NOW WE HAVE learned from Suidas how the Emperor Diocletian ordered every anagogic document burnt at the public market, thinking thereby to thwart or obstruct Egyptian alchymists whose skill at confecting gold levied troops against Rome. By his odious act Diocletian attempted to extinguish an art, which we believe constitutes rape against our sensibilities, and each event cannot but leave to posterity its eviternal trace or pattern.
DOES THE RAGING sun spiraling overhead exult at our progress? We suspect vainglorious men inscribe their histories on some codex rescriptus. We point out the prophet Zoroaster rejecting all men save those avid for knowledge, who lived on a mountain behind a curtain of celestial fire. Then appeared a mighty king accompanied by his mightiest lords and all of them supplicants, and the prophet came out of the fire to greet them, and prayed, and offered a sacrifice on behalf of Persia. And when his body was consumed by a thunderbolt they vowed to preserve his ashes, but thoughtless descendants neglected this office. Subsequently the empire declined and broke apart and contributed to an earth already corrupt its ounce of corruption. Unless through parable or sign, what declares a truth? We ourselves, being indifferent to wasteful metaphysic, simply record the ascent or decline of remarkable days. All else we bequeath to the hand of a majestic Overseer.
WE HAVE KNOWN hermeneutes penalized for their simplicity, yet we watch them move close to God. And what mockeries they make against us may be hurled back upon the world at Judgment Day. Olaus Borrichius points to the lightning flash that disclosed a manuscript of Basilius Valentinus concealed within a pillar of the abbey church at Erfurt. Now, whether this be construed as a meaningless inadvertent eidolon or threatening apologue and reprimand, we plead much ignorance. As pious secretaries we devote our thought to Christian cosmography—being mindful that when Jehovah descends to judge and to censure or praise what we have done He will follow a conflagration like a pillar walking across the hills from the sea with dazzling radiance, and those that look to the core will fall down blinded.
RECENTLY HAVE WE made a most arduous journey to Fulham Church that we might view the sculpted sarcophagus of Sampson Norton where inexpressible disciplines speak privately to the initiate from shadows cast by marble foliage. There did we contemplate with quiet satisfaction the cockleshell atop Saint James’ hat. And we reflected upon that Musselman, Geber, whose perplexing symbols angered and mystified this world of avaricious mortals disposed to incontinent dreams. And we recalled of Harpocrates that with one hand concealing his mouth he represented secrecy, which is sustained by silence but with revelation grows weaker until the emblem vanishes.
WE DOUBT IT could be an intent of art to enrich the illiterate or sacrilegious, no more than flatulent mechanics be ordained to shear and sack and market the Golden Fleece. What merchant is appointed to benefit through harvesting and selling baskets of luminous apples from the Hesperides? Why would we vouchsafe to brutal minds what they could not interpret? We reflect upon Jakob Böhme wandering in a cave at Old Seidenberg near Görlitz who saw at his feet an ivory coffer overflowing with coins and rubies and tourmalines and emeralds and sapphires and pearls. And as he told his companions about these riches they wondered that he took nothing for himself. And flinging up their hands because they were blind with greed, they rushed into the void where reverberations of emptiness met them. Then full of rage they charged the philosopher with delusion. By virtue of this we see how the ambitions of artless men prove turgid. We note their hostility to a benevolent mind. We register with sorrow the paltry nature of their concept.
WE HEAR OF a lamp in the tomb of Cicero’s daughter Tullia which has flickered without interruption since the regency of Julius Caesar, nurtured by some liquid defying analysis. And we have inspected a burning lamp excavated near Alestes inscribed by the hand of a forgotten Roman: Maximus Olybius. And we have been informed of the mystifying Bononian Enigma. Now we are told of Hermolaus Barbarus who comments on water known to ancient hermeneutes, depicting one which is divine or ethereal, called Scythian Latex, that expends its spirit laboring toward the absolute distillation of liquefied gold and is alleged by Khunrath to burn with serene persistence. This we assume to be that irreducible thrice-blessed elixir by whose light the Magisterium illuminates eternal tenebrity while disclosing nothing.
HOW SHOULD THE Adept prepare his lodestone of bodily health and temporal felicity? There is but one method, as we learn from the Sophie Hydrolith. One catholicon must be recombined with nebulosity after purgation, the fulfillment achieved by Pontic Water which is more luminous than amethyst or diamond. Thus did Noah construct an ark, Moses a tabernacle, Solomon a temple. This was how a golden snow wrought by Vulcan’s art fell on the city of Rhodes—which is not the gold of vulgar pharmacists.
WHY WOULD A Novice scatter precious hours on fugitive wealth if he has been adequately instructed? Thomas Aquinas laboring at imperfect matter informs us how metamorphosis is plausible because we discern no autonomy in the government of elements. But he
