CONCLUSION.

It has now been made plain beyond all reasonable doubt by the certain and abundant evidence of the lives and labours of the alchemists, that they were in search of a physical process for the transmutation of the so-called baser metals into silver and gold. The methods and processes by which they endeavoured to attain this désir désiré, and the secrets which they are supposed to have discovered, are embodied in allegorical writings, and their curious symbolism in the hands of ingenious interpreters is capable of several explanations, but the facts in their arduous and generally chequered careers are not allegorical, and are not capable of any mystical interpretations; consequently, the attempt to enthrone them upon the loftiest pinnacles of achievement in the psychic world, however attractive and dazzling to a romantic imagination, and however spiritually suggestive, must be regretfully abandoned. Their less splendid but substantial and permanent reputation is based on their physical discoveries and on their persistent enunciation of a theory of Universal Development, which true and far-sighted adepts well perceived, had an equal application to the triune man as to those metals which in their conception had also a triune nature.

As stated in the Introduction to this work, I have little personal doubt, after a careful and unbiassed appreciation of all the evidence, that the Magnum Opus has been performed, at least occasionally, in the past, and that, therefore, the alchemists, while laying the foundations of modern chemistry, had already transcended its highest results in the metallic kingdom. Now, the Hermetic doctrine of correspondences which is, at any rate, entitled to the sincere respect of all esoteric thinkers, will teach us that the fact of their success in the physical subject is analogically a substantial guarantee of the successful issue of parallel methods when applied in the psychic world with the subject man. But the revelations of mesmerism, and the phenomena called spiritualism, have discovered thaumaturgic possibilities for humanity, which in a wholly independent manner contribute to the verification of the alchemical hypothesis of development in its extension to the plane of intelligence. These possibilities I believe to be realizable exclusively along the lines indicated in Hermetic parables. I am not prepared to explain how the alchemical theory of Universal Development came to be evolved in the scientific and psychological twilight of the middle ages, but the fact remains. Nor am I prepared to explain how and why the method of a discredited science which is not commonly supposed to have attained its end, should not only be consistent within its own sphere, but should have a vast field of application without it; yet, again, the fact remains. I have brought a wide acquaintance with the history of modern supernaturalism to bear on the serious study of alchemy, and have found the old theories illustrated by the novel facts, while novel facts coincided with old theories. As all this has occurred, in the words of the alchemists, “by a natural process, devoid of haste or violence,” I may trust that it is no illusory discovery, and that its future enunciation may give a new impulse to the study of the Hermetic writings among the occultists of England and America.

FOOTNOTES:

[AJ] In the Memoir written by Joseph Balsamo during his imprisonment in the Bastille, he surrounds his origin and infancy with romantic and glamorous mystery. “I am ignorant,” he asserts, “not only of my birthplace, but even of the parents who bore me. All my researches on these points have afforded me nothing but vague and uncertain, though, in truth, exalted, notions. My earliest infancy was passed in the town of Medina, in Arabia, where I was brought up under the name of Acharat—a name which I afterwards used during my Asiatic and African travels—and was lodged in the palace of the muphti. I distinctly recollect having four persons continually about me—a tutor, between fifty-five and sixty years of age, named Altotas, and three slaves, one of whom was white, while the others were black. My tutor invariably told me that I had been left an orphan at the age of three months, and that my parents were noble, and Christians as well, but he preserved the most absolute silence as to their name and as to the place where I was born, though certain chance words led me to suspect that I first saw the light at Malta. Altotas took pleasure in cultivating my natural taste for the sciences; he himself was proficient in all, from the most profound even to the most trivial. It was in botany and physics that I made most progress. Like my instructor I wore the dress of a Mussulman, and outwardly we professed the Mohammedan law. The principles of the true religion were, however, engraven in our hearts. I was frequently visited by the muphti, who treated me with much kindness and had great respect for my instructor, through whom I became early proficient in most oriental languages.”

[AK] “Life of the Count Cagliostro, compiled from the original Proceedings published at Rome by order of the Apostolic Chamber. With an engraved Portrait.” London, 1791.

[AL] L’Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes, tom. iv.

[AM] “At a later period, when Cagliostro, uplifted by notoriety and fortune, returned in state to Paris with a sumptuous equipage, he strenuously denied his first sojourn in our capital, and the disgraceful episode of Sainte-Pélagie. He maintained that his wife, to whom he now gave the name of Seraphina, had no connection with the imprisoned Lorenza Feliciani, nor he, the Count Cagliostro, with the quack who at this epoch was prohibited from continuing his rogueries. But certain legal documents of irrefutable authenticity substantiate the contrary assertion of his enemies. It is interesting to know that, as a fact, during the incarceration of Lorenza, depositions were made before the tribunal of police by M. Duplaisir, who stated that, in addition to supporting Balsamo and his wife for the space of three months, they had contracted debts to the amount of two hundred crowns, chiefly for clothes, for the perruquier, and the dancing-master.” These depositions, with others, will be found in a pamphlet entitled, Ma Correspondence avec le Comte de Cagliostro. Figuier. Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes, t. iv. pp. 83, 84.

[AN] “It was his ambition to inaugurate a mother-lodge at Paris, to which the rest should be entirely subordinate. He proclaimed himself as the bearer of the mysteries of Isis and Anubis from the far East. Though he threatened common masonry with a radical reform, his innovations triumphed over all obstacles. He obtained numerous and distinguished followers, who on one occasion assembled in great force to hear Joseph Balsamo expound to them the doctrines of Egyptian freemasonry. At this solemn convention he is said to have spoken with overpowering eloquence, and such was his signal success that his auditors departed in amazement and completely converted to his regenerated and purified masonry. None of them doubted that he was an initiate of the arcana of Nature, as preserved in the temple of Apis at the epoch when Cambyses belaboured that capricious divinity. From this moment the initiations into the new masonry were numerous, albeit they were limited to the aristocracy of society. There are reasons to believe that the grandees who were deemed worthy of admission paid exceedingly extravagantly for the honour.”—Figuier, Hist. du Merveilleux, t. iv. pp. 23, 24.

[AO] These projects included a determination to force the royal government to recognise the new order, and to obtain its recognition in Rome as an institution constituted on the same basis, and therefore to be endowed with the same great privileges which had belonged to the order of St John of Jerusalem.

[AP] See Appendix II.

AN ALPHABETICAL CATALOGUE
OF WORKS ON HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY AND ALCHEMY.

Rosicrucians.