Revue d'histoire des sciences

« Decknamen or pseudochemical language »? : Eirenaeus

Philalethes and Carl Jung/« Decknamen ou le langage pseudo-
chimique » ? : Eirenaeus Philalethes et Carl Jung
M William R. Newmann

Résumé
RÉSUMÉ. — II est impossible d'analyser l'historiographie concernant l'alchimie sans se heurter aux idées du « père de la
psychologie analytique », Carl Jung. Jung soutenait que l'alchimie, considérée comme une entité diachronique, transculturelle,
relevait plus des états psychologiques de l'expérimentateur que des processus réellement chimiques. Pour expliciter cette idée,
Jung met en avant un certain nombre d'alchimistes de la première période moderne. L'un d'eux est Eirenaeus Philalethes, le
pseudonyme de George Starkey (1628-1665), originaire des Bermudes, qui étudia au Harvard College puis s'établit à Londres.
Une analyse attentive des travaux de Starkey montre, cependant, que Jung s'était trompé dans son appréciation sur cette
grande figure de l'alchimie du XVIIe siècle. Cette constatation fait planer un sérieux doute sur l'ensemble de l'interprétation
jungienne de l'alchimie.

Abstract
SUMMARY. — It is impossible to investigate the historiography of alchemy without encountering the ideas of the « father of
analytical psychology », Carl Jung. Jung argued that alchemy, viewed as a diachronic, trans-cultural entity, was concerned more
with psychological states occurring in the mind of the practitioner than with real chemical processes. In the course of elucidating
this idea, Jung draws on a number of alchemical authors from the early modern period. One of these is Eirenaeus Philalethes,
the pen name of George Starkey (1628-1665), a native of Bermuda who was educated at Harvard College, and who later
immigrated to London. A careful analysis of Starkey 's work shows, however, that Jung was entirely wrong in his assessment of
this important representative of seventeenth-century alchemy. This finding casts serious doubt on the Jungian interpretation as a
whole.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Newmann William R. « Decknamen or pseudochemical language »? : Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung/« Decknamen ou le
langage pseudo-chimique » ? : Eirenaeus Philalethes et Carl Jung. In: Revue d'histoire des sciences, tome 49, n°2-3, 1996.
Théorie et pratique dans la construction des savoirs alchimiques. pp. 159-188.

doi : 10.3406/rhs.1996.1254

http://www.persee.fr/doc/rhs_0151-4105_1996_num_49_2_1254

Document généré le 01/10/2015

« Decknamen or pseudochemical language » ?

Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung

William R. Newman (*)

RÉSUMÉ. — II est impossible d'analyser l'historiographie concernant l'alchimie

sans se heurter aux idées du « père de la psychologie analytique », Cari Jung.
Jung soutenait que l'alchimie, considérée comme une entité diachronique,
transculturelle, relevait plus des états psychologiques de l'expérimentateur que des
processus réellement chimiques. Pour expliciter cette idée, Jung met en avant un
certain nombre d'alchimistes de la première période moderne. L'un d'eux est
Eirenaeus Philalethes, le pseudonyme de George Starkey (1628-1665), originaire
des Bermudes, qui étudia au Harvard College puis s'établit à Londres. Une analyse
attentive des travaux de Starkey montre, cependant, que Jung s'était trompé dans
son appréciation sur cette grande figure de l'alchimie du xvne siècle. Cette
constatation fait planer un sérieux doute sur l'ensemble de l'interprétation jungienne
de l'alchimie.
MOTS-CLÉS. — Starkey-Philalethes ; Jung; littérature alchimique.

SUMMARY. — It is impossible to investigate the historiography of alchemy

without encountering the ideas of the « father of analytical psychology », Carl
Jung. Jung argued that alchemy, viewed as a diachronic, trans-cultural entity,
was concerned more with psychological states occurring in the mind of the
practitioner than with real chemical processes. In the course of elucidating this idea,
Jung draws on a number of alchemical authors from the early modern period.
One of these is Eirenaeus Philalethes, the pen name of George Starkey (1628-1665),
a native of Bermuda who was educated at Harvard College, and who later
immigrated to London. A careful analysis of Starkey 's work shows, however, that
Jung was entirely wrong in his assessment of this important representative of
seventeenth-century alchemy. This finding casts serious doubt on the Jungian
interpretation of alchemy as a whole.
KEYWORDS. — Starkey-Philalethes; Jung; alchemical literature.

The reader familiar with alchemical literature will know very

well the obscurity in which many practitioners of the art veiled
their ideas. Indeed, the figurative language of these texts is such

(*) Department of the History of Science, Harvard University.

Rev. Hist. Sci., 1996, 49/2-3, 159-188
160 William R. Newman

that Carl Jung, the founder of « analytical psychology », argued

at length that they have little to do with chemistry at all. According
to Jung and his followers, the seventeenth-century alchemists were
concerned less with chemical reactions than with psychic states taking
place within the consciousness of the practitioner. Thus the
practice of alchemy involved a sort of auto-hypnosis on the part of
the would-be adeptus, which led to a hallucinatory state in which
he « projected » the contents of his psyche onto the matter within
his alembic. The Jungian alchemist in some sense literally « saw »
his own unconscious expressing itself in the form of bizarre
archetypal images, such as winged dragons and immolated kings (1).
In the Jungian view, alchemical practice was a form of ecstatic
experience, closely allied to mysticism and religious revelation. Jung
even went so far as to classify the secretive enunciations of
alchemists as « psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical language »,
thus providing the essence of his interpretative model for
alchemy (2).
It might seem obvious that the burden of proof lies on the
Jungian to demonstrate that alchemical metaphors such as the
« green lion » and the « red man » are not simply secretive names
for mineral substances. Indeed, the German school of the
historiography of alchemy — above all Julius Ruska and E. O. von Lipp-
mann — maintained in the early twentieth century that the allusive
terms of alchemy do make up just such a secret vocabulary of
Decknamen or « cover-names » (3). Their arguments have been
furthered in more recent years by scholars such as Robert Halleux

(1) Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton's alchemy (Cambridge :

Cambridge Univ. Press, 1975), 26-35, French transi. Les Fondements de l'alchimie de Newton
(Paris : Trédaniel, 1981), 51-63. The works of Jung are peppered with references to alchemy,
but sustained treatments are found in the following of his texts : Aion, Collected Works,
vol. IX, part II (London : Routledge, 1959); Psychology and alchemy, Collected Works,
vol. XII (ibid., 1953), French transi. Psychologie et alchimie (Paris : Buchet-Chastel, 1970) ;
Alchemical Studies, Collected Works, vol. XIII (London : Routledge, 1967) ; Mystérium
Conjunctions, Collected Works, vol. XIV (ibid., 1963), French transi. Mystérium Con-
junctionis (Paris : Albin Michel, 1980).
(2) Carl Jung, Psychology and alchemy, 2nd ed. (Princeton : Princeton Univ. Press,
1968), 242.
(3) E. O. von Lippmann, Entstellung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie, vol. I (Berlin :
Springer, 1919), 11 & passim; Julius Ruska and E. Wiedemann, Beitraege zur Geschichte
der Naturwissenschaften, LXVII : Alchemistische Decknamen, Sitzungsberichte der
physikalisch-medizinischen Sozietaet in Erlangen, 5 (1923), 1-23 (offprint), or vol. 56 (1924),
17-36.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 161

and Barbara Obrist who both uphold an overtly anti-Jungian

position (4). Given the rejection of Jung by such serious historians of
alchemy, one could view yet another critique of his psychological
approach as being otiose. Several recent publications reveal, however,
that the Jungian model for alchemy is still alive and well. The most
striking of these is Marco Beretta's 1993 work, The Enlightenment
of matter, which uses Jung to excise alchemy from the historical
progression of chemistry leading from the sixteenth century up to
Lavoisier (5). Beretta employs the Jungian approach to argue that alchemy
was primarily a « spiritual » or « mystical » discipline, and that its
« pretended experimental continuity with chemistry » is invalid (6).
A far less dogmatic view, but one that still gives credence to the
Jungian model, may be found in the new Norton History of chemistry
by William H. Brock. Brock, unlike Beretta, makes a serious — and
largely successful — attempt to deal with alchemical literature.
Nonetheless, he too admits that the more esoteric alchemical texts make
up « more the province of the psychologist and psychiatrist, as Jung
claimed », than that of the historian of chemistry (7). Moreover, a
full-blown exposition and apology for the Jungian model may be
found in Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs' Foundations of Newton's alchemy,
which, though published in 1975, is still widely influential (8).
It is clear, then, that Carl Jung is even today a force to be
reckoned with in the historiography of alchemy. The following paper
will therefore attempt to challenge the Jungian model directly by
analyzing the writing of an alchemist whom Jung himself considered to
exemplify the masking of psychic states in « pseudochemical
language ». I refer to the corpus of Eirenaeus Philalethes, whom I have
elsewhere proven to have been no other than George Starkey, a native
of Bermuda and a graduate of Harvard College (A. B. 1646) (9).

(4) Robert Halleux, Les Textes alchimiques (Turnhout : Brepols, 1979), « Typologie
des sources du Moyen Age occidental », fasc. 32 ; Barbara Obrist, Les Débuts de l'imagerie
alchimique (Paris : Le Sycomore, 1982).
(5) Marco Beretta, The Enlightenment of matter (Canton, usa : History of Science Publ., 1993).
(6) Ibid., 77, п. 6.
(7) William H. Brock, The Norton History of chemistry (New York : Norton, 1993), 17.
(8) Dobbs, op. cit. in п. 1.
(9) William R. Newman, The authorship of the Introitus apertus ad occlusum regis
palatium, in Alchemy revisited : Proceedings of the international conference on the history
of alchemy at the university of Groningen, 17-19 April 1989, éd. Z. R. W. M. von Martels
(Leiden : Brill, 1990), 139-144. Newman, Prophecy and alchemy : The origin of Eirenaeus
Philalethes, Ambix, 37 (1990), 97-115.
162 William R. Newman

Jung's Mystérium Conjunctions contains a rather detailed analysis

of Philalethes' work, which the Swiss psychologist viewed as a
paradigmatic case of alchemical symbolism. Jung claims there that
Philalethan alchemy is largely a parable of « psychic
transformation » which may best be interpreted in the light of « the dreams
which are the daily fare of the psychotherapist » (10). According
to the Swiss psychologist, Philalethes « allows us to look deep into
the world of obscure archetypal ideas that fill the mind of an
alchemist (11) ». Since Philalethes occupies such a prominent place in
Jung's interpretation of alchemy at large, an assault on the Jungian
analysis of Philalethes will therefore bring the whole enterprise
of his psychologizing view of alchemy into question.

I. — Alchemical imagery

Let us begin this undertaking with a bit of background material.

From its very introduction into Europe in the 12th century,
alchemical literature had employed verbal conceits to express itself. As
Barbara Obrist has shown in her pioneering study of alchemical
imagery, however, it was only during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries that this imagistic language came to be translated into actual
illuminations (12). Thus the birth of the alchemical figura in
pictorial form coincided with the nascent appropriation of vitalism and
prophecy by the alchemical theory of the late Middle Ages. This was
no accident, for the increasingly picturesque language of alchemy
represented a real turning away from academic discourse and « subal-
ternation » of alchemy within natural philosophy as such (13). The

(10) Jung, Mystérium, op. cit. in n. 1, 2nd ed. (1970) 155-160, quoting 160.
(11) Jung, Aion, op. cit. in n. 1, 2nd ed. (1968), 133.
(12) Obrist, op. cit. in n. 4.
(13) I speak only of the development of alchemy in the Latin West. Clearly the corpus
of Greek and Arabic alchemy is filled with figurative language — one need think only
of the Book of Crates or the work of Ibn Umail — but in the medieval West one sees
a definite attempt by natural philosophy at first to appropriate alchemy, followed by an
increasing divorce of alchemy from the universities. The Book of Crates is found in Arabic
and French in M. Berthelot, La Chimie au Moyen Age (Paris : Ministère de l'instruction
publique, 1893), vol. 3. For Ibn Umail, cf. H. E. Stapleton and Hidayat Husain, Three
arabic treatises on alchemy by Muhammad ibn Umail (10th century A. D.), Memoirs of
the asiatic society of Bengal, vol. 12 (1933), 1-213. For the issue of alchemy's dissociation
from the medieval universities, cf. William Newman, Technology and alchemical debate
in the Late Middle Ages, /sis, vol. 80 (1989), 423-445.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 163

result was that European alchemy became ever more dependent

on its specialized language of images and tropes. Needless to say,
the cult of emblems in early modern Europe only encouraged this
trend, so that an alchemist such as Michael Maier, physician to
the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, composed actual
collections of alchemical emblemata, in which he proposed to give
alchemical interpretations to the bulk of Greek mythology (14). Another
trend within this movement lay in the association of alchemy with
« hieroglyphics » and « cabala » (15). The Hieroglyphics of Nicolas
Flamel, for example, were supposedly based on a secret book of
illuminations belonging to « Abraham the Jew » (16). Starkey too
had a high appreciation of Flamel, and he wrote his own Cabala
sapientum, which is unfortunately not extant. This loss was
apparently felt by Starkey's readers, for the Opera omnia of
Philalethes, published in 1695 in Modena, comes equipped with a cycle
of twelve illuminations drawn from the corpus of the master (17).
The riddling image-language of early modern alchemy often
existed side by side with expositions of the images coined by their
very authors. Although these efforts at decoding their own
symbolism sometimes embroil authors such as Starkey in yet further obs-

(14) Ulrich Neumann and Karin Figala, Michael Maier (1569-1622) : New Bio-
Bibliographical Material, in Martels, op. cit. in n. 9, 34-50. See also Figala and Neumann,
Ein Friiher Brief Michael Maiers (1568-1622) an Heinrich Rantzau, Archives internationales
d'histoire des sciences, vol. 35 (1985), 303-329. In these two articles, Figala and Neumann
reference much of the earlier material on Maier.
(15) For Paracelsus and the Cabala, cf. Pagel, Paracelsus (Basel : Karger, 1958, 2nd
ed. 1982), 213-217, French transi. Paracelse (Paris : Arthaud, 1963), 239-242. Nicolas Flamel,
the pseudonym of a post-Paracelsian alchemist, supposedly acquired the Book of one
« Abraham the Jew », filled with alchemical « hieroglyphs ». Abraham's book is described
in Le Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques de Nicolas Flamel (Paris : Guillemot, 1612). The
anonymous author maintains that these figures were of cabalistic origin as on p. 68-69 :
« Les anciens sages Cabalistes l'ont descrite dans les Metamorphoses sous l'histoire du
Serpent de Mars, qui avoit dévoré les compagnons de Cadmus, lequel l'occit le perçant
de sa lance contre un Chesne creux. Note ce Chesne. » As one can see, « Flamel » has
managed to conflate Greek and Jewish mythology, while also throwing in the notion of
Egyptian « hieroglyphics ». For the French versions of Flamel, see the important study
by Robert Halleux, Le mythe de Nicolas Flamel ou les mécanismes de la pseudépigraphie
alchimique, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, 33 (1983), 234-255.
(16) See note above.
(17) For Starkey's reference to his Cabala sapientum, see Eirenaeus Philoponos
Philalethes, The Marrow of alchemy (London, 1654-1655), part II, 10. The editor of Philalethes'
Opera omnia styles himself « F.V. ». He says that the illustrations were given to him by
a « Nobilis Vir in Chemia expertissimus quern summe colo » (Philalethes, Opera omnia
(Modena, 1695), 3r°).
164 William R. Newman

curity, this is not an accident. Alchemical writers delighted in

announcing that they were going to explain a riddle — only to
give the answer in the form of a conundrum. What was the reader
supposed to derive from this allusive style of expression? The
alchemists themselves maintained that a diligent reader could decipher
their language to arrive at a correct alchemical praxis. Perhaps
surprisingly, Starkey's Philalethes writings can indeed be decoded
by diligently comparing passages in one text with those of another.
Like the Arabic authors writing under the name of Jábir ibn
Hayyân, Star key employed the technique called by Paul Kraus
dispersion de la science (18). At a crucial point of the discussion,
the alchemist would break off or change the subject, only to resume
it at some seemingly unrelated or distant locus. It was up to the
reader to reassemble the pieces of the puzzle and fit it into an
ordered whole. But there is another element that the reader was
meant to derive from his alchemical sources. This was the aura
of authority that a contemporary figurative text acquired by
employing the metaphors utilized by older authors. This requires
some explanation. Most alchemical texts were commentaries on
older authors who were assumed by the exegete to have been adepti.
Michael Sendivogius, writing at the very beginning of the
seventeenth century, said that the art had progressed so far in modern
times that the old sages could not have conceived of the current
plethora of alchemical techniques : but then they did not have to,
for they — unlike the moderns — had the philosophers' stone (19).
Hence it was critical that an alchemist establish himself as a member
of the elite fraternity of adepti that stretched back to the days
of Zosimos and Hermes Trismegistus : otherwise he would not be
taken seriously. The primary way of assuming the mantle of
authority was two-fold. On the one hand, one could cite strings of
authorities in the form of suggested authors : Philalethes does this

(18) Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyân : Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans
l'Islam (Mémoires présentés à l'Institut d'Egypte, t. 45, Le Caire, 1942; Paris : Les Belles
Lettres, 1986), xxvn-хххш. Maurice Crosland, in his Historical Studies in the language
of chemistry (New York : Dover, 1962), 36-40, derives his « principle of dispersion »,
identical to Kraus' dispersion de la science, from the dissertation of M. Taslimi (« A
Conspectus of recent researches on Arabic chemistry : University of London », 1951). Crosland
seems to be unaware of the fact that it was Kraus, and not Taslimi, who brought this
term into the historiography of alchemy.
(19) Michael Sendivogius, Novum lumen chemicum (Prague : 1604), in J. J. Manget,
Bibliotheca chemica curiosa (Genève : 1702), vol. II, 465.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 165

throughout his works (20). Of greater imperative to the reader,

however, was an author who could convincingly decipher the
traditional enigmata of the art. Thus Starkey — in his Philalethan
guise — expends page upon page interpreting an author such as
the fifteenth century canon George Ripley, even though Starkey's
own alchemical theory and practice owe virtually nothing to Ripley's
œuvre. What Philalethes is doing here is establishing himself as
the legitimate heir of Ripley's alchemy : he is demonstrating his
authority.
The longevity of alchemical imagery depended both on the
alchemists' belief that the old figurae concealed the secret of the
philosophers' stone and on their own need to demonstrate their authority
by showing that they could reveal that secret. At the same time,
however, their revelation of the secret could not be facile, for
Starkey and his seventeenth-century peers were intent on retaining
as much as they could for themselves. Alchemical secrets could
be lucrative, and as such they were not to be disbursed lightly (21).
Hence by employing the twin strategies of figurative language and
dispersion de la science, Starkey and his fellows managed to
compose treatises of remarkable difficulty. The problem is
compounded by the fact that in the Philalethes treatises, not only the
processes of alchemy, but also the theories are often encoded.
Without a previous understanding of early modern alchemical
theory, therefore, the reader is hopelessly lost. In the following
we shall introduce the reader to the striking visual imagery of one
of the most obscure Philalethan texts — the Exposition upon the
first six gates of Sir George Ripley's compound of alchymie. Then
we shall decode its practice, using only texts within the corpus
of Philalethes. As we shall see, the fustian language of Philalethes
was not the product of a disordered mind, but a conscious
reworking of traditional imagery intended — as the alchemist would
say — both to reveal and conceal.

(20) Good examples of this may be found in the « Advertisement to the Reader »
preceding the second part of Starkey's Marrow, op. cit. in n. 17, and in the preface to
Philalethes' Ripley Reviv'd (London : 1678), 3v°-4r°.
(21) For example, Starkey was offered 5 000 pounds sterling for his secret of extracting
precious metals out of antimony, in 1651. Cf. William Newman, Newton's clavis as Starkey's
key, Isis, 78 (1987), 572.
166 William R. Newman

II. — The Ripley-commentary of Philalethes

Philalethes begins his allegory by welcoming the reader to the

« garden of the Philosophers », where he may behold a glorious
castle having twelve entrances. These are the twelve gates of Ripley's
Compound of alchymie, the text that Philalethes is commenting,
by which Ripley referred to twelve alchemical processes —
calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, putrefaction,
congelation, cibation, sublimation, fermentation, exaltation, multiplication,
and projection (22). The first gate is recessed into the earth and
surmounted by a dire inscription, « Dust thou art, and unto Dust
thou shalt return (23) ». Within the gate lies the corpse of a « Great
Person ». A lady stands there in mourning, « very comely, yet
black, for why the Sun hath shined upon her ». Her name is Juno.
But the castle is guarded by a garrison, and Philalethes assures
us that we must have a guide, lest we be taken as spies.
The guide receives a circumstantial description. He has a
« humour of his own not to be equalled in the World », so that
if he is angered or made sullen, all will be lost. He is very simple,
indeed, « a very stupid Fool (24) ». Nonetheless, he is silent and
faithful, though « if he can find an opportunity he will give you
the slip, and leave you in a world of misfortune (25) ». One can
tell if he is happy or not by his countenance. He should therefore
be « shut up close where he may not get forth », and the
alchemist should « go wisely before with heat ». The servant, who will
follow, will grow red in the face if he should become angry, but
if he is in a good temper, « he is indifferent active and merry ».
Philalethes continues to say that the guide will « presently take
snuff » if left to his own devices, for due to his « perpetual
working » he tires easily.
It does not take the perspicacity of an Isaac Newton to make
out that Philalethes' « guide » is simply the fire of an alchemical

(22) George Ripley, A Compound of alchymie (London : 1591).

(23) Philalethes, Exposition upon the first six gates..., in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in
n. 20, 98.
(24) Ibid., 99.
(25) Ibid., 100.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 167

furnace. There is a lesson to be drawn from this — that even

the most humble tools and operations of alchemy will be
allegorized in Philalethes' conceit. Let us therefore pass to the next scene
of the play. Philalethes now takes the reader to a large room with
hangings of mixed black, blue, and yellow. Within the room is
« a Carcass intombed, and very rotten; a Serpent almost dead with cold,
laid to the fire, and a Fountain still flowing forth to water a Pot which
is nigh to it, in which is planted an Herb much like the Ros solis, only
it hath the Root black, the Leaves yellow, with bluish veins and black
spots in them continually standing in a dew, and over it the sun as in
the Solstice, shining in its full vigour, and under it a Fire, as it were
of Aetna burning continually (26). »

What is thé reader to do with this striking concatenation of

images? As we shall see, Starkey is describing the first stage in
the alchemical great work, the production of the philosophical
mercury that will lead to the philosophers' stone. After that
substance was prepared, it was supposed to be sealed up and heated,
whereon it would die and rot. This is the stage or regimen usually
called putrefactio (27). The somber figure of Juno pictured earlier
is also intended to convey the idea of death and mourning. But
let us refrain from interpreting further until our alchemist has
entirely unfolded the panoply of his invention. Philalethes then shifts
abruptly to the first person. « I lift up mine eyes, and behold
I saw Nature as a Queen gloriously adorned (28). » The queen
is holding a book entitled Philosophy restored to its primitive purity,
which she gives the alchemist to eat. After being so honored by
the lady, Philalethes says « was my Understanding so enlightened,
that I did fully apprehend all things which I saw and heard [...] »

(26) Ibid., 102. The description of the herb is apparently rewritten from Le Livre des
figures hiéroglyphiques de Nicolas Flamel, op. cit. in n. 15, 12, where the alchemist
describes a « hieroglyph » from the book of Abraham the Jew : « A l'autre face du fueillet
quatriesme, il peignoit une belle Fleur en la sommité d'une montagne très-haute, que l'Aquilon
esbranloit fort rudement, elle avoit le pied bleu, les fleurs blanches et rouges, les fueilles
reluisantes comme l'or fin. » Later in Le livre des figures hiéroglyphiques, Flamel decribes
the events that follow the sealing up of the sophic mercury as follows : « [...] les
exhalaisons qui montent dans le matras sont obscures, noires blues et flavastres [...] Ces couleurs
donc signifient la putrefaction et generation [...] » It appears that Starkey combined these
two descriptions to arrive at his « vegetable Saturnia ».
(27) For the alchemical stage of putrefactio, cf. Dobbs, Foundations, op. cit. in n. 1,
30-31, 34, 45, 170, 178, 212, 224-225, and 229.
(28) Philalethes, Exposition upon the first six gates..., in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in
n. 20, 103.
168 William R. Newman

The visionary tone continues when Philalethes describes how

he « heard a Voice behind me, saying, What wouldest thou in
the World? » Philalethes, now in love with the beautiful « nymph »,
replies that he desires nothing so much as to see her again. The
voice replies that she has gone into seclusion, but that Philalethes
should be happy with the book that she gave him, « most happy
in that thou couldest and didst eat it, which every one that hath
it cannot do (29). » At the sad news of his abandonment,
Philalethes despairs.
While Philalethes is bemoaning his lost love, he suddenly hears
a shrill voice beside him, and sees a brilliant light. Nearby, he
spies « a most secret place, and in it a secret Room of Diaphanous
matter ». Within it is the lady, but now accompanied by a king
dressed in beaten gold. There is also a third person in the room,
a waterbearer with a pitcher of water on his shoulder, « and in
the midst of it there burned as it were a Lamp (30) ». Despite
the beauty of this vision, Philalethes is displeased, for his lady
is stark naked in the presence of the King. Averting his eyes, he
notes that the room is closed on all sides, « so that it seemes as
it were made of one entire piece of Chrystal ». It is small as well,
no bigger than a little egg, and all three of its inhabitents « might
have been enclosed in a Hazel Nut ».
The lady, sensing Philalethes' distress, asks him the cause of
his anxiety. The alchemist replies that he is not sad, but amazed
at the spectacle before him,

« the sight not being to be parallePd in John Tradescants Chamber of

Rarities, which is the System of the Novel Rarities of the known
World (31) ».

What amazes Philalethes is not merely the minuteness of his

interlocutor, but the fact that she who had seemed « so piously
virtuous a Lady » is now « so retiredly naked with a man, only
attended with a Water-bearer ». The lady replies that her
shrinkage is due to a « Magical Vertue, which is alone given to me

(29) Ibid., 104-105.

(30) Ibid., 106.
(31) Ibid., 107. There is an abundant literature on the John Tradescant's. Cf. Prudence
Leith-Ross, The John Tradescants (London : P. Owen, 1984), Martin Welch, The Trades-
cants and the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford : Ashmolean Museum, 1978),
and Arthur MacGregor (éd.), Tradescant's rarities (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1983).
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 169

from GOD », and that Philalethes should not worry if he suspects

a diabolical agency. Nature goes on for several pages, explaining
that the devil is only a « deceitful Jugler » who must do her bidding.
Comparing her own dominion to his, she relates the following :

« My Rule is not as is the Rule of Princes among Men, but I am

serviceable to all, yea to the least Worm in the World; and because
I am so serviceable, therefore my Master hath appointed that nothing
can or may disobey me; the Devil here hath no power, though malice
enough [...] (32) »

The devil is subjugated to Nature, but Nature herself is the

subject of the most humble creature — the worm. With these words,
Nature begins an apology for her seemingly promiscuous ways.
She is, to use an old expression, a sort of meretrix casta, a « chaste
whore » available to all but owned by none. Nature continues by
adding that her kingdom is « in the State of Innocency »,
appearances to the contrary (33). The King, her servant, has been taken
prisoner, and he can only be ransomed by the gift of « his Flesh
and Blood », with the result that he will « die and arise from the
Dead ». She then solicits the help of Philalethes, offering him not
only dominion over herself, but the following reward :

« The Blood of this King, which redeems his Brethren, will give thee
a Medicine to command all the Imperfections of thy mortal Body; and
though it be no Antidote against Death, the irrevocable Decree being
past, yet it triumphs over all the Miseries of Life, both of Poverty and
Sickness, and it possesseth a Man of the most incomparable Treasures
of this World (34). »

It goes without saying that the product derived from the King's
blood is the philosophers' stone, in its dual role as universal
medicine and transmuter of metals. Philalethes is overjoyed at the
prospect of this gift, but a bit disconcerted when the lovely queen
demands that he light a stove beneath the diaphanous chamber
so that the King « sweat to death ». The dissolution of his rival
alarms him not a bit, but Philalethes is concerned about the fate
of his lady. She informs him, however, that neither heat nor cold

(32) Philalethes, Exposition upon the first six gates..., in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in
n. 20, 109.
(33) Ibid., 111.
(34) Ibid., 112.
170 William R. Newman

can harm her, and upon becoming the recipient of this knowledge,
Philalethes reports that « I saw a most exquisite Light, which took
up an incredible small room, and methoughts my Head seemed
as it were diaphanous (35) ». Having been commanded to light
the stove, Philalethes of course thinks of his erstwhile guide,
whereon a voice informs him that the guide is now within the
chamber. Looking at the Water-bearer, Philalethes understands that
it is he who is his guide, but what arrests the attention of the
alchemist is the Water-bearer's pitcher :
« Then I viewed his Pitcher well, and I found that his Pitcher was clear
as pure Silver; and what was strange, the Bearer, and the Pitcher, and
the Water in it were one ; and in the midst of the Water, as it were in the
very centre, there was a most radiant twinkling Spark, which sent forth
its Beams even to the very surface of the Water, and appeared as it were
a Lamp burning, and yet no way distinguishable from the Water (36). »

Philalethes then lights the furnace beneath the chamber, and the
Water-bearer pours forth his water, now mixed with fire. The Water-
bearer then makes his exit by diving into the stream of water and
disappearing. Inspecting the released liquid, Philalethes notices « a goodly
Lady in the midst of it », not Nature herself, but one as beautiful
as Helen. She is naked, and her skin as bright as fine silver. Although
she is tiny at first, she soon grows bigger, consuming all the water
as she expands. The new lady, unlike the old, is pained horribly by
the heat of the stove, and she repeatedly faints. The King, meanwhile,
feeling pity for her whom he knows to be « his Sister, his Mother,
and his Wife », embraces her. He is at once covered with her sweat
and tears, so that both take on the color of silver. Gallantly, he asks
her what he can do to help, and she replies that she wants his
« Conjugal Fealty (37) ». Not one to be diverted by euphemism, the
King grants her request in such a way that she conceives « the King's
Seed », saying with some relief that she is now « better able to endure
the Fire which did prevail upon her » (38). But this is not enough :
« Therefore not contented, she had a second, a third and fourth
Benevolence, even to the eleventh time : Then said the King, I am very faint
and weak [...] »

(35) Ibid., 113.

(36) Ibid., 114.
(37) Ibid., 116.
(38) Ibid., 117.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 171

The King, « wasted by his Venery », begins to sweat

marvellously, until his body is almost consumed. The Queen, no doubt
feeling a combination of guilt and disappointment, sheds so many
tears that, mixed with the sweat, they produce a river, and so
the two are drowned. Philalethes, musing « at the strangeness of
the sight », then notices a carcass on the surface of the water,
which soon grows « livid, black, blewish, and yellowish » with
putrefaction (39). This horrible decay soon infects the water, which now
grows black and thick, like turbid slime. The heat gradually dries
up this decaying mass, only to reveal « a horrible venemous
tumefied Toad, [...] as it were dying [...] » A raven eats the toad, dies
of its poison, and dissolves into a « most filthy squallid Liquor
blacker than Ink, and thick like Pitch melted [...] » Philalethes,
who has been idly wondering at this spectacle, now hears a voice
that tells him he must not leave. His mind jolted into activity,
he has a revelation :

« Then my Eyes were opened, and I saw Nature walking up and down
among the Carcasses, and in her hand the unparallell'd Lamp; and taking
a more serious view, I saw in those rotten Atoms the Idea's of all things
natural and supernatural [...] (40) »

He then sees that the King and Queen are buried in a « Field
Sable » and that the tomb is made of polished jet or ebony. On
the tomb is written a prophecy — that if he keep the fire constant,
they « should rise again, and be more glorious and powerful than
ever they were before ». Alarmed at the expectations being made
of him, Philalethes asks the disembodied voice for further
directions. It responds by giving him a « Ball of fine Silk », and
enjoining that he should « make this fast to a Pin of this Tower, and
then go round and behold the place [...] » (41) Emboldened by
his possession of this Ariadne's thread, Philalethes takes a candle
and begins wandering about the castle. The darkness is literally
impenetrable, standing « as it were in clusters by it self » and
resisting the « opposition of the Rays of Light ». For all that,
Philalethes can make out « strange figures, as of Birds, Beasts, and
creeping things of monstrous shapes », and soon he comes upon

(39) Ibid., 118.

(40) Ibid., 119.
(41) Ibid., 120.
172 William R. Newman

a multitude of men (42). Their eyes have been irritated by « dark

and smoak », so that they flee from the brilliance of Philalethes'
candle. His eyes becoming used to the Cimmerian gloom,
Philalethes notices that the men have « with them Light as it were of
Fox-Fire, or rotten Wood, and Glow-worms Tails [...] (43) » By
the pale phosphorescence of this matter, the men are reading Geber
and Rhasis. Remarking that his candle is of no use in a place
where the inhabitants seem to themselves « wondrous well inligh-
tened » by darkness, Philalethes puts it down, wanders off with
his thread, and goes to sleep. Awakening, Philalethes finds that
he can now see in the darkness, and observes that he is in « a
ruinous place of many millions of turnings », all illuminated by
fox-fire and glow-worms' tails (44). But taking out his copy of
d'Espagnet's Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae, he observes that he
can no longer read a single word of it (45). He then encounters
a blear-eyed man with corroded fingers, who merrily enquires the
title of the book. On learning the title, the decrepit individual reveals
his familiarity therewith :

« It is a good Book, saith he. He and Sendivow are the two best
that ever wrote. I but, said I, I went to peruse my Book, and I can
read not one word in it. That's strange, quoth he; let me see it : Then
I shewed it him, and he read out of it such strange things that I never
had heard of before; and Sendivogius, saith he, is of the same mind. »

Marvelling that this man has found processes in d'Espagnet

and Sendivogius that he never dreamed of, Philalethes supposes
that this is due to the peculiar light of the place. He looks at
the copies of Rhasis and Geber that he happens to have with him,
and notices that these texts are virtually intact, except for a few
« places in which the Truth was couched in a few words (46) ».

(42) Ibid., 121.

(43) Ibid., 122.
(44) Ibid., 123.
(45) For d'Espagnet, cf. John Ferguson, Bibliotheca chemica (Glasgow : 1906; Hilde-
sheim : Georg Olms Verlag, 1974), vol. I, 249-250. As Ferguson relates, Olaus Borrichius
knew the son of the elder d'Espagnet. Additional material not known to Ferguson is found
in Borrichius' Itinerarium 1660-1665, éd. H. D. Schepelern (Copenhagen : The Danish Society
of Language and Literature, 1983) vol. 3, 368 and 439.
(46) Philalethes, Exposition upon the first six gates..., in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in
n. 20, 124.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 173

Finally Philalethes returns to the chamber by means of his

thread, where he encounters Nature once more. She informs him
that the men whom he has met are those

« who wrot in Alchymy according to the Light of Fancy, and not of

Nature; though to them their Light seem clear enough, yet can they see
nothing by it but what is phantastical, and mystically or sophistically
written by the Envious, for the seducing of such fanciful Doters [...] (47) »

The phosphorescence of the fox-fire and glow-worms' tails is

an « imaginary Light », making the eyes so sore that they cannot
bear the brilliance of ordinary illumination. Philalethes then returns
to visit the sophists once more. He finds them performing myriad
operations on sulfur, salts, and strong waters, calcining lead, tin,
copper, and iron, distilling vinegar, rectifying spirit of wine, and
subliming lead. Philalethes returns to Nature, who tells him that
there is no « ground of truth (48) » in these processes. Naturally
enough, Philalethes wants to know what then is the true process
for acquiring the philosophers' stone. What follows is in effect
Philalethes' « explication » of the entire adventure. Nature informs
Philalethes that the sophists not only are working on the wrong
matter, but that they have committed another desperate error :

« for our work is to make a substance fluid, penetrating and entring,

that may have ingress into imperfect Metals : for which cause we do
preserve humidity, without which our Stone cannot be penetrative (49). »

The sophists, not observing the rule that moisture must be

maintained, cook their matter to a « dry Powder or Calx ». Nature
then announces another rule :

« Therefore first you must know, that we joyn kind with kind in
our work, for Nature is mended and retained with its own Nature : for
this cause is our King wedded to the Water-bearers Daughter [...] Wonder
not at it that a Queen should spring out of a Water-bearers loins, for
the King is also his Son, and he is greater than them both (50). »

Philalethes goes on to describe this incestuous arrangement in

greater detail. Although the King is richer than his father, the

(47) Ibid., 125.

(48) Ibid., 130.
(49) Ibid., 131.
(50) Ibid., 133.
174 William R. Newman

latter has « the Key of a Closet, in which is Riches enough for

all in the Kingdom ». The King cannot gain access to this wealth,
however, unless he marry his sister, « which is in the water of
the Pitcher invisible ». But that sister « is also his Mother and
his Father, for it is one with the Water-bearer, the Water and
the Pitcher, as is said ». It is precisely because of their
consanguinity that the King and Queen are so strongly attracted to one
another, and that the « immoderate use of Venery, and violent
sweating, weeping and pissing » meld together to make « one Sea ».
Sure that we have not heard enough, Philalethes then tells us that
in this sea

« swim two Fishes without flesh and bones, which after resolve and make
one Broth, which is called Water permanent (51) ».

What can one say of Philalethes' allegory? At once burlesque

and arcane, innocent and obscene, it seems to defy the analysis
of reason. Must we therefore turn to the analysis of unreason,
and employ the analytical psychology of Carl Jung? Instead of
taking that step, let us consider Philalethes' own comments :

« Thus have I somewhat Metaphorically deciphered our true

principles, yet so plainly as that you may with diligence understand the meaning;
and unless you know this, you will proceed blind-fold in your work,
not knowing the causes of things, so that every puff of Sophisters will
toss you, like as a Feather is tossed in the Air with a blast of Wind :
for our Books are full of obscurity, and Philosophers write horrid
Metaphors and Riddles to them who are not upon a sure bottom, which like
to a running Stream will carry them down head-long into despair and
errors, which they can never escape till they so far understand our
writings, as to discern the subject Matter of our secrets, which being known
the rest is not so hard (52). »

Philalethes tells us that his discourse has been somewhat

metaphorical : indeed, it is the custom of « philosophers » to obscure
their processes in « horrid Metaphors and Riddles ». But that is
exactly how the menagerie of toads and ravens should be taken
— as a succession of riddles enfolding « the subject matter of
our secrets » in a veil of mystery. It is not, pace Carl Jung, a
parable of the psyche unfolding its own transformation. Let us

(51) Ibid., 134.

(52) Ibid., 134-135.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 175

therefore try to read Philalethes as an alchemist would, in order

to see whether we can penetrate the gloom of his writings or whether
we too have been blinded by the fox-fire of the sophists.

III. — The subject matter of our secrets

We shall begin with Philalethes' entry into the room with

particolored hangings. In that room was a peculiar herb whose roots,
leaves, and veins corresponded to the colors of the tapestries, black,
yellow, and livid. What is this mysterious plant? Let us employ
the principle of dispersion de la science, and consult the Philale-
than corpus as a whole. There we shall find only one other plant
displayed prominently — the herb saturnia. Philalethes' Fons che-
micae philosophiae contains a detailed description thereof :
« In Saturnine places there is found a certain little herb called Saturnia,
whose branchlets appear dry, and yet there is much juice in its roots.
Collecting this herb together with its roots, you will carry it until you
come to the base of a mountain. Digging at the base of this with the
aid of Vulcan, you will bury your herb, which should permeate the pores
of the mountain at once by loosening its earth (53). »

The seventeenth century alchemist, reading this passage beside

the one in the Exposition, would know that he was on the right
track, for the herb Saturnia is supposed to be found in « saturnine
places ». The first gate of Ripley's castle was indeed such a place,
both saturnine in the sense of being the scene of a sad burial and
saturnine in the literal, planetary sense. The Introitus apertus,
arguably Philalethes' most widely read work, divides the
alchemical work into seven stages or regimens. These are the regimens
of mercury, saturn, jupiter, luna, venus, mars, and sol. After
preparing his philosophical mercury, the starting point of the
philosophers' stone, the alchemist is supposed to seal it up with gold
in a flask and subject it to slow, even heating. The Introitus
allocates fifty days to the regimen of mercury, during which time the
substance is supposed to boil and change color continually, until

(53) Philalethes, Fons chemicae philosophiae, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 694.
176 William R. Newman

it finally turns black. The stage of saturn, lasting forty days, sees
the death of « the Lion », gold, and the birth of « the crow » (54).
This refers to the monochrome blackness now found within the
sealed vessel. As Philalethes exclaims : « Oh sad spectacle and image
of eternal death ! » Indeed, he adds that the tomb in which « our
king » is buried « is called saturn in our work, and it is the key
to the coins of our art (55) ». But he adds that the pitiful sight
of the king's death bears good tidings, for it will be followed by
a glorious resuscitation of the matter within the flask. The herb
saturnia, then, is clearly something to be associated with the first
stages of the alchemical magnum opus. As the Fons chymicae phi-
losophiae stated, it is a dry substance with much juice in its roots.
Assuming that our putative alchemist had the Introitus before him,
he would probably now turn to Chapter II of that work, where
Philalethes describes the composition of the philosophical mercury,
the first beginning of the work :

« Let [the alchemists] know that our water is composed from many
things, although it is one matter compounded of diverse things having
one essence. In our water is required first fire, second the liquor of the
vegetable Saturnia, third the bond of Mercury. The fire is the mineral
Sulfur, and yet it is not properly mineral, nor metallic, but a medium
between the mineral and metallic, a third thing participating in each.
It is a Chaos or Spirit, because our fiery Dragon, which conquers all
things, is penetrated all the same by the odor of the vegetable Saturnia,
whose blood congeals with the juice of Saturnia into one marvellous
body. And yet this is not a body, since it is wholly volatile, nor is it
a spirit, because in fire it is rendered a molten metal. It is therefore
the real Chaos, which is related to all the metals as mother. For I know
how to extract all (the metals] from it, even sol and luna, without the
transmutatory Elixir (56). »

Beneath this riot of imagery there lies a straightforward message.

The philosophical mercury must be composed of several ingredients :
it is not simply « vulgar mercury » or quicksilver. These three
ingredients are fire, saturnia, and mercury itself — here presumably
quicksilver. The « fire », however, is not ordinary fire, but « the
mineral sulfur » which is a « chaos » or « spirit ». In other words,
this « sulfur » is highly volatile : Philalethes is following the usage

(54) Philalethes, Introitus, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 673.
(55) Ibid., 673.
(56) Ibid., 662.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 111

of J. B. Van Helmont, who derived the term « Gas » from

« Chaos » precisely because the latter meant a spiritual
substance (57). Starkey will shortly distinguish this first « chaos » or
« mineral sulfur » from another « spirit » which is the « chaos »
par excellence. Despite the fact that it is a « fiery dragon » that
can conquer all, the « mineral sulfur » or lesser chaos is
penetrated and congealed by saturnia. The result of this penetration
is the formation of a wondrous body which is both metallic and
volatile. This is the real « Chaos », in contradistinction to the fore-
mentioned « mineral sulfur », because like the primordial chaos
of the ancients, it is the progenitor of other substances — the metals.
The alchemical reader of Philalethes would have discovered a
great deal from this. He would now know that the combination
of saturnia and the « fiery dragon » would give him a volatile
metallic substance which, since it required heat in order to be fused,
could not be ordinary mercury, which is of course liquid at room
temperature. Moreover, this wondrous body composed of the fiery
dragon and saturnia was to be mixed, after its production, with
mercury. Now the number of volatile, metallic substances known
in the mid-seventeenth century was fairly restricted. Our alchemist
would think perhaps of metallic arsenic and bismuth, but if he
were thoroughly grounded in the Philalethes-corpus, the
expression « Chaos » would surely make him turn elsewhere.
If our hypothetical alchemist were simply to return now to
Philalethes' Ripley commentary, he could now extract the components
of the philosophical mercury without great difficulty. Philalethes
there alerts us to the fact that he is going to reveal the nature
of the « Chaos », or « hidden body » in the form of a poem,
entitled The Learned Sophies Feast (58) :

« Our Subject it is no ways malleable,/It is Metalline, and its colour

sable,/With intermixed Argent, which in veins/The sable Field with
glittering Branches stains (59). »

It is unlikely that any alchemist of the period could have

mistaken this unequivocal description of Spiessglanz, antimony trisul-

(57) Walter Pagel, Joan Baptista Van Helmont (Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press,
1982), 64.
(58) Philalethes, An exposition upon the preface, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20, 48.
(59) Ibid., 52.
178 William R. Newman

fide, the native ore of metallic antimony. In case anyone did miss
the point, however, Philalethes tells us at another point in the
Ripley commentary that we should :

« Take then the most beloved Daughter of Saturn, in whose Arms

are a Circle Argent, and on it a Sable Cross on a Black Field, which
is the signal note of the great world, espouse her to the most warlike
God, who dwells in the house of Aries, and thou shalt find the Salt
of Nature, with this Salt acuate thy water, as thou best knowest, and
thou shalt have the Lunary bath in which the Sun will be amended (60). »

To an alchemist of the seventeenth century, the interpretation

of this passage would have bordered on the trivial. The « Daughter
of Saturn » is holding the papal symbol of the globe surmounted
by a cross. Drawn flat, the globe becomes a circle, and we have
the tradition symbol of « crude » antimony, that is, unrefined
antimony sulfide. The symbol had been popularized in the first decades
of the seventeenth century by the anonymous author writing under
the name of « Basilius Valentinus », and would have been well-
known to anyone reading Philalethes (61). Now the import of the
passage is that the daughter of Saturn is herself crude antimony,
and what would one call a daughter of saturn but Saturnia? We
have therefore solved the riddle of Saturnia without recourse to
any material unavailable to the seventeenth century reader of
Philalethes. Let no one doubt, then, that the primary purpose of such
wild imagery as Philalethes' was precisely what he said it to be —
to conceal « the subject Matter of our secrets » with « horrid
Metaphors and Riddles ».
It is only fair to say at this point that the riddle of Philalethes'
first matter has been solved many times before us, both in the
seventeenth century and in our own. Using a fragment of George
Starkey's 1651 letter to Robert Boyle, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs solved
it in 1975 (62). But it had already been solved as early as 1678,
by the Moravian physician Johann Hertodt von Todtenfeldt, without

(60) Philalethes, An exposition upon Sir George Ripley's Epistle, in Ripley Reviv'd,
op. cit. in n. 20, 20-21.
(61) There is a large literature on the extraordinary pseudepigrapha that go under the name
of « Basilius Valentinus ». A recent treatment may be found in Claus Priesner, Johann Thoelde
und die Schriften des Basilius Valentinus, in Die Alchemie in der europaischen Kultur- und
Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Christoph Meinel (ed.) (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1986), 107-118.
(62) Dobbs, Foundations, op. cit. in n. 1, 175-186.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 179

the use of any documents but the printed corpus of Philalethes (63).
Hertodt and Philalethes shared a common language of images,
allowing them to communicate their processes. Let us therefore
continue a bit with our unravelling of Philalethes, to further
illuminate this mode of communication.
In the just-quoted passage from Philalethes' Ripley
commentary, the alchemist says that the « Daughter of Saturn » must be
married to « the most warlike God ». To anyone familiar with
classical mythology, this could only mean Ares, or in the Latin
form, Mars. Since the Middle Ages, however, the Latin world had
known that Mars was a Deckname, a secret name, for iron (64).
So Philalethes is telling us that crude antimony must be combined
with iron. But why does he add that Mars « dwells in the house
of Aries »? In Ptolemaic astrology, one of the two celestial houses
of the planet Mars is found in the zodiacal constellation Aries.
Aries in turn belongs to the trinity of constellations including Leo
and Sagittarius, called the fiery triplicity (65). A reference to Aries
would therefore allude to fiery heat : as we shall see, this heat
is to be found within iron itself. It is worth noting that Philalethes
is « decoding » Sendivogius here, giving a concrete mineral
referent to one of the Polish alchemist's Decknamen. Sendivogius had
said to look for the matter of the philosophers' stone « in the
belly of Aries » (66). Philalethes is here announcing to the reader
that he has solved the enigma of the noble Pole. This is purely
an assertion of authority, for Philalethes' process is not dependent
on Sendivogius at all, but derives rather from the Prussian
alchemist Alexander von Suchten (67). Continuing in this fashion,
Philalethes adds that Mars will help us find the « Salt of Nature »,
another Sendivogian figura, with which we must acuate « our
water ». Turning back to Chapter II of the Introitus, our seven-

(63) For Hertodt, cf. George Lyman Kittredge, Dr. Robert Child the Remonstrant,
Transactions of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (1919), 135-137. Hertodťs Epištola
was first published in the Miscellanea curiosa of the Academia naturae curiosorum for
the year 1677 (Breslau, 1678), Decuria vm, 380-386. This was reprinted in Manget, vol. II,
op. cit. in n. 19, 697-699.
(64) William R. Newman, The « Summa perfection^ » of Pseudo-Geber (Leiden : Brill,
1991), 347-351, 478-484, et passim.
(65) Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (London : Heinemann, 1980), 83. The term « fiery »
triplicity is not used by Ptolemy, though it is widespread in astrology.
(66) Sendivogius, Novum lumen chemicum, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 475.
(67) Newman, The authorship of the Introitus, op. cit. in n. 9, 139-144.
180 William R. Newman

teenth century alchemist would surely take this to mean that the
product of the marriage between Saturnia and Mars, the salt of
nature, must be mixed with mercury. But what exactly would the
product of that marriage be?
Another clue is found in Chapter V of the Introitus. There
Philalethes tells us that « our Chaos », the product of the
marriage between Saturn's daughter and Mars, has a center which is
« astral, radiating the earth all the way up to its surface with its
brightness (68) ». To our seventeenth century alchemist, who has
already recognized crude antimony and iron behind Saturnia and
Mars, this « stellar » reference can mean only one thing : the
alchemist must reduce his antimony ore by reacting it with iron. In
doing so, he is to arrive at the famous « star regulus » of
antimony, the striking star-like formation of metallic antimony that
sometimes occurs when the molten metal is cooled slowly under
a covering of slag (69). The admonition of the Ripley commentary
that this product was identical with the Sendivogian « salt of
nature » probably alludes indirectly to the crystalline character of
the star regulus (70). The chemical reaction by which the
reduction of antimony is carried out is given by Mellor (71), and it
will not be amiss to repeat it here : Sb2S3 + 3Fe — 2Sb + 3FeS.
This is all perfectly straightforward, but the reader may wonder
why Philalethes referred to the iron in Chapter II of the Introitus as
a « fiery dragon » and as « mineral sulfur ». As we said before,
Philalethes encodes not only processes, but theories. The fiery sulfur is
the Paracelsian principle of the same name, contained in great
abundance in iron. Even in the Middle Ages it had been thought that iron
was a metal rich in sulfur, because of its very high melting point. Sulfur
was the principle responsible for congealing or « hardening » mercury
in order to make a metal; therefore excess sulfur led to great
hardness. But Philalethes elsewhere tells us that native antimony, although
it has an « external », impure, sulfur, is utterly lacking in the metallic
sulfur that is necessary to the formation of a metal (72). This the anti-

(68) Philalethes, Introitus, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 663.
(69) Sydney and Margery Johnstone, Minerals for the chemical and allied industries
(New York : Wiley, 1961), 33.
(70) J. W. Mellor, A comprehensive treatise on inorganic and theoretical chemistry,
vol. 9 (London : Longman, Green, 1970), 355.
(71) Ibid., 350.
(72) Philalethes, Introitus, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 665.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 181

mony must get from iron. The sulfur to be gotten is a « fiery

dragon » in that it is volatile, and like any sulfur, capable of
burning. Thus Philalethes' recipes refer not only to substances
evident to the senses of all, but to hypothetical substances that
only one trained in alchemical theory would recognize. We shall
return to this subject presently, but let us finish first with the
philosophers' mercury. We have already learned that we are supposed
to mix the star regulus of antimony with vulgar mercury in order
to arrive at the philosophical mercury. But a careful reading of
Philalethes will at once reveal that things are not quite so simple.
Let us consult Chapter II of the Introitus once more :

« This Chaos is called our Arsenic, our air, our Luna, our Magnes,
our Chalybs, but in diverse respect, because our matter undergoes various
states before our Regal Diadem is extracted from the menstrual blood
of our whore. So learn who the comrades of Cadmus are, and who the
Serpent who ate them, [and] what the hollow oak, on which Cadmus
transfixed the Serpent. Learn what the Doves of Diana are, which conquer
the Lion by beating him, the green Lion, I say, which is really the
Babylonian Dragon, killing all by means of his venom (73). »

Before the reader expires from despair, let us remember that

we have solved the problem of « our Chaos ». It is unequivocally
antimony, though in « various states ». Thus « our chaos » can
refer to unrefined antimony or to antimony metal, which
Philalethes views as the product of a fiery ferrous soul and a mercurial
substance drawn from Saturnia. Let us first consider why « our
chaos » is both Magnes and Chalybs, that is, magnet and steel.
If we know the theory, the answer is again straightforward. We
have seen that Philalethes thinks of Saturnia, crude antimony, as
« penetrating » the fiery dragon of iron and combining therewith.
Moreover, « our Magnet has a hidden center abounding in salt ».
And we know from the passage expounded above that such salt
refers to the star regulus. The magnet, then, is the crude
antimony, which attracts the fiery spirit of sulfur from iron and joins
its own mercury therewith to yield metallic antimony (74). The

(73) Ibid., 662.

(74) Ibis interpretation is confirmed by Starkey's 1651 letter to Boyle :«[...] the soule
of [iron] is by the Virtue of the [antimony] made totally Volatile » (Newman, Clavis, op.
cit. in n. 21, 572). Starkey views the crude antimony as the agent, or magnes, while the
iron is the patient, or chalybs.
182 William R. Newman

chalybs is simply the ferrous spirit that is attracted by the magnet

and united to it. In other words, Philalethes is simply telling us
what he has already revealed under different terms. The same may
be said for the striking image of the extraction of a royal diadem
from the « menstrual blood of our whore ». Richard Westfall has
commented on the remarkable character of this image (75), but
the reader who has borne with us this far will have seen
Philalethes eating books and losing the opacity of his head; he will have
witnessed copulating royalty drowning in their own sweat and tears;
rotting bodies growing into toads have been eaten by melting
ravens : why should we be surprised at the blood of a « sordid
whore »? It is clear that this is but one more Deckname for the
star regulus of antimony, the « diadem » extracted from the
impurity of antimony.
Let us quote another passage from the Ripley commentary in
order to confirm the identity of the sordid whore :
« [...] I say our crude Sperm flows from a Trinity of Substances
in one Essence, of which two are extracted out of the Earth of their
Nativity by the third, and then become a pure milky Virgin like Nature,
drawn from the Menstruum of our sordid Whore (76). »

The trinity of substances alluded to here is that same

triumvirate announced in the Introitus — mercury, crude antimony, and
iron. The antimony and iron are « extracted » out of their earth
in the sense that the mercury dissolves their product, the star regulus.
It is in this sense that the « Milky Virgin like Nature », the
philosophical mercury, is « drawn from » the menstruum of the sordid
whore. Philalethes goes on immediately to identify these three
substances with « our true Fountain », which has « three springs » (77).
The first is « a Water », or « Mercurial Bond », which even sophis-
ters can see « so far as the outward shell reacheth », though it
has a secret center perceptible only to the wise. The reader will
recall that « mercurial bond » was a term used in Chapter II of
the Introitus for vulgar mercury itself : this water is clearly
quicksilver. The second spring is the « Blood of our Green Lyon »,

(75) R. S. Westfall, The role of alchemy in Newton's career, in M. L. Righini-Bonelli

and W. R. Shea, Reason, experiment, and mysticism in the scientific revolution (New York :
Science History Publ., 1975), 198-199, 213-214.
(76) Philalethes, An exposition upon the preface, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20, 28.
(77) Ibid., 29.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 183

green only in the sense that it is raw and lacking in metalline sulfur,
« and therefore is Totally Volatile ». The expression « totally
volatile » would of course tip off the diligent alchemist that the Lyon
itself is crude antimony. The third spring is a « spirit » or « chaos »,
which appears to all in a « compact » and « vile despised » form.
But it is so useful « in humane affairs » that none can do without
it : to the educated reader of Philalethes this would obviously be
an allusion to common iron, indeed the most useful of metals,
and to the hidden spirit or « soul » within it, the means of
reducing antimony.
Let us now return to Chapter II of the Introitus. Philalethes
there identifies « our chaos », that is crude or refined antimony,
with « our Arsenic, our Luna, our Magnes, [and] our Chalybs ».
All of these refer to antimony, either crude or refined, and if
refined, to the putative ferrous component thereof. We have further
identified « our whore » with antimony, as well as the green lion.
Philalethes also identifies the green lion here with « the
Babylonian Dragon, killing all by means of his venom ». This venomous
character refers no doubt to the ability of antimony sulfide to
« kill » other metals and absorb them during the process of
refining gold (78). We have therefore deciphered all the Decknamen
of Introitus Chapter II except for « the comrade of Cadmus »,
the serpent who ate them, « the hollow oak, on which Cadmus
transfixed the serpent », and the « Doves of Diana », which conquer
the lion by beating him. These Decknamen, drawn ultimately from
classical mythology, find their immediate sources in d'Espagnet
and Flamel (79). But Philalethes, as usual, has given them specific
roles in his own complicated game of riddles.
If we return to the Ripley commentary, Philalethes will tell
us the following story of the adepts : « Their Lyon Green, they
suffered him to prey/ On Cadmus Sociates [...] (80) » Here the
dragon has become our friend the green lion : it is now he who
is eating the associates of Cadmus. The inference lies at hand that

(78) For the metallurgical use of antimony sulfide in refining and assaying, cf. Georgius
Agricola, De re metallica, ed. and transi. Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover (New York :
Dover, 1950), 237-239, 451-452, et passim.
(79) The ancient myth that Cadmus, the brother of Europa, founded Thebes after having
his companions eaten by a dragon, is given an alchemical interpretation in Starkey's source,
Le Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques de Nicolas Flamel (see the text above in n. 15).
(80) Philalethes, An exposition upon the preface, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20, 53.
184 William R. Newman

the green lion and the serpent of Introitus Chapter II are the same :
crude antimony. Who then are the associates of Cadmus? Some
twenty pages earlier, Philalethes already revealed that « our
mercury » is made of a « palpable », « visible » water, a « Fiery
Form, which is the Blood of Cadmus », and « Saturn's Child » (81).
Once again, we have obvious synonyms for quicksilver, the sulfu-
rous component of iron, and crude antimony. What is described
here as a mixing of Cadmus' blood with « Saturn's Child » later
resurfaces as the eating of Cadmus' comrades by the green lion.
In both cases the same process is being described — the reduction
of crude antimony by iron (82). If the serpent is then to be fixed
to a « hollow oak » and left, this must surely be a reference to
the alchemical furnace in which the philosophical mercury
undergoes its successive regimens sealed up in its flask.
Virtually all the Philalethan Decknamen have yielded up their
colorful costumes to reveal the same three actors — mercury, crude
or refined antimony, and iron or its sulfurous component. This is
not the case with the « Doves of Diana », however, the final
unresolved figura of Introitus Chapter II. With the doves of Diana we
meet a new level of interpretative difficulty, for Philalethes is as
chary in describing them as he is prolix in his synonyms for
antimony. Indeed, Hertodt von Todtenfeldt, the seventeenth century
commentator of Philalethes, recalls that he came to an utter standstill
upon trying to interpret the doves of Diana, until he happened to
look in the Second Treatise of antimony vulgar by Alexander von
Suchten (83). There he learned that no one will arrive at an amalgam
of mercury and the star regulus of antimony without the addition
of silver (84). Starkey's 1651 letter to Boyle also confirms this
interpretation, for he says there that « you must have the mediation
of Virgine Diana that is pure [silver] or else [mercury], & Regulus
[of antimony reduced by iron] will not unite (85) ». In the longer,

(81) Ibid., 35-36.

(82) For an absolute confirmation of this, cf. The Marrow : « Old Saturns Son, let
two parts taken be,/ Of Cadmus one, and these so long be sure/ By Vulcans aid to purefie,
till (free/ from Faeces) the metalline parts be pure;/ This shall be done in four
reiterations,/ The Star shall teach you perfect operations » (Philalethes, The Marrow of alchemy,
part H, op. cit. in n. 17, 17.
(83) Hertodt, in Manget, vol. II, op. cit. in n. 19, 697.
(84) Ibid., 697.
(85) Newman, Clavis, op. cit. in n. 21, 573.
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 185

Latin and German forms of the letter, the two parts of silver that
are added to the antimonial amalgam are explicitly called the « doves
of Diana (86) ». It is enlightening to read this passage beside such
descriptions of the philosophical mercury as the following :

« Art, to make the work short, first impregnates Mercury with a

spiritual seed of Sulphur, by which it becomes powerful in the dissolution
of Metals, and then adds to it mature Sulphur, by which the work is
shortened; and out of these two Parents of one Root is brought forth
a Noble Son of a Regal Off-spring, that is not simply Gold, but our
Elixir, ten thousand times more precious (87). »

The work has indeed been made short here, for Philalethes
has left out all mention of either the requisite antimony or silver:
he refers only to the sulfur drawn from the iron, the quicksilver,
and the « mature Sulphur » found in the gold that is dissolved
in the philosophical mercury (88). What we have here is an
intentional ellipsis of Philalethes' process, intended to delude the unwary
just as surely as his multiplication of terms for antinomy would
have done.

IV. — Syncope and parathesis

Could the seventeenth century interpreter of Philalethes have

determined the necessity of silver without recourse to Suchten or
the letter to Boyle? The answer to this question is an unequivocal
« yes », for it is a fact that Carolus de Maets, a chemist of Leiden,
had already deciphered Philalethes' process in 1675 or 1676, well
before Hertodt published it. In his Collegium chymicum secreturn,
based on lectures or experiments given privately, de Maets gives
a correct interpretation of Philalethes' antimonial amalgam, com-

(86) University of Glasgow, Ferguson ms 85, 168, Dr. Georg Starkeys Chymie
(Nuremberg, 1722), 439.
(87) Philalethes, Exposition upon the preface, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20, 8.
(88) Lawrence Principe has pointed out to me that « mercury » here could alternatively
be a Deckname for antimony, in which case it would be the actual quicksilver of the
process that had been suppressed from the recipe. Either way, the point would remain
the same — that the recipe represents a stark example of syncope.
186 William R. Newman

plete with the addition of « cupelled silver (89) ». If we return one

more time to the Ripley commentary, we shall see how a
contemporary alchemist might have divined the necessity of silver. After
Philalethes' curious revelation that his head had become
transparent, he observed that the Water-bearer's pitcher « was clear as
pure Silver », and that the bearer, the pitcher, and the water within
had melted together. In the very midst of this mass was a radiant
spark of light, whose beams penetrated to the surface of the water.
The product of these four is the philosophical mercury, portrayed
later as a lovely but perhaps over-eager lady. Is the silver pitcher
not an allusion to the role of silver in the making of the
philosophical mercury? If so, the spark of light in the center of the
compound, « as it were a Lamp burning », would be the fiery
component drawn from iron in the making of the stellate regulus.
The water within the pitcher would refer to the quicksilver employed
in the process, and the Water-bearer himself would be the crude
antimony before its reduction. The antimonial character of the
Water-bearer is surely suggested when Nature explains the whole
mysterious allegory. She relates that it is no offence to nobility
that the King should wed the Water-bearer's daughter (the
philosophical mercury), « for the King is also his Son » (90). This is
surely a reference to that fact that the other metals can be extracted
from antimony, the primordial « chaos », as Philalethes affirmed
in the Introitus (91).
A careful reading of the Philalethes corpus would reveal further
references to the need for silver in the production of the
antimonial amalgam, though in fact Philalethes modified the process over
time so that silver's priority was replaced by that of copper (92).

(89) « Praeparatio [mercurjii Philosophorum secundum mentem Anonymi Philalethi [...]

Rx Reg : [antimon]ii [mart]ialis [unciam] i [luna]e cupellat : [uncias] ii. Fund[untur] simul
ubi instar [aqu]ae fluant, aufer ab Igne, Tune in alio [crucibu]lo [ign]i expone [mercur]ii
purissimi [uncias] iii. » (Carolus de Maets, bl, ms. SI. 123S, 10v°). On de Maets, see Lynn
Thorndike, Л history of magic and experimental science (New York : Columbia Univ. Press,
1956), vol. VIII, 145-146.
(90) Philalethes, Exposition upon the first six gates, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20,
133.
(91) « Ex eo namque omnia extrahere novi, etiam Solem Lunamque absque Elixire Trans-
mutatore, quod qui panter vidit, potest attestari » (Philalethes, Introitus, in Manget, vol. II,
op. cit. in n. 19, 662).
(92) Philalethes, Marrow, op. cit. in n. 17, part I, 44, part II, 15. On 16-17, Starkey
rejects the use of « Dianaes Doves ».
Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung 187

But let us conclude our exposition of Philalethan allegory here

by generalizing on its method. We can now add a good deal to
our earlier comments regarding the techniques of concealment. Not
only does our author employ dispersion de la science and the use
of Decknamen, he uses two complementary techniques that I shall
call syncope and parathesis. These terms, although altered from
their usual Greek sense, will serve to characterize certain
techniques of concealment within an alchemical context (93). By syncope
I mean the elliptical description of an alchemical process,
substance, or even apparatus, with the intent to conceal. We observed
this in the highly abbreviated recipe for the philosophical mercury
that omitted both antimony and silver, and the technique is implicit
in all of Philalethes' recipes that fail to mention the role of silver
or copper as a « mediator » for making antimony metal
amalgamate with mercury. By parathesis, on the other hand, I mean the
heaping-up of synonyms for a given process, substance, or
apparatus, again with the intention of bewildering the reader. Such
parathesis is present in the profusion of names used by Philalethes
for antimony in its several forms, as we remarked above.
Should anyone believe that Philalethes was an unwitting victim
of his own unconscious mind, as the Jungians would have it, let
us return to his words a final time. In the Ripley commentary,
Philalethes complains that « philosophers » have hidden much
« under the Homonymium of Mercury » (94). He then launches
into an analysis of alchemical metaphor in the following words :
« [...] this subject of the Philosophers is considered either in
reference to its Matter, or formal Vertue; in reference to the former, it is
a concrete of Water, as all other Compounds are ; in respect of the latter,
it participates [27] of a Celestial Virtue, and that in a high degree in
both respects. It is said to be in every place : for the original matter,
which is Water, passeth equally through the whole Family of Concretes :
and for the celestial Influence, it is so universal that nothing is hidden
from the heat of it : so that indeed in this sence it is said to be every
where. »

(93) Syncope, to the Greek grammarians, meant « cutting a word short by striking
out one or more letters ». Parathesis meant « juxtaposition » or the adding of
prepositions. (Both definitions are from the 1983 printing of Liddell and Scott, Greek-English
Lexicon.) My use of the two terms should be considered as an extension of the Greek
meaning beyond its original scope. I intend them to be used as more or less arbitrary
termini technici.
(94) Philalethes, Exposition upon the preface, in Ripley Reviv'd, op. cit. in n. 20, 25.
188 William R. Newman

Here Philalethes carefully disentangles the senses in which the

« philosophers » can say that their stone is found « everywhere ».
These are not the words of an irrational mystic unable to express
himself in clear English, but those of a scholar trained in the tro-
pological interpretation of texts. But let us note as well the
theoretical participation that Philalethes expects of us. Only if one knows
the Helmontian theory that all substances derive from water can
he know that this is what the sages mean when they say that their
water is found everywhere. Again, only if one knows of celestial
virtues and their ubiquity can he appreciate the « formal »
interpretation given by Philalethes. As we stated at the outset of this
paper, it is not merely processes and their implementation that
Philalethes has encoded : his theory too is enciphered.
It would be beyond the scope of this paper to enter further
into the theoretical component of Philalethan alchemy. We have,
at any rate, arrived at the goal that we set out — the disentangling
of Philalethes' works without assumptions drawn from Jungian
psychology. Using the techniques of encipherment into Decknamen,
dispersion de la science, and the expansion and compression that
I have denominated parathesis and syncope, Starkey managed to
compose works of such difficulty that Jung and his followers could
be deluded into thinking that they represented the unrestrained
« irruption » of unconscious « archetypes ». And yet, as I have
shown, Starkey' s Philalethan works were anything but that : they
are the products of a skilled use of traditional techniques of
deception that extend back many centuries in the literature of alchemy.
At the same time, it is clear from the accounts of Starkey's
contemporaries that such techniques were far from being «
watertight ». To one who was skilled in the tradition of alchemical her-
meneutics, the correct chemical analysis of the texts was indeed
attainable. It is time, therefore, that we dispense with gratuitous
assumptions drawn from the realm of analytical psychology and
approach the historiography of alchemy from a truly historical
perspective. Only then may we understand the role of alchemy
in seventeenth century culture at large.