Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Coincidence - A Window on Eternity
Monday, October 19, 2020
Lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing.
In modern times Urn-Burial has been recognized as closely corresponding to the Nigredo of alchemy. The black despair and melancholy experienced by the adept beginning their quest is encapsulated in Browne's succinct phrase lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing an expression apt for the suffering of millions world-wide today, anxious about income and future, grieving, ill or depressed in the wake of the current pandemic.
Thomas Browne began his medical career in Norwich in 1637, just a few years before English society was sufficiently polarized to engage in Civil war (1642-49) resulting in an estimated 100,000 deaths. Never one for political controversy, Browne occupied himself with establishing his medical practice in Norwich and in 'snatches of time, medical vacations' with compiling and revising his encyclopedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), first published during the English Civil war.
The very title of Browne's colossal endeavour depicts superstition and erroneous beliefs as if a disease.(Lt. Pseudo false, Doxia Truth, Epidemica widespread occurrence of an infectious disease). The prescription for curing such epidemics of 'vulgar errors' for Browne is the combined medicine of -consultation of the Classical authors of antiquity, empirical experiment, inductive reasoning and collaborative debate with contemporaries. Often engaging in all of these methods in order to ascertain truth, Browne is credited as one of the first to introduce up-to-date scientific journalism to the English reading public as well as examples of scientific hypothesis in the pages of Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
It's in a chapter of Pseudodoxia Epidemica which discusses whether the mythic creature known as the Basilisk is capable of emitting deadly rays from its eyes that Browne engages in a medical speculation of great importance to our times-
'if Plagues or pestilential Atoms have been conveyed in the Air from distant Regions, if men at a distance have infected each other,........there may proceed from subtler seeds, more agile emanations, which contemn those Laws, and invade at distance unexpected'. [2]
As a doctor Thomas Browne (1605-82) naturally took an interest in disease. Along with his interest in ancient Greek medicine, primarily the writings of Hippocrates. He also took an interest in ancient Greek mythology. In his medical essay A Letter to a Friend (circa 1656) Browne alludes to the Greek myth of the origin of disease, Pandora and her Box. The Greek myth recounts how Pandora was given the gift of a sealed jar which held within it all the misfortunes for humanity. Her great curiosity overcame her fear of what the jar contained and breaking its seal she released disease, sorrow, conflict and war with only hope remaining inside the jar. The name Pandora means 'All Gifts' both good and bad gifts being bestowed upon Humanity.
Its whilst alluding to the Greek myth of Pandora and theorizing upon the origin of disease in his A Letter to a Friend that Browne introduces the word 'Pathology' into the English language.
'New Discoveries of the Earth discover new Diseases: for besides the common swarm, there are endemial and local Infirmities proper unto certain Regions, which in the whole Earth make no small number: and if Asia, Africa, and America should bring in their List, Pandora's Box would swell, and there must be a strange Pathology'.
Whether Browne, during his travels in Continental Europe from 1629-32 attending the Universities of Padua in Italy, Montpelier in France and Leiden in Holland, upon hearing of an outbreak of the plague in Milan, steered well clear of visiting the Italian city, or, alternatively, viewed the column erected in Milan informing of the crime and punishment of those believed to have started the outbreak, is not known. However, the Milan plague was still in Browne's memory in his old age, its mentioned in his bizarre inventory of lost, rumoured and imaginary books, paintings and objects known as Museum Clausum (c. 1675) in the sinister fantasy item of -
* Pyxis Pandoræ, or a Box which held the Unguentum Pestiferum, which by anointing the Garments of several persons begat the great and horrible Plague of Milan. [3]
As a Royalist Browne must have been under intense psychological distress during the years of the Protectorate of Cromwell (1650-59) and his Urn-Burial has been described as a threnody to the waste of human life during the English civil war. Prompted by the accidental unearthing of several burial urns in a Norfolk field just as its secondary title A Discourse upon the supulchrall urnes lately found in Norfolk, informs, Urn-Burial opens with dazzling literary showmanship naming the main themes of the discourse, notably Time and Memory, Death and the after-life.
In his scientific, spiritual and mystical analysis of death and the after-life, Browne first surveys the burial rites and customs of various nations throughout history. His early comparative religion skills references the Chinese, Persian, Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilizations, the Moslem, Hindi and Judaic religions, as well as making one of the very earliest references to the Zoroastrian religion in Western literature.
Like his near contemporary, Athanasius Kircher (1602-80), Browne recognized the syncretic nature of religious symbols, but just like Kircher, he was often misguided in his comparative religion studies.
The unknowingness of the human condition is illustrated in striking medical imagery thus-
'A Dialogue between two Infants in the womb concerning the state of this world, might handsomely illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof methinks we yet discourse in Plato's den, and are but Embryon Philosophers'.
Closely related to Browne's medical imagery, there is also what might be termed opiate imagery in Urn-Burial. Widely in use since the sixteenth century, the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) was among the earliest advocates of opium. Such was its widespread usage in the seventeenth century that the so-called 'Father of English medicine' Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-89) whose books are well-represented in Browne’s library, once declared-
'Among the remedies which has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.'
Observations upon dosage and effects of opium can be found in Browne's commonplace notebooks whilst knowledge of its recreational usage with sex can be found in Pseudodoxia Epidemica
'since Opium it self is conceived to extimulate unto venery, and the intent and effect of eating Opium, is not so much to invigorate themselves in coition, as to prolong the Act, and spin out the motions of carnality'. [4]
In Urn-Burial the poppy flower, Opium and Oblivion are invariably interconnected. 'But the iniquity of Oblivion blindly shaketh her poppy' for example. In a heady fusion of philosophical stoicism, medical imagery and empirical observation, Browne declares of the human condition and also perhaps of the psychological effects of opium -
'There is no antidote against the Opium of Time, which temporally considereth all things.'
Its been proposed that one reason why the prose of Urn-Burial and its twin The Garden of Cyrus, in particular the transcendent prose of the fifth and last chapter of each Discourse is unlike any other seventeenth century English literature, may have been from Browne writing under the influence of opium. As a physician Browne was licenced to obtain Opium, the only available painkiller available in his day. During the decade of the Protectorate of Cromwell (1650-59) and the highly uncertain days which it engendered, it may have been very tempting for Royalist supporters, particularly those of an empirical nature such as Browne, to reach into the medicine cabinet.
'In a Hydropicall body ten years buried in a Church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the Earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat, into the consistence of the hardest castile-soap: whereof part remaineth with us'.
Burial, putrefaction and interment are all synonymous with the Nigredo stage of alchemy defined by C.G. Jung thus -
'the original half animal state of unconsciousness was known to the adept as the Nigredo, chaos, confused mass, as inextricable interweaving of the soul with the body'. [5]
According to Jung-
'the nigredo not only brought decay, suffering, death, and the torments of hell visibly before the eyes of the alchemist, it also cast the shadow of melancholy over his solitary soul. In the blackness of his despair he experienced.. grotesque images which reflect the conflict of opposites into which the researcher's curiosity had led him. His work began with a katabasis, a journey to the underworld as Dante also experienced it'. [6]
Urn-Burial alludes to several Soul journeys of classical literature including Homer's Odyssey in which the wily hero Ulysses descends into the Underworld, Macrobius's commentary on the planetary Soul journey Scipio's Dream and the Greek philosopher Plato's myth of Er, as well as Dante's Inferno. The religious mystic in Browne knew that each one of us from birth, conscious or not of the fact, embarks upon a soul-journey with Death as a final port of call.
The Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung (1875-1961) freed modern-day scholarship from many of the prejudices and misunderstandings which have hindered study of western esoteric traditions. Today, the thematic concerns of Urn-Burial can confidently be identified as matching the nigredo of alchemy and may even be the template upon which Browne modeled his discourse upon. Urn-Burial's counterpart, The Garden of Cyrus reinforces this interpretation for its opening pages muse upon paradise, a frequent symbol of the albedo or whitening in the alchemical opus succeeding the Nigredo.
C.G. Jung states- 'As we all know, science began with the stars, and mankind discovered in them the dominants of the unconscious, the "gods," as well as the curious psychological qualities of the zodiac: a complete projected theory of human character'. [7]
As the most remote planet known to the ancients, Saturn was believed to be a cold, heavy planet, qualities which were confirmed millennia later by modern science. In the western esoteric traditions of alchemy and astrology, Saturn is associated with restriction, contraction, limitation and melancholy. As the ruler of isolation and quarantine, Saturn is the god of lock-down par excellence. 'Old Father Time' depicted with his scythe as the Grim Reaper is a variant upon symbolism associated with Saturn.
The first volume of the Theatrum Chemicum (Theatre of Chemistry) features over 400 pages of writings by the Belgian physician Gerhard Dorn (c. 1530 - c. 1584). The foremost promoter of Paracelsian alchemy, Dorn devised his own planetary symbolism in order to express his psychological insights, including that of an 'invisible sun'. We can be confident that Browne read the Theatrum Chemicum closely, he appropriated Dorn's planetary symbolism of an 'invisible Sun' for his own purposes, featuring it at the apotheosis of Urn-Burial as the mysterious life-force we each possess. In a high flourish of Baroque oratory Browne declaims-
'But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us'....
A major theme of Urn-Burial is the futility of the endeavour to be remembered after death, especially through funerary monuments, including the earliest and most spectacular, the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Thomas Browne did not need to look far from his doorstep for ostentatious displays of vain-glory or 'pompous in the grave' monuments.
Though little known, the city of Norwich is home to one of the world's largest and finest collections of funerary monuments. Erected by various civic dignitaries, Norwich's surviving monuments are evidence of the great wealth which it once generated as an important European trading City. Browne would have had opportunity to see these extravagant and costly monuments, mostly sculpted from marble stone, some of which are adorned to saturation point with obscure and learned religious symbols which the City's merchant mayors loaded onto them, seemingly in competition with each other. But it is just as Browne repeatedly stresses in Urn-Burial, the dignitaries who wanted their names to be remembered and their monuments admired, are now long forgotten and their monuments are housed behind locked or restricted access doors of mainly disused or redundant churches. It was only as recently as 2012 that the source of the Layer monument's (below) iconography was identified. A wealth of religious symbolism, some of which is esoteric, remains to be studied on the funerary monuments of the medieval churches of Norwich. Photographs and details of Norwich funerary monuments are featured throughout this essay.
As great a religious mystic as Julian of Norwich or Meister Eckhart, Thomas Browne was well-aware of altered states of spiritual consciousness, naming several at the conclusion of Urn-Burial thus-
'And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, extasis, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of the Spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them'.
Much of Browne's mysticism rests in his highly original proper name symbolism along with the plexiformed construction and relationship of his two 1658 discourses. Although appearing identical, each being prefaced with a dedicatory epistle and consisting of five chapters, Browne's twin Discourses, not unlike two side-by-side white, crystalline substances, once tasted are found to differ sharply; Urn-Burial is discovered to be the bitter salt of Stoicism, a sprinkling of which is essential for spiritual well-being in the face of illness or disease, death and the grave. In complete contrast, the sweetness of The Garden of Cyrus with its playful delight in nature, is written in a literary style not unlike a hyperactive sugar rush.
A large part of esoteric schemata involves correspondences and polarities or opposites. Together the diptych discourses display polarity in theme, imagery and style. (Browne is credited as introducing the very word 'Polarity' into the English language). It was Frank Huntley who first advanced the interpretation that Browne's Discourses simultaneously progress in sequence from the Grave to the Garden, mirror each other in imagery, such as darkness and light, and are circular with Cyrus concluding Oroboros-like returning to night, sleep and darkness. [11]
A plethora of opposites exist between the two Discourses including and this list is far from exhaustive - Earth and Heaven, Grave and Garden, Accident and Design, Darkness and Light, Doubt and Certainty, Death and Life, Ephemeral and Eternal, Time and Space, Microcosm and Macrocosm.
Contemplation of the body and soul in Urn-Burial gives way to a preoccupation with ideas associated with the mind and Spirit in The Garden of Cyrus. In terms of planetary symbolism Urn-Burial is strongly Saturnine with its theme of Time while The Garden of Cyrus has Space as its template and is utterly Mercurial in its communication of esoteric revelations. Even stylistically the two Discourse differ, the slow-paced, Baroque oratory of Urn-Burial's primary appeal is to ear its sonorous prose is best appreciated read aloud. In complete contrast the sensory organ of the eye and the visual in design, pattern and shape is prominent throughout the hasty, excited prose of Cyrus.
Given Browne's deep interest in the esoteric we cannot overlook C.G.Jung's observation that the opposites and their union was the chief preoccupation of alchemists. Jung's study of alchemy led him to believe that the opposites are one of the most fruitful sources of psychic energy and for him their union played a decisive role in the alchemical process stating -'the "alchemystical" philosophers made the opposites and their union one of the chiefest objects of their work'. [12] The resultant synergy and unconscious associations for the reader between the two Discourses may well be Browne's literary concept of the Philosopher's Stone.
The psychological element in Browne's writings was admired by the poet Coleridge who declared of him that he, 'added to the consciousness hidden worlds within worlds' The Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung when introduced to Browne's declaration in his Religio Medici that- There is all Africa and her prodigies in us was deeply moved and immediately wrote it down. Understanding of the relationship between the two doctors Browne and Jung, is a rich, yet little explored field. Both naturally held a deep understanding of the human condition acquired from their profession, and both knew that with suffering comes spiritual growth. Browne's Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus as well as his A Letter to a Friend were all written as condolences for bereaved patrons.
Browne describes the blessings of not knowing the future and the relationship between memory, suffering and self-preservation in Urn-Burial thus -
'Afflictions induce callosities, miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions'.
Writing currently at a time of great sorrow and potentially in the near future of great anger, strife and conflict if the consequences of the Pandemic and the socio-economic inequalities it has highlighted throughout the world are not resolved, C.G. Jung reminds us that -
'Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Indeed, bitterness and wisdom form a pair of alternatives: where there is bitterness wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is there can be no bitterness'. [13]
The dark, sombre and gloomy half of Browne's literary diptych speaks for our times and for all times. The worthy doctor gently draws to our attention to the fact that - 'the certainty of death is attended with uncertainties, in time, manner, places', and of how little we know of ourselves, and how unlikely it is we will be remembered beyond a generation or two at most. Our days are finite and numbered and the inescapable port of call on our soul-journey is death he reminds us, in ornate, baroque prose.
Browne's Urn-Burial is a high watermark in English prose. Acknowledged as a work of World Literature, its pages, as countless readers throughout generations have discovered, are a valuable source of wisdom. Reading Urn-Burial today is a timely reminder of how vulnerable we are to the invisible and unseen, and of how temporal our lives are; something which the devout Norwich physician seldom, if ever, needed reminding of.
Notes
[1 ] The great plague of Milan in 1630 was alleged to have been started by a Milanese barber and the Commissioner of Public Health. They were executed and a column was erected in Milan in August 1630 informing of their crime.
[2] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 3 chapter 7 of 'On the Basilisk'.
[3] Miscellaneous tract 13 item 24 of Antiquities and Rarities of several sorts in Museum Clausum (circa 1675)
[4] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 8 chapter 7
[5] Collected Works Vol. 14:696
[6] C. W. Vol.14: 93
[7] C.W. Vol. 12:346.
[8] Religio Medici Part 2 :11
[9] Religio Medici Part 2 :6
[10] The Theatrum Chemicum is listed in the 1711 Sales Catalogue of Browne Library on page 25 no. 124 as 5 vols. Strasbourg 1613
[11] Frank Huntley Sir Thomas Browne: A Biographical and Critical Study, pub. Ann Arbour 1962
[12] CW 8:414 and CW 12: 557 and CW. vol. 14 Foreword
[13] C.W 14: 330
Books consulted
* Reid Barbour - Sir Thomas Browne A Life pub. Oxford University Press 2013
* Thomas Browne: Selected Writings edited and with an introduction by Kevin Killeen pub.Oxford University Press 2014
Images
*Top - Woodcut, the Nigredo Vol. 4 Theatrum Chemicum (1613)
* Death wearing a Crown (Corona) Joseph Paine Monument (1673), St. Gregory's, Norwich
* Detail of allegorical figure of Time from the Sotherton Monument (1611), Saint Andrew's, Norwich.
* Woodcut, the Nigredo Vol. 4 Theatrum Chemicum (1613)
* The Layer Monument (1608) St.John the Baptist, Maddermarket, Norwich
* SCIOLTA (Freed) Allegorical image of the soul released from the cage of the body. Suckling Monument (1616) St. Andrew's Norwich
* 4th edition of Pseudodoxia Epidemica with first publication of Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus appended.
Recommended Listening
Icelandic composer Johann Johannson (1968-2018) is still missed in the music world.
His song 'The Sky's gone dim and the Sun is Black' could not be more nigredo in mood.
Links to Wikipedia entries on Nigredo - Theatrum Chemicum - Gerhard Dorn
This essay with thanks to Dr. E. Player.
In Memoriam Richard Paul Faulkner (1958-2020)
Friday, October 19, 2018
Dr. Browne's Ethereal Salt
Once considered to be the 'ultimate oddity’ of Thomas Browne's collected writings, the miscellaneous tract Musaeum Clausum (Sealed Museum) is now seen as clear evidence of the physician-philosopher possessing a versatile imagination along with a sly sense of humour in his last years.
Ever the consummate literary showman, Browne announces to an unknown correspondent that his Musaeum Clausum consists of, ‘some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living'. [1]
The first section of Musaeum Clausum is a scholastic wish-list of books rumoured to exist which Browne would like to read, such as the writings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius translated into Spanish. Browne's one-line inventory of book-titles anticipates the Argentinian magic realism author Jorge Luis Borges who declared that, 'to write vast books is a laborious nonsense. Much better is to offer a summary, as if those books actually existed.'
Musaeum Clausum's ‘Rarities of Pictures’ features exotic locations such as the Arctic and Desert, historical events, including sieges and sea-battles, physiognomic coincidences, random reproductions and optical art.
In 2016 the North Sea magic realism artists Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell each produced a highly-polished and original artwork from the skeletal sketches of 'Rarities of Pictures'. [2]
In the final section, 'Antiquities and Rarities of several sorts' Browne lampoons some of the improbable artefacts of doubtful provenance collected by the undiscerning of his era. He also subtly mocks the outlandish claims of those engaged in alchemical experiments, with his own bizarre curio in the curtain-falling ‘rarity’ of-
'A Glass of Spirits made of Æthereal Salt, Hermetically sealed up, kept continually in quick-silver; of so volatile a nature that it will scarce endure the Light, and therefore only to be shown in Winter, or by the light of a Carbuncle, or Bononian Stone'.
Before revealing the medical nature of Dr. Browne’s ‘ethereal salt’ and exploring the labyrinthine symbolism of salt in alchemy, it's worthwhile looking a little closer at Browne's curio, as it names the 'deity' synonymous with alchemy, the Egypto-Greek god Hermes and his Roman counterpart, Mercurius.
The term 'hermetically sealed up' is a great example of how the opaque language of the alchemystical philosophers metamorphosed into early chemistry terminology. The term originates from the Egypto-Greek god Hermes and his magic ability to seal treasure chests so that no-one could access their contents. In the early days of the chemical process of distillation, the ability to make an airtight seal was highly valued and the secret of the seal was a closely guarded one.
Hermetic philosophers such as Browne believed in the mythic Hermes Trismegistus, even after it was proved that writings attributed to him originated from the early Christian era, and were not, as believed penned in ancient Egyptian times. Browne states his subscription to the tenets of Hermetic philosophy in Religio Medici boldly declaring - ‘The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes'.[3]
'Glass' in Browne's curio is synonymous with the alchemical apparatus of the Vessel, Vas, or philosopher's egg. Its modern chemistry equivalent would be the distillation retort. [4]
The word clausum is closely associated with alchemy, C.G. Jung reminding us that - ‘The vas bene clausum (well-sealed vessel) is a precautionary measure very frequently mentioned in alchemy’. Jung also reminds us in words applicable to both the inner, psychic process within the alchemist (i.e. the mind/ vessel) as much as the outer, experimental process in the laboratory, stating - ‘The adept must always take care to keep the Hermetic vessel well sealed, in order to prevent what is in it from flying away'. [5]
Hermes lends his name not only to the solitary figure of the spiritual searcher, the hermit, but also to winged Mercury, the 'trickster-god' of communication, thieves and traders, who either assisted the adept with revelation or thwarted him in his search for gold. Known today as mercury, Quicksilver was so named from its seemingly living properties, ('quick' being an early English word for alive or living). Because of its peculiar properties, being a liquid metal which contracted and expanded when exposed to cold and heat, as capable of division as easily as reunifying itself, the chemical substance of mercury acted as play-dough upon the alchemical imagination. The alchemist's encounter with the numinous through unconscious psychological projection upon substances and processes when engaged in experiment are well-illustrated in Browne’s declaring in Religio Medici -
‘I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into thousand shapes, it assumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self’. [6]
From the ancient Greek Pythagoreans who called the sea the 'tear of Kronos', because of its 'bitter saltness' to the late Renaissance chemist and alchemist Johannes Baptista Van Helmont (1579-1644) who believed that volatile salts composed the vital spirit or the breath of animals and plants, Salt has featured in the speculations of philosophers, alchemists and early modern chemists alike. Indeed, it has been said that 'salt chymistry' is pivotal to the study of the inter-relationship between chemistry, natural history, physiology and medical sciences in the early modern period. [7]
Salt is the only mineral rock which is eaten by man. Its a substance which man valued enough to risk his life and labour in dangerous mining conditions in order to acquire. One of the oldest and most ubiquitous of all food seasonings; salt has a dual nature—preserving and corrupting, its also a disinfectant, a component of ceremonial offerings, and was once a unit of value exchange. During the Roman era, salt was used as a currency with the custom of paying soldiers in pieces of compressed salt (the word ‘salary’ originates from salārium, ‘salt money’) hence the phrase - ‘to be worth one’s salt’. Man’s relationship to salt has generated enormous poetic and mythic meanings, not least when promoted in importance by the alchemist-physician Paracelsus.
Above all others, it was Paracelsus (1493-1541) with his advocating chemical-based alchemy who influenced the development of medicine during the Renaissance and beyond. Paracelsus urged physicians to investigate nature in order to discover new properties in the mineral, botanical and animal kingdoms whose extracted ‘essences’ could be potentially useful for healing. In Paracelsus’s voluminous writings there can also be found a moralist and theologian as profound and radical as the Reformation figure of Martin Luther (1483-1546). Taking his cue from the Persian alchemist, Rhazes (854–925 CE) who suggested that metals contained a third, salty component, Paracelsus added to the alchemical duality of sulphur and mercury a third element, salt, perhaps in imitation of the Christian Trinity. Paracelsus maintained that everything is made of philosophical mercury, sulphur and salt, though without abandoning the ancient Greek schemata of the four elements, effectively giving alchemists two differing schemata to play, speculate and base their experiments upon.
Paracelsus stressed the importance of salt in the alchemical triad, which greatly influenced his followers for over a century after his death. Thomas Browne's edition of Paracelsus, entitled Opera Medico-Chimica, is dated Frankfurt 1603. The Paracelsian physician Martin Ruland's Dictionary of Alchemy (Lexicon Alchemiae 1612) also in his library, lists a bewildering number of salts, including Sal Sapientia, the salt of the wise. Ruland’s promotion of Salt states-
'Therefore, he that understands the Salt and its solution possesses the wisdom of the ancients. Therefore, place your whole reliance on the Salt. Count nothing else of importance. For Salt by itself is the most important secret which all the Wise have thought proper to conceal'. [8]
Astoundingly Ruland even asserts - 'The Salt of the Philosophers is the Stone of the Philosophers', as well as mentioning a 'Salt of Universal Harmony'. [9]
Paracelsus’s promotion of salt, along with its multifaceted qualities and many symbolic associations, attracted various 'alchemystical' philosophers and early chemists to philosophize upon and experiment with salt, sometimes mixing philosophy, religious insight, medicine and laboratory work indeterminately, as in Johann Glauber's De Salium Natura (On the Nature of Salt, 1658).
In the alchemical anthology 'The Rose-Garden of the Philosophers' (Rosarium Philosophorum, c.1550) one reads-
'Who therefore knows the salt and its solution knows the hidden secret of the wise men of old. Therefore turn your mind upon the salt and think not of other things; for in it alone (i.e. the mind) is the science concealed and the most excellent and hidden secret of all the most excellent and most hidden secret of all the ancient philosophers’. [10]
C.G. Jung reminds us - 'Whenever an alchemist speaks of “salt”, he does not mean sodium chloride or any other salt, or only in a very limited sense. He could not get away from its symbolic substance, and therefore included the sal sapiente in the chemical substance. [11]
'Salt was considered to be an arcane substance by the sixteenth and seventeenth-century alchemists, in ecclesiastical as well as alchemical usage, salt is the symbol for Sapientia and also for the distinguished or elect personality, as in 'Ye are the Salt of the earth'. [12]
'Salt was associated with Christ through the sal sapientiae association. In antiquity salt denoted wit, good sense, good taste, etc., as well as spirit. Cicero for example remarks: “In wit [sale] and humour Caesar.....surpassed them all." [13]
This philosophical aspect of Salt features in what is one of C.G. Jung’s most memorable sayings. Juxtaposing two of salt's primary attributes, namely, its bitterness with sal sapiente, the salt of the wise, to make the profound spiritual observation-
'Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Indeed, bitterness and wisdom form a pair of alternatives: where there is bitterness wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is there can be no bitterness'. [14]
In one of the six door-step sized volumes of the alchemical anthology Theatrum Chemicum (The Chemical Theatre 1612) (one of Jung's favourite reads and in Browne's library) the physician-philosopher would have had his curiosity aroused when reading-
'But if Thales of Miletus chose to call that stone of Hercules, the magnet, an animate thing, because we see it attract and move iron, why shall we not likewise call salt, which in wonderous wise penetrates, purges, contracts, expands, hinders, and reduces a living thing?’ [15]
In Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) Browne notes the place of salt in folklore, in religious ceremonies and throughout the Bible. Salt is featured in Pseudodoxia in the chapter entitled Of Crystal as well as in several of Browne's 'chymical operations', including an experiment as to whether magnetism increases or decreases in fresh or saline water.
Its when speculating upon the origins of colour that Browne displays his familiarity with the Paracelsian triad of alchemy, stating - ‘The Chymists have laudably reduced their causes unto Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury'. [16]
As a medical doctor Browne knew, as he states in Pseudodoxia - 'there being in everything we eat, a natural and concealed salt, which is separated by digestions, and doth appear in our tears, sweat and urines, although we refrain all salt, or what doth seem to contain it’. [17]
Well-informed of events in the medical world, Browne certainly also knew of the success his contemporary Johann Glauber (1604-1670) had with salt. The German-Dutch alchemist and chemist Johann Glauber was the first to produce salt extracted from Hungarian spring water. This naturally occurring salt is water soluble, has a bitter taste, and is sometimes used in medicine as a mild laxative; it's also used in dyeing. Glauber's salt, the common name for sodium sulfate, occurs as white or colorless crystals which upon exposure to fairly dry air effloresces, forming a powdery sodium sulfate. Glauber’s production of sodium sulfate, which he called sal mirabilis or "wonderful salt", was an effective but relatively safe laxative and a popular alternative to purging (emptying the digestive tract being a treatment for many diseases) which brought him fame and the honour of it being named "Glauber's salt".
Browne was aware of Glauber's Salts not only from his owning an edition of Glauber's De Salium Natura but also from his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708) who visited 'old Glauber in Amsterdam in 1668, and dutifully informed his father of the fact in his travel correspondence. [18]
Alchemist-physicians such as Paracelsus and Glauber paved the way for future advances in medicine in their experimentation with the properties of salt. The medical world first began using saline around 1831. Today saline solution, a mixture of sodium chloride in water, has several uses. Applied to an affected area its used to clean wounds and to treat dehydration from illnesses such as gastroenteritis and diabetic ketoacidosis, as well as to dilute medications given by injection. In alternative medicine the light which is emitted by crystal rock lamps is believed to have therapeutic benefits. Its also known today that an excessive consumption of salt in one's diet can be the cause of many serious medical conditions, including high blood pressure.
Its in Pseudodoxia Epidemica that clues to the true nature of Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' can be found. Adhering to the Paracelsian principle of the three primary substances of nature, namely sulphur, mercury and salt, Browne writes-
'For beside the fixed and terrestrious Salt, there is in natural bodies a Sal niter referring unto Sulphur; there is also a volatile or Armoniack Salt, retaining unto Mercury; by which Salts the colours of bodies are sensibly qualified, and receive degrees of lustre or obscurity, superficiality or profundity, fixation or volatility. [19]
Dr. Browne's 'ethereal Salt' may well allude to none other than medicinal smelling salts for Sal volitalis, the alchemist's name for ammonium chloride named here by Browne as 'Armoniack Salt', is the main component of smelling salts. Chaucer knew of sal ammoniac, and mentions it along with sublimed mercury, vitriol, saltpetre, arsenic and brimstone in his Canon Yeoman's Tale.
An early form of smelling salts or sal ammoniac was known as Salt of hartshorn (ammonium carbonate). Hartshorn salt, or simply hartshorn, also known as baker's ammonia was used in the seventeenth century as a forerunner of baking powder, but there can be little doubt that Browne’s interest in a Sal Volitalis, would be of a medical nature and not for baking. One can be confident that Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' is smelling salt, for in his commonplace notebooks there can be found a number of notes on how to prepare harthorn, the active ingredient for the manufacture of Sal Volitalis.
'As is observable in gums, hartshorn...... Wherein it is presumable the water may also imbibe some part of the volatile salt.... in half a pint of jelly of hartshorn there is not above two drachms......Much hartshorn is therefore lost in the usual decoction of hartshorn in shavings and raspings, where the greater part is cast away.......The calcination of hartshorn by vapour of water is a neat invention, but whether much of the virtue be not impaired, while the vapour insinuating into the horn hath carried away the tenacious parts and made it butter' [20]
Smelling salts release ammonia gas, which triggers an inhalation reflex, irritating the mucous membranes of the nose and lungs, effectively rousing someone who has fainted or suffered a shock, back into consciousness. In an age of violent social change and Civil War, when news of fortunes and lives lost was frequent, there'd have been call for Dr. Browne to revive those who had fainted from bad news, during pregnancy or even from excessive blood-letting.
In alchemy Volatilis, the Latin word for flying, was how the alchemists described the vaporous fumes rising from their distillation vessel. In alchemical symbolism the fixed and the volatile are depicted as a pair of birds, one wingless, the other with wings, that is, one bird able to fly, the other grounded and 'fixed'. Keeping the contents of the Vessel (i.e. the mind) 'fixed' was one of the alchemist's great challenges, and often disaster struck during their 'chymical operations' and their endeavours came to nothing.
C.G. Jung recognised that the inner, psychic process within the alchemist and the outer, ongoing experimental process in the laboratory often cross-referenced and transformed each other; the 'volatile essence' being preserved in the vessel, i.e. the psyche and its precious content of individuation was vulnerable to 'flying away' -
‘The volatile essence so carefully shut up and preserved in the Hermetic vessel of the unio mentalis could not be left to itself for a moment, because this elusive Mercurius would then escape and return to its former nature, as, according to the testimony of the alchemists, not infrequently happened’. [21]
'An Alchemist being tempted by Luxury' c. 1580 |
It's possible that Thomas Browne had someone specific in mind when conjuring his image of a volatile and 'ethereal salt'. The alchemist Sir Robert Paston, resident at Oxnead Hall, some dozen miles north of Norwich (not quite Browne’s neighbour geographically) wrote to him about his laboratory experiments in April 1669 -
Honoured Sir,
On Saturday night last, going into my laboratory, I found some of the adrop (that had been run four or five times in the open air, and every time its aetherial attracted spirits drawn from it) congealed to a hard candied substance......Upon about half a pound of this I cohabated some of its aetherial spirit, which it notwithstanding tinged red, and I am now drawing it again, for I think I had better have exposed it in its consistence to the open air again.....and by grinding, exposing, and distilling, it may at last go a white and spiss water, such an one as philosophers look after, or at least be fit to receive, and to be actuated with (....) and saline parts of the aetherial spirit, when that operation comes in hand if it affords us any that way. [22]
And again in September 1674-
'I have little leisure and less convenience to try anything here, yet my own salt will set me on work, having now arrived to this that I can with four drachmes of it dissolve a drachme of leaf gold... I am going to seal up two glasses, one of the menstruum with gold dissolved in it, and another of the menstruum per se, and to put them in an athanor, to see if they will putrefy, or what alteration will happen. I have at Oxnead seen this salt change black as ink, I must, at the lowest, have an excellent aurum potable, and if the signs we are to judge in Sendivogius’ description be true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man has that which will dissolve gold as warm water doth ice, you have that which gold was first made in the earth'. [23]
In his brilliant study on the 17th century painting known as The Paston Treasure Spike Bucklow notes-
'Paston was assisted in his laboratory by Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700) (who used the pen-name "Halophilus" meaning ‘salt-lover’). Together they attempted to discover a formula for the fabled "red elixir", another name for the philosopher's stone, which alchemists believed could transmute base metals into gold'. [24]
‘So, Sir Robert's recipe for 'Manna' was playing with extraordinary potent cosmic forces. It all hinged upon a mysterious salt that mediated between the 'fixed' and the 'volatile'. Clues to the exact identity of that salt lay hidden in the maze and opinions varied. Brickenden gave Sir Robert details of 'a salt for infinite health and riches' that could be gathered from drops of dew gathered in May. But many, including Charles II's alchemist, thought the 'universal salt' was gunpowder's key ingredient - saltpetre. Sir Robert's recipe for making salt, Spiritus salis, was evidently important because he wrote it in Latin. [25]
Like Robert Paston who suffered a 'whirlpool of misfortunes’, Browne in his old age may, for want of a better description be described as a ‘disappointed alchemist’ that is, one who devoted less time on alchemical experiment and more time in prayer and meditation. As Spike Bucklow perceptively puts it-
'Alchemy was not suddenly found to be ‘wrong’, but the Norwich science of Arthur Dee, Thomas Browne and Robert Paston was quietly sidelined by the London science of the Royal Society. The differences were mainly social and political. The Norwich practitioners read signs, like Polynesian canoeists, Yarmouth fishermen and Navy tars, the London practitioners started to use instruments and charts, like naval officers'. [26]
The Paracelsian neologism 'Spagyrici' inscribed on Browne’s coffin-plate supplies the true nature of Browne’s alchemy. As ever, Martin Ruland, a physician who served the esoteric-loving Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, assists our enquiry. Ruland's Lexicon Alchemiae (1612) includes definitions of -
SPAGIRIA - 'The Spagyric Art, is that which treats of the separation of the pure from the impure, so that after the refuse matter has been rejected, the virtue which remains can operate. It is the Art of Distilling and Separating'.
and of the moral character of the spagyrist -
SPAGIRUS– 'Any man who can separate the true from the false, set the good apart from the bad, and the pure from the impure, rejecting duality and cleaving to unity'. [27]
Technically speaking, Browne was a spagyricist, that is, one who believed that the calcined essences of plants could be useful in medicine. Historically speaking, the spagyrics were active just before the iatrochemists, the true beginning of purely chemical medicine, as opposed to those searching for hidden 'quintessences' extracted from the natural world.
Browne’s continental medical education acclimatised him towards Paracelsian medicine to a far greater degree than many of his British contemporaries. Some have suggested he was unsympathetic to Paracelsian medicine, but the long list of books by continental Paracelsian physicians, an edition of the complete works of the Swiss physician listed in Browne’s library, the Paracelsian neologism 'Spagyrici’ inscribed upon his coffin-plate, and the many references to the Swiss physician in Browne’s writings, all suggest otherwise. Although often critical of mystical aspects of Paracelsian thought, Browne was a follower of Paracelsus, a highly-critical follower, but follower nonetheless.
'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations'. [28]
Evidence of Browne's joining the ranks of 'disappointed alchemists' can be gleaned from his late writings. Because of its alleged Egyptian origins alchemy was sometimes known as ‘Cleopatra’s Art’ amongst many other names. Browne concludes The Garden of Cyrus in disappointment at ever being unable to achieve the alchemical feat of palingenesis, that is, the revivification of a plant from it ashes.
'And though in the bed of Cleopatra can hardly with any delight, raise up the ghost of a Rose'.
Its interesting to note that the funeral ashes of Urn-Burial are 'answered' by an abundance of flowers in bloom in The Garden of Cyrus.
Committed throughout his life to the Christian faith, Browne endorsed Christianity above alchemy as a philosophy for developing one’s inner self, when, making allusion to alchemy as 'Vulcan’s Art' he states in his late work Christian Morals-
Vulcan’s Art doth nothing in this internal Militia: wherein not the Armour of Achilles, but the Armature of St. Paul, gives the Glorious day. [29]
Browne's real alchemy is in the word, in particular the sonority, rhythm and symbolism of his 1658 discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus with their plexiform relationship in polarity, truth and imagery. Together they are Browne's literary philosopher's stone, of which one critic perceptively notes -
'Mystical symbolism (of this kind) is woven throughout the texture of Browne's work and adds, often subconsciously, to its associative power of impact....there is nothing vague or wooly about Browne's mysticism,...Every symbol is interrelated with the overall pattern'. [30]
Although the diptych discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) appear as if two identical, white, crystalline substances, when empirically sampled they differ sharply; Urn-Burial is discovered to be the bitter salt of Christian Stoicism, a sprinkling of which is essential for spiritual well-being in the face of disease, suffering, death and the grave. (Indeed, Salt is mentioned in Urn-Burial in Browne's description of adipocere, or grave wax, his solitary credited scientific discovery). In complete contrast, the 'light' half of the diptych The Garden of Cyrus is fructose sugar, with its excited rush of ideas, playfulness and sweet delight in nature.
Today we may be skeptical of the scientific credentials and achievements of alchemists such as Paracelsus, Sir Thomas Browne or Sir Robert Paston and take their science cum granis salis, with a pinch of salt; nevertheless, their collective spirit of enquiry paved the way for future generations of scientists; we may therefore agree with Virginia Woolf -
'Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those who do are the salt of the earth’.
Part 2 to follow - Of the Carbuncle and the Bononian Stone.
Notes
[1] 'Ultimate oddity' from C.A. Patrides 'Approaches to Sir Thomas Browne': The Ann Arbor Tercentenary Lectures and Essays edited by C.A. Patrides pub. University of Missouri 1982.
A manuscript of Musaeum Clausum was found amongst the papers of the Collector and Natural philosopher Walter Charleton (1619-1707). It may have been written for him for his delivering the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in the late 1670's.
[2] See Four 'Rarities in pictures' from Dr. Browne's Musaeum Clausum
[3] Religio Medici Part 1:12
[4] Haeffner : Dictionary of Alchemy Aquarian Press 1999
[7] ‘The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650-1750 (History of Science and Medicine Library) Anna Marie Roos Brill 2007
[8] Ruland Lexicon Alchemiae. Listed in Browne's library p.22 no. 119
[9] Ibid. Other books by Paracelsian physicians in Browne's library include Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (S.C. page 25 no. 98, page 51 no. 103,104) Joseph Duchesne (S.C. page 33 no. 8 page 34 no. 63) Alexander Suchten (S.C. page 51 no. 128) Petrus Severinus (S.C. page 18 no. 50 page 20 no. 23, 24, 25, 26) John French (S.C. page 51 no. 118) Johann Glauber (S.C. page 43 no. 10) and Gerard Dorn (S.C. page 25 no. 118)
[10] C.W 12: 359
[11] C.W 9 ii : 247
[12] C.W 9 i : 575
[13] C.W 14 : 324
[14] C.W 14: 330 C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis : An Inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (1955-56) includes his most detailed writings on salt., in particular Chapter 5 p.183 - 239
[16] Kevin Killeen's highly recommended paperback edition, the Selected writings of Thomas Browne (21st-Century Oxford Authors OUP paperback edition 2018) has a great introduction. Its index lists over 30 references to salt in Browne's writings.
Browne's experiments with salt and snow Bk. 2 chapter 1 Of Crystall. Experiment with magnetism and salt water Bk. 2 ch.2 Concerning the Loadstone.
[17] P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[18] Johann Glauber De Salium Natura S.C. page 43 no. 8 Amsterdam 1658 Keynes Selected correspondence letter no. 22 dated 22nd September 1668
[19] P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[20] Wilkins 1835 edition Commonplace notebook
[21] C.W14:742
[22] Wilkins 1835 edition
[23] Ibid
[24] The Anatomy of Riches:Sir Robert Paston's Treasure Spike Bucklow Reaktion Books 2018. Highly recommended.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Martin Ruland's Lexicon Alchemiae (1612) Sales Catalogue p. 22 no 119
[28] Christian Morals Part 2:5
[29] Christian Morals Part 1:24
[30] Peter Green Sir Thomas Browne Writers and their work no. 108 Longmans, Green and Co. 1959
See also
Paracelsus and Browne
Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne
Notes on Pictures
* Photo: A Salt Crystal magnified
Rembrandt's early oil painting, is one of a set of five depicting the senses completed c. 1624 or 1625. They are among his earliest surviving works, and are identical in size. The Sense of Smell shows a physician reviving a swooning woman by placing a handkerchief soaked in a volatile salt under her nose, in order to rouse her into consciousness. It was reidentified in 2015. The whereabouts of the painting representing the sense of taste remains unknown.
* Painting: 'An Alchemist being tempted by Luxuria' anon. circa 1580
* Photo - Alchemical flower Stand with four tubes and glowing flower of fern. Dina Belenko Photography