Endless Things: A Part of AEgypt

by John Crowley

  More than that even.

  They both imagined, Jan and Valentin—they talked about it long in the halls of the university, in the thronged inns and the silences of the Bibliotheca palatina where the great Johannes Gruter was librarian—that a universal reformation of the whole wide world might be beginning, now, right now. What did it matter that the almanacs and prophecies had so far been wrong—the fateful year 1600 had brought no vast changes that they could see—that didn't mean the world wasn't in the throes of a transformation, one that remained invisible so far. Anyway it filled their own souls. How could they help to forward it? Smuggled out of the dungeons of the Inquisition came manuscripts of Tommaso Campanella, who taught that the earth was now growing closer to the sun, and the temperature of the cold north was warming, and Love was increasing. Campanella projected a great city, perfect city, City of the Sun, ruled by a philosopher hidden in a circular tower inside a square inside the cubic walls of the city. A universal hieroglyphic picture-dictionary would cover those walls, instructing all the citizens in virtue and wisdom by the immediacy and force of its magic images.

  Magic. Theurgical, cabalistical, alchemical, hieroglyphical, historico-alchemical, cabalistico-theurgical, thaumaturgico-iatrochemico-astrological. As the alchemist recreates in his furnace the entire world, which thereupon grows gold as gold grows in the matrix of the earth, but faster; as the cabalist manipulates the letters of the words by which God commanded the world to be and to be fruitful, thus sharing in the divine creative power; in the same way couldn't the slow-advancing history of the world be accelerated, if only its events could be read right? In 1614—when the sacred couple had been two years in Heidelberg and the two friends had parted, Comenius returning to the Czech lands, Andreæ to Tübingen to be a Lutheran pastor—there came the outfolding, the sudden way opening, the cry of summoning and possibility.

  Universal and General Reformation of the Whole Wide World; together with the Fama Fraternitatis of the laudable Order of the Rosy Cross, written to all the Learned and Rulers of Europe. It was a little gray pamphlet printed in Cassel, it was a manuscript read in Prague, it was a letter warmly responded to in Germany, the respondent thrown into the galleys by the Jesuits (so the pamphlet itself proclaimed). This happy time, when there is discovered not only the other half of the world, which lay hidden from us before, but also many wonderful and never-before-seen works and creatures; and men reimbued with great wisdom, who might renew all arts, so that Man might understand his own nobleness and worth, and why he is called Microcosm, and how far his knowledge might reach into Nature.

  Impossible not to be moved by these huge certainties. Andreæ in Tübingen, Comenius in Moravia, scholars and Inquisitors in Bavaria and Saxony read and reread. Who were these Brothers? They had long been among us, it appeared, awaiting their hour. The wisest of them, C.R., had traveled the world and discoursed with the wise in every land. The realms of the Turk too, Fez, Damascus, Ægypt and Arabia Felix. And from C.R. the wisdom passes to R.C., his brother, and B., a painter, and G., and P.D., their secretary. Thence to A., and D., and to J.O. in England, master of Cabala, as his book H. shows. With the whole alphabet seemingly summoned, the pamphlet then tells how the Brothers went out into various lands, not only to communicate their Axiomata secretly to the learned but to heal the sick for free; and they vow to keep their brotherhood a secret for a hundred years. Why now have they broken their silence? Because the lost tomb of Brother R.C. (or C.R.C. as he apparently becomes) has at last been discovered, and the door opened. As also there shall be opened a door to Europe, which has already begun to appear, and which many expect and long for.

  Johann Valentin Andreæ stayed up all night reading, walked the streets, unable to stay still. What was he being told to do? What was being asked of him? How could the universal reformation of the world be both at hand and impossible? In a later age, unimaginable then, you would say: the current of that work passes through him, and the resistance of his soul heats him to incandescence.

  Then silence. Silentium post clamores, the little screed promised, a pause for the leaven to work in souls, nothing more needing to be said.

  Then in the following year a new call, another libellum, this one in Latin:

  A brief consideration of a More Secret Philosophy, written by Philip à Gabella, a student of philosophy, now published for the first time together with the Confession of the R.C. Fraternity. Printed at Cassel by Wilhelm Wessel, printer to the Most Illustrious Prince, in 1615.

  The more secret philosophy was a sign, one he seemed both to have always known and to be seeing for the first time:

  * * * *

  The Consideratio of the sign was an arithmetic, or a mathesis; the sign itself was a stella hieroglyphica—so it said of itself. It began with a Pythagorean Y, and therefore it might be a story, the history of the universe described as a soul's journey, or maybe a soul's journey described as the universe. Johann Valentin Andreæ stared at the sign, which seemed to him to be something like a small human figure, and then he studied the paragraphs that followed, recounting the vicissitudes, divisions, and reassemblings through which that figure was put. The more he stared the more he understood and the less he knew. He shook his head, laughed, felt tricked, wondered; he cast it aside, he picked it up again. It was a joke, but a good joke. Or it was no joke: the old cold world was ending, and an influx of the truth, light, and glory that God had commanded should accompany poor Adam from Paradise and sweeten his misery was about to poured upon the world.

  For the past year Johann Valentin had studied in secret the Great Art of transmutation, as the Fraternity was said to be doing in many places, as he was seemingly commanded to do if he wanted to be one of them, if there were really any of them at all: to see how far his knowledge might reach into Nature. His own mother was a chymist and worker in materia medica; he had stood by her as she worked at her stills and her ovens when he was a boy, but alone now he was too timid to start a physical fire, and to mix physical alchymia in physical cucurbites, to torment actual materia and lay his athenor within an actual physical stove. That was not the only way to work in the Art, though, he was sure. The heart was a stove too, the brain an athenor. He thought that this figure, this stella hieroglyphica that he looked at, might itself be a précis or epitome of the whole Art. It was the mathematical bones of the homunculus, a stick figure to be clothed in flesh, and that clothing was the Work, and the Self that resulted was the object and goal.

  But there was, in the numbered and lettered paragraphs of the Consideratio, finally no story told. And transformation (Andreæ thought) was above all a story, whether in the fire or in the heart. So if he wanted a story he'd have to write it himself.

  He would have to write it himself. A transmutation painful and sweet occurred in his own heart as he thought it—he would have to write the story absent from these pages. A story in which every chapter would relate the tale of another piece of the disassembled man reassembled, until the necessary happy ending.

  Nor would he be throwing whatever pearls he owned before the swine of ignorance: for his story of the Art's workings would not reveal those workings except to those who already knew them. To anyone else it would be merely a pleasantry, a funny story. It was said that Apuleius's wicked story of the Golden Ass was actually the story of the transmutation, told in a comic tale that no one needed to believe

  Johann Valentin Andreæ, Lutheran pastor of Tübingen, with the Consideratio beside him to guide him, sat down to write a comedy or ludibrium ("in imitation of the English actors,” he said later.) He put down its title: The Chemical Wedding, by Christian Rosencreutz. Brother C.R.C. is the hero and the author, and his name is now revealed: he is Christian Rosencreutz, an elderly fellow, but not yet a knight, and as Andreæ's play or ludus opens, he is preparing his heart in prayer for the Easter celebration when a wind, a strong wind, a terrible wind blows up:

  So strong a wind that I thought the hill on which my little house was built would fly apart; bu
t since I had seen the Devil do such things as this before (for the Devil had often tried to injure me) I took courage, and went on meditating, till I felt somebody touch me on the back.

  This frightened me so utterly that I didn't dare turn. I tried to stay as brave and calm as a person could under the circumstances. Then I felt my coat tugged at, and tugged again, and at last I looked around. A woman, splendid and beautiful, stood there, in a sky-colored robe, a heavens covered with stars. She held a trumpet of beaten gold in her hand, and there was a name engraved on it, which I could easily read, but which I am still forbidden to tell. Under her left arm she had a bundle of letters, in all languages, which it was apparent she was going to deliver to all countries; she had large and beautiful wings too, full of eyes like a peacock's, that would certainly lift and carry her as fast as an eagle. I might have noticed other things about her too, but she was with me so short a time, and I was so amazed and afraid, that this was all I saw. In fact as soon as I turned around to see her, she started going through her letters, and pulled one out—a small one—and very gravely she laid it on my table; then without having said a word, she left. But as she rose into the air, she blew a blast on her trumpet so loud that the whole hill echoed with it, and for a quarter of an hour afterward I couldn't hear myself think.

  All this was so unexpected that I had no idea what to tell myself about it, or what to tell myself to do next. So I fell to my knees, and begged my Creator not to let anything happen to me that would imperil my eternal happiness; and then, trembling, I went to pick up the little letter—which was heavy, as heavy as though it were solid gold, or heavier. As I was cautiously inspecting it, I found a small seal, with an odd sort of cross on it, and the inscription In hoc signo vinces, which made me feel a little better, as such a seal certainly wouldn't have been used by the Devil. I opened the letter tenderly; it was blue inside and on the blue in golden letters these verses were written:

  On this day, this day, this

  The Royal Wedding is!

  If you are one who's born to see it,

  And if God Himself decree it,

  Then you must to the Mountain wend

  Where three stately temples stand.

  From there you'll know

  Which way to go.

  Be wise, take care,

  Wash well, look fair,

  Or else the Wedding cannot save you.

  Leave right away,

  Watch what you weigh—

  Too little, and they will not have you!

  Beneath this was drawn the Bride and Groom, Sponsus and Sponsa.

  (Here Johann Valentin paused, dipped his pen again, and drew a figure, tongue between his teeth and pen held vertical, copying as best he could the hieroglyph of Philip à Gabella.)

  I nearly fainted, having read this; my hair stood on end, and a cold sweat trickled down my side—for this must be the very wedding that I had learned about in a vision seven years before! I had thought about it constantly, and studied the stars and planets to determine the day, and here it was—and yet I couldn't have predicted that it would come at such a bad time. I always thought that I would be an acceptable and even welcome guest, and only needed to be ready to attend, but now it seemed God's providence was directing this, which I hadn't been certain about before, and the more I thought about myself, the more I found in my head nothing but confusion and blindness about the mysteries. I couldn't even understand things that lay under my own feet, which I encountered and dealt with every day; I didn't feel I was “born to see” the secrets of nature. I thought that nature could find a better disciple anywhere at all to entrust with her precious (though temporary and mutable) treasures than I could ever be. I certainly had not been wise, or taken care, or “washed well"—my inner physical life, and my social commitments, and my compassion toward my neighbors, all needed improvement. Life was always prodding me to get more; I was forever wanting to look good in the world's eyes and succeed, instead of working for the betterment of men. I was always plotting how I could make a quick profit by this or that scheme, build a big house, make a name for myself, and all that.

  But those lines about the “three temples” worried me the most; I couldn't figure out what they meant at all. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn't supposed to know yet—for I wouldn't be worrying about any of this if it hadn't been thus revealed to me, maybe too soon. But I also thought that God had let me know that I really ought to be present at the wedding, and so like a little child I gave thanks to Him, and asked that he keep me always in awe of Him, and fill my heart every day with wisdom and understanding, and lead me (even though I didn't deserve it) to a happy ending at last.

  So I got ready for the journey. I put on my white linen coat, fastened with a bloodred ribbon bound crossways over my shoulder. I stuck four red roses in my hat, so that I would be somewhat noticeable among the crowd. For food I took bread and salt, as a wise man had once told me to do in cases like this—I found it did me good. But before I set out, I got down on my knees in my wedding garment and asked God that, if what seemed to be about to happen really did happen, only good would come of it; and I made a vow, that if anything was revealed to me, I wouldn't use it for my own benefit or power in the world, but for the spreading of His Name and the service of my neighbor.

  And with that vow, and in high hopes, I went out of my little room, and with joy I set out.

  8

  If all the world were made of letters and names, then a text out of nowhere could explode it, enter into its tissues like a germ or a seed, working both ways at once, toward foreword, toward epilogue, and remake its sense. That's what happened in Europe in 1615 when the Rosicrucian texts appeared, with their fantastic provenances and alphabetical prophets: or would have, if the world really were made of letters and names, and not the stuff it's made of. No one can account now for why these texts, unlike all the other wild prophecies, encoded romances, politico-chemical allegories, and religious polemics of the time, should have so taken the imagination. No one knows where either of the first two came from, who wrote them or why, what effect they were supposed then to have. The only name that can be identified for sure is that of the Lutheran pastor Johann Valentin Andreæ, who said he really did write the Chemical Wedding. Later he was sorry, and said he wished he hadn't written it.

  Later.

  Pierce in the little city below the ruins of Heidelberg castle read Dame Frances, who knew all about Christian Rosencreutz and Johann Valentin Andreæ and the Chemical Wedding, how it told of the founding of a Brotherhood of the Golden Stone, and of a wedding that takes place amid the magical gardens of a magical castle guarded by a lion. There are fountains described that are like Heidelberg's were. There is a knightly initiation, a little like the one whereby the real Frederick was really invested with the real Order of the Garter in actual Jacobean England. There is a play described in it that is like those the English actors really brought to Germany, and within that play a play. And look—the page was reprinted in Dame Frances's book—here in the Chemical Wedding, where the woman clothed as the sky and stars proffers her wedding invitation, right by the words Sponsus and Sponsa, there was (in the German) a crude mark that looks like, and in the English printings certainly becomes, the sign of the Monas, John Dee's own invention or discovery.

  So she was right, and Johann Valentin's romance certainly does turn back to England, and the old English wizard, and that bright couple Shakespeare blessed, and their joined lions: the hopes the English placed in a smart dynastic coupling, the marriage of Thames and Rhine. But what if imagination could make it more? What if the hope then was that a story told about that wonderful and hopeful marriage might change its nature backward, and make it far more wonderful; what if language of the right kind, describing that more wonderful thing, could be powerful enough to change altogether what it described, even when what it described was something that had already happened? Gematria: the alteration of preexistent things by the alteration of the letters that constitute thei
r true names, which first brought them into being.

  And then to go on from there along the new way.

  Pierce had come to think that magic, and stories intended to work magic, were made just opposite of the way stories in literature are made. In the stories of world literature, at least as he knew them in his own reading, one particular couple with a particular fate will stand for all couples in the toils of love and loss and struggle; Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl, or doesn't. But in magic, a general, universal couple—in alchemy the Sponsus and Sponsa, who near the end of the endless Work become pregnant with the Child who is the Stone—are at the same time each particular couple: they are Adam and Eve, Sun and Moon, Gold and Silver, Active and Passive, copper Venus and iron Mars, God and Mary, you and me, all of us at the work of generation. What they do is as though done by all, and the fruit of their union is for all to have, indeed all do have it just as soon as it's made. If it ever is.

  So it would be no category error to identify one couple, one royal couple whom the whole world can see, with that general couple that is engendering the Stone. Because every couple can be so identified. That's what the Chemical Wedding did, and Frederick and Elizabeth were it, or It.

  Beau Brachman once told him (whatever had become of Beau anyway, where was he now?) that there is no history. The world, he said, is like a hologram: break apart the photographic plate on which a hologram has been printed, and you can show that every part of it contains the whole image, if you look at it with laser light. Every part of every part, down to the smallest resolvable crumb. In the same way (Beau said) our original situation is present in every divisible moment of all succeeding situations, but (he said, and smiled that smile) you need a special light to see it.