclarum nomen ;
hie ab Ostane Medo, ab ejus sevi Persarum Regibus sacrorum
praefecturae causa in Egypto misso, sacris litteris initiatur et
imbuitur, in Memphis fano inter sacerdotes et philosophos,
quaedain Hebraea, omni disciplinam genere excultu, et Pam-
menes. De auro et argento et lapidibus et purpura, sermone
per ambages composito scripsit, quo dicendi genere usa est
etiam Maria. Verum hi quidem Democritus et Maria quod
enigmatibus plurimis et eruditus artem occultassent laudati
sunt : Pammenes quod abunde et aperte scripsisset vituper-
atus est. (Synceilus, Chronographia, p. 248.)

14 Exoteric View.

Whereof Aristotle had great envy,

And him rebuked unrightfully,

In manie places, as I can well report,

Intending that men should not to him resort,

For he was large of his cunnying and love,

God have his soul in bliss above ;

And such as sowed envious seede

God forgive them for their mis-deede.21

Aristotle is much blamed by Adepts in general
for the manner in which he has not only veiled the
knowledge which he secretly possessed, but also
for having wilfully, as they complain, led mankind
astray from the path of true experiment. We
hesitate to judge this question, since, however
much the barrenness of his philosophy may be
deplored, it appears improbable that any philo-
sopher, much less one who took so much pains as
Aristotle, should designedly labour to deceive
mankind. His idea was peculiar and appears in
itself just. He blames his predecessors for the
various and contradictory positions they had made
in philosophising ; i.e., apparently contradictory,
as respects their language taken in a literal sense ;
for he never quarrels with their true meaning, and
carefully avoids disputing their general ground.
His metaphysics indeed, which are the natural
touchstone of his whole system, differ in no one
fundamental respect or particular that is essential
from those of Anaxagoras, Plato and Heraclitus.
Certain epistles to Alexander the Great on the
Philosopher's stone, attributed to Aristotle, are
preserved in the fifth volume of the Theatrum
Chemicum ; and the Secreta Secretorum is generally
acknowledged to be authentic. In the book of
Meteors also a clearer intelligence of intrinsic

21 See Norton's Ordinal in Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum
Britannicum, p. 8.

Preliminary Account. 15

causes is evinced than may be apparent to the
common eye.22

But the whole philosophy of Plato is hyper-
physical ; the Phsedrus, Philebus, and seventh
book of Laws, the beautiful and sublime Par-
menides, the Phsedo, Banquet, and Timseus have
long been admired by the studious without being
understood ; a mystic semblance pervades the
whole, and recondite allusions baffle the pursuit of
sense and ordinary imagination. Yet the philosopher
speaks more familiarly in his Epistles ; — and if
the correspondence with Dionysius of Syracuse had
concerned moral philosophy only and the abstract
relations of mind, why such dread as is there
expressed about setting the truth to paper ? But
the science which drew the tyrant to the philo-
sopher was more probably practical and profitably
interesting than abstracts would appear to be to
such a mind. " Indeed, 0 son of Dionysius and
Doris, this your inquiry concerning the cause of
all beautiful things is endued with a certain
quality, or rather it is a parturition respecting this
ingenerated in the soul, from which he who is not
liberated will never in reality acquire truth."23
Wisdom must be sought for her own sake, neither
for gold or silver or any intermediate benefit, lest
these all should be denied together without the dis-

22 See lib. iii. cap. 15. Ubi, inter alia, dicit, metalla fieri ex
aqueo halitu et sicca exhalatione, quae sunt argentum et sul-
phur. Metalla autem omnia, ut ad rem redeam, fiunt ex una
eademque materia propinqua, utpote ex argento vivo et
sulphure, quod omnes asserunt. Different tamen forma id est
puritate et coctione seu digestione. Spoliatio vero accidentium,
vel formarum ipsarum essentialiam corruptio et aliarum intro-
ductio, possibilis est, et in habentibus symbolum facilis est
transitus, ut circularis est generatio elementorum, ita et
metallorum ex se invicem. Which universal principle of trans-
mutation, thus indicated by Aristotle, Hermes, Albertus
Magnus, and the rest of the alchemists assert. See also Aristo-
telis de Lapide ad Alexandrum Magnum ; Theat. Chem. vol. v.

23 Epistle II. Plato's Works, by Ta}dor, vol. v.

16 Exoteric View.

covery of their source. There is a treatise on the
philosopher's stone in the fifth volume of the Thea-
trum Chemicum attributed to Plato, but the authen-
tic^ is doubtful ; and since the principal Greek
records of the art were afterwards destroyed with
the remnant of Egyptian literature at Alexandria,
we are not desirous to enrol either of these names
without more extant evidence to prove their claim
to the title of Hermetic philosophers. They are
mentioned here in their series, because we hope to
make it probable, as the nature of the subject
comes to be developed, that the most famous
schools of theosophy have in all ages been based
on a similar experimental ground and profound
science of truth in their leaders.

It was about the year 284 of the Christian era
when, as Suidas relates, the facilit}^ with which the
Egyptians were able to make gold and silver,
and in consequence to levy troops against Rome,
excited the envy and displeasure of the emperor
to such an extent, that he issued an edict, by
which every chemical book was to be seized and
burned together in the public market-place ;
vainly hoping, as the historian adds, by this
shameful act, to deprive them of the means of
annoying him any more. Thus Suidas also en-
deavours to account for the silence of antiquity
with respect to the Egyptian Art.24 Yet, notwith-
standing all this sacrilege, the art appears to have
been continually revived in Egypt throughout the
whole period of her decline ; and, though the
records are scanty, we have the memorable story
of Cleopatra, the last monarch, dissolving her
earring in such a sharp vinegar as is only known to
philosophers on the ground of nature. Mystical
tales, too, there are related of her pursuits with

24 Suidas in Verbo Chemeia. See the foregoing note, p. 6.

Preliminary Account. 17

Mark Antony, and certain chemical treatises
attributed to this princess are yet extant.25

It will be unnecessary to delay our enquiry long
at Rome ; a city so pre-eminently famous for
luxury/ and arms was not likely to arrive at much
perfection in the subtler sciences of nature. Some
failing attempts of Caligula there are recounted by
Pliny ;26 and Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Vitruvius, and
other men noted of the Augustan Age, have been
gravely accused of sorcery and dabbling in the
black art. But the perpetual lamps best prove, and
without offence, that the Romans understood
something of chemistr}^ and the occult laws of
light ; several of these are described by Pancirollus;
and St. Augustin mentions one consecrated to
Venus in his day, that was inextinguishable. But
the most remarkable were those found in Tullia's
(Cicero's daughter's) tomb ; — and that one near
Alestes in the year 1500, by a rustic who, digging
deeper than usual, discovered an earthen vessel
or urn containing another urn, in which last was
a lamp placed between two cylindrical vessels, one
of gold the other of silver, and each of which was
full of a very pure liquor, by whose virtue it is
probable these lamps had continued to shine for
upwards of fifteen hundred years ; and, but for
the recklessness of barbarian curiosity, might have
continued their wonderful illumination to this
time. By the inscription found upon these vessels,
it appears they were the work of one Maximus
Olybius, who certainty evinced thereby some
superior skill in adjusting the gaseous elements, or
other ethereal adaptations than is known at this

25 Cleopatra Regina Egj^pti Ars auri faciendi, &c, and others
mentioned in the Catalogue of the Royal Library at Paris, 1742.
See Dufresnoy, Hist. Herm. vol. iii.

26 Invitaverat spes Caium Caligulam Principem avidissimum
auri ; quam ob rem jussit ex coqui magnum auri pigment i
pondus ; et plane fecit aurum excellens, sed ita parvi ponderis
ut detrimentum sentiret, &c. (Hist. Nat. lib. xxxiii. cap. iv.)

18 Exoteric View.

day. The verses graven on the larger urn are as
follows : —

Platoni sacrum munus ne attingite fures :
Ignotum est vobis hac quod in urna latet.

Namque elementa gravi clausit digesta labore
Vase sub hoc modico Maximus Olybius.

Adsit fecundo custos sibi copia cornu,
Ne jfretium tanti depereat laticis.

Which have been translated thus :

Plunderers, forbear this gift to touch

'Tis awful Pluto's own ;
A secret rare the world conceals

To such as you unknown.
Olybius, in this slender vase,

The elements has chained,
Digested with laborious art,

From secret science gained.
With guardian care, two copious urns

The costly juice confine,
Lest through the ruins of decay,

The lamp should cease to shine.

On the lesser urn were these :

Abite hinc pessimi fures !

Vos quid voltis vestris cum oculis emissititiis ?

Abite hinc vestro cum Mercurio petasato caduceatoque f

Maximus maximo donum Plutoni hos sacrum facit.

Plunderers, with prying eyes, away !
What mean you by this curious stay ?
Hence with your cunning patron god,
With bonnet winged and magic rod !
Sacred alone to Pluto's name
This mighty art of endless fame !27

Hermolaus Barbaras, in his corollary to Dios-
corus, or some other, where he is treating of the
element of water in general, alludes to a particular
kind that is distinct from every other water or
liquor, saying, — There is a ccelestial, or rather a
divine water of the chemists, with which both
Democritus and Trismegistus were acquainted,
calling it divine water, Scythian latex, &c, which

27 See Theat. Chem. vol. i. p. 26 ; Ex Petri Apiani Antq.
desumpta ; also, Taylor's notes to his Pausanias, vol. hi.

Preliminary Account. 19

is a spirit of the nature of the ether and quintes-
sence of things, whence potable gold, and the stone
of philosophers, takes its beginning. The ancient
author of the Apocalypse of the Secret Spirit of
Nature, is also cited by H. Khunrath, concerning
this water ; and he devoutly affirms, that the ether
in this praeter-perfeet aqueous body will bum
perpetually, without diminution or consumption
of itself, if the external air only be restrained.2 *
There are also, besides those mentioned by Pan-
cirollus, modern accounts of lamps found burning
in monuments and antique caves of Greece and
Germany. But the Bononian Enigma, long famous,
without a solution, should not be omitted here,
since this relic has puzzled many learned anti-
quaries ; and the adepts claim it as having ex-
clusive reference to the occult material of their art.

^LIA L/ELIA CRISPIS.

Nee vir, nee mulier, nee androgyna,
Nee puella, nee juvenis, nee anus,
Nee casta, nee meretrix, nee pudica,

Sed omnia !
Sublata neque fame, neque ferro, neque
Veneno, sed omnibus !
Nee ccela, nee terris, nee aquis,

Sed ubique jacet !

LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCUS.

Nee maritus, nee amator, nee neeessarius,
Neque mcerens, neque gaudens, neque flens,

Hanc
Neque molem, neque pyramidem, neque sepulcrum,

Sed omnia,
Scit et nescit cui posuerit,
Hoc est sepulcrum certe, cadaver
Non habens, sed cadaver idem,

Est et sepulcrum !29

The following excellent translations appeared
amongst some original contributions in the early
number of a literary periodical, a few years since :30

*28 Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Eternae, circa medium.
29 Theat. Chem. vol. v. p. 746. Kircheri (Edipus iEgyptiacus,
vol. i.

30 The Critic, new series, No. 13, 1845, p. 352.

20 Exoteric View.

MIA A L^ELIA CRISPIS.

Nor male, nor female, nor hermaphrodite.
Nor virgin, woman, young or old,
Nor chaste, nor harlot, modest hight,

But all of them you're told —
Not killed by poison, famine, sword,
But each one had its share,
Not in heaven, earth, or water broad

It lies, but everywhere !

LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCUS.

No husband, lover, kinsman, friend,

Rejoicing, sorrowing at life's end,

Knows or knows not, for whom is placed

This — what ? This pyramid, so raised and graced ?

This grave, this sepulchre ? 'Tis neither,

'Tis neither — but 'tis all and each together.

Without a body I aver,

This is in truth a sepulchre ;

But notwithstanding, I proclaim

Both corpse and sepulchre the same !

All these contradictory claims are said by the
alchemists to relate to the properties of their
universal subject, as we shall hereafter endeavour
to explain. Michael Maier has detailed the whole
allusion in his Symbola.31 And N. Barnaud, in the
Theatrum Chemicum, has a commenta^ on the
same.32

But to proceed ; transferring our regards from
Rome to Alexandria, we find many Christian
Platonists and divines studying and discussing the
Occult Art in their writings. St. John, the Evan-
gelist Apostle, is cited as having practised it for the
good of the poor ; not only in healing the sick,
but also confecting gold, silver, and precious stones
for their benefit. St. Victor relates the particulars
in a commentary, and the Greek Catholics were
accustomed to sing the following verses in a hymn
appointed for the mass on St. John's day.

31 Symbola Aurise Mensae, p. 170, &c.

32 Commentariolum in Enigmaticum quoddam Epitaphium
Bononiae studiorum, ante multa secula marmoreo lapidi
insculptum. Theat. Chem. vol. v.

Preliminary Account. 21

Cum gemmarum partes fractas
Solidasset, has distractas
Tribuit pauperibus.
Inexhaustum fert thesaurum
Qui de virgis fecit aurum
Gemmas de lapidibus.33

Looking to the general testimony of the Fathers,
we observe that the early Church Catholic did not
neglect to avail herself of the powers which sanctity
of life and a well-grounded faith had gotten her.
There is no doubt either that the Apostles, when
they instituted and left behind them certain ordi-
nances and elementary types, as of water, oil, salt,
and light, signified some real and notable efficacies.
But our Reformers, mistaking these things for
superstitions, and since they had ceased to have
any meaning, turned them all out of doors ;
retaining, indeed, little more of the mystery of
regeneration than a traditional faith. The Papists,
on the other hand, equally oblivious, evinced only
to what a length human credulity and ignorance
may be carried, by placing inherent holiness in
those material signs, apart from the spirit and
only thing signified ; adding, moreover, to the
original ordinations many follies of their own, they
fell into a very slavish and stupid kind of idolatry.
And since one of the most fertile sources of dissen-
sion that have arisen in the Christian Church has
been about these very shadows and types of
doctrines, it is to be hoped that, if ever again they
should come to be generally reintroduced, it will not
be on the ground of ecclesiastical persuasion, or
any mere written authority, which, however high

33 See Alexander Beauvais in Speculo Naturali. Hie Johannes
Evangelista numeratur etiam ab Avicenna, dictione prima libri
de anima, inter possessores lapidis philosophici suasque institu-
tions, qui se Avicenna artem hanc docuerint quod verisimile
est, nam et ecclesia prisca, auctore Adamo a Sancto Victore,
die D. Johanni Evangelists? sacro mente decinit in hymno
incipiente : " Gratulemur ad festivum," &c. Vide Lucerna
Satis, p. 65, &c.

22 Exoteric View.

and well supported, has never yet been found
sufficient to produce unanimity ; but from a true
understanding and co-operation of that original
virtue, apart from which they do but mimic an
efficacy, and gather unwholesome fruits. There is
a curious story of an early Christian mission to
China, related by Thomas Vaughan, in his Magia
Adamica, showing how the faith became originally
established there and elsewhere by its open
efficacy, and the power of works, in healing and
purifying the lives of men.

But we are at Alexandria, and during that grand
revival of philosophy which took place and con-
tinued there some centuries subsequent to the
Christian epoch, Plotinus, Philo-Judseus, Proclus,
Porphyry, Jamblicus, Julian, and Apuleius, each
professing a genuine knowledge of the Theurgic art,
and experimental physics on the Hermetic ground.
We shall have frequent occasion to quote their
evidence hereafter ; Heliodorus, Olympiodorus,
Synesius, Athenagoras, Zozimus, and Archelaus,
have each left treatises which are extant on the
philosopher's stone.34 The excellent Hypatia, also,
should be mentioned amongst these, so celebrated
for her acquirements and untimely end ; it was
from this lady that Synesius learned the occult
truths of that philosophy, to which he ever after-
wards devoted his mind, and which he never
abandoned, pursuing it still more zealously when,
converted to Christianity, he became a bishop of
the Alexandrian Church. He was careful, however,
to protect the mysteries of his religion from vulgar
abuse, and refused to expound in public the

34 Heliodorus Phil. Christ, de Arte Sacra Chimicor, ad Theod.
Imp. Idem, versus Grrcc. circa Chimiam. Olympiodori Phil.
Alex, de Divina et Sacra Arte Lapidis Philosophici Tractatus.
Athenagoras de Perfect. Amoris. Zozimus de Virtute et Com-
positione Aquarum. Idem, de Aqua Divina. Idem, de Auri
Conficiendi. Archelai, Carmen Iambicum de Sacra Arte. See
Dufresnoy, Histoire de Y Art Hermetique, vol. iii. Cat. Gr MSS.

Preliminary Account. 23

philosophy of Plato ; he and his brethren having
unanimously bound themselves by oath to initiate
none but such as had been worthily prepared and
duly approved by the whole conclave.35 Of Syne-
sius, we have remaining the Alchemical comment-
ary on Democritus before mentioned, with an
admirable piece commonly found appended to
other treatises, those of Artephius and Flammel's
Hieroglyphics, for example, and translated into
English, with Basil Valentine's Chariot of Antimony
and the useful commentaries of the adept Kirch-
ringius.36

Heliodorus was a familiar friend of Synesius, and
brother adept ; besides the writings already named,
the mystical romance of Theagenes and Chariclea
being attributed to him as an offence, rather than
disavow it, as was required, he relinquished his
bishopric of Tricca, in Thessaly, and went to
pursue his studies in poverty and retirement.

Zozimus was an Egyptian, and reputed a great
practitioner. The name of Athenagoras is familiar
in Church history ; his tract, which has been
translated into French, and entitled Du Parjait
Amour, shows him to have been practically
conversant with the art he allegorizes.

The taking of Alexandria by the Arabs, in the
year 640, dispersed the choice remnant of mind
yet centred there ; and it was not long afterwards
that the Calif Omar, mad in his Mahomedan zeal,
condemned her noble and unique library to heat
the public baths of the city, which it is said to
have done for the space of six miserable months.
A wild religious fanaticism now prevailed ;
Christians and Mahomedans struggling for tem-
poral supremacy : — and here we may observe

35 Synesius, Epistola 36, 142.

36 Troics, Traitez de la Philosophie, &c, Paris, 1612. The
Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, from Kirchringius's ed., and
The True Book of Synesius, on the Philosopher's Stone.

24 Exoteric View.

something similar to a fulfilment of the Asclepian
prophecy, but the evil was more profusely spread
even than was predicted ; for religion had every -
where fallen off from her vital foundation ; tradi-
tion and sectarian delirium had taken place of
intellectual enthusiasm, and idle dreams were
set up as oracles in the place of Divine inspiration.
The priests, above all blameworthy, having for-
saken the law of conscience, attempted to wield
without it the rod of magic power. Confusion and
licentiousness followed ; and from gradual suffer-
ance grew, and came to prevail, in the worst
imaginable forms. Necessity, at length, compelled
an abandonment of the Mysteries ; Theurgic rites,
no longer holy, were proscribed ; and a punish-
ment, no less than death, was menaced against
him who dared to pursue the " Religion of Intel-
lect." In the interim, those few who had withstood
the torrent of ambitious temptation, indignant at
the multiform folly, and observing by aid of their
remaining wisdom, that the ingression of evil was
not yet fulfilled, hastened rather than delayed the
crisis ; and by burying themselves with their
saving science in profound obscurity, have left
the world to oblivion, and the deceit of outer
darkness, with rare individual exceptions, to
this day.

It is a peculiarity of the Hermetic science that
men of every religion, time and country and occu-
pation, have been found professing it ; and Arabia,
though she was guilt}^ of so great a sacrilege at
Alexandria, has herself produced many wise kings
and renowned philosophers. It is not known
exactly when Prince Geber lived ; but since his
name has become notorious, and is cited by the
oldest authors, whereas he himself quotes none,
he merits, at all events, an early consideration.
Besides, he is generally esteemed by adepts as the
greatest, after Hermes, of all who have philoso-
phized through this art.

Preliminary Account. 25

Of the five hundred treatises, said to have been
composed by him, three only remain to posterity :
The Investigation of Perfection, The Sum of the
perfect Magistery, and his Testament ;37 and the
light estimation in which these are held by more
modern chemists, forms a striking contrast to the
unfeigned reverence and admiration with which
they were formerly reviewed and cited by the
adepts, Albertus Magnus, Lully, and many more
of the brightest luminaries of their age.

' If we look back to the seventh centurv (we
quote from the address delivered at the opening
meeting of the Faraday Society, 1846), the alchemist
is presented brooding over his crucibles and
alembics that are to place within his reach the
philosopher's stone, the transmutation of metals,
the alkahest, and the elixir of life. With these we
associate the name of Geber, the first authentic
writer on the subject ; from whose peculiar and
mysterious style of writing we derive the word
geber or gibberish."

Yet, notwithstanding this and much more that
they descant upon, if our modern illuminati were
but half as experienced in nature as they might
be — had they one ray even of the antique intellect
they deride, how different a scene would not that
remote age present to them ? Instead of imagining
greed}^ dotards brooding over their crucibles and
uncouth alembics, in vain hope of discovering
the elixir and stone of philosophers, they would
observe the philosophers themselves, by a kindred
light made visible, on their own ground : experi-

37 Gebri Arabian Summa Perfectionis Magisterii in sua
Nat ura. Idem, de Investigatione Perfectionis Metallorum.
Idem, Testamentum. These were printed together at Dantzic
from the Vatican MSS., and have been translated into English,
and entitled " The Works of Geber, comprising the Sum and
Search of Perfection ; Of the Investigation of Verity ; and of
Furnaces ; with a Recapitulation of the Author's Experi-
ments, by R. Russel : London, 1678/' There are other trans-
lations, but all faulty in one or other respect.

26 Exoteric View.

meriting, indeed, but how and with what ? Not
with our gross elements, our mercuries, sulphurs,
and our lifeless salts ; but in a far different nature,
with stranger arts, and with laboratories too, how
different from those now in use : — of common
fittings, yet not inferior either ; but most complete
with vessels, fuel, furnaces, and every material
requisite, well adapted together and compact in
one. Right skilfully has old Geber veiled a fair
discovery, by his own art alone to be unmasked :
his gibberish is not of the present day's common-
place, tame, and tolerable ; but such ultra-
foolishness in literality are his receipts, as folly is
never found to venture or common sense invent.
For they are a part of wisdom's envelope, to
guard her universal magistery from an incapable
and dreaming world ; calculated they are, never-
theless, though closely sealed, to awaken rational
curiosity, and lend a helping hand to those who
have already entered on trie right road ; but to
deceive in practice only the most credulous and
inept. They who have really understood Geber,
his adept compeers, declare with one accord that
he has spoken the truth, though disguisedly, with
great acuteness and precision : others, therefore,
who do not profess to understand, and to whom
those writings are a mere unintelligible jargon,
may take warning hence, lest they exhibit to
posterity a twofold ignorance and vanity of
thought.

Rhasis, another Arabian alchemist, was even
more publicly famous than Geber, on account of
the practical displays he made of his transmuting
skill. Excellent extracts from his writings, which
are said to exist principally in manuscript, often
occur in the works of Roger Bacon.

The story of the hermit Morien, how in early life
he left his family and native city (for he was a
Roman), to seek the sage Adfar, a solitary adept,
whose fame had reached him from Alexandria ; the

Preliminary Account. 27

finding him, gaining his confidence, and becoming
at length his devoted disciple ; — is related by his
biographer in a natural and ve^ interesting
manner : also his subsequent sojournings, after
the death of his patron, his intercourse with King
Calid, with the initiation and final conversion of
that prince to Christianity. But the details are
given at much too great length for extract in this
place. A very attractive and esteemed work,
purporting to be a dialogue between himself and
Calid, is extant under the name of Morien, and
copied into many of the collections.38 Calid also
wrote some treatises : his Liber Secreiorum, or
Secret of Secrets, as it has been styled, is translated
into English, French, and Latin.39

Prince Averroes, and the notorious Avicenna,
next demand notice. The latter became known to
the world somewhere between the ninth and tenth
centuries. His strong but ill-directed genius, so
similar to that of Paracelsus, was the occasion of
much suffering and self -desolation ; but his name
was illustrious over Asia, and his authority
continued pre-eminent in the European schools
of medicine until after the Reformation. He is
said to have carried on the practice of trans-
mutation, with the magical arts in general, to a
great extent ; but his Alchemical remains are
neither lucid nor numerous, not those at least
which are well authenticated.40

Artephius was a Jew, who, by the use of the
elixir, is reported to have lived throughout the
period of a thousand years, with what truth or
credibility opinions may vary ; he himself affirms

38 Morienus Eremita Hierosol. de Transfiguratione Metal -
lorum, seu Dialogus Morieni cum Calide rege, de Lapide Philos.

39 See Theat. Chem. vol. v. ; Salmon's Practical Physic ; and
Le Bibliotheque des Philosophes Chimiques.

40 The following have been attributed to him : — Avicenna de
Tinctura Metallorum. Idem, Porta Elementa. Idem, de
Mineralibus,— printed with the Dantzic edition of Geber and
a few others.

28 Exoteric View.

it, and Paracelsus, Pontanus, and Roger Bacon
appear to give credence to the tale,41 which forms
part of his celebrated treatise on the philosopher's
stone, and runs as follows : — Ego vero Artephius
postquam adeptus sum veram accompletam sapi-
entiam in libris veridici Hermetis, fui aliquando
invidius sicut cseteri omnes, sed cum per mille
annos aut circiter qua? jam transierunt super me a
nativitate mea gratia soli Dei omnipotentis et usu
hujus mirabilis quintse essentia?. — i.e., I Artephius,
having learnt all the art in the books of the true
Hermes, was once, as others, envious ; but having
now lived one thousand years, or thereabouts
(which thousand years have already passed over
me since my nativity, by the grace of God alone,
and the use of this admirable quintessence), as I
have seen, through this long space of time, that
men have been unable to perfect the same magis-
tery on account of the obscurity of the words of
philosophers, moved by pity and a good conscience,
I have resolved, in these my last days, to publish
it all sincerely and truly ; so that men may have
nothing more to desire concerning this work. I
except one thing only, which it is not lawful that
I should write, because it can be revealed truly
only by God, or by a master. Nevertheless, this
likewise may be learned from this book, provided
one be not stiff-necked, and have a little experi-
ence.42

This Artephius forms a sort of link in the history
of Alchemy, carried as it was in the course of time
from Asia into Europe, about the period of the
first crusades, when a general communication of the
mind of different nations was effected by their being
united under a common cause. Sciences, arts, and
civilization, which had heretofore flourished in the

41 See Theophrastus Paracelsus in Libro de Vita longa, Ponta-
nus, Epistola, &c. R. Bacon, in Libro de Mirab. Natur. Operib.

42 Arteni Antiquissimi Philosophi de Arte Occulta atque
Lapide Philosophorum Liber secretus.

Preliminary Account. 29

East only, were gradually transplanted into
Europe ; and towards the end of the twelfth
century, or thereabouts, our Phoenix too bestirred
herself, and passed into the West.

Roger Bacon was amongst the first to fill his
lamp from her revivescent spirit ; and with this
ascending and descending experimentally, he is said
to have discovered the secret ligature of natures,
and their magical dissolution : he was moreover
acquainted with theology in its profoundest
principles ; medicine, likewise physics and meta-
physics on their intimate ground ; and, having
proved the miraculous multiplicability of light
by the universal spirit of nature, he worked the
knowledge into such effect, that in the mineral
kingdom he produced gold.43 What marvel,
persecuted as he was for the natural discoveries
which he gave to the world, without patent or
profit to himself, if he should appropriate these
final fruits of labour and long interior study ?
Yet it does not appear that he was selfishly
prompted even in this particular reservation ; it
was conscience, as he declares, that warned him
to withhold a gift somewhat over rashly and dan-
gerously obtained. His acutely penetrative and
experimental mind, not content even with enough
led him by a fatal curiosity, as it is suggested, into
forbidden realms of self-sufficiency and unlawful
perscrutinations, which ended in disturbing his
peace of mind, and finally induced him to abandon
altogether those researches, in order to retrieve
and expiate in solitude the wrongs he had com-
mitted. We know that the imputation of magic
has seemed ridiculous, and every report of the kind
has been referred to the friar's extraordinary skill
in the natural sciences. The rejection of his books
at Oxford has often been cited as an instance of
the exceeding bigotry of those times, as indeed it

43 See, Speculum Alchimise Rogerii Bachonis, Theat. Chem.
vol. ii. De Mirabilibus Potestatibus Artis et Naturae, &c.

30 Exoteric View.

was ; and yet are we not nearly as far off perhaps
from the truth in our liberality as were our fore-
fathers in their superstition ? An accusation of
magic has not occurred of late, nor would be likely
to molest seriously any philosopher of the present
age ; but then it did occur often during the dark
ages, and who can tell whether it may not again
at some future day, when men are even more
enlightened and intimate with nature than they
are now ?

There are still remaining two or three works of
Roger Bacon, in which the roots of the Hermetic
science are fairly stated ; but the practice most
carefully concealed, agreeably to that maxim,
which in his latter years he penned, that truth ought
not to be shown to every ribald, for then that would
become most vile, which, in the hand of a philosopher,
is the most precious of all things.^

Many great lights shone through the darkness
of those middle ages ; Magians, who were drawn
about the fire of nature, as it were, into communi-
cation with her central source. Albertus Magnus,
his friend and disciple the acute Aquinas, Scotus
Erigina the subtle doctor, Arnold di Villa Nova,
and Raymond Lully, all confessed adepts. John
Reuchlin, Ficinus the Platonist, Picus di Miran-
dola, blending alchemy and therapeutics with
neoplatonism and the cabalistic art. Spinoza also
was a profound metaphysician and speculator on
the same experimental ground. Alain de V Isle
the celebrated French philosopher, Merlin (St.
Ambrose), the abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius
Agrippa his enterprising pupil, and many more
subsequent to these, great, resolute, and philo-
sophic spirits, who were not alone content to rend
asunder the veil of ignorance from before their
own minds, but held it still partially open for
others, disclosing the interior lights of science to

44 Speculum AlchimKe. in fine. Fr. Bachonis Anglici libellus
cum influentiis Cceli, relates to the same mystical subject.

Preliminary Account. 31

such as were able to aspire, and willing to follow
their great example, labouring in the way. Medium
minds set limits to nature, halting continually, and
returning, before barriers which those others
over-leaped almost without perceiving them. Faith
was the beacon-light that led them on to convic-
tion, by a free perspicuity of thought beyond things
seen, to believe and hope truthfully, which is the
distinguishing prerogative of great minds. But it
will be necessary to regard this extraordinary
epoch of Occult Science more in detail, with the
testimony of its heroes, whose reputation, together
with that of alchemy, has suffered from the faith-
lessness of biographers, compilers, commentators,
and such like interference.

Most of the alchemical works of Albert, for in-
stance, have been excluded from the great editions
of his works, and the authenticity of all has been
disputed, but without lasting effect ; for in that
long and laborious treatise, De Mineralibus, un-
questionably his own, even if the rest were proved
spurious, there is sufficient evidence of his belief
and practice to admit all. Therein he describes the
first matter of the adepts with the characteristic
minuteness of personal observation, and recom-
mends alchemy as the best and most easy means of
rational investigation. De transmutatione horum
corporum metallicorum et mutatione unius in
aliud non est physici determinare, sed artis quae
est Alchimica. Est autem optimum genus hujus
inquisitionis et certissimum, quia tunc per causam
unius cuj usque rei propriam, res cognoscitur, et
de accidentibus ejus mimime dubitatur, nee est
difficile cognoscere.45

This passage is one amongst many that might be
adduced from his own pen to prove that Albert was
an alchemist ; but Aquinas' disclosures are ample,
removing all doubt, even if he himself had left
room for any. Besides the treatise of minerals

45 Lib. iii. de Mineralibus, cap. 1.

32 Exoteric View.

already mentioned, there is the Libellus cle
Alchemia, published with his other works ;46 also,
the Concordanditia Philosophorum de Lapide, the
Secretum Secretorum, and Breve Compendium in
the Theatrum Chemicum, all treating of the same
subject. Albert's authorhVy is the more to be
respected in that he gave up every temporal
advantage, riches, fame, and ecclesiastical power,
to study philosophy in a cloister remote from the
world during the greater portion of a long life.
An opinion has commonly obtained that the
philosopher's stone was sought after from selfish
motives and a blind love of gain ; and that such
has been frequently the case there is no doubt ;
but then such searchers never found it. The con-
ditions of success are peculiar, as will be shown.
Avarice is of all motives the least likely to be
gratified by the discovery of wisdom. It is
philosophers only that she teaches to make gold.

Q use-runt Alehimiam, falsi quoque recti ;
Falsi sine numero, sed hi sunt rejecti ;
Et cupiditatibus, heu, tot sunt infecti
Quod inter mille millia, vix sunt tres elect i
Istam ad scientiam.47

The true adepts have been rare exceptions in the
world, despite of all calumny, famous, and
favoured above their kind. Let any one but with
an unprejudiced eye regard the writings of those
who may be believed on their own high authority
to have succeeded in this art, and he will perceive
that the motives actuating them were of the purest
possible kind ; truthful, moral, always pious and
intelligent, as those of the pseudo-alchemists, on
the other hand, were reckless and despicable. But
more of this hereafter. Albertus died, magnus in
magia, major in philosophia, maximus in theo-

46 Tom. 21, in fol. Lugduni, 1653, and in Theat. Chem. vol. ii.

47 Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy, Preface, in Ashmole's
Theat. Chem. Brit,

Preliminary Account. 33

logia ;48 and his learning and fame descended full}'
on him who had already shared it, his disciple,
the subtle and sainted Aquinas.

The truth was not likely to lie dormant in such
hands : Aquinas wrote largely and expressly on
the doctrine of transmutation, and in his Thesaurus
Alchimice, addressed to his friend, the Abbot
Reginald, he alludes openly to the practical suc-
cesses of Albert and himself in the Secret Art.49
Vain, therefore, are attempts of his false pane-
gyrists, who, anxious it would seem rather for the
intellectual than the moral fame of their hero,
have ventured to slur over his assertions as dubious.
Aquinas is much too far committed in his writings
for their quibbling exceptions to tell in proof
against his own direct and positive affirmation.
Metalla transmutari possunt unum in aliud, says
he, cum naturalia sint et ipsorum materia eadem.
Metals can be transmuted one into another, since
they are of one and the same matter.50 Declara-
tions more or less plain to the same effect are
frequent, and his treatise, De Esse et Essentia, is
eminently instructive. It is true he slurs over
points and sophisticates also occasionally in order
to screen the doctrine from superficial detection ;
for Aquinas was above all anxious to direct
inquirers to the higher purposes and application
of the Divine Art, and universal theosophy, rather
than to rest its capabilities of quickening and
perfection in the mineral kingdom, as at that
period many were wont to do, sacrificing their
whole life's hope to the multiplication of gold.
Fac sicut te ore tenens docui, ut scis quod tibi non
scribo, quoniam peccatum esset hoc secretum viris

48 See Chronicon Magnum Belgicum.

49 Tractatus D. Thomse Aquino datus fratri D. Reinaldo de
Arte Alchimiae.

50 Meteorum Initio, lib. iv. ; and again, Prsecipuus Alchimis-
tarum scopus est transmutare metalla scilicet imperfecta
secundum veritatem et non sophistice*

34 Exoteric View.

secularibus revelare, qui magis hanc scientiam
propter vanitatem quam propter debitum finem et
Dei honorem quaerunt. And again, Ne sis garrulus
sed pone ori tuo custodiam ; et ut filiam sapientum
margaritam ante porcas non projicies. Noli te,
charissime, cum majori opere occupare, quia
propter salutis et Christi prsedicationis officium ;
et lucrandi tempus magni debes attendere divitiis
spiritualibus, quam lucris temporibus inhiare.51

The pretensions of Arnold di Villa Nova have
not been contested, nor are his writings the only
evidence of his skill in the Great Art. Cotemporary
scholars bear him witness, and instances are related
of the wonderful projections which he made with
the transmuting powder. The Jurisconsult, John
Andre, mentions him, and testifies to the genuine
conversion of some iron bars into pure gold at
Rome. Oldradus also and the Abbot Panorimitanus
of about the same period, praise the Hermetic Art
as beneficial and rational, and the wisdom of the
alchemist Arnold di Villa Nova.52 The works of
this philosopher are very numerous. The Bosarium
Philosophicum, esteemed amongst the best, is
published in the Theatrum Che?nicum, and at the
end of the folio edition of his works. The

51 Thesaurus Alchiniia?, cap. 1 and 8. Tractatus clatus Fratri
Reinaldo. This with the Secreta Alchimise and another are
given in the Theatrum Chemicum, and other collections of
the Art.

52 Nostris diebus habuimus magnum Arnold um di Villa Nova,
in Curia Romana summum medicinam et theologiam, qui etiam
magnus Alchymista virgulas auri, quas faciebat consentiebat
omni probationi submitti, &c. (Joan Andreas in add it. ad
Speculum Rub. de crim. falsi.) Usee ille Andreas enim a doctis
omnibus ad ccelum usque laudibus vectus est, quern Ludovicus
Romanus omnium hominum praestantissimum appellavit.
(R. Vallensis de Veritate, &c, in Theat. Chem. vol. i. p. 4.)
Alchimia est ars perspicaci ingenio inventa, ubi expenditur
tantum pro tanto et tale pro tali, sine aliqua falsificatione
formae vel materise, secundum Andream de Isernia et Oldra-
dum. Hoc insuper firmavit Abbas Siculus Panoramitanus, &c.
(D. Fabianus de Monte, S. Severin in Tractatu de Emptione et
Venditione, Quest 5. Oldradus, lib. Concilio, Quest. 74.)

Preliminary Account. 35

Speculum, a luminous treatise ; the Carmina,
Questiones ad Bonifacium, the Testamentum, and
some others are given entire in the Theatrum
Chemicum, but have not been translated.

About this time and toAvards the close of the
fourteenth century, an excitement began to be
perceptible in the public mind. So many men of
acknowledged science and piety, one after another,
agreeing about the reality of transmutation, and
giving tangible proofs of their own skill, could not
fail to produce an effect ; the art became in high
request, and its professors were invited from all
quarters, and held in high honour b}^ the world.
Lesser geniuses caught the scattered doctrine and
set to work, some with sufficient understanding
and with various success.

Alain de 1' Isle is said to have obtained the Elixir,
but his chief testimony has been excluded by the
editors of his other works ; so often and unscrupu-
lously has private prejudice interfered to defraud
the public judgment of its rights and true data.
The rejected treatise, however, was printed separ-
ately, and may be found in the third volume of the
Theatrum Chemicum.53 This philosopher also wrote
a commentary on the Prophecies of Merlin, which
are reported to have sole reference to the arcana
of the Hermetic Art.54

Raymond Lully is supposed to have become
acquainted with Arnold, and the Universal Science,
late in life ; but when the fame of his Christian
zeal and talents had already become known and
acknowledged abroad, his declarations in favour
of alchemy had the greater weight. Unlike his
cloistered predecessors, secluded and known as
they were by name only to the world, Raymond
had travelled over Europe, and a great part of

53 Alani Philosophi, Dicta de Lapide.

54 Prophetia Anglicana Merlini, una cum Septem Libris
Explicationum in eandem Prophetiam, &c5 Alani de Insulis,
Francf. 1608.

36 Exoteric View.

Africa and Asia ; and with his former fame was
at length mingled the discovery of alchemy and
the philosopher's stone. John Cremer, Abbot of
Westminster, had worked for thirty years, it is
related, assiduously with the hope of obtaining the
secret. The enigmas of the old adepts had sadly
perplexed and led him astray ; but he had discovered
enough to convince him of the reality, and to
encourage him to proceed with the investigation ;
when, Lully's fame having reached him, he deter-
mined to seek that philosopher, then resident in
Italy ; was fortunate in meeting with him and
gaining his confidence ; became instructed in the
method of practice, and not a little edified by the
pious and charitable life which Lully led there,
and recommended to others. Desirous of becoming
still more intimately enlightened than was con-
venient in that place, Cremer invited and brought
over with him Raymond Lully to England, where
he was presented to the king, then Edward II.,
who had also before invited him from Vienna, being
much interested in the talents and reputed skill of
the stranger, and now more than ever by the
promise of abundant riches which the sight of
Cremer' s gold held out to him. Lully, still as ever
zealous for the promulgation of the Christian
religion, promised to produce for the king all
monies requisite, if he felt disposed to engage in
the crusades anew. Edward did not hesitate, but
complied with every condition respecting the
appliance of the gold, provided only Lully would
supply it. The artist accordingly set to work, so
the story runs, in a chamber set apart for him
in the Tower, and produced fifty thousand
pounds weight of pure gold. His own words
relative to the extraordinary fact in his testament,
are these ; — Converti una vice in aurum 50 millia
pondo argenti vivi, piumbi, et stanni. I converted,
says he, at one time fifty thousand pounds weight
of quicksilver, lead and tin, into gold.55
65 Tjltjmum Testamentum R. Lullii.

Preliminary Account. 37

The king no sooner received this, than breaking-
faith with Lully, in order to obtain more, the
artist was made a prisoner in his own laboratory,
and without regard at all to the stipulation, before
engaged in, ordered to commence his productive
labours anew. This base conduct on the part of
his king was much lamented by Cremer, who
expresses indignation thereat openlv in his Testa-
ment ;56 and the whole story has been repeatedly
recorded in the detailed chronicles of those times.
But to be short, our hero fortunately escaped from
his imprisonment, and a coinage of the gold was
struck in pieces weighing about ten ducats each,
called Nobles of the Rose. % Those who have exam-
ined these coins pronounce them to be of the
finest metal, and the inscription round the margin
distinguishes them from all others in the Museums,
and denotes their miraculous origin. They are
described in Camden's Antiquities, and for the
truth of the whole story, we have, besides Cremer' s
evidence and the declarations of Lully, a great
deal of curious cotemporary allusion to be found
in the books of Olaus Borrichius, R. Constantius,
V Englet Dufresnoy, and Dickenson. The last
relates that some time after the escape of Lully,
there was found in the cell he occupied at West-
minster with Cremer, whilst it was undergoing
some repairs, a certain quantity of the powder of
transmutation, by means of which the workmen
and architects became enriched.57

56 Cremeri Testament um.

57 Aureas illas nobiles Anglorum primum profectas memorat
(ex Raymundi) Camdenus. Idem hodieque asseverantissime
confirm ant Anglorum curiosi, additque Edmundus Dicken-
soniis Lullium in coenobio Westmonasteriensi vixisse non
ingratum hospitem : enimvero pluribus ab ejus discessu amnis,
resarta quam incoluerat cellula multum adhuc pulveris
Chrysopoei in Cistula repertum, magno inventoris architect!
-emolumento. See Olaus Borrichius de Ortu et Progressu
Chemise, 4to. p. 242 ; and E. Dickenson, de Quintessentia.

38 Exoteric View.

Lully's writings on Alchemy are, as the restr
obscure ; and have only been understood with
great pains and application even by those who
have been so fortunate as to possess the key of his
cabalistic mind. Whether his equivocal and con-
tradictory language was so contrived to baffle
the sordid chemists ; or whether, as before said,
he learned the art late in life, being previously
incredulous, and was convinced at last only by
Arnold exhibiting the transmutation in his
presence ; it would require scrupulous examination
to judge at this day : certain it is there are pas-
sages in his writings which leave room for con-
troversy, though none, we think, virtually denying
the art, whilst his essays in favour of it are acknow-
ledged excellent and numerous ; as many as two
hundred are given in the catalogue of Dufresnoy
treating exclusively on this subject.58

Those were singular times when few any longer
doubted the possibility of gold-making, and indi-
viduals of the highest repute devoted their lives
to the subtle investigation. We have adduced this
notable instance of Lully's prowess in England, as
one only amongst many others, quite as well
authenticated, which are told by the authors before
cited and in the alchemical collections. Public
curiosity was stimulated to the highest pitch ;
experiments were made reckless of consequences,
and the spirit of avarice, bursting forth expectant,
absolutely raged. Whether the incaution of adepts,
in making their art too publicly profitable, had
given rise to the frenzy, or whether it was sponta-
neously kindled, or from whatever cause, the fact
is lamentably certain ; the Stone was no longer
sought after by philosophers alone ; not only have
we Lully, Cremer, Rupecissa, De Meun, Flammel,
John Pontanus, Basil Valentine, Norton, Ripley,

58 Histoire Hermetique, vol. iii. His Theoria et Practica,
given in the third volume of the Theat. Chem., appears to u*
one of the very best pieces of Alchemical philosophy extant.

Preliminary Account. 39

and the host of cotemporary worthies, successively
entering the lists ; but with these a spurious brood
of idlers living on the public credulity, and which
the practical evidence of these others continued to
ferment ; men of all ranks, persuasions and degrees
of intelligence, of every variety of calling, motive
and imagination, were, as monomaniacs, searching
after the stone.

As Popes with Cardinals of dignity,

Archby shops with By shops of high degree,

With Abbots and Priors of religion,

With Friars, Heremites, and Preests manie one,

And Kings with Princes and Lords great of bloode,

For everie estate desireth after goode ;

And the Merchaunts alsoe, which dwell in fiere

Of brenning covetise, have thereto desire ;

And common workmen will not be out-lafte,

For as well as Lords they love this noble crafte.

As Gould smithes, whome we shall leaste repreuve

For sights in their craft meveth them to beleeve ;

But wonder it is that Brweers deale with such werkes,

Free Masons, and Tanners, with poore parish clerkes ;

Tailors and Glaziers woll not therefore cease,

And eke sely Tinkers will put them in prease

WTith great presumption ; yet some collour there was

For all such men as give tincture to glasse ;

But manie Artificers have byn over swifte,

With hastie credence to sume away their thrift e ;

And albeit their losses made them to smarte

Yet ever in hope continued their hearte ;

Trustinge some tyme to speede right well,

Of manie such truly I can tell ;

WThich in such hope continued all their lyfe,

Whereby they were made poore and made to unthrive :

It had byne good for them to have left off

In season, for noughte they founde except a scoffe,

For trewly he that is not a great clerke,

Is nice and lewde to medle with this werke ;

Ye may trust me it is no small inginn,

To know alle secrets pertaining to this myne.

For it is most profounde philosophye

This subtill science of holy Alkimy.59

Many usurped the title of adepts, who had no
knowledge even of the preliminaries of the Art ;
59 Norton's Ordinal in Ashmole's Theat. Chem. Brit. p. 7.

40 Exoteric View.

sometimes deceiving, at others, being themselves
deceived ; and it has been principally from the
fraudulent pretensions of those dabblers that the
world has learned to despise alchemy, confounding
the genuine doctrine with their sophistical and
vile productions ; and a difficulty yet remains
to distinguish them, and segregate, from so great
an interspersion of darkness, the true light. For
a multitude of books were put forth with the merest
purpose of deception, and to ensnare the unwary ;
some indeed affirming, that the truth was to be
found in salts, or nitres, or boraxes ; but others,
in all vegetable bodies indiscriminately, commit-
ting a multifarious imagination to posterity. Nor
did these alone content the evil spirit of that day,
but it must introduce mutilated editions of the old
masters, filled with inconsistencies, and the wicked
inventions of designing fraud ; and thus, as the
adept observes, they have blasphemed the Sacred
Science, and by their errors have brought contempt
on men philosophising.

As of that Mounke which a boke did write

Of a thousand receipts in malice for 'despighte,

Which he copied in manie a place,

Whereby hath byn made manie a pale face

And manie gowndes have been made bare of he we,

And men made fals which beforetimes Mere trewe.60

Nor has the literature alone suffered from such
knavish interpolation ; but the social consequences
are described, at the time, as deplorable ; rich
merchants, and others, greedy of gain, were in-
duced to trust quantities of gold, silver, and even
precious stones, which they lost, in the vain hope
of getting them multiplied ; and these rogueries
became so frequent and notorious, that at last
acts of Parliament were passed in England, and
Pope's Bulls issued over Christendom, forbidding
transmutation, on pain of death, and the pursuit
of alchemy.61 But this, whilst giving an external

60 Norton's Ordinal, cap, 1.

61 See Dufresnoy, Hist. Herm. vol. ii. p. 11, &c.

Preliminary Account. 41

check, did not smother the desire of riches, or that
morbid desire of them, so long fostered in the
expectation ; experiments continued to be carried
on in secret with no less ardour than before, both,
by knaves and philosophers. Pope John XXII.
who interdicted it, is said to have practised the
art himself extensively, and to have wonderfully
enriched the public treasury through its means.
But to bring forward each extraordinary tradition
and character of the various artists who flourished
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
would trespass too far on our pages ; and for the
present purpose, it may be needful only to detail
the more remarkable.

Amongst them, the story of Nicholas Flammel,
and his wife Pernelle, has been thought interesting.
Their humble origin, sudden accumulation of
wealth, their charitable distribution of it, and the
eminent piety and mystery of their lives, attracted
great attention in their own country, and a wide-
spread fame has descended and connects their
name honourably with the history of the Hermetic
art. The relation given simply by the author con-
cerning himself is as follows : — I, Nicholas Flam-
mel, Scrivener, living in Paris, in the year of our
Lord, 1399, in the Notary-street, near St. James, of
the Boucherie, though I learned not much Latin,
because of the poverty of my parents, who, not-
withstanding were, even by those who envy me
most, accounted honest and good people ; yet, by
the blessing of God, I have not wanted an under-
standing of the books of the philosophers, but
learned them, and attained to a certain kind of
knowledge, even of their hidden secrets. For which
cause's sake, there shall not any moment of my
life pass wherein, remembering this so vast good,
I will not render thanks to this my good and graci-
ous God. After the death of my parents, I Nicholas
Flammel, got my living by the art of writing,
ingrossing, and the like ; and in the course of

42 Exoteric View.

time, there fell by chance into my hands a gilded
book, very old and large, which cost me only two
florins. It was not made of paper or parchment,
as other books are, but of admirable rinds, as it
seemed to me, of young trees ; the cover of it
was brass, well bound, and graven all over with a
strange kind of letters, which I took to be Greekr
characters, or some such like. This I know, that
I could not read them ; but as to the matter which
was written within, it was engraven, as I suppose,
with an iron pencil, or graver, upon the said
bark leaves ; done admirably well, and in fair
neat Latin letters, and curiously coloured. It
contained thrice seven leaves, for so they were
numbered on the top of each folio, and every
seventh leaf was without writing ; but in place
thereof were several images and figures painted.

Further, going on to describe the book and these
hieroglyphics minutely, Flammel relates how, at
length, after much study and fruitless toil, their
meaning was explained to him by a Jew stranger,
whom he met with in his travels ; and how on his
return home, he set to work and succeeded in the
discovery, is thus familiarly declared : — He that
would see the manner of my arrival home, and
the joy of Pernelle, let him look upon us two in the
city of Paris, upon the door of the chappel of
James', in the Boucherie, close by one side of my
house, where we are both painted, kneeling, and
giving thanks to God : for through the grace of God
it was, that I attained the perfect knowledge of all
that I desired. I had now the prima materia, the
first principles, yet not their preparation, which is
a thing most difficult above all things in the world ;
but in the end I had that also, after a long aber-
ration and wandering in the labyrinth of errors, for
the space of three years. During which time, I
did nothing but study and search and labour, so as
you see me depicted without this arch, where I have
shown my process, praying also continually unto

Preliminary Account. 43

God, and reading attentively in my book, ponder-
ing the words of the philosophers, and then trying
and proving the various operations which I thought
they might mean by their words. At length, 1
found that which I desired ; which I also soon
knew, by the scent and odor thereof. Having this,
I easily accomplished the magistery. For knowing
the preparations of the prime agents, and then
literally following the directions in my book, I
could not then miss the work if I would. Having
attained this, I came now to Projection ; and the
first time I made projection, was upon mercury ;
a pound and a half whereof, or thereabouts, I
turned into pure silver, better than that of the
mine ; as I proved by assaying it myself, and also
causing others to assa}^ it for me, several times.
This was done in the year a.d. 1382, January 17th,
about noon, in my own house, Pernelle alone being
present with me. Again following the same direc-
tions in my book, word by word, I made projection
of the Red Stone, on a like quantity of mercury,
Pernelle only being present, and in the same house ;
which was done in the same year, April 25, at five
in the afternoon. This mercury I truly transmuted
into almost as much gold, much better indeed
than common gold, more soft also, and more
pliable. I speak in all truthfully. I have made
it three times with the help of Pernelle, who under-
stands it as well as myself ; and, without doubt,
if she would have done it alone, she would have
brought the work to the same, or full as great
perfection as I had done. I had truly enough,
when I had once done it ; but I found exceeding
great pleasure and delight in seeing and contem-
plating the admirable works of nature, within the
vessels. And to show you that I had then done it
three times, 1 caused to be depicted under the same
arch, three furnaces, like to those which serve for
the operations of the work. I was much concerned
for a long time, lest Pernelle, by reason of extreme

44 Exoteric View.

j oy , should not hide her felicity, which I measured
by my own ; and lest she should let fall some
words amongst her relations, concerning the great
treasure which we possessed. But the goodness
of the great God, had not only given and filled me
with this blessing, in giving me a sober chaste wife ;
but she was also a wise prudent woman, not only
capable of reason, but also to do what was reason-
able ; and made it her business, as I did, to think
of God, and to give ourselves to the work of
charity and mercy. Before the time wherein I
wrote this discourse, which was at the latter end
of the year 1413, after the death of my beloved
companion ; she and I had already founded and
endowed with revenues fourteen hospitals, three
chapels, and seven churches, in the city of Paris ;
all which we had new built from the ground, and
were able to enrich with gifts and revenues. We
have also done at Bologne about the same as" at
Paris, besides our private charities, which it would
be unbecoming to particularise. Building, there-
fore, these hospitals, churches, etc., in the afore-
said cities, I caused to be depicted under the said
fourth arch, the most true and essential marks and
signs of this art, yet under veils and types and
hieroglyphical characters ; demonstrating to the
wise and men of understanding, the direct and
perfect way of operation and lineary work of the
philosopher's stone ; ivhich being perfected by any
one, takes away from him the root of all sin and evil ;
changing his evil into good, and making him
liberal, courteous, religious, fearing God, however
wicked he was before, provided only he carries
through the work to its legitimate end. For from
thenceforward he is continually ravished with
the goodness of God, and with his grace and mercy,
which he has obtained from the fountain of eternal
goodness ; with the profundity of his Divine and
adorable power, and with the contemplation of his
admirable works.

Preliminary Account. 45

Part of this relation is given of himself by the
author in his Hieroglyphics, and part is taken from
his Testament ; and chronicles recount .as late as
the year 1740, that the evidence of his charitable
deeds remained and the symbols of the art in the
cemetery of the Holy Innocents at the church of
St. James, on the Marivaux door, at the portal of
St. Geneveve, &c. 62 Amongst the writings of
Flammel, besides those already quoted from, we
have Le Sommaire Philosophique, in French verse,
which is also translated in the Theatrnm Chemicum,
an esteemed work, with important annotations at
the end ; Le Desir desird, and Le Grand Eclaircisse-
ment, which are more rarely to be met with.

The Isaacs, father and son, Dutch adepts, are
said to have worked successfullv, and are much
lauded by Boerhaave, who appears not either to
have been a stranger to their pursuit or to the
principles of occult science.63

But Basil Valentine is the star of the fifteenth
century ; he is generally reported to have been a
Benedictine hermit ; but a mystery hangs about
his individuality which has never been satisfac-
torily cleared up, though careful researches have
been made, and his numerous works written in all
languages, called forth much curiosity on their
appearance and have been held in high estimation
by students in the Hermetic art. He ranks high
amongst his brethren for having, as they say,
discovered a new method of working the Red
Elixir, and facilitated the process materially, which
had been hitherto laborious and a rare effect, as
appears from those lines of Norton.

How that manie men patient and wise,
Found our White Stone with exercise ;
After that they were trewly taught,

62 See Histoire Hermetique, vol. i. p. 206 ; Lives of the
Adepts, p. 38. Les Hieroglyphiques de N. Flammel.

63 Joan Isaac Hollandus de Lapide Philosophico, Francf.
166). Isaac Hollandus Opera Universalia, sive de Lapide
Philm., &c.

46 Exoteric view.

With great labor, that stone they caught ;
But few (saith he) or scarcely one ;
In fifteen kingdoms hath our Red Stone.
Whom to seeke it availeth right noughte,
Till the white medicine be fully wrought ;
Neither Albertus Magnus, the Black Freere,
Neither Freer Bacon his compeere,
Had not of our Red Stone consideration
Him to increase in multiplication, &c.64

The Hamburg edition of Basil Valentine's works
may be considered the most perfect.65 The English
translations are rambling and incomplete : with
the single exception of that one which is taken from
the Latin of Kirchringius, with his admirable
commentary on the Triumphal Chariot of Anti-
mony and Stone of Fire. The Twelve keys are
rendered in the Bibliotheque des Philosophes
Chimiques, second edition.

A valuable collection of English Alchemy in verse
was published by Elias Ashmole, himself a lover of
occult science, and the great patron, in his day, of
those who made it their study. Neither was he
ignorant of the subject, if we may judge by the pre-
face and curious notes appended to his Theatrum,
wherein he exposes certain principles of magic,
and alludes to the manual artifice without much
disguise. I must profess, says he, I knoAv enough
to hold my tongue, but not enough to speak ; and
the no less real than miraculous fruits I have found,
in my diligent inquiry in these arcana, lead me on
to such degrees of admiration, they command
silence, and force me to lose my tongue, lest, being
not wholly experienced, as he goes on to say, I
should add to the many injuries the world has
already suffered, by delivering the bare medley of
my apprehensions without the confident attesta-
tion of practice ; and be justly esteemed as indis-
crete as those whom Ripley mentions, that prate,

64 Norton's Ordinal, chap. 5.

65 Chimische Schrifiten, Fr. Basillii Valentinii, in 12mo. 1717.

Preliminary Account. 47

Wyth wondreng,
Of Robin Hood, and of his Bow,
Whych never shot therin I trow.66

Norton's Ordinal, dated 1477, with which this
Hermetic Theatre opens, is a praiseworthy per-
formance, and with the exception of the Subject
Matter and certain preliminaries, which are con-
stantly concealed, the process is presented in a
candid, orderly, and attractive manner. So much
cannot be said for the Canon Ripley, of Bridling-
ton, whose private misfortunes would seem to have
made him envious. His composition is disorderly,
and those Twelve Gates have, we conceive, little
edified any without the Lodge. Added also to his
own wilful misguidance, the verses are said to have
suffered spoliation and displacement from the
order in which they were originally written,
according to the mischievous cabalistic method in
vogue at that time. Ripley, therefore, is univer-
sally complained of, though reputed a good adept.
The commentary published by the celebrated
Anonymous adept Eirenaeus Philalethes, under the
title of Ripley Revived, though it explains a great
deal practically and may serve to lead on the
initiated, yet will appear infamously sophistical
and inevitably disgust a beginner.67

All Ashmole's collection is valuable, even were it
only as a specimen of early mystic literature. The
Fragment from Pierce, the Black Monke, Bloom-
field's Blossoms, and Philosophy and Experience,
are amongst the most instructive. Ashmole's inten-
tion of collecting the English prose writings on
Alchemy was not accomplished ; only a few
scattered portions were edited and these not of
the best.

Ficinus, an Italian of highly cultivated genius,

well known as the Latin translator of Plato, and

66 Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britanicum, London, 1652.
67 Ripley Revived, being an Exposition of Sir George Ripley's
Gates, and his Epistle to King Edward, by Eirenaeus Philalethes,
London, 1678.

48 Exoteric View.

saviour of other valuable remnants of antique
literature, was also an amateur in the Hermetic
art. He collected and translated the works
imputed to Hermes, before mentioned, from Greek
into Latin, and took pains elsewhere theoretically
to explain the art.68 Picus, prince di Mirandola,
was his contemporary, and wrote a treatise, in
which he connects Alchemy with the most-
profound metaphysical science.69

Then we have the remarkable instance of
Cornelius Agrippa, a man of powerful and pene-
trating genius, who, having possessed himself of
the means and principles of the Occult Science from
his friend, the wary and learned Abbot Trithemius,
set to work something it would seem after the
example of Friar Bacon, proving them in a self-
sufficient order. His three books Of Occult
Philosophy, especially the first two, illustrate the
practical bias and enterprising nature of his mind ;
but as he declares, he had not, when he wrote them,
arrived at a full experience, nor was he able to make
the philosopher's stone. But it was this discovery,
made later in life, which caused him to be discon-
tented with his former revelation, and to publish
that book on the Vanity of the Sciences, which has
been considered as a recantation of his former
philosophy ; but which is in fact no recantation at
all, but a consummation rather and conclusion in
general of his works. Any one taking the pains to
read may perceive that Agrippa wrote it neither
in ignorance nor in despair of human knowledge.
It was by searching and proving the magnitude
of the Mystery that he arrived at that final and
convictive faith, which is as much above ordinary
science as the vulgar credulity of mankind is
below it. It is not the part of a mind, sane and

68 Marsilii Ficini Florent. Liber de Arte Chemica.

69 J. F. Picus, de Auro in Theat. Chem. vol. ii. ; also
J. F. P. Mirandolse Domini, Concordieque, Opus Aureum de
Auro. Idem, Libri tres de Auro turn conficiendo, &c.

Preliminary Account. 49

philosophic, to fall back content in ignorance, or
to retrograde passively in despair of its object.
The vanity of particular and temporal sciences is
discovered by comparison only in the broad day
light of universal truth ; and there stood the
magician at last when, as it were from the top of
Celsus' ladder, looking down upon the steps by
which he had climbed, and whereon he had
successively rested, he observed their inferiority
and the small prospect they afforded in comparison
with that which he now, at their clear summit,
enjoyed. Let any one read from the Vanity of the
Sciences the chapter on Alchemy, and judge whether
the author contradicts, as report has said, or
contemns merely the experience of his early youth ;
and where, after showing the folly of pretenders,
speaking of the genuine Hermetic art, he says, — I
could tell many things of this art, if I had not
sworn to keep silence, and this silence is so con-
stantly and religiously observed of the ancient
philosophers, that there is found no faithful writer
of approved authority that hath openly described
this art : which thing has induced many to believe
that all books of this art were but of late years
invented, &c. Finally of the one blessed stone
alone, besides which there is no other thing, the
subject of the most holy stone of philosophers, to
speak rashly, would be a sacrilege and I should be
foresworn.70 Looking to the final chapters of the
same work also, we observe the ground of the
whole Hermetic philosophy laid out, and the
relative vanity of worldly science to that, which is
universal, rational, and divine. The capabilities
of the subject are great ; and had it been treated
in the usual full and masterly style of the scholar
of Nettesheim, it would have remained a work of
lasting value ; but he was fettered by oaths and
had been somewhat conscience stricken ; and the

70 See De Vanitate Scientiarum, Alch. &c.

50 Exoteric View.

monks, whom he had formerly censured, eagerly
promulgated the whole as a recantation of former
errors, holding it up in this light and as an acknow-
ledgment of the sufficiency of their own doctrine
and of the common faith for salvation.

In the beginning of his extraordinary career,
Theophrastus Paracelsus proposed openly to dis-
cover the hidden secret of philosoplry ; but the
world scoffed at his pretensions, abused and perse-
cuted him ; and all the revenge he indulged in was
to leave it unenlightened. The writings he put
forth are, with few exceptions, filled with subtle
malice, as it were, so many sarcasms upon mankind
and leading them far away, through alluring
sophisms, from the straight way of truth. Surely,
as Ashmole remarks, incredulity appears to have
been given to the world as a punishment ; yet
neither in its belief did it speed better, but has still
plodded on in error for want of thought, and
through all ages men have suffered in ignorance,
on account mainly of the indefiniteness and selfish-
ness of their desires. Of the numerous books attri-
buted to Paracelsus, and given together as his
works, the three Addresses to the Athenians, and
the Aurora, are amongst the best. Those to the
Athenians have been translated into English, and
published with The Philosophy of J. Crollius, a
disciple, and the Aurora also is to be met with,
though more rarely, in company with the Water
Stone of the Wise Men, by J. Grasseus. With
respect to the private history and character of this
extraordinary man, accounts differ, and opinions
accordingly ; but his fame, and the authority of his
doctrine, lasted down through a long period of time.
His early death has been adduced as an argument
against the probability of his being possessed of
the elixir he boasts ; and by others as a proof of.
his having been poisoned : but the poison of intem-
perance and irregular living has also been con-
sidered as especially likely to be fatal to one who

Preliminary Account. 51

was in the habit of taking a potent spiritual medi-
cine, which would heighten the physical conse-
quences of depravity and habitual excess, and
accelerate dissolution in the conflict of opposite
principles71 Paracelsus, notwithstanding the world' s
neglect, had numerous disciples, increasing also after
his decease : some intelligent and worthy the name
of philosophers, as Van Helmont, Crollius, Fludd,
Helvetius, Faber, and many more anonymous ;
but there were others, mountebank pretenders,
more in number still, who, pursuing the baser line
of their master's example, whilst they enviously
suppressed the little truth they knew, wrote and
practised for lucre, leading mankind into error
and the commitment even of egregious crimes by
their receipts. And the world which would not
be drawn by the true light, gave eas}^ way to their
false stimulants, and encouraged the enemies'
growth in literature, until the tares possessed the
field ; nor could it be well otherwise, as a modern
adept has observed on the occasion, for this bushel
being placed over the light, the darkness of it
invited ignorance abroad.

The burlesques of Erasmus, which, towards the
close of the sixteenth century, were turned upon
the follies then continually going on amongst the
credulous chemists and their dupes, show that it
was the prevailing mania of the age ; when rich
men and potentates fell easily into the snares of
the lowest vagabonds, who had acquired the tact
only to write and talk mysteriously. Chaucer, in the
tale of the Chanon's Yeoman, gives an example
of this kind of the boastings, bereavements, and
surpassing beliefs of ignorance ; as Ripley also,
in his Erroneous Experiments, tells how he

Made solucyons full many a one,
Of spyrytts, ferments, salts, yerne and Steele ;
Wenyng so to make the philosophers stone ;
But finally I lost eche dele,

71 See Lives of the Alchemists, p. 52.

52 Exoteric View.

After my boks yet wrought I well ;
Which evermore untrew I provyd,
That made me oft full sore agrevyd.

Waters corrosyve and waters ardent,

With which I wrought in divers wyse,

Many one I made but all was shent ;

Egg shells I calcenyd twyse or thryse,

Oylys fro calcys I made up ryse ;

And every element fro other I did twyne
But profytt found I ryght none therein.

Also I wrought in sulphur and in vitriall,
Whych forys doe call the Grene Lyon,
In arsenicke, in orpemint, fowle mot them fall ;
In delibi principio was myne inceptyon :
Therefore was frawde in fyne the conclusyon :

And I blew my thryft at the cole,

My clothys were bawdy, my stomache was never hole.

I provyd ur37ns, eggs, here, and blod,
The scaly s of yern whych smethys do off smyte,
(Es, ust, and crokefer whych dyd me never good :
The sowle of Saturn and also marchisyte,
Lythage and antimony not worth a myte :
Of whych gey tinctures I made to shew,
Both red and white whych were untrew.

Oyle of Lune and water wyth labor greatt,
I made calcynyng yt with salt precipytate,
And by hytself with vyolent heatt
Grindyng with vynegar tyll I was fatygate :
And also with a quantitye of spyces acuate ;
Upon a marble whych stode me oft in cost
And oyles with corrosyves I made ; but all was lost.

Thus I rostyd and boylyd as one of Geber's cooks,
And oft tymes my wynnyng in the asches I sought ;
For I was dysceivyd wyth many falce books
Whereby untrue, thus truly I wrought :
But all such experyments avaylyd me nought ;
But brought me in danger and in cumbraunce,
By loss of goods and other grievaunce, &c.72

The tide so long encroaching, however, began at
last to fluctuate ; and as mistrust, gathering from
disappointment, ripened, a change somewhat sud-
denly took place in the public mind, and turned

72An Admonition of Erroneous Experiments, Theat. Cherm
Brit p. 189.

Preliminary Account. 53

finally into an absolute odium of the deluding
alchemists and the art. Then it was that several
were obliged to retire into exile ; and even the
true adepts — for the public knew not to distin-
guish— suffered equal cruelty and abundant incon-
venience. They who before had been courted and
lauded in hopes of obtaining gold, or the means of
making it, were arrested and tortured, in order to
extort confession ; accordingly we find mixed up
with their philosophy, bitter complaints of •injury,
thefts, murders, and unjust imprisonments. Alex-
ander Sethon was hunted through Europe in
■disguise, not daring to remain in any town, for
fear of detection. — I am suffering, says this author,
in his Open Entrance, a continual banishment :
deprived of the society of friends and family, and,
as if driven by the Furies, am compelled con-
stantly to fly from place to place and from kingdom
to kingdom, without delaying anywhere. And
thus, though I possess all things, I have no rest
<or enjoyment of any, except in the truth, which is
my whole satisfaction. They who have not a know-
ledge of this art, imagine,- if they had, they would
do many things : I also thought the same, but
am grown circumspect by experience of many
dangers and the peril of life. I have seen so much
corruption in the world, and those even who pass
for good people are so ruled by the love of gain,
that I am constrained even from the works of
mercy, for fear of suspicion and arrest. I have
experienced this in foreign countries, where,
having ventured to administer the medicine to
sufferers given over by physicians, the instant the
cures became known, a report was spread about of
the Elixir, and I have been obliged to disguise
myself, shave my head, and change my name, to
avoid falling into the hands of wicked persons,
who would try to wrest the secret from me, in
hopes of making gold. I could relate many inci-
dents of this kind which have happened to me.

54 Exoteric View.

Would to God that gold and silver were as common
as the street mud ; we should not then be obliged
to fly and hide ourselves, as if we were accursed
like Cain.73 Michael Sendivogius was imprisoned
by his prince ; even the pious Khunrath is moved
to bitterness, when speaking of the treatment he
had experienced : George Von Welling, Fichtuld,
Miiller, Harprecht, also ; for the good and inno-
cent now suffered more and more evervwhere
for the impositions of knaves, and were therefore
compelled to be silent and more than ever cautious
to conceal their names, with the evidence of
Alchemy, from the world. And as the mind of the
day became gradually engaged in puritanical dis-
cussions, and the interests of political leaders,,
indifference to the art again succeeded, and a
scepticism, as blind, and nearly as pernicious as the
former credulity, settled upon the minds of men.
But philosophers were content to have it so ;
observing the incapability of the common herd,
and how little the}^ cared for truth, or the witness
of nature's greatest miracles, in comparison with
their own selfish emolument. Some gathered them-
selves together for better protection, and carrying
on their work into the Rosicrucian Fraternity, a
widely celebrated, though secret association, estab-
lished, as the report is, by a German adeptist, who
had travelled into the East, and in Arabia was
initiated into many arcane mysteries of nature.
Their Fame and Confession, with the story of
their first institution, has been rendered into
English, with an excellent Preface, by Thomas
Vaughan, and an Appendix, showing the true
nature of their philosophy, place of abode, and
other particulars connected with their magian
prowess and renown.

But we must not omit to notice the names of
Dee and Kelly, two notorious magicians of Queen
Elizabeth's time ; for though the latter was some-

73 See Introitus Apertus ad Occlusum Regis Palationem.
cap. xiii.

Preliminary Account. 59

what of a knave, and a little over-presumptuous,
yet there is reason to believe that he practised
transmutation, and became possessed of the Red
Powder by some secret kind of information, if not
of the means of perfecting it by his own art. Thus
it was generally reported of Dr. Dee and Kelly,
that they were so strangely fortunate as to dis-
cover a very large quantity of the Powder of
Projection in a niche amongst the ruins of Glaston-
bury Abbey, and which was so rich in virtue
(being 1 upon 272,330), that they lost a great
portion in trial, before they found out the true
height of the medicine. With this treasure they
went abroad, fixed their abode at Trebona, and
transmuted occasionally. In Dee's diary we have
the account of Kelly making projection with one
small grain (in proportion no larger than the least
grain of sand) upon an ounce and a quarter of
common mercury, which produced almost an
ounce of pure gold.74. Then there is the story of
the warming-pan, related by Ashmole, from no
very distant testimony, of a piece of the metal
being cut out and, without Kelly's touching or
handling it, or melting the copper even, only
warming it in the fire, the elixir being projected
thereon, it was transmuted into pure silver. The
pan, he goes on to relate, wras sent to the Queen
Elizabeth by her ambassador, who then lay at
Prague ; that, by fitting the piece into the place
whence it was cut out, it might exactly prove
to be once a part of that pan. Broomfield had like-
wise seen in the hands of one Master Trye and
Scroope, rings of Sir Edward Kelly's gold, the
fashion of which was only gold wire twisted thrice
about the finger ; of which fashioned rings he
gave away to the value of 4000/. at the marriage
of one of his servants. This was highly generous ;
but, to sa}^ the truth, he was openly profuse
beyond the modest limits, as Ashmole observes,
74 Dee's Diary, Sept., 1586.

56 Exoteric View.

of a sober philosopher.75 This kind of profusion
has been frequently exhibited by such as are
reported to have come by the treasure casually,
never by those who have themselves confected it.

During the abode at Trebona, Dee and Kelly
appear to have tried many experiments, and their
conversations with their spiritual informants are
ludicrously mundane and abortive.76 Whether or
not the}^ finally succeeded in the object of their
research, remains uncertain ; the story runs that
they did not, but that the secret of making the
Powder was confided to Kelly some years after-
wards by a dying monk. In Dee's Diary, towards
the latter end, there certainly are expressions of
joy and gratitude, as if he had suddenly attained
to some great and important discovery ; — Hsec
est dies quam fecit Dominus, omne quod vivit
laudet Dominum ; — and upon the thirtieth day
of the month following, he writes, — Master E.
Kelly did open the great secret to me, God be
thanked.

Things were not carried on so privately abroad,
but the Queen had notice of the proceedings of her
subjects ; and she sent letters and messages sum-
moning them to return home : Dee obeyed, but
Kelly remaining behind, was taken prisoner by
the Emperor Rudolph, who had long set a watch
over their movements. It was during this deten-
tion, that he wrote that little book, entitled
De Lapide Philosophorum, which is commonly
to be met with, but is of little more value than
repute. The death of Kelly is involved in mystery,
and Dee is said to have expired in poverty at
Mortlake.

The writings of Jacob Bohme, the profound
theosophist of Prague, and those of the Pordage

75 See notes appended to the Theat. Chem. Brit.

76 See " A true and faithful Relation of what passed for
many years between I)r. John Dee and some Spirits."
The book is comparatively rare : London 1659.

Preliminary Account. 57

.and Lead school, may not be undervalued, since
these enthusiasts were all on the same original
track ; and the first would seem to have attained
something better even than a view of the Pro-
mised Land. Moreover, Bohme has discovered
such a ground of experience and principles of the
Divine Art in his writings, as may help the student
to conceive profoundly, and lead him to the means
of understanding the enigmas of the old adepts.
For this author is, of all who have hitherto entered
experimentally into the mystery, the plainest,
simplest, and most confidential exponent. The
Aurora, or Day Spring ; The Discourse of the
Three Principles ; The Mysterium Magnum ; The
Tree of Life ; The Turned Eye, or Forty Questions
concerning the Life of Man, and his Epistles, are
full of explicit indications concerning the physical
basis of magic and occult material of the philo-
sopher's stone.77 So that the following eulogy,
copied from a manuscript found in a volume of his
works, may not be considered misplaced, or
altogether extravagant : —

Whate'er the Eastern Magi sought,
Or Orpheus sung, or Hermes taught,
Whate'er Confucius would inspire,
Or Zoroaster's mystic fire ;
The symbols that Pythagoras drew,
The wisdom godlike Plato knew,
What Socrates debating proved,
Or Epictetus lived and loved ;
The sacred fire of saint and sage,
Thro' every clime in every age,
In Bohme's wondrous page we view.
Discovered and revealed anew, &c.

Revealed anew, it will be observed, theosophi-
cally, but not intellectually. Nothing, since the
Greeks, has been found to approach their doctrine
of Wisdom in perspicuity, grace of utterance, and
scientific explication of the divine source. Of
all the successors on the same road, none have

77 See Bohme's Works, edited by Law and others, 4 vols. 4to.

58 Exoteric View.

exceeded their authority, and very few have
attained to the perfect veracity and ideality of
their ground ; but of this hereafter. Numerous
works on Alchemy have issued from the German
press, detailing the experience of excellent and
learned adepts ; amongst those of later years,
may be mentioned Ambrose and Phillip Muller ;78
Herman Fichtuld ;79 and his friend George Von
Welling ;80 J. Crollius ;hl the Van Helmonts,
father and son ;82 Grasseus, the reputed author of
the Water Stone,83 a personal friend of Bohme's \
Henry Khunrath, a pious and learned adeptist ;84
Andrew Libavius ;85 J. J. Beccher ;86 and J.
Tollius, a Dutchman, and an elegant classical
expositor on the same ground.87 Faber, also ;88"
but of all those who have connected ancient fable
with philosophy, and explained them by the Her-
metic key, Michael Maier ranks first ; and his
works are more esteemed and sought after, even
in the present day, than is easily accountable,

78 Philippi Mulleri Miracula et Mysteria Medico-Chemica,
Wirtemburg, 1656. Amb. Miiller's Paradeis-Spiegel, Launen-
burg, 1704.

79 Probier Stein, Francf. 1740.

80 Opus Mago-Cabbalist, &c, Francf. 1760.

81 Crollius, Philosophy Reformed, &c.. trans, by Pinneh
London, 1657.

82 Van Helmont de Ortu Medicinse has been translated under
the title of Oreatrike, or Physic Reformed. J. B. Y. Helmont,
Paradoxes.

83 Das Wasser-Stein des Weissens, is translated into English
and into Latin in the Musseum Hermeticum ; Area Arcano,
Lillium inter Spinas, &c., by the same Author, are in the
collection of Manget.

84 Amphitheat. Sapientia? Eterna?, in fol. 1608. Magnesia
Catholic a, &c.

85 And. Libavius, Opera Omnia Medica, in fol. 2 vols. A
ponderous compilation.

86 Physica Subterranea, Lips. 8vo. Idem, (Eclipus Chemicus
Aperius Mysteria, &c. Francf. 1664. Idem, Laboratorium
Chemicum, Francf. 1680.

87 Tollii Fortnita, Amst, 1687. Manuductio ad Ccelura
Chemicum, 1688. Sapientia Insanies, sive Proinissa Ohemica,

88 Opera Medico-Chimica, 2 vols. 4to. Francf. 1652.

Preliminary Account. 59*

8&

since he is profoundly guarded in his revelations.
Highly curious engravings and woodcuts adorn
the works of these authors, and even the title-
pages of many of them convey more idea and food
for reflection than other modern tomes, often-
times throughout the whole of their development.

The Novum, Lumen Chemicum, which passes-
under the name of Michael Sendivogius, the Polish
adept, is one of the best known and popular of
modern works on the subject. It has been trans-
lated into English, by John French, also a prac-
titioner ;90 whose introductory preface is bold
and striking, and was published in London under
the title of The New Light of Alchemy, with the
nine books of Paracelsus, De Natura Rerum, in
1650. This New Light, professedly drawn from
the fountain of nature, and grounded in manual
experience, is cleverly handled, and of an attractive
character ; though in consequence of the wilful
disorder and perplexity of the composition, re-
peated perusal and a certain knowledge are
requisite, in order to gather its recondite drift ;
and so much the more, as its theory and asserted
facts are at variance with our common conceptions
and experience of the possibility of nature. The
French edition of this work, also, has been trans-
lated by Digb}^ and contains, besides the Treatise
on Salt omitted in the above, other curious addi-
tions, with a concluding Dialogue, which is
instructive.91

There is a multitude of little English books on
alchemy afloat on the book-stalls ; amongst them
some original, well- written and worthy of perusal ;
for although Britain has not been so fertile in

89 Symbola Aurea? Mensae. Idem, Ulysses. Idem, Septimana
Philosophica, rare ; Arcana Arcanissima, h. e. Hieroglyphica
.'Egyptiaca Grreca, rare ; Atalanta Fugiens, sive Scrutineum
Chemicum Emblemata, Themis Aurea, Yiatorium. &c, &c.

90 kSee French's Art of Distillation.

91 Sendivogius's New Light of Alchemy, by John Digby
London, 1722.

GO Exoteric View.

adepts as France and Germany, yet her scarce
ones have been great ; the profundity and com-
parative candour of their writings, being very
generally acknowledged by their foreign compeers
to which Dufresnoy, though himself a sceptic, in
his Histoire Hermetique bears this characteristic
witness. — E'ailleurs on ne scauroit disconvenir
que les Anglois n'ecrivent sur la science her-
metique avec beaucoup de lumiere et de prof ondeur.
lis y font paroitre leur jugement et leur esprit de
reflexion. II seroit a souhaiter qu'ils portassent la
meme attention et la meme maturite a tout ce
qu'ils entreprennent, on seroit beaucoup plus
content d'eux et ils ne s'exposerait pas a perdre
l'estime des autres nations comme ils s'y risquent
tous les jours.92

This piece of flattering French testimony refers,
we suppose, to the writings of our early adepts ;
otherwise, of all that have flourished in latter
times, the most celebrated and facile princeps, is
that Anonymous who styles himself Eirenseus
Philalethes : the many works that have appeared
under this signature indicate so excellent and
perfect an artist, that his brethren, always speak-
ing with admiration, unanimously award him
the garland. Yet of himself, his name, and habits
of life nothing is known ; no co temporary men-
tions him ; Starkey, indeed, professes to have
been his servant once for a time in America, and
to have assisted him in the art ; and describes him
as an English gentleman of an ancient and honour-
able family then living on his own estate and rarely
learned. — I saw, says he, in my master's possession
the White and Red elixir in very large quantity ;
he gave me upwards of two ounces of the White
medicine of sufficient virtue to convert 120,000
times its weight into the purest silver : with this
treasure I went to work ignorantly and was caught
in the trap of my own covetousness, for I expended
92 Vol. i. page 446.

Preliminary Account. 6f

of wasted nearly all this tincture, and did not
know its value until it was nearly gone. However,
I made projection of a part, and have tinged
many hundreds of ounces by it into the best silver:
of a pound of mercury I have made within less than
a scruple of a pound of silver, &c.93 It is also
reported that Eirenaeus was intimate with the
chemist Boyle ; but the rumours are all uncertain,
and, as if to increase the mystery, he has been
confounded with other English adepts, as Har-
precht and Thomas Vaughan, and his writings also
with those of Sendivogius, who has been identified
with him under the name of Alexander Sethon and
others. He himself informs us that he was born
in England, somewhere towards the beginning
of the 17th century, that he possessed the secret
at a ver}^ early age, and was the victim of unre-
mitting persecution. His principal works are,
An Open Entrance to the Shut Palace of the King,
Ripley Revived, The Marrow of Alchemy, in verse ;
Metallorum Metamorphoses, Brevis Manuductio
ad Rubinum Ccelestum, Fons Chemicce Veritatis,
and a few others in the Musazum Hermeticum and
in Manget's collection.

Thomas Vaughan, whose pseudonym of Eugenius
Philalethes has, notwithstanding the very obvious
distinction of his mind and style, caused him to be
confounded with the foregoing Eirenseus, was the
author of several luminous little treatises, bearing
on the higher grounds of this mystic science, full
of ideas and the recondite spirit of antiquit}^.
In these Vaughan makes casual reference to the
gold-making possibility, but is at little pains to
attract in this direction, or indicate, as is usual, any
sophistic order of practical operation ; and thus
repelling impertinent inquiry, he leads at once to
the true and only valuable speculation of the
subject. Moreover, unless we be mistaken, the one
Art and medium of vital perfectibility is more
93 See Starkey's Pyrotechny Asserted.

62 Exoteric View.

clearly shown in his writings than in those of any
other English author. They are as follow : Magia
Adamica, or The Antiquity of Magic ; whereto is
added, A Discovery of the Caelum Terrce, or
Magician's Heavenly Chaos ; Anthroposophia
Theomagica, a discourse on the nature of man
grounded on the protochemistry of Hermes, and
verified by a practical examination of principles :
Anima Magia Abscondita, a discourse of the
universal spirit of nature, with its strange,
abstruse, and miraculous ascent and descent ;
Euphrates, or Waters of the East, a practical dis-
course of that secret fountain whose water flows
from fire ; Lumen de Lumine, a new magical light
discovered and consummated, with an allegorical
display of the first matter, and other valuable
magnetic al introductions and guides. This author' s
death is reported to have befallen extraordinarily,
something after the manner of the poet Virgil's,
and from an overdose of the elixir ; nor should it
appear wonderful, as the narrative runs, that the
subtle light of life should in these instances have
been swallowed up in the superior attraction of a
greater flame. Agrippa gives a similar account of
the death of Alexander the Great, we know not
on what authority, saying that he died suddenly by
the hand of his preceptor, administering the venom
of the waters of Styx, to whom the youthful monarch
had previously intrusted his life, body and soul,
without reservation.94

The Authors we have brought forward as distin-
guished and genuine, are but few in comparison
with the whole number ; some reckon as many as
four thousand ;95 but there are enough without
forcing any into the ranks. Borrichius, from
standing testimony, counts as many as two
thousand five hundred.96 L'Englet Dufresnoy has

94 Vanity of the Sciences, c. 54.

95 Petri Borelli Bibliot. Chem. Paris, 1656.

96 De Ortu et Progressu Chimin.

Preliminary Account. 63

reduced the number still more, but then he was
ignorant of the subject and excludes according to
titles, rather than the matter, of several books
covertly treating of the Hermetic art.97 The
Bodleian library contains many hundred volumes
by separate authors. The Royal Library of France
was reputed still richer in 1742, especially in manu-
scripts ; and the Vatican and Escurial have large
and valuable collections in the same branch.

And it is in these archives alone that the ancient
Art is now preserved, in which we hoard the mem-
ory of long bygone hopes. To declare a man an
Alchemist in the present day would be to brand
him as insane, and the Hermetic ground is as far
out of the road of common thought as if it were
tabooed ; not indeed that any one regards it as
sacred, but devilish rather, or delirious, or
ridiculous, as the bias may be. Meanwhile, there-
fore, to reconcile this science or the teachers of it
to the world, we should feel to be a task above our
ability, were it very far greater than it is ; the
prejudice having grown so old and strong that
neither reason nor authority is longer able to
balance it. But in whatever light we be disposed
to regard Alchemy, whether as the acme of human
folly, or contrariwise, as the recondite perfection
of wisdom and causal science, it appears almost
equally remarkable : considered in the former way
Ave have before us a huge monument of avarice,
mad credulity, and fraud accumulating on con-
tinually from immemorial time, with the deplorable
conclusion, that the greater part of those to whom
the world has been taught to look up as philo-
sophical authorities were in fact dupes and worse
deceivers ; on the other hand, if we hesitate in
thus denouncing all the many well-approved and
religious professors of this art, and suppose them,
even in this particular, to have been sincere, what

97 Histoire Hermetique, torn. iii. accompagnee (Tune Cata-
logue Raisonnee des Ecrivains de cette Science, Paris, 1762.

64 Exoteric View.

then ought we to conclude ? That they were
deluded ? It is true their assertions are startlingy
their promises huge and improbable, but then the
means of realization proposed are actual ; the
transmutation of metallic bodies was a proof
addressed to the senses and so uniformly stated
as to preclude subterfuge or any medium fulfil-
ment. — I have seen the Stone and handled it,
says Van Helmont, and have projected the fourth
part of one grain, wrapped in paper, upon eight
ounces of quicksilver boiling in a crucible, and the
quicksilver, with a small voice, presently stood still
from its flux, and was congealed like to yellow
wax ; and after a flux by blast we found eight
ounces all but eleven grains which were wanting of
the purest gold ; therefore one grain of this
powder would transmute 19186 parts of quicksilver
into the best gold. I am constrained to believe, for
I have made projections divers times of one grain
of the philosopher's gold upon some thousands
of grains of boiling quicksilver, to the admiration
and tickling of a great multitude. He who gave
me that powder (the stranger Butler, whom he
first found in prison) had so much as would trans-
mute two hundred thousand pounds' worth of
gold.98 Our tincture of gold, says Paracelsus, has
within it an astral fire which conquers all things
and changes them into a nature like to itself ; it
is a most fixed substance and immutable in the
multiplication ; it is a powder having the reddest
colour, almost like saffron, yet the whole corporeal
substance is liquid like resin, transparent like
crystal, frangible like glass. It is of a ruby colour
of the greatest weight ; and this is a true sign of the
tincture of philosophers, that by its transmuting
force all imperfect metals are changed, and this
gold is better than the gold of the mines ; and
out of it may be prepared better medicines and

98 Book of Eternal life, Ortus. Med. fol. p. 590, &c.

Preliminary Account. 65

arcana.99 So likewise Friar Bacon says, and Lully,
and Arnold in his Speculum, that he had seen and
touched, after much labour and industry, the
perfect thing transmuting.100 And Geber in these
words — The things are manifest in which the verit}^
of the work is nigh, and we have considered the
things perfecting this work by a true investigation,
with certain experience, whereby we are assured
that all the words are true which are by us written
in our volumes, according as we found them by
experiment and reason.101 And again, — By the
goodness of God's instigation and by our own
incessant labour, we have searched out and found,
and have seen with our eyes and handled with our
hands the completement of matters sought after
in our magistery.102 And Picus di Mirandola, in
his book De Auro : — I come now, says the prince,
to relate what my eyes have seen plainly without
veil or obscurity ; one of my friends, who is now
living, has made gold and silver above sixty
several times in my own presence, and I have seen
it and done it myself.103

We do not adduce these testimonials in proof
either of the truth or plausibility of the Hermetic
art ; but to lead on inquiry, without which it
would be equally vain to believe as to deny ; and
further, to show the pretension was not ambiguous,
but absolutely proveable, if at all, we have the
story of the transmutation before Gustavus Adol-
phus in the year 1620, the gold of which was coined
into medals, bearing the king's effigy with the
reverse, Mercury and Venus ; and that other at
Berlin, before the king of Prussia, widely celebrated
in 1710.104 The story related by Kircher in his

99 Signatura Rerum, fol. page 358.

100 Speculum Alchimiae, sub initio, Theat. Chem. vol. iv. p. 515.

101 Epilogue to the Investigation of Verity, RusseFs Geber, p. 20.

102 Idem, book i. page 215.

303 Picus Mirandolae de Auro, lib. iii. cap. 2.
104 See Borrichius de Ortu et Progressu, the full account ;
and Dufresnoy, Hist. Herm. vol. ii.

66 Exoteric View.

Mundus Subterraneus also is explicit, and that
of Helvetius ; but the foregoing, taken casually,
may be sufficient to indicate that the evidence of
Alchemv was neither abstract nor hidden, nor

vaguely opinable,
But clean, experimental and determinable : —

and that if there was deception at all, it must have
been wilful and not the offspring of self-delusion on
the part of the adepts. And then what should
induce men to invent, age after age, and to reiterate
and confirm a shameful and unpopular falsehood ?
— pious hermits and ecclesiastics, physicians and
metaphysicians, men of high rank and reputation,
far above and out of the way of sordid allurements,
most of whom had in fact relinquished station,
power, wealth, and worldly benefices for the science,
sake and the cause of true religion? What interest
should have moved them, even supposing minds
so degraded as to deceive so far and frequently
their fellow-men? Or shall we conclude that Ripley
either was so mad and simple a knave as to write
the offer to his king to show him the actual working
of the Stone, if he had possessed nothing ? but he
even promises to unfold the whole confection
conditionedly. Would he so far have ventured,
or what motive had he to deceive ?

Never trewly for merke nor for pounde
Make yt I common ; but to you conditionedly
That to yourself ye shall keep yt secretly ;
And only yt use; as may be God's pleasure,
Els in tyme comynge of God I shoulde abye
For my discoveringe of hys secrett trcasurye.105

And if the notion of wilful deceit is improbable ;
then, their problem being one of tangible facts, it
is still less likely that they were themselves
deceived. — I write not fables, says H. Khunrath,
in his Amphitheater ; with thine own hands thou
shalt handle and with thine own eyes thou shaft
see Azoth, viz., the Universal Mercury, which alone

105 Sir George Ripley's Epistle to King Edward IV., v. 5.

Preliminary Account. 67

with its internal and external fire is sufficient for
thee ; which transforms itself into what it will
by the fire. And again, — I have travelled much
and visited those esteemed to know somewhat by
experience and not in vain, amongst whom, I call
God to witness, I got of one the universal tincture,
and the blood of the Lion, which is the goid of
philosophers. I have seen it, touched it, tasted it,
smelt it, and used it efficaciously towards my poor
neighbours in most desperate cases. Oh, how
wonderful is God in his works !106

The liberal mind naturally experiences a diffi-
culty in disbelieving where, a possibility being
granted, the testimony in support of a matter is
fair and honourable. And though sensible evidence
and more than this sometimes is required to silence
negative assertion ; yet reason, supported by her
witnesses, may enervate it, and induce that strict
investigation and thought which should always
precede experiment, but which the multitude have
never yet been found willing to undertake ; and
are consequently led astray in progress, and learn
as it were by chance. It is said that Lord Bacon
instituted certain experiments with a view to the
discovery of the philosopher's stone, and in the
Advancement of Learning he faithfully recognises
the possibilhVy, as does also Sir Isaac Newton in his
works ; while Leibnitz devoted his early life to the
pursuit : nor did either of these great men, though
they were practically unsuccessful themselves,
condemn the ancient tradition or deny its validity.
Yet it would seem to be more ordinarily natural to
the human mind to reject those things, which it has
neither been early imbued in the belief of, nor
instructed to understand ; besides individual
research into mere possibilities, and because facts
only are alleged, is too hopeless and arduous for
this short life, wThich requires a definite assurance
of success, and fruit even from the smallest labour.

106 Amphitheatrum Sapientise Eternse. circa finem.

68 Exoteric View.

And this is the world's palliation for despising
Alchemy, and many things which the ancients
have asserted in like manner, without the requisite
means of realization. For they would not, nor
have they anywhere declared openly even the
common Subject of their Art ; but left mankind
to imagine, as they did, all that was erroneous
concerning it, as of their salts, sulphurs, mercuries,
magic elements, and occult confections. What a
chaos of metaphor and monstrous allusion does
not the literature of Alchemy at first view present !
With what fantastic images and inconclusive
positions is it not replete — signs, symbolisms, and
subtle enigmas innumerable, as if to try the
ingenuity at every point ? Contrary to the usual
endeavour of writers to enlighten, by rendering
their ideas intelligible, the adepts appear to have
had a directly contrary aim, at least so it would
occur to any one from a cursory survey ; now
leading along by some ingenious allegory, full of
deep and exciting suggestions, yet withal enveloped
in a mystery so obscure that without more light it
were impossible to penetrate it ; then, further to
seduce, adding, it may be, another gleam of argu-
ment, tantalizing the hope and wearying the
understanding with unequal assertions, until all
passes away again, with all possibility of discern-
ment, behind some clouded metaphor or word of
warning that the secret of ages may not be profaned.
A variety of artifices according to the cabalistic
method, moreover, have been employed, and the
Hermetic discourses are not unfrequently found
introverted in their order, and dispersed with
repetitions, to prevent the truth from becoming
openly obvious, even to those who had already
become possessed of the true key ; but only of the
vestibule and entrance rights ;

If you consider how the partes of the werkes
Be out of order set by the old clerkes,
As I said before, the masters of this arte,

Preliminary Account. 69

Every and each of them disclosed but a parte ;
Wherefore tho' ye perceived them as ye woulde,
Yet ye cannot order or joine them as ye shoulde.107

For is not our art cabalistic, asks Artephius, and
full of mysteries ? And you, fool, believe we teach
the secret of secrets openly, and understand our
words according to the letter ; be assured, we are
not envious, but he that takes the philosopher's
sayings according to the outward sense and
signification has already lost the clue of Ariadne,
and wanders up and down the labyrinth, and it
would be of the same benefit to him as if he had
thrown his money into the sea.108 And Sendivogius,
to the same effect in the Preface to the Twelve
Treatises, — I would, says he, have the candid
reader be admonished that he understand my
writings, not so much from the outside of my words
as from the possibility of nature ; let him consider
that this Art is for the wise, not for the ignorant ;
and that the sense of philosophers is of another
nature than to be understood by vaporing
Thrasoes, or letter learned scoffers, or vicious,
against their own consciences ; or ignorant
mountebanks, who, most unworthily defaming the
most commendable art of Alchemy, have with
their Whites and Reds deceived almost the whole
world.109 And again, in the Epilogue, — All things
indeed, says the adept, might have been compre-
hended in a few lines ; but we are willing to guide
into the knowledge of nature indirectly, by reasons
and examples : that thou mayest know what the
thing truly is thou shouldest seek after, also that
thou mightest have nature, her light and shadow,
discovered to thee. Be not displeased if thou
meetest sometimes with contradictions in my
treatises, it being the custom of philosophers to
use them ; thou hast need of them : if thou

107 Norton's Ordinal, cap. ii.

108 Phil. Antiquis. Tract. Secret.

109 See New Light of Alchemy, Preface.

70 Exoteric View.

understandest them, thou shalt not find a rose
without prickles.110

Each artist striving yt how to conceal

Lest wretched caitifs shulde the treasure steal.

Nor vyllains shulde their vyllanyes maintain

JBy this rare art ; whych danger they to heal

In horrid metaphors veyled are an art most plain,

Lest each fool knowing yt shulde yt when known disdayne.11

And Roger Bacon advises, therefore, to leave off
-experiments until the ground of wisdom is pro-
perly conceived. — And though I say, take this, and
this, believe me not (says he) but operate according
to the blood ; i.e., according to the understanding,
and so of all ; leave off experiments, apprehend
my meaning, and you will find, believe me, being a
lighted candle.112 And Basil Valentine and
Eirenaeus, and most adepts in short, warn their
readers against running into the practice upon
vague premises, and before they have attained to a
full understanding of the matter to be taken in hand ;
yet, notwithstanding all their injunctions, many
seekers, and faithful ones too, have been led
astray : Geber's receipts, Basil's, and Glauber's,
though at variance with all common-sense proba-
bility, have been the means of surrounding many
a literal soul with stills, coals, and furnaces, in
hope by such lifeless instruments to sublime the
Spirit of nature ; or by salt, sulphur and mercury,
or the three combined with antimony, to extract
the Form of gold. But they who have thus fallen
to practise, without the true Light or heeding their
injunctions, had no right to charge their error
on the adepts, the disappointment and misery of
those fanatical chemists having been attributable
to their own misunderstanding bias, and more
frequently owing to the deceit of sophists than
to the genuine tradition of Hermetic science.

110 Epilogue to the Twelve Treatises

111 Ripley's Fifth Gate.

112 De Arte Alchemica, p. 345., &c.

Preliminary Account. 71

Since difficulties however are apparent, and the
pretenders to the Art were in latter times far more
numerous than the true adepts, and the literature
has suffered in consequence grievous disgrace and
spoliation, it is not surprising that the public,
having been so long and grossly deluded, should
at length have shut out Alchemy from amongst
its credenda. If there was no desire to search
deeper, it was wisely done, and checked the raging
of a sore distemper. But that many have fallen
into error and suffered, or others proved deceivers,
or that the world has chosen to disbelieve, are no
proofs in philosophy, even if it were without so
many witnesses, that the Hermetic mystery is
groundless, The world is fully as ignorant of
the genuine doctrine and Art of Wisdom as were
the imposters whom it repudiated, and their judg-
ment concerning it is of as little value. The words
of the philosophers remain, though modern science
is not able to confirm them, or present anything
analogous to the powers they professed, not in
the advancement of the mineral kingdom only,
but over all nature. And since they unanimously
recommend a studious examination, in order to
conceive rightly of the promises held out, before
attempting to judge them or the pretensions of
their Art, we propose to investigate preliminarily
the theoretic ground and matter on which the
physical possibility of transmutation rests.

Exoteric View.