The
UNEXPLAINED

Mysteries of Mind Space and Time

Alchemists grew old and decrepit in their quest for the Elixir of Life. Yet stories persist that some fortunate practitioners found some way to survive beyond their natural span

'ALWAYS DRUNK AND ALWAYS LUCID' was how a biographer described Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, who gave himself the name 'Paracelsus'. His career included the study of magic under Hans von Trittenheim at Wurzburg in Germany, working for a year at the mining school of Sigismund Fugger, travelling through Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, England, Scandinavia and Russia, serving as an army surgeon in Italy and taking a medical degree at the University of Ferraro. He was appointed city physician of Basel, in Switzerland, in 1526, and he celebrated his appointment with a remarkable tirade in the city square.

Below: Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, city physician of Basel,  contributed much to alchemical theory,   as well as to pharmacy

In one hand he held a brass pan full of glowing coals.Into the fire he thrust the works of Avicenna, the 11th-century Arab philosopher, and of Galen, the second-century Greek medical authority. He sprinkled sulphur and saltpetre over them so that they were consumed in spectacular flames, and spoke:

Two targets of the wrath of Paracelsus: the Greek writer Galen (above), an authority on drugs, and the Arab ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avicenna (below), author of The canon of medicine

If your physicians only knew that their prince Galen - they call none like him -was sticking in Hell, from whence he has sent letters to me, they would make the sign of the cross upon themselves with a fox's tail. In the same way your Avicenna sits in the vestibule of the Infernal portal; and I have disputed with him about his . . . Tincture of the Philosophers, his Quintessence, and Philosopher's Stone . . . and all the rest, O you hypocrites, who despise the truths taught you by a great physician [he meant himself]. . Come then, and listen, impostors who prevail only by the authority of your high positions! After my death, my disciples will burst forth and drag you to the light, and shall expose your dirty drugs, wherewith up to this time you have compassed the death of princes.

In spite of his overweening, egotistical style, Paracelsus was an important influence in the development of the science of pharmacy. He was among the first to recognise that the processes of alchemy were the same as those of baking and cooking - he even dignified the man who lit and tended the fires with the title of 'alchemist'. And he replaced the four elements of Aristotle (see page 921) by three 'hypostatical principles': mercury, sulphur and salt. The term 'hypostatical' meant that these were not the ordinary substances: they were, rather, three ideal substances, which a 17th-century text described in these terms:

Mercury is that sharp, permeating, ethereal and very pure fluid to which all nutrition, sense, motion, power, colours and retardation of age are due. It is derived from air and water; it is the food of life.

Sulphur is that sweet, oleaginous and viscid [glutinous] balsam conserving the natural heat of the parts, instrument of all vegetation [unconscious activity of plants or animals, such as assimilating food], increase and transmutation, and the fountain and origin of all colours. It is inflammable, yet has great power of conglutinating [sticking together] extreme contraries.

Salt is that dry saline body preserving mixtures from putrefaction, having wonderful powers of dissolving, coagulating, cleansing, evacuating, conferring solidity, consistency, taste and the like. It resembles earth, not as being cold and dry, but as being firm and fixed.

What was the Philosopher's Stone?

Early philosophers were convinced that by lengthy processes of purification it must be possible to extract from minerals the natural 'principle' that supposedly caused gold to 'grow' in the earth. The anonymous 17th-century book The sophic hydrolith tells us that the Philosopher's Stone is prepared from a mineral by first 'purging it of all that is thick, nebulous, opaque and dark', yielding mercurial water or 'water of the Sun', which has a pleasant penetrating smell and is very volatile. Part of this liquid is put on one side, and the rest mixed with one twelfth its weight of 'the divinely endowed body of gold' - ordinary gold being useless because it is defiled by daily use. The mixture forms a solid amalgam, which is then heated gently for a week. It is then dissolved in some of the mercurial water in an egg-shaped phial.

Gold had to be added to the Philosopher's Stone to make further gold. This is symbolised here by the lion devouring the serpent in order to transform it

Then the remaining mercurial water is added gradually, in seven portions; the phial is sealed, and kept at such a temperature as will hatch an egg. After 40 days, the phial's contents will be as black as a raven's head; after seven more days small grainy bodies like fish-eyes appear. The Philosopher's Stone begins to make its appearance: first reddish in colour; then white, green and yellow like a peacock's tail; then a dazzling white; and later a deep glowing red. Finally, 'the revivified body is quickened, perfected and glorified' and appears of a most beautiful purple colour. Gradually, over the centuries, alchemists came to identify the Philosopher's Stone with the Elixir, the substance that would confer eternal life. As for the mineral from which the Stone was to be prepared, Gloria mundi (1526) says it is 'familiar to all men, both young and old, is found in the country, in the village, in the town. . . . No-one prizes it, though, next to the human soul, it is the most beautiful and most precious thing upon earth...'

Paracelsus saw these three principles in terms of spirit (mercury), soul (sulphur) and body (salt). As he himself put it in one of his alchemical writings:

But as there are many kinds of fruit, so there are many kinds of sulphur, salt and mercury. A different sulphur is in gold, another in silver, another in lead, another in iron, tin, etc. Also a different one in sapphire, another in the emerald, another in the ruby, chrysolite, amethyst, magnets, etc. Also another in stones, flint, salts, spring-waters, etc.

This kind of thinking led Paracelsus to the search for the 'quintessence' of each material, the refined and purified extract that was the essential part of it. Supposedly he identified this with the 'mercury' specific to that substance. In his public speech in Basel he was contrasting the quintessences of various metals, which he had prepared by distillation, to common 'dirty drugs'.

Left and Right: two pages from an early copy of 'The book of Abraham the Jew' in Paris. The lower picture shows those who seek for gold in the garden; the figure at bottom right, if we may believe Ninian Bres, is Nicolas Flamel himself. In the left picture. titled 'the three colours of the work', the rider mounted on a black lion represents gold in maceration; the second, on a red lion, represents the inner ferment; and the crowned rider on a white lion symbolises success

An innovation in alchemy

The concept of hypostatic mercury, sulphur and salt gave a new impetus to alehemical enquiry; and Paracelsus achieved apparent success in medical treatment with some of his 'quintessences'. They were probably weak acid solutions, pepped up in some instances with alcohol.

The ideas of Paracelsus also encouraged the search for the Elixir of Life. This remarkable substance, which supposedly conferred longevity or even immortality, had reputedly been discovered already. It was important in Chinese alchemy, the story of which will be told later (see page 985). In Europe alchemists were rumoured at various times to have gained immortality. One was Nicolas Flamel.

Flamel was a thrifty and industrious scrivener (a scribe and copyist) in 14th-century Paris. In 1357 he bought a very old and large illuminated book:

Above: a suppsed portrait of Nicholas Flamel,from an early 19th-century work

The cover of it was of brass, well bound, all engraven with letters or strange figures. . . . This I know that I could not read them nor were they either Latin or French letters. . . . As to the matter that was written within, it was engraved (as I suppose) with an iron pencil or graver upon bark leaves, and curiously coloured.

On the first page was written in golden letters: 'Abraham the Jew, Priest, Prince, Levite, Astrologer and Philosopher, to the Nation of the Jews dispersed by the Wrath of God in France, wisheth Health'. Flamel subsequently referred to this manuscript as 'the book of Abraham thc Jew'. 'I'he dedication was followed by execrations against anyone who was neither priest nor scribe and who might read the book. As Flamel was a scribe, he was emboldened to read further.

'I'he author intended to give the dispersed Jews assistance in paying their taxes to the Roman authorities by teaching them how to transmute base metals into gold. The instructions were clear and easy to follow, but unfortunately they referred only to the later stages of the process. The only guidance to the earlier stages was said to be in the illustrations given on the fourth and fifth leaves of the book To his great disappointment, Flamel found that, although these pictures were well painted, yet by that could no man ever have been able to understand it without being well skilled in their Qabalah, which is a series of old traditions, and also to have been well studied in their books.

For 21 years Flamel tried without success to find someone who could explain these pictures to him. At last his wife Perrenelle suggested that he should travel to Spain to seek out some learned Jew who could shed light on the matter. Flamel decided to make the famous pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela, and so, with his pilgrim's staff and broad-brimmed hat, and carrying carefully made copies of the mysterious illustrations, he set out on foot.

When he had made his devotions at the shrine, he travelled on to the city of León, in northern Spain, where by chance he made the acquaintance of a certain Master Canches, a learned Jewish physician. When he saw the pictures, he was 'ravished with great astonishment and joy', recognising them as parts of a book that he had long believed lost. He made up his mind at once to return with Flamel to France. But at Orléans, wearied and old, he died. Flamel, having seen him buried, returned alone to Paris.

I had now the prima materia, the first principles, yet not their first preparation, which is a thing most difficult, above all things in the world. .

Finally, I found that which I desired, which I also knew by the strong scent and odour thereof. Having this, I easily accomplished the Mastery.... The first time that I made projection [accomplished transmutation] was upon Mercury, whereof I turned half a pound [227 grams], or thereabouts,into pure silver, better than that of the Mine, as I myself assayed, and made others assay many times. This was upon a Monday, the 17th of January about noon, in my home, Perrenelle only being present, in the year of the restoring of mankind 1382.

Right: an 18th-century engraving of the frescoes that were painted for Flamel in the churchyard of the Holy Innocents in Paris, and which had survived for 400 years. A pair of small figures below the centre represent Flamel and his wife Perrenelle, while the panels at the top show seven of the illustrations from 'The book of Abraham the Jew'. Numerous copies of these pictures were made over the centuries, and it is now very difficult to determine what was in the original

Three months later Flamel made his first transmutation into gold. He and Perrenelle put their new-found wealth to good use: they endowed fourteen hospitals, three chapels and seven churches, in the city of Paris, all which we had new built from the ground, and enriched with great gifts and revenues, with many reparations in their churchyards. We also have done at Boulogne about as much as we have done at Paris, not to speak of the charitable acts which we both did to particular poor people, principally to widows and orphans.

After Flamel's death in 1419 the rumours began. Hoping that the Philosopher's Stone might still be hidden in one of his houses, people searched through them again and again, until one was reduced to a pile of rubble. There were stories that both Perrenelle and Nicolas were still alive; that she had gone to live in Switzerland while he buried a log in her grave, and that later he did the same at his own 'funeral'.

In the centuries since, legends have persisted that the wealthy alchemist had defeated death. The 17th-century traveller Paul Lucas, while travelling in Asia Minor, met a distinguished Turkish philosopher. He was told that true philosophers had had the secret of prolonging life for anything up to a thousand years. . . . At last I took the liberty of naming the celebrated Flamel, who, it was said, possessed the Philosopher's Stone, yet was certainly dead. He smiled at my simplicity, and asked with an air of mirth: Do you really believe this? No, no, my friend, Flamel is still living; neither he nor his wife has yet tasted death. It is not above three years since I left both . . . in India; he is one of my best friends.

Above: another picture from 'The book of Abraham the Jew'. This has been called 'the fair flower on the mountain'. The red and white flowers stand for stages in the Great Work, the dragons for sophic (that is, 'ideal') mercury, and the griffins for a combination of the lion (the fixed principle) and the eagle (the volatile principle)

A couple who cheated death

In 1761 Flamel and his wife were said to have attended the opera in Paris. Still later there were stories very reminiscent of those concerning the Count St Germain, who was also supposed to have discovered the Elixir of Life (see page 138). What are we to make of that almost unknown work Le corbeau menteur (the lying raven) by the 19th-century writer Ninian Bres?

He was a little less than middle height, stooping somewhat with the weight of years, but still with a firm step and a clear eye, and with a complexion strangely smooth and transparent, like fine alabaster. Both he and the woman with him - clearly his wife, although she appeared almost imperceptibly the older and more decisive of the two -were dressed in a style that seemed only a few years out of fashion and yet had an indefinable air of antiquity about it. I stood, half-concealed in a little archway toward the end of the Boulevard du Temple: my hands were stained with acid, and my topcoat stank of the furnace. As the couple came abreast of the spot where I stood, Flamel turned toward me and seemed about to speak, but Perrenelle drew him quickly on, and they were almost at once lost in the crowd. You ask how I am so confident that this was Nicolas Flamel? I tell you that I have spent many hours in the Bibliothèque Nationale, poring over the book of Abraham the Jew: look carefully at the first side of the fifth leaf and there, in the lower right-hand corner of the representation of those who seek for gold in the garden, you will see the face that searched mine that evening on the Boulevard du Temple, and that has haunted my dreams ever since.

Was the search for eternal life merely a symbolic quest, or did it have sexual meanings as well? See page 985

Reproduced from THE UNEXPLAINED p953