The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story
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10. For more information on the history of the Running Well read my in-depth article ‘The Roots of Runwell and the Running Well Mystery’, posted at http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Runwell.htm. I urge readers to keep alive this important holy site, which is increasingly coming under threat from urban development.
11. Ammonium dichromate is actually a highly toxic and systematic poison, which can cause severe internal injury, and even death, depending on the dose. The most common form of ingestion into the bodily system is through inhalation or skin contact. It is used mainly as a pigment or dye in screen printing and colouring work.
12. Inside St Mary’s church, Runwell, is a purbeck coffin known locally as the Prioress’s Tomb. On its lid is a curious cross design in raised relief. Dating to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the tomb is commonly believed to be the final resting place of a prioress from the small convent attached to the Running Well. When the coffin was opened during restoration work in 1907, it was found to be empty. See Collins, Andrew, The Running Well MysteryThe Running Well Mystery 17.
13. Their incessant use of bellows earned alchemists the derogatory title Resurgence , ‘OMOEE SAS MALIARIOS’, which via a few minor
soulfleur (in modern French souffleur), meaning ‘puffer’.
14. The section from ‘It is found …’ to ‘ … rejected by all’ is taken, almost wordfor-word, from an alchemical essay entitled Gloria Mundi, published in Frankfurt in 1620. It later featured in a collection of alchemical texts published in 1625 under the title Musaeum Hermeticum, which asserts that the anonymous Gloria Mundi was written originally in 1526.
15. ‘Kether’ is a Cabalistic principle describing the highest plane of existence, or the unknowable manifestation of God permeating into the physical universe. 16. The ‘10 rooms’ is a reference to the ten spheres or planes of existence within the teachings of the Cabala.
17. The ‘32 steps’ perhaps refers to the ten spheres of existence and the 22 paths connecting each of the ten spheres, as shown on the Cabalistic glyph, or visual aid, known as the Tree of Life.
18. ‘Neshama’, ‘Yecidah’ and ‘Chia’ are three of the ten aspects of the divine soul, as set down in Cabalistic tradition. ‘Ain Soph’, the so-called Limitless One, is, according to Cabalistic tradition, one of the three primary manifestations of God beyond the physical universe.
19. ‘Archeius’, from the Greek (ar(c)hæos), means ‘ancient’ or ‘primeval’. It was seen by followers of the Swiss alchemist, physician and occultist Paracelsus (1493-1541) as the vital principle or force presiding over the growth and continuation of living beings, the so-called anima mundi of the philosophers.
20. These three words spelt balsamum elementarium externum appear in the same breath within the alchemical works of Paracelsus, and when written together mean something like ‘open dictionary of aromatic resins’. 21. ‘Caput Corvi’ is Latin for ‘crow’s head’. It is one of the names of the First Matter stage of the alchemical transmutation. ‘Corpus Invisible’, or Corpus Invisibile, is Latin for ‘invisible body’, the soul of the alchemist, or the secrecy which an alchemist has to keep during his operations.
22. All of the book titles given to Bernard by the Elizabethan alchemist have been identified. In order, they are:
Abu’ l-Qasim al-Iraqi, The Book of Knowledge, Concerning the Cultivation of Gold, c. 1200 AD, ed. and trans. E. J. Holmyard, Paris, 1923. Artis auriferae quam chemian vocant …, Basileae [Basel], 1593. Bonus, Petrus, Pretiosa Margarita …, ed. Janus Lacinis, Venice, 1546. Musaeum Hermeticum, 1678, trans. by A. E. Waite, London, 1893. Ko Hung, The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung (Pao-p’u Tzu), c. AD 320, trans. J. R. Ware, Cambridge, MA, 1966.
Khunrath, Henricus, Amphiteatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, Hamburg, 1595. Stolcios, Daniel, Viridarium Chymicum … Frankfurt, 1625.
Dee, John, Monas Hieroglyphica. Antwerp, 1564.
23. Bernard’s dream of the man running across the desert with the Stave of Nizar occurred on the night of Tuesday, 2nd July 1985, exactly one week after his dream about the Black Alchemist’s house at Eastbourne.
24. Tuchman, Barbara W., A Distant Mirror (Penguin, 1978), 237. 25. Information supplied by Graeco-Egyptian scholar Terry duQuesne. 26. ‘The Alchemy Website’ carries a full translation of the three Greek words of the Formula of the Crab as ho noesas makarios, ‘blessed is he who understands’. See www.alchemywebsite.com/zosimus_crab.html. However, Rob Brough in a letter to the author dated 27th November, 2007 points out that the correct rendering of the three Greek words on the Formula of the Crab is
changes translates into English as ‘name/of the same name your hairy/shaggy one’, which has connotations of a wolf, the form of Hekate in her role as a shewolf
27. In the folklore of the ancient Jews Dardanus was the son of Zerah, Judah’s son (see 1 Chr. 2:6 and 1 Kings 4:31), and in this form he was compared with the wisdom of Solomon.
28. ‘Bolos’ is Bolos Demoncritos of Mendes, a Hellenized Egyptian who lived in Egypt’s Nile Valley around 200 BC. He wrote the Physika Kai Mystika. 29. My colleague Richard Ward saw the demonic mural during a visit to Clapham Farm in 1987. He concluded it was unquestionably an example of occult art. Since then stories have surfaced suggesting the mural was done as artwork for a rock album cover. Yet if this was so then more details would have emerged by now.
30. Ronan, Stephen, ed., The Goddess Hekate (Chthonios, 1992). ‘Chaldean Hekate’, 102, fr. xlix.
31. Ibid., 102, fr. 1.
32. Ibid., 98, fr. xxxv.
33. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, cf. Newton, The Demonic Connection (Blandford Press, 1987), 39.
34. English archaeologist and dowser T. C. Lethbridge (1901-1971) recalled that when a boy he was told by a shepherd that the Wilmington Giant had a companion and that the two figures were known as Adam and Eve, with Adam presumably being the Long Man hill figure. See Collier, Mike, ‘The Long Man’, Quicksilver Messenger 4, http://www.sussexarch.org.uk/saaf/qsm/qsm4.html.