Part 17

Needless to say, this novel gospel, according to mystical imposture, brought him into conflict with hierarchic authority. He was arrested, and, on the 3d of January 1661, he was condemned as a heretic, and as guilty of various misdeeds. He managed to escape, took flight northward, and by the expectation of the stone philosophical contrived to cheat Christina, Queen of Sweden, out of a large sum of money. He perambulated various parts of Germany, making many supposed projections, visited the Low Countries, and in 1665 entered as a professional alchemist into the service of the King of Denmark. He announced that he was the master of a demon, who responded to his magical evocations, and dictated the operations required for the successful transmutation of metals. The name of this spook was Homunculus, which, according to Paracelsus, signifies a minute human being generated unnaturally without the assistance of the female organism, from the sperm of a man or a boy.

The monarch, determined to monopolise the talents of his adept, decided that the laboratory of Borri should be transferred to his own palace. The alchemist, with an eye to his freedom, objected that the power of his imp would be destroyed on the first attempt to divide him from a certain vast iron furnace, which was the sulphureous abode of Homunculus; but his royal patron was a man of resources, and the furnace was also transported. Five years passed away, and Frederick III. having died, his successor determined on a closer investigation of the transmutatory secrets of Borri, who took flight at the rumour, but was arrested on the frontiers of Hungary, and imprisoned at Vienna, where he was claimed by the Papal Nuncio as a fugitive condemned for his heresies. He was sent to Rome, and entombed in the Castle of St Angelo. There he was permitted to continue his alchemical processes, which were pursued unsuccessfully till his death in the year 1695.

“The Key to the Cabinet of the Chevalier Borri” has never been actually translated; the adaptation by the Abbé de Villars is, of course, of European celebrity. As to the chemical secrets contained in the original letters, it may be safely concluded that they are few and unimportant.

FOOTNOTES:

[AI] La Chiave del Gabinetto del Cavagliere G. F. Borri, col favor della quella si vedono varie lettere scientifiche, chimice, e curiosissime, con varie istruzioni politiche, ed altre cose degne da curiosita e molti segreti bellissimi. Cologne (Genève), 1681, 12mo.

JOHN HEYDON.

This mountebank royalist mystic has no claim to be included among alchemical philosophers, and is only noticed here to advise students that everything relating to alchemy in the whole of his so-called works was impudently stolen from Philalethes. He practised wholesale piracy on his contemporaries and on ancient authors with equal effrontery. The account of his voyage to the land of the Rosicrucians is a mangled version of Bacon’s “Atlantis;” his apologues, epilogues, enigmas, &c., are also stolen goods; in short, whatever is of value in his books is matter borrowed from the highways and byways of occultism, and heaped indiscriminately together. Everything emanating from his own weakly intelligence is utterly contemptible; he was grossly superstitious and pitiably credulous, as may be seen by his medical recipes. He claimed a familiar acquaintance with the most arcane Rosicrucian mysteries, and pretended that he had visited the temples, holy houses, castles, and invisible mountains of the Fraternity. Of all the alchemical liars and of all mystical charlatans who have flourished in England since the first days of Anglo-occultism, John Heydon is chief.

LASCARIS.

German writers have principally occupied themselves with the transmutations of this singular personage, who so successfully shrouded himself in mystery, that his name, his age, his birthplace, and everything which concerns his private life are completely unknown.

He called himself Lascaris, but also adopted other appellations. He claimed an Oriental origin, and as he spoke Greek fluently, he has passed for a descendant of the royal house of Lascaris. He represented himself as the archimandrite of a convent in the Island of Mytilena, and bore letters from the Greek patriarch of Constantinople. His mission in the West was the solicitation of alms for the ransom of Christian prisoners in the East. He appeared for the first time in Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a man seemingly some forty or fifty years old, of attractive mien, agreeable in manner, and fluent in his conversation. Finding himself indisposed at Berlin, he sent for a certain apothecary, who for some reason was unable to attend, and on several occasions was represented by a pupil at the bedside of the stranger. With this youth Lascaris fell into conversation, and a sort of friendship sprung up between them. The apothecary’s pupil had studied Basil Valentine, and had attempted experiments on the principles of this adept. Lascaris recovered, and at the moment of departing from Berlin he took the youth aside, and presented him with a quantity of the transmuting powder, commanding him to be silent as to whence he had derived it, and while forbidding him to make use of it till some time after his departure, assured him that when Berlin unbelievers beheld its amazing effects, no one would be able to tax the alchemists with madness.

The name of this young man was John Frederick Bötticher. Intoxicated at the possession of such an unexpected treasure, he determined to devote himself entirely to alchemy. The apothecary, his master, vainly endeavoured to dissuade him from a pursuit which he considered chimerical, for he astonished both him and his friends by changing silver into gold in their presence.

The experiment was repeated with mercury for the benefit of a friend of Bötticher, the tale spread, and the apothecary’s pupil became the lion of Berlin, more especially as he spread the report that he was able to compose himself the philosophical tincture.

He was summoned before the King, Frederick William I., who wished to witness his performances, but he fled to an uncle at Wittenburg. He was claimed from the authorities of that town as a Prussian subject, but he was now a prize of value, and the Elector of Saxony opposed a counter claim for the possession of his person, and to him Bötticher decided to proceed. He was warmly welcomed, and when his transmutations had been witnessed, the title of baron was conferred on him. He took up his residence at Dresden, living in a style of great magnificence and prodigality, till every particle of his powder was expended, when his extravagance involved him in debt. His servants, whom he was unable to repay, spread the report that it was his intention to take flight, and the purblind Elector, refusing to perceive in this sudden failure of resources a proof that Bötticher was unable to compose or increase the philosophers’ stone, surrounded his house with guards, and detained him practically as a prisoner.

At this juncture, Lascaris, who was still wandering in Germany, took pity on the misfortunes of his young neophyte, and endeavoured to extricate him from his embarrassing position by means of a young doctor named Pasch, who was a personal friend of the ennobled apothecary’s boy. Their manœuvres resulted in the imprisonment of Pasch at the fortress of Sonneinstein, while Bötticher was closely confined in another castle at Kœnigstein.

Two years and a half passed away. At the end of that time Pasch succeeded in escaping at the expense of his limbs, and died after a few months, bitterly complaining of the treachery of the adept Lascaris, who had deserted him completely in his danger.

Bötticher remained in confinement with every opportunity to manufacture the philosophical stone, which, however he failed to accomplish; but what with his apothecary’s training and his prison experiments, he had become skilled in several departments of chemistry. He discovered the process for the production of red porcelain, and afterwards that of white, very superior in quality to the substances already known by that name. These inventions proved as valuable to the tyrannical Elector as the accomplishment of the _magnum opus_. Bötticher was restored to his favour, and again enjoyed his baronial title, but in his liberty he surrendered himself to an immoderately luxurious life, and died in 1719 at the age of thirty-seven years.

Bötticher was by no means the only apothecary’s boy who was enriched with the powder of Lascaris, and despatched to preach the gospel of alchemy with practical demonstrations. Godwin, Hermann, Braun, and Martin of Fitzlar are mentioned among these half-initiated labourers, who shone till their stock-in-trade was exhausted, and then disappeared in succession.

In the meantime, Lascaris himself was not idle. On the 16th February 1609 he is believed to have changed mercury into gold and gold into silver, a double transmutation, considered by alchemical connoisseurs to be the evidence of an unparalleled adeptship. Liebkneck, counsellor of Wertherbourg, was a witness of this transmutation.

In the same year a goldsmith of Leipsic was visited by a mysterious stranger, who is unanimously identified with Lascaris, and who showed him a lingot, which he declared was manufactured by art, and which proved in assaying to be gold of twenty-two carats. It was purified by the goldsmith with antimony, and part of it was presented to him by the unknown as a memorial of the alleged transmutation.

Shortly after, a lieutenant-colonel in the Polish army, whose name was Schmolz de Dierbach, and who had inherited from his father a belief in alchemical science, was conversing on the subject at a café, when he was accosted by a stranger, who presented him with some powder of projection. It was of a red colour, and a microscopic examination revealed its crystalline nature. It increased the weight of the metals which it was supposed to transmute to an extent which chemical authorities declare to be physically impossible. The recipient made use of it generously, distributing to his friends and acquaintance the gold it produced in projection. The unknown donor is identified in the imagination of German historians with the mysterious Lascaris, who is supposed, in the same anonymous and unaccountable manner, to have enriched the Baron de Creux with a box of the precious powder, and to have gratified the amateur Hermetic ambition of the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt through the commonplace medium of the post. In a word, every anonymous adept who appeared at this period in or about Germany is supposed to be Lascaris.

The last of his debtors or victims was the son of a Neapolitan mason, Domenico Manuel, who claims to have been mysteriously initiated into the transmutatory art in the year 1695. He was put in possession of a small quantity both of the white and red tinctures. Being insufficient to really enrich himself, he determined to trade upon the wonders they produced, and obtained large sums from wealthy amateurs for the privilege of beholding the consummation of the great work. He perambulated Spain, Belgium, and Austria, obtaining large sums, under the pretence of preparing the tincture, not only from private individuals, but from the Emperor Leopold and the Palatine Elector. In different places he assumed names that were different. Now he was Count Gaëtano, now Count de Ruggiero; at other times he called himself Field Marshal to the Duke of Bavaria, Commandant of Munich, a Prussian major-general, and by other titles. In 1705 he appeared at Berlin, where he imposed on the King himself for a brief period, after which, unable to ratify his transmutatory engagements, he was convicted of treason and hanged. This occurred on the 29th of August 1709.

DELISLE.

This artist, whose Christian name is unmentioned by his biographers, is included by Figuier among the emissaries or disciples of Lascaris, and much information concerning him will be found in the _Histoire de la Philosophic Hermétique_ by his contemporary, Langlet du Fresnoy. He was a rustic of low birth in Provence, and he became acquainted with alchemical experiments by entering the service of a gentleman who was believed to be in possession of the stone. This gentleman is supposed to have received the prize from Lascaris. His operations, however, fell under suspicion, and he was forced to quit France. He retired into Switzerland, accompanied by Delisle, who is said to have assassinated him in the mountains, and to have thus got possession of a considerable quantity of the transmuting powder. However this may be, the servant, re-entered France in disguise, and about the year 1708 attracted general attention by changing lead and iron into silver and gold. He perambulated Languedoc, the Dauphiné, and Provence. At Sisteron he connected himself with the wife of a certain Alnys, who eventually shared his fortunes for the space of three years. His renown was increased by the apparent simplicity of his operations. He spread powder and oil over iron, thrust it into the fire, and brought it out a bar of gold. He distributed nails, knives, and rings partially transmuted, and was particularly successful in his experiments with common steel.

Cerisy, prior of New Castel, was employed by the Bishop of Senez to collect evidence concerning the truth of these marvels. An old gentleman offered Delisle a retreat at his castle of La Palud, where the alchemist, surrounded by admirers, received the daily visits of the curious. In Lenglet’s “History of Hermetic Philosophy,” there is a letter from the Bishop of Senez to the Minister of State and Comptroller-General of the Treasury at Paris, in which the prelate, who at first was incredulous, professes his inability to resist the evidence of actual transformation performed before himself and several vigilant witnesses, who took every precaution against deception. There is also the Report of M. de Saint-Maurice, President of the Mint at Lyons, who testifies to the following facts. That he was accompanied by Delisle into the grounds of the Chateau de Saint Auban in May 1710, where he uncovered a basket that was sunk in the ground. In the middle of this basket there was an iron wire, at the end of which he perceived a piece of linen with some object tied up in it. He took possession of this parcel, carried it into the dining-room of the Chateau, and by the direction of Delisle he exposed its contents--a blackish earth about half a pound in weight--to the rays of the sun. After a quarter of an hour the earth was distilled in a retort of a portable furnace, and when a yellow liquor was perceived to flow into the receiver, Delisle recommended that the recipient should be removed before a viscous oil then rising should flow into it. Two drops of this yellow liquor, projected on hot quicksilver, produced in fusion three ounces of gold, which were presented to the Master of the Mint. Afterwards three ounces of pistol bullets were melted and purified with alum and saltpetre. Delisle handed Saint-Maurice a small paper, desiring him to throw in a pinch of the powder and two drops of the oil used in the first experiment. This done, the matter was covered with saltpetre, kept fifteen minutes in fusion, and then poured out on a piece of iron armour, which reappeared pure gold, bearing all assays. The conversion to silver was made in the same manner with white powder, and the certificate which testifies to these occurrences was officially signed on the 14th December 1760.

A part of the gold manufactured in this manner by Delisle was subjected to refinement at Paris, where three medals were struck from it; one of them was deposited in the king’s cabinet. It bore the inscription _Aurum Arte Factum_.

With all his alchemical skill, Delisle was unable to read or write, and in disposition he was untractable, rude, and fanatical. He was invited to Court, but he pretended that the climate he lived in was necessary to the success of his experiments, inasmuch as his preparations were vegetable. The Bishop of Senez, suspecting him of unwillingness rather than inability, obtained a _lettre de cachet_, after two years of continual subterfuge on the part of the alchemist, who was thereupon arrested and taken on the road to Paris. During the journey, his guards, after endeavouring to extort his supposed riches, wounded him severely on the head, in which state, on his arrival at the Bastille, he was forced to begin his alchemical operations, but after a short time he persistently refused to proceed, tore continually the bandages from his wound in the frenzy of his desperation, and in the year following his imprisonment he poisoned himself.

His illegitimate son, Alnys, by some means inherited a portion of the powder from his mother. He wandered through Italy and Germany performing transmutations. On one occasion he made projection before the Duke of Richlieu, then French ambassador at Vienna, and who assured the Abbé Langlet that he not only saw the operation performed, but performed it himself, twice on gold and forty times on silver.

Alnys made a considerable collection of gold coins, ancient and modern, while on a journey through Austria and Bohemia. On his return to Aix he presented himself to the President of Provence, who desired him to call the next day. Alnys, suspecting an intention to arrest him, fled in the interim. He was afterwards imprisoned at Marseilles, whence he contrived to escape to Brussels. It was here, in 1731, that he gave some philosophic mercury to M. Percell, the brother of Langlet de Fresnoy, which mercury the recipient fermented imperfectly, but succeeded so far as to convert an ounce of silver into gold. The death of a certain M. Grefier shortly after some operations on corrosive sublimate, by which Alnys proposed to instruct him in alchemy, made it necessary for him to depart, and he was heard of no more.

JOHN HERMANN OBEREIT.

This writer, as much mystic as alchemist, was born at Arbon at Switzerland in 1725, and died in 1798. He inherited from his father a taste for transcendental chemistry, and the opinion that metals could be developed to their full perfection, but that the chief instrument was the grace of God, working in the soul of the alchemist. He laboured unceasingly at the physical processes, hoping thereby to restore the fallen fortunes of his family, but his laboratory was closed by the authorities as endangering the public safety. He contrived to make evident the harmless nature of his employment, and was received into the house of a brother of the physiognomist Lavater. He celebrated, he informs us, a mystical marriage with a seraphic and illuminated shepherdess named Theantis, the ceremony taking place in a castle on the extreme summit of a cloud-encompassed mountain. His bride after thirty-six days of transcendental union, which was neither platonic nor epicurean, but of a perfectly indescribable character, departed this life, and the bereaved husband, during the whole night of her decease, bewailed her in a mystical canticle. _La Connexion Originaire des Esprits et des Corps, d’apres les principes de Newton_, Augsbourg, 1776, and _Les Promenades de Gamaliel, juif Philosophe_, were bequeathed by Obereit to a neglectful posterity.

TRAVELS, ADVENTURES, AND IMPRISONMENTS OF JOSEPH BALSAMO.

The notorious Count Cagliostro appears from an impartial review of his history and phenomenal exploits, to have been one of those characters not uncommonly met with in the chequered annals of occultism. Even as the modern “mediums,” who outrage the confidence of their believers by leavening the supernatural bread, whereof the ghastly patent is their prerogative and birthright, with the unrighteous mammon of material conjuring, and even as those conjurors who are sometimes supposed to still further perplex their audience by supplementary compacts with “spooks,” this high priest of transcendental trickery would seem to have possessed, perhaps unconsciously, a certain share of occult gifts, which assisted no little his unparalleled rogueries. Mystical knowledge beyond that of the age in which he lived was undoubtedly his, and though it was still superficial, he had a genius for making the most of it.