Esoteric Coffeehouse

All Rosicrucian or Rosicrucian-based orders in existence today hark back to the 1614 publication of the famous manifests, the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio. These anonymously published works claimed that the Rosicrucians were a hidden order of initiates established by an unknown mystic named Christian Rosenkreutz in the 14th century. The publication of the two manifestos caused an intense excitement on the European intellectual scene, an event which is now referred to as the Rosicrucian furor. Thousands of intellectuals from all over the continent sent letters demanding to become members of the obscure organization. No letter was ever answered.

Today, scholars still wonder: did the Rosicrucians really exist? There are many views on these. On one extreme, there are those that claim that there was indeed an organization of the Rose and Cross, whether or not founded by the mythical Rosenkreutz. At the other extreme, there are those that maintain that Rosicrucianism was a big hoax perpetrated by pranksters. At the middle of the scholarly discourse, there are those who believe that Rosicrucianism was a name comprising a heterogeneous group of reformers that had a common goal, but not a common creed.

At the end of the 16th century, there was expectation in the air. The 1500s had been a period of upheaval and questioning, which had resulted in the split of the Catholic Church and the birth of the Protestant Churches. To us today the 16th century was a period of innovation that opened avenues of inquiry previously deemed impossible. However, for the people actually living during those times the change must have been painful and not necessarily positive. There were wars amongst Christians previously unheard of; witch hunts; plagues; persecutions. Within this unstable environment, many intellectuals spent a lot of time thinking how to reform the European society and mend its religious and social fractures. Many offered solutions, but there was a current of thought that was primarily dedicated to religious concord: the Hermetic one. This heterogenous ‘group’ comprised philosophers, Christian Kabbalists, magicians, and especially, alchemists. The latter, devoted followers of Paracelsus, were particularly active at the end of the 16th century and were spreading their beliefs in the philosopher’s stone and the Universal Medicine.

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I have intended for sometime to write a little piece on the stages of alchemical work. There are several books on alchemy, but I’m afraid not very many talk in a clear manner of the alchemical process itself. Surely, throughout the centuries alchemical techniques underwent a natural evolution, and matters are complicated by the personal touch each alchemist set on the process. However, it appears that the Western alchemical tradition maintained a consistency of four phases expressed in colors: nigredo (blackness), albedo (whiteness), citrinitas (yellowing) and rubedo (redness). This habit of expressing alchemical change through color was called ‘dyeing’ and underlay a belief that colors expressed fundamental stages of nature (1). Carl Jung thought this sequence originated with Heraclitus, although no reference from the ancient Greek philosopher is given (2).

Alchemical work was rooted in the philosophy of a gradual but irreversible process of improvement in nature. Perhaps the best summary of the worldview pervading alchemy was Mircea Eliade’s lesser known work The Forge and the Crucible. According to him, alchemical practice was rooted in a primordial human impulse as homo faber (3). The fundamental idea was that Nature was perfectible and that it was in a perpetual process of self-improvement. All metals tend, or wish, to become gold, and they do so over centuries of change. However, man can intervene and quicken the process of natural growth. This human implication into the course of Nature was accompanied by a feeling of sacredness and reverence toward her. This was not inert, inferior matter: but matter hiding the very seeds of divinity. It was by delving deep into the heart of Nature that the alchemist discovered the secrets of Creation and immortality.

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My earlier two-episode vampire analysis has prompted me to thinking about the quest for immortality, which is probably as old as mankind. The first known hero story, that of the Sumerian Gilgamesh, has the prince unsuccessfully seeking the plant that would bestow him immortality. In the Bible, the first human beings, Adam and Eve, were apparently created immortal only to lose the gift due to evil temptation. Adam and Eve’s story assumes that humanity was initially meant to be immortal. But if immortality is the natural state of mankind, would it be possible to recover it by some means?

I shall conspicuously pick from the countless attempts at achieving immortality those related to alchemy. Commonly described as the art of making gold, alchemy often had the goal of achieving life-extension or immortality. In fact, scholars consider that life extension, not gold was the foremost goal of Chinese alchemy (1). In the West, the attainment of the elixir vitae was initially secondary to the art of goldmaking (2). The first author to emphasize it was the Arab alchemist Jabir (3). He conceived of the “elixir vitae”, another name for the magical Philosopher’s Stone, which transformed metals into gold. The alchemists who came to possess the Stone would then be expected to live many years, or even forever.

From this concept an entire legend of immortal alchemists was born. One of the earliest embodiments was the French alchemist Nicholas Flamel (1330 – 1418), which was reputed to have faked his own death (4) and was recently featured in a novel as an ‘immortal’ (5). The Renaissance magus Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, though less associated with alchemy, was portrayed as having lived several hundreds of years in Mary Shelley’s The Mortal Immortal (6). Yet perhaps the most influential ‘immortal’ in his age was the mysterious Count of St Germain, whom I have talked about in my previous article. He was reputed to have lived hundreds or even thousands of years, a legend that he apparently cultivated as well (7).

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Last time I have shown how the modern vampire story may have originated in Godwin’s St Leon and its offshoots. Today I want to further investigate how the novel of St Leon itself may have drawn on the legends primarily associated with the figure of the Count of St. Germain. First I will say a few things about St. Germain himself, then explore the possible link between his figure and the literary St Leon.  Finally I will draw conclusions as to the influence St. Germain’s legend may have had on the birth of the Vampire Count Dracula.

The 1700s were a time full of gentlemen of mysterious, eccentric and ambiguous character. Of the more renowned ones we remember Count Cagliostro, founder of an Egyptian rite in Freemasonry, Casanova, another famous Freemason and Rosicrucian, and the Count of St Germain.

The Count of St Germain is now mostly remembered as a protégé of Louis XV of France in the decades prior to the French Revolution. Yet apart from the memoirs of some nobles of the time, not much else is known about him. The origins or nationality of the Count are obscure, despite endless speculations since his appearance at the Versailles court until today. Many – including some scholars – believe he was a prince from Transylvania called Ragotzy (1, 2). What is certain is that St Germain customarily changed his name, a fact he admitted of himself (3).

As far as memoirs of him recall, Count of St Germain was the epitome of the “Renaissance man”, speaking at least five languages fluently and without any accent, playing several instruments perfectly, knowledgeable in all the sciences, particularly chemistry and medicine, composing music, painting and writing (4). Pieces of his music are still extant in the British Museum, and his reputation as a talented composer is now being re-evaluated (5). He appeared to be very rich, wearing diamonds and carelessly giving them about, without anyone knowing the source of his wealth. He was reputed as a great alchemist, transforming iron into gold in the presence of nobles (6). His gift of prophecy was claimed particularly by the Countess d’Adhemar, a close friend of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette; he was said to prophesize the French Revolution, the French queen’s death, as well as the future fate of France (7).

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Like all things of Hermetic extract, alchemy hails from Egypt, and its recorded origins can be traced back to the late antique world. The etymology of the name ‘alchemy’ is not clear – it may have referred to Egypt as the “black land” (chemia) or perhaps to the first stage of the alchemical work, nigredo (blackness) (1, 2). The beginnings of alchemy are shrouded in mystery, but it is known that, by 300-400 AD, Greek alchemists such as Pseudo-Democritus, Zosimos and Synesius were writing about the process of gold-making in mystical, obscure terms.

Alchemy has survived throughout the centuries based on a few fundamental concepts, which I have summarized as:

1. the tradition that viewed gold as the highest, and purest of metals.

2. the belief that matter was not inert, but continuously transformed itself into something ‘higher’. Thus all metals would eventually become gold, given enough time.

3. human beings could hasten the work of nature, transforming metals into gold by means of an intermediary substance called the Philosopher’s Stone. This Stone was seen as not only bettering metals but human beings as well, lengthening life and curing illnesses (3).

4. the process of going to the heart of matter and enacting its change was seen as something sacred or even mystical; thus there was a fundamental participation of the alchemist in the work resulting in an inner change as well as an outer one.

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