One day the `Shroud' may be prominently displayed where it belongs - in a museum of photography or science and technology, where the fruits of the Da Vinci heresy can be freely appreciated for what they are, far away from pilgrims, priests, candles and incense. The Shroud does not deserve to be prayed over, but then perhaps nothing does.
Behind closed doors
Although the authorities' suppression of scientific experiment and intellectual enquiry from the early days of Christianity to the Age of Enlightenment was patchily inconsistent - depending largely on the attitude to learning of each individual pope - it is true to say that in general the Church frowned on too much knowledge, debate and thinking. And it surely is no coincidence that the Latin and Greek for `knowledge' - respectively scientia and gnosis - represent the two aspects of learning that it most abhorred. As a blend of much that was anathematized, being a left-handed-gay-vegetarian- Johannite-photographer-aviator-anatomist, Leonardo got away with an enormous amount, due mostly to friends in high places, but even he often thought it prudent to move from place to place quite quickly from time to time. (It was only at the end of his life, in 1513, when Pope Leo X began to express his distaste for Leonardo's anatomical work that he ceased his obsessive dissection in hospitals, charnel houses and graveyards.)
However, although in many ways his contribution to human knowledge and to the annals of heresy was unique, Leonardo was merely the bright blossoming of an ancient tradition of working behind closed doors, away from misunderstanding, the rack and the stake. Usually these secretive scholars were known as `alchemists', a sort of convenient umbrella term for what we would acknowledge simply as research scientists. Alchemy proper, however, was a complex business, often involving mystical and spiritual exercises, with a strong sexual content: once again, we discuss that sacred sexuality is the background to an eminent esoteric tradition 56
True alchemists often positively welcomed their bad reputation as idiotic charlatans who insanely wasted their lives attempting to turn base metal such as lead into pure gold. To be dismissed as one of these empty-headed materialistic `puffers' could mean being left alone to concentrate on much weightier matters such as searching for the fabled Philosopher's Stone, an elixir that would bestow not only near-immortality, but also supreme spiritual knowledge and wisdom. Every child the world over today knows that one Nicholas Flamel is rumoured to have found this magical substance, thanks to J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, but few realize that he really existed. Flamel lived and worked in fourteenth-century Paris with his beloved wife Perrenelle, with whom it is said he achieved the `Great Work' on 17 January 1382. As a result, rumours still abound that they lived for hundreds of years.
While it is untrue that all popes were equally anti-learning as far as the laity was concerned, the activities of most alchemists were deemed to be inherently beyond the pale. Many sought not only to transmute base metal - be it their own souls or a heap of uninspiring lead - into something purer and finer, but some attempted to blast through all restrictions and enter the truly Luciferan world of creating life in the laboratory. Stories circulated about the original `test-tube babies', said to be unholy little homunculi, created without the usual procreation specifically to scurry around to do their master's bidding as occult servitors. Needless to say, the homunculi were, at least in the vast majority of alleged cases, the product of over-heated imaginations, but it does reveal that scientists condemned for trying to `play God' are not unique to the twenty-first century.
However, the great physician and alchemist/sorcerer Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim - otherwise known simply as Paracelsus (1493-1541) - declared boldly `It is necessary to know evil things as well as good; for who can know what is good without also knowing what is evil?'s' An active Luciferan in this sense, he claimed to have actually made several such little monsters using a process he described as follows:
Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of venter equinus for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. At this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without a body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of venter equinus, it becomes thencefold a true living human infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and starts to display intelligence."
(Sceptics would no doubt point out that some movement was virtually guaranteed in putrefying matter after a certain time - but from nothing more occult than maggots.)
In 1658, Gian Battista della Porta, the sorcerer who was arrested for projecting images using a magic lantern (see above), proposed to show `how living Creatures of divers kinds, may be mingled and coupled together, and that from them, new, and yet profitable kinds of living Creatures may be generated.'S9 Della Porta aimed to produce through magical means all sorts of animate gimmicks, writing instructions on `how to generate pretty little dogs to play with'.60 However, Paracelsus saw a greater practical potential in the little homunculi, writing:
Now, this is one of the greatest secrets which God has revealed to mortal and fallible man. It is a miracle and a marvel of God, an arcanum above all arcana, and deserves to be kept secret until the last of times, when there shall be nothing hidden, but all things shall be manifest. And although up to this time it has not been known to men, it was, nevertheless, known to the woodsprites and nymphs and giants long ago, because they themselves were sprung from this source; since from such homunculi when they come to manhood are produced giants, pygmies and other marvellous people, who get great victories over their enemies, and know all secrets and hidden matters 61
Even the great Paracelsus clearly had areas of his imagination that were still marked, as on the old maps, `Here there be Dragons'. It was said that he willed that when he became old, he would be cut into small pieces and buried in horse manure in order to resurrect as a virile young man. Unfortunately, his servant dug him up too soon, and ruined the marvellous plan.
As the self-styled `Christ of Medicine"' - he also gave one of his names to the word `bombastic', because of his overbearing manner. Paracelsus studied alchemy and chemistry at Basle University before researching minerals, metals and the occupational diseases of miners. Because he believed that `like acts on like' in minute doses, he is credited with the discovery of homeopathy, as well as inventing `ether as an anaesthetic and laudanum as a tranquillizer' [and] he was the first to describe silicosis, and `traced goitre to minerals found in drinking water'.63 Announcing `If the spirit suffers, the body suffers also', he was also clearly a pioneer of what we would call holistic medicine. A major influence on subsequent generations of physicians, even his ideas about homunculi were taken seriously.
In 1638 Laurens de Castelan made the point in his `Rare et Curieux Discours de ]a Plante Appelee Mandragore' that although most people rejected Paracelsus' theories his homunculus could still have been `a bit of diabolical magic' - in other words, it may have been real, but created by devilish means. In 1672 the scientist Christian Friedrich Garmann wrote of the evolution of the human egg, musing about the possibility that conception could take place outside the womb, in an article about `the chemical homunculus of Paracelsus' M And in 1679 Scottish doctor William Maxwell wrote in his De Medicina Magnetica that `just as salts of herbs can reproduce the likeness of the herb in the test tube, so the salt of human blood can show the image of a man - "the true homunculus of Paracelsus".'65
It may be significant that it was also claimed to be possible to grow magical, sentient entities inside the wombs of cows. Leonardo's drawing of a perfectly formed human baby curled up inside a cow's uterus has always been dismissed as a typical Da Vinci joke - presumably at the expense of women. Perhaps it was a
sly dig at the sanctity of motherhood, but perhaps it was also a comment, satirical or even admiring, on the magical concept of homunculi. Leonardo's own life-like creations - at least those we know about - took the less creepy form of a robot, a true working humanoid automaton, which he built c. 1495.11 Dressed in a full suit of armour, it was designed to open and close its mouth, move its head, sit up and wave its arms, and `may have made sounds to the accompaniment of automated drums' 67 Leonardo's pioneering work with robots directly inspired Mark Rosheim's `mechanical men' or `anthrobots', and whose work `has culminated in the electric 43-axis Robotic Surrogate built for NASA Johnson Space Center and intended to service Space Station Freedom. Thus, Leonardo's vision reaches beyond the confines of our planet to explore the universe.'6'
While making moving machines in the humanoid shape may not have been considered very devilish by sophisticated men of his day, the Church predictably disliked any such object (see below). But as for the notion of attempting to fly off into space it had no place in their learning, as did any real astronomical research. It is as well that Leonardo kept his notebooks to himself, for one bears the scribbled note, perhaps a reminder, to `make glasses to see Moon up close', anticipating the astronomical daring of Galileo and Copernicus by a generation, neither of whom were exactly revered by the Inquisition.
The tongues of angels
England's most famous mage, Dr John Dee (1527-1606), also received a reputation for sorcery because he designed and built a robot - a mechanical beetle for a play. By then, however, he had established himself as something of an academic prodigy - having gone up to Cambridge University when just fifteen, becoming Greek Under-reader and a fellow of its newest college, Trinity, where he was already rumoured to be engaged in the dark arts.
As visiting scholar to all the great European seats of learning, Dee seized every opportunity to debate the finer points of astrology, mathematics, navigation, theology, even ritual magic - but as always, concentrating on his first love, astrology.69 It was his astrological work that was to put him in great personal danger.
In 1553 the future Queen Elizabeth I was under house arrest on the orders of her fanatical Catholic sister, Queen Mary (who tortured and burnt her way to earn the title of `Bloody Mary').70 Princess Elizabeth summoned Dee to cast her regal sister's horoscope in order to know when Mary might die, but the Queen retaliated by throwing the astrologer in jail for trying to kill her through sorcery. Strangely, at such a time and in the reign of such a monarch, even one who was believed to traffic with devils for purposes of treason survived: he was released in 1555 after having been freed then re-arrested for heresy, over which he also miraculously triumphed. Dee's apparently charmed life was to last - but certainly not for ever.
When Mary died" and Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, she appointed Dr Dee as her court astrologer, and - judging by the secrecy that surrounded his many foreign trips as `agent 007' - perhaps even a major spy, although as ever where the intelligence agencies are concerned, hard evidence remains elusive. With royal favour, Dee's career flourished. He also dedicated his tract on alchemy, The Hieroglyphic Mind (1564), to the Hungarian Emperor Maximilian II, thus ensuring his celebrity spread across Europe. In the guise of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, he says happily: `Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time/Goes upright with his carriage.''' It was during this golden time that he began to work with mediums, although the first proved useless for his purposes. The second, however, was to change his life completely over the course of a long and bizarre occult partnership ...
In 1581 he met Edward Kelley (or 'Kelly'),7" an occultist, alchemist, magus and necromancer - exactly what any selfrespecting magician wanted, although Kelley always seemed reluctant to exploit his gift for mediumship. Ironically, although Dee himself had a raw talent for divination, he found it impossible to open up completely to the invisible world. Kelley may have been the answer to Dee's prayers as magical colleague, but perhaps his reputation for petty crime had not penetrated as far south as the astrologer's home in Mortlake, Surrey, although his cropped ears, mutilated as punishment for passing forged coins, would inevitably be spotted no matter how closely he pulled his black cap close over them. Kelley had a murky background as rogue lawyer, when he was convicted of forging land deals, and other semi-professional crimes. When he first presented himself to Dee, Kelley used the alias `Talbot', which he maintained from March to November 1582, while he ingratiated himself with the erudite court astrologer. Suddenly Talbot disappears from Dee's diary to be replaced by `E.K'. Dee's fourth Book of Mysteries begins `after the reconciliation with Kelley"' - perhaps the first of the rows and upsets that were to plague their partnership.
However, in 1570 Kelley had acquired an old alchemical document concerning the transmutation of metals, and the story goes that eight years later he successfully turned 1lb of lead into pure gold. Although this would always be a potent prize to dangle before the greedy eyes of kings and princes, it was gold of another sort that he offered to Dee, who coveted intellectual and spiritual wealth far more. The twenty-seven-year-old entered the Dee household as a Mephistopheles to a Faust: charming, persuasive, and corrupting, another snake in Eden.
Kelley used a variety of techniques with which to operate clairvoyantly, including a `shewstone', something akin to a crystal ball. As Samuel Butler (1612-80) wrote scathingly in his Hudibras:75 `Kelly did all his feats upon/the Devil's looking-glass, a stone/ Where, playing with him at bo-peep,/He solv'd all problems ne'er so deep'. Kelley was clearly adept at `scrying' - using a polished surface, in his case a convex mirror of obsidian76 to see far-off places or times, or as a medium through which to communicate with non-human entities - such as the Archangel Uriel.
(As the Baptist's traditional guardian, perhaps Uriel represented the idea that John's skull would be used for purposes of divination. It may also be significant that young boys who were used as clairvoyants in the early Common Era often had `Uriel' written on their foreheads.)
The archangel gave him instructions for forging a protective talisman, an essential tool for those who engage in the perilous business of working with entities that might not be all they claim to be. In later years Dee developed the `Monas Hieroglyphica', which he believed to be the ultimate occult symbol.
During the next seven years, Dee and Kelley worked together obsessively. The mage recorded his angelic conversations, in which he was taught the `ancient Enochian language' - believed to be spoken in Eden before the Fall - besides completely new magical rituals. While many of his notes are perhaps deliberately obscure, and others are simply concerned with the finer points of Enochian grammar, others detail what appear to be authentic predictions. For example, on 5 May 1583 Uriel gave Kelley a disturbing vision of a horizon darkened with a huge fleet of ships, later presumed to be the Spanish Armada of 1588, which perhaps prompted Dee to hex the enemy vessels. Significantly, the medals struck to commemorate England's escape from the Armada echo the idea of a miracle, bearing the words: `God blew his wind and they were scattered'. Uriel also bestowed another major vision, of a woman being beheaded by `a black man' - almost certainly Mary Queen of Scots at the hands of the black-hooded executioner.
Although their `workings' were quintessentially magical, underlying them was Dee's fervent desire to return the Christian religion to a potent unity - but as all he could see all around him were dissent and schisms, persecution and bigotry, this reunification would have to be achieved in heterodox ways. Uriel told him: `These are the days wherein the prophet said, No faith should be found on the earth. This faith must be restored again, and men must glorify God in his works. I am the light of God' [My emphasis]." The strongly Gnostic tone is repeated, for example, in the angel Madimi's words to Dee:
And lo, the issue which he giveth thee is wisdom. But to, the mother of it is not yet delivered. For, if a woman know her times and seasons of deliverance: Much more doth he [God], who is the Mother of all things ..."
The angels took over Dee's life. He and Kelley, together with their respective families, travelled widely in Europe on the suggestions/orders of the communicators, finally arriving at Cracow, Poland, in 1587. It was there that the angelic idyll turned terminally sour. On 17 April the angels urged the men to indulge in wife-swapping, which horrified Dr Dee - who worried that the angels might have become demons - but as the injunction was something of a command, they reluctantly complied. Perhaps in all senses, that broke the spell. Although nearly thirty years older than his wife Jane, Dee was devoted to her, often scribbling caring diary notes about her moods and health. Both of them had always been faithful to each other, and this new injunction - which they reluctantly obeyed - proved traumatic. Although still on speaking terms with Kelley, the Dees left him on the continent and fled back to England, where it is said Dr Dee renounced magic for ever, dying an outcast and a pauper in 1608.
The Secret History of Lucifer: And the Meaning of the True Da Vinci Code Page 23
