Shaken to the core, I raised my eyes to the top of tree and saw the double head move its lips and I heard a call as from a great height and distance that almost exhausted itself in its course to my ear:
“One that holds to his faith, lives in the end! – Cleave unto me and we shall be one! – Be alive to thyself and thou shalt be alive to me – to Baphomet!”
I sank to my knees at the foot of the tree and embraced its trunk most reverently; and I wept such that I could no longer see the vision through the veil of tears, and when my eyes were clear once more I perceived the faint glow of my chamber lamp as the first light of morning filtered through the chinks in the shutters. I could still hear the voice from the tree, as if it came from within me:
“Wilt thou become immortal? – Dost thou know that the way of this metamorphosis leads through many trials of fire and water? Base matter must suffer much torment before it can be transmuted.”
– – –
Three times now I have been shown the Image and the Meaning and the Way in these morning visions. The Way which will lead me to myself, after time and after the grave – whenever that may be, is a two-fold Way. One Way is uncertain, chancy, like a bread crumb cast upon the ground that the birds might eat up before I take that road. Nonetheless, I will essay it, for if it succeed it will be of mighty assistance in that future beyond time for me to remember myself – for what is immortality if not remembrance?
Therefore I choose the magic Way of the Script and set down in writing my fate and what has been revealed to me on the pages of this diarium, which I have hallowed and by certain means protected against the assaults of time and of evil spirits. Amen.
But Thou, thou Other, who shalt come after me and read this book at the end of the Days of the Tree: remember whence thou came and that thou arose from the silver spring that waters the tree and that the tree sends forth. And if thou shouldst hear the murmur of thy stream and feel the branches of the tree grow through thy flesh, then I, John Dee, Lord of the Manor of Gladhill, do beseech thee that thou look within thy soul and wake thyself from the grave of time and know: Thou art I! – – –
There is, however, another Way which I must follow for my sake, as I live here in the flesh and in the Castle of Mortlake: that is the Way of the alchymical transubstantiation of the body and of the soul, that both may achieve immortality in this present time.
And it is not only since this morning that I have known of this Way; I have been following it now for three years and I have reason to believe that the vision vouchsafed me on three mornings together is a result, the first fruits, so to speak, of my constant labour in this vineyard. It is two years ago that I came to understand the true nature of alchymy and at Christmas-tide in the year of our Lord 1579 I had a chymical laboratorium built here in Mortlake and equipped with all necessary devices – and I have bound to me a most capable assistant who came to see me unannounced on Christ’s Birthday and who since then has served me honourably and showed himself above all expectation well versed and experienced in the mystical art. This same assistant, of whom I have grown right fond and call my friend, is one Master Gardner by name. He enjoys my trust, for he always looks after my interest and is ever ready with good counsel: this I wish to state and acknowledge here with due gratitude. For it saddens me that in recent days there have been increasing signs that his great knowledge and, especially, the trust I place in him, has made him stuffed up with pride and obstinacy so that he often contradicts me, gives me unasked-for warnings and unwelcome admonitions. I hope he will desist from this and show me the respect due to his lord and – well-disposed – master. Our quarrel touches not only on the proper methods in the practice of the art of alchymy; he also thinks it behoves him to oppose my conference with the good spirits from the other world beyond which I succeeded in establishing in remarkable fashion a short time ago. That it is impossible that in this matter I should be the prey of satanic demons, as he does suppose, or the plaything of the spirits of earth and air, is to be seen in the fact that every conjuration of the world beyond is begun and ended with a fervent prayer to God and to the Saviour of all creatures, Jesus Christ. The voices and spirits that manifest themselves appear so godfearing and all they do and say is done and said expressly in the name of the Holy Trinity that I cannot and will not believe Gardner’s warning that they are masked demons. Their counsels, namely how to prepare the philosopher’s stone and the elixier of life, run quite contrary to those that he does profess to know, so that I think they wound his pride who thinks he knows all things. Such humours are not uncommon in human nature but I am not minded to bear his interference any longer, however well-meant it may be.
