Part 14
The renown of Sethon about this time attracted the attention of Christian II., the young Elector of Saxony. He sent for the alchemist, but the latter, absorbed by his passion, had merged the Hermetic propagandist in the lover, and sent William Hamilton, his apparent domestic, but in reality a confidant and friend, to convince the Elector of the verity of alchemical operations by ocular evidence. A projection was performed by Hamilton with perfect success in the presence of the whole court, and the gold then manufactured resisted every test.[AE]
The Elector, previously a sceptic, was now more desirous than ever to behold the adept. Sethon reluctantly consented, and at this juncture seems to have been deserted by Hamilton. He was received with distinction and favour, and presented a small quantity of the powder to Christian II., who soon endeavoured to possess himself of the whole secret of the philosopher. Sethon refused to gratify him, and was deaf to persuasions and menaces; but the Elector, convinced that he was in possession of a living treasure, determined to overcome his reluctance, whatever the means employed. He imprisoned him in a tower, which was guarded by forty soldiers, who had strict orders to keep a constant watch on him. The unfortunate adept was subjected to every torment which covetousness and cruelty could suggest. He was pierced with pointed iron, scorched with molten lead, burnt by fire, beaten with rods, racked from head to foot, yet his constancy never forsook him. At length he outwearied his torturers, and was left in solitary confinement.
At this time Michael Sendivogius, a Moravian gentleman, generally resident at Cracovia, in Poland, chanced to be tarrying at Dresden. He was a skilful chemist, who, like others of his period, was in search of the philosophical stone, and who naturally took interest in the case of Alexander Sethon. Having some influence at the court of the Elector, he obtained permission to see him; and after several interviews, at which the adept was exceedingly reserved on all subjects connected with the divine science, he proposed to contrive his escape. The tortured alchemist gladly consented to his plans, and promised to assist him in his Hermetic pursuits. As soon as the resolution was formed, Sendivogius departed to Cracovia, sold his house in order to raise money, and returning to Dresden, established himself in the vicinity of the prison, gaining the favour of its warders by his prodigality and indirect bribes. At length the day came for the execution of his plan; he regaled the guards better than usual, and when they were all drunk, he carried Sethon, who was unable to walk, on his back to a post-chaise, in which they proceeded without discovery. They called at the house of Sethon for his wife, who was in possession of a quantity of the transmuting powder, and then made all haste to reach Cracovia. There Sendivogius required from the alchemist the fulfilment of his promise, but was blankly refused by the adept, who referred him to God, saying that the revelation of so awful a mystery would be a heinous iniquity.
“You see what I have endured,” he continued, “my nerves are shrunk, my limbs dislocated; I am emaciated to the last extremity, and my body is almost corrupted; even to avoid all this I did not disclose the secrets of philosophy.”
Sendivogius was not, however, destined to be deprived of all recompense for his pains and self-sacrifice. Alexander Sethon did not long enjoy the liberty which his friend had obtained for him, and on his death, which occurred two years after his escape, he presented his preserver with the remains of his transmuting powder.
FOOTNOTES:
[AB] The names Seton or Seatoun have been given as that of the village in question, but in Camden’s “Britannia” it appears as the name of the house itself. The alchemist himself is sufficiently myrionimous, being variously denominated Sethon, Sidon, Sethonius, Scotus, Sitonius, Sidonius, Suthoneus, Suethonius, and even Seehthonius.
[AC] _Epistola ad doctorem Schobinger_, printed by Emmanuel Konig in his _Ephemerides_.
[AD] Théobald de Hoghelande, _Historiæ aliquot Transmutationis Mettalicæ pro defensione Alchemiæ contra Hostium Rabrein_. Cologne, 1604.
[AE] Galdenfalk, “Alchemical Anecdotes.”
MICHAEL SENDIVOGIUS.
Sendivogius, whose true name was Sensophax, was born at Moravia in 1566, and was therefore about thirty-eight years of age on the death of his taciturn master. He is said by some of his biographers to have been the natural son of a Polish nobleman, named Jacob Sendimir. His life has been written at some length by his advocate, an anonymous German, who, however, produced a romance rather than a history, among other fictions representing his hero to have been sent by the Emperor Rodolph II. to the east, where he received from a Greek patriarch the revelation of the grand mystery. As a matter of fact, Sendivogius had made no progress in alchemy before his acquaintance with Sethon.
Having almost exhausted his fortune to obtain the liberation of that adept, and having a taste for extravagant living, he was dissatisfied with the mere possession of a portion of the transmuting powder, and was more eager than ever to penetrate the mysteries of the Hermetic art. He married the widow of Sethon, but she was wholly unacquainted with the process, and her only possession was the manuscript of that celebrated treatise, “The New Light of Alchemy,” with the dialogue of Mercury and the alchemist, which Sendivogius appropriated and eventually published as his own composition. From this work the uninitiated inquirer believed himself to have discovered a method of augmenting the powder, but he only succeeded in diminishing it.
Foiled in this attempt, he was still anxious at any rate to appear as an adept, and acquired an immense reputation by incessant projections, which, assisted by his sumptuous living, made him pass for a great hierophant. At Prague he presented himself to the Emperor Rodolph II., and, in presence of several nobles, the king himself made gold by projection, and overjoyed at the success of the operation he appointed Sendivogius as one of his counsellors of state. A marble tablet with the inscription--
_Faciat hoc quispiam alius Quod fecit Sendivogius Polonus_,
was set up in the chamber where the transmutation had been performed, and the occasion was celebrated in verse by the court poet, Mardochie de Delle.
This achievement Sendivogius followed by printing at Prague the treatise written by Sethon under the name of Cosmopolita. It passes for the work of its editor, as he included his name anagrammatically on the title-page, in the motto--_Divi Leschi genus amo_, and gave no information concerning the real author. Some time after he issued a tract on sulphur, which was probably his own composition. The motto on the title-page--_Angelus doce mihi jus_--is another anagram of his name. There are discrepancies between this tract and the twelve treatises which comprise the work of Sethon. This Sendivogius perceived, and in the second edition of the latter work he made alterations in its text.
From the Court of Rodolph II. the alchemist proceeded to that of Poland. As he passed on his way through Moravia, a lord of the country, who had heard of his transmutations at Prague, and suspected that he had abundance of the transmuting powder, laid an ambush for him on the road, seized him, and secretly imprisoned him, with the threat that he should never be liberated until he communicated the secret of his treasure. Sendivogius, dreading the fate of Sethon, cut through the iron bar that crossed the window of his dungeon, and making a rope of his clothes, he escaped almost naked from the power of the little tyrant, whom he summoned to the emperor’s court, where he was condemned to be fined, a village on his estate was confiscated and transferred to Sendivogius, who afterwards gave it as dower with his daughter at her marriage.
Sendivogius made several transmutations at Varsovia, but his powder was visibly diminishing. Duke Frederick of Würtemberg invited him to visit him, and two projections took place in the presence of this noble, who, to place him on the footing of a prince of the blood, gave him the territory of Nedlingen.
He was destined, however, to meet with a severe reverse at Würtemberg through the machinations of an envious alchemist already attached to the Court, and who persuaded him that the Duke Frederic had formed plans which menaced the freedom of his guest and the safety of his transmuting treasure. Sendivogius, once more vividly reminded of the fate of his master, precipitately fled, only to be pursued by his treacherous brother in science, who overtook him with twelve armed men, well mounted, arrested him in the name of the prince, robbed him of the philosophical treasure, and caused him to be cast into prison. Then this infamous souffleur, whose star had been overwhelmed by the sun of Sendivogius, proceeded to perform transmutations, more than regaining his lost reputation; but the report of this discreditable transaction spread, public opinion decided that the duke was a party to it, and the wife of the victim applying to the King of Poland, soon obtained the liberty of alchemist.
Once more Sendivogius appealed for redress to the Emperor Rodolph, who demanded the person of the souffleur from the Duke of Würtemberg. The possessions of Sendivogius were at once restored, with the exception of the powder, all knowledge of which was denied. The souffleur was hanged by the duke, but from this time the pupil of Sethon perceived his sign descending. He had but an infinitesimal quantity of the powder in his possession, which, ever in search of notoriety, he dissolved in spirits of wine, carefully rectified, and began to astonish the physicians of Cracovia, whither he had again repaired, by the marvellous cures which he performed with this for a medicine. Desnoyers, secretary to the Queen of Poland, and one of the alchemist’s biographers, was in possession of a crown piece which Sendivogius dipped red-hot into the same spirit, in the presence of Sigismund III., King of Poland, and which was partially transformed into gold.[AF] The elixir relieved the same king from the effects of a serious accident.
When every particle of his powder was expended, Sendivogius appears to have degenerated into a mere charlatan, obtaining large sums on the pretence of manufacturing the powder of projection. On one occasion he so far descended as to silver a piece of gold, and pretending that he possessed the elixir, he caused the silver to disappear by a chemical process, which he imposed on the ignorant as a projection of the tincture and a conversion of silver into gold.
His confidential servant, Bodowski, explains this deception as a finesse to conceal his real character, having learned from experience the necessity of defending himself from the violence of covetous men. He sometimes feigned poverty, or lay in bed as one attacked with the gout or other sickness. By these means he diverted the general suspicion that he possessed the philosophers’ stone, preferring to pass for an impostor than for one in the enjoyment of illimitable wealth. He frequently travelled in a servant’s livery, concealing most of his red powder in the footstep of his chariot, and causing one of his servants to sit inside. He kept some of the powder in a small gold box, and with a single grain of it would convert so much mercury into gold as would sell for five hundred ducats.[AG]
He was at his castle of Groverna, on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia, when he was visited by two strangers, one of whom was old while the other was young. They presented him with a letter bearing twelve seals, and addressed to Sendivogius. He declared that he was not the person whom they sought, but was at length persuaded to open the document, and learned that they were a deputation from the Rosicrucian Society, who wished to initiate him. He pretended not to understand them when they spoke of the stone of the philosophers, but they drew him into conversation on several abstruse subjects, he, however, declining to the last the initiation which was offered him.
Michael Sendivogius died at Parma in 1646, aged eighty-four years, having been counsellor of state to four emperors successively. His only daughter had married an army captain against her father’s wish. He left her nothing but a “Treatise on the Salt of the Philosophers,” which has never been printed, and, therefore, must not be confused with a spurious work which has been ascribed to him under a similar title.
* * * * *
The Sethon-Sendivogius treatises are generally known under the collective title, “A New Light of Alchemy.” They were written to counteract the many adulterated and false receipts composed through the fraud and covetousness of impostors. The procedure they indicate is declared to be the result of manual experience. “Many men, both of high and low condition, in these last years past, have to my knowledge seen Diana unveiled. The extraction of the soul out of gold or silver, by what vulgar way of alchymy soever, is but a mere fancy. On the contrary, he which, in a philosophical way, can, without any fraud and colourable deceit, make it that it shall really tinge the basest metal, whether with gain or without gain, with the colour of gold or silver (abiding all requisite tryals whatever), hath the gates of Nature opened to him for the enquiring into further and higher secrets, and with the blessing of God to obtain them.”
It is thus in the writings of the alchemists that we are continually glimpsing or hearing of altitudes beyond transmutation, of regions of achievement which nothing in the pages of the adepts prove them to have actually explored, but which in possession of a comprehensive theory of organic and inorganic development they beheld as a Promised Land.
The “New Light of Alchemy” insists on the existence of a sperm in everything, and that all Nature originated at the beginning from one only seed. It treats of the generation of metals and the manner of their differentiation, of the extraction of their seed, and of the manufacture of the stone or tincture.
FOOTNOTES:
[AF] See Desnoyer’s Letter in Langlet du Fresnoy’s _Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique_. Borel, in his Gallic Antiquities, recounts that he, with many others at Paris, saw this crown-piece. He describes it as partly gold, so far only as it was steeped in the elixir. The gold part was porous, being specifically more compact than in its silver state. There was no appearance of soldering, or of the possibility of deception.
[AG] See _Vie de Sendivogius, tirée de la Rélation de Jean Bodowski_.
GUSTENHOVER.
A respectable goldsmith, named Gustenhover, resided at Strasburg in 1603. In a time of great peril he gave shelter to a certain M. Hirschborgen, who is described as good and religious. On leaving his house after a considerable stay, this person presented his humane host with some powder of projection, and then, departing on his journey, was heard of no more.
Gustenhover imprudently made transmutations before numerous people, and the fact was reported to the Emperor Rodolph II., himself an amateur in alchemy. He wrote to the magistrates of Strasburg, directing that the goldsmith should be forthwith sent to him. The order was zealously obeyed, the man arrested, and guarded with vigilance from all possibility of escape. When he discovered that the intention of his imprisonment was to send him to the Emperor at Prague, he divined the whole of the business, and invited the magistrates to meet together, desiring them to bring a crucet and charcoal, and without his approaching to melt some lead. Musket balls were used for the purpose, and when the metal was molten, he handed them a small portion of red powder, which they cast into the crucet, and the result of their calcination was a considerable quantity of pure gold.
When he was brought into the presence of the gold-seeking Emperor, Gustenhover was forced to admit that he had not himself prepared the miraculous powder, and that he was in total ignorance about its nature and composition. The monarch regarded this merely as one of the subterfuges which were common in his experience of jealous adepts. The goldsmith reiterated his protestations in vain; the whole of his powder was speedily exhausted, yet he found himself still set to the now impossible task of making gold. He sought a refuge from the fury of the avaricious wretch, who has been denominated the German Hermes by an alchemical blasphemy accursed by all sons of the doctrine; but he was pursued, dragged back, and immured in the White Tower, where the imperial dragon, blindly and obstinately convinced that the alchemist was concealing his secret, detained him for the rest of his life.
The adept who presented the goldsmith with the auriferous gift of misery, the so-called Hirschborgen, is supposed to be identical with Alexander Sethon, at that period errant, under various disguises, in Germany.
BUSARDIER.
Few particulars are recorded of this adept. He dwelt at Prague with a lord of the Court, and, falling sick, he perceived that his immediate death was inevitable. In this extremity he wrote a letter to his chosen friend Richtausen, at Vienna, begging him to come and abide with him during his last moments. On the receipt of this letter, Richtausen set out, travelling with all expedition, but, on arriving at Prague, he had the mortification to find that the adept was no more. He inquired diligently if he had left anything behind him, and he was informed by the steward of the nobleman with whom he had lodged that a powder alone had been left, which the nobleman seemed anxious to preserve, but which the steward did not know how to use. Upon this information, Richtausen adroitly got possession of the powder, and then departed. The nobleman, hearing of the transaction, threatened to hang his steward if he did not recover the powder, and the latter, judging that no one but Richtausen could have taken it, pursued him, well-armed. He overtook him on the road and presented a pistol to his head, saying he would shoot him if he did not return the powder. Richtausen, seeing there was no other way to preserve his life, acknowledged his possession of the treasure, and pretended to surrender it, but, by an ingenious contrivance, he abstracted a considerable quantity.
He was now the owner of a substance the value of which was fully known to him. He presented himself to the Emperor Ferdinand III., who was an alchemist, and who, aided by his mine-master, Count Russe, took every precaution in making projection with some of the powder given him by Richtausen. He converted three pounds of mercury into gold with one grain. The force of this tincture was one upon 19,470. The emperor is said to have caused a medal to be struck, bearing the effigy of Apollo with the caduceus of Mercury, and the motto--_Divina metamorphosis exhibita Praguæ, Jan. 15, anno 1648, in præsentia Sac. Cæs. Majest. Ferdinandi Tertii_. The reverse bore another inscription--_Raris hæc ut hominibus est ars; ita raro in lucem prodit, laudetur Deus in æternum, qui partem suæ infinitæ potentiæ novis suis abjectissimis creaturis communicat_.
Richtausen was ennobled by the title of Baron Chaos.
Among many transformations performed by the same powder was one by the Elector of Mayence in 1651. He made projection with all the precautions possible to a learned and skilful philosopher. The powder, enclosed in gum tragacanth to retain it effectually, was put into the wax of a taper, which was lighted, the wax being then placed at the bottom of a crucet. These preparations were undertaken by the Elector himself. He poured four ounces of quicksilver on the wax, and put the whole into a fire covered with charcoal, above, below, and around. Then they began blowing to the utmost, and in about half an hour, on removing the coals, they saw that the melted gold was over red, the proper colour being green. The baron said that the matter was yet too high, and it was necessary to put some silver into it. The Elector took some coins out of his pocket, put them into the melting-pot, combined the liquefied silver with the matter in the crucet, and having poured out the whole when in perfect fusion into a lingot, he found, after cooling, that it was very fine gold, but rather hard, which was attributed to the lingot. On again melting, it became exceedingly soft, and the master of the mint declared to his highness that it was more than twenty-four carats, and that he had never seen so fine a quality of the precious metal.
ANONYMOUS ADEPT.
Athanasius Kircher, the illustrious German Jesuit, records, in his _Mundus Subterraneus_, that one of his friends, whose veracity he could not doubt, made him the following relation:--
“From my youth I made a peculiar study of alchemy, without ever attaining the object of that science. In my course of experiments I received a visit from a man who was entirely unknown to me. He asked very politely what was the object of my labours, and said, without giving me time to reply, ‘I see very well by these glasses and this furnace that you are engaged in a search after something very great in chemistry, but, believe me, you never will in that way attain to the object of your desire.’
“I said to him--‘Sir, if you have better instructions, I flatter myself that you will give them.’
“‘Willingly,’ replied this generous unknown.
“Immediately I took a pen and wrote down the process he dictated.
“‘To show you the result,’ said the stranger, ‘let us both work together according to what you have written.’
“We proceeded, and our operation being finished, I drew from the chemical vessel a brilliant oil; it congealed into a mass, which I broke into a powder. I took part of this powder and projected it on three hundred pounds of quicksilver; it was in a little time converted into pure gold, much more perfect than that of the mines; it endured all the proofs of the goldsmiths.
“A prodigy so extraordinary struck me with surprise and astonishment. I became almost stupid, and, as another Crœsus, fancied I possessed all the riches in the universe. My gratitude to my benefactor was more than I could express. He told me that he was on his travels and wanted nothing whatever; ‘but it gratifies me,’ said he, ‘to counsel those who are unable to complete the Hermetic work.’ I pressed him to remain with me, but he retired to his inn. Next day I called there, but what was my surprise at not finding him in it, or at any place in the town! I had many questions to ask him which left me in doubt. I returned to work according to the receipt, but failed in the result. I repeated the process with more care; it was all in vain! Yet I persevered until I had expended all the transmuted gold and the greater part of my own property.”
“We see,” remarks Kircher, very gravely, “by this true history, how the devil seeks to deceive men who are led by a lust of riches. This alchemist was convinced he had an infernal visitor, and he destroyed his books, furnace, and apparatus, by the timely advice of his confessor.”
ALBERT BELIN.