Lasting over three thousand years, the civilization of ancient Egypt has fascinated the minds and imagination of numerous artists and thinkers including the English physician and philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82).
Though little acknowledged, Browne was a keen Egyptologist and mention of the pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphics of Egypt weave through his literary works, in particular, the discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) which are united to each other through literary symbolism allusive to ancient Egypt.
Thomas Browne's study of ancient Egypt was multi-faceted; as a doctor he took an interest in its medicine, as a devout Christian he knew that the Biblical books of Genesis and Exodus are set in ancient Egypt; and as a scholar of comparative religion he was familiar with the names and attributes of the Egyptian gods; but above else its from his adherence to Hermetic philosophy that Browne's life-long interest in the Land of the Pharaoh's was sustained. For, in common with almost all alchemists and hermetic philosophers of the 16th and 17th century, Browne believed ancient Egypt to be the birthplace of alchemy and where long lost transmutations of Nature were once performed. And indeed the early civilization skills necessary in baking, brewing and metal-work, as well as cosmetics and perfumery, were all once close guarded secrets. Ancient Egypt was also believed by hermetic philosopher and alchemist alike to be the home of the mythic sage Hermes Trismegistus, inventor of number and hieroglyph and the founding father of all wisdom subsequently passed down in a golden chain of prophets and mystics culminating in Christ.
Just as fans of the pop singer Elvis Presley (1935-77) often collect all kinds of American memorabilia, so too in the 16th and 17th centuries followers of Hermes Trismegistus avidly collected artefacts believed to be of Egyptian origin, and read literature which claimed to be by the Egyptian sage.
Browne's adherence to Hermetic philosophy is writ large in his spiritual testament and psychological self-portrait Religio Medici (1643), the newly-qualified physician declaring - 'The severe schooles shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a portrait of the invisible.' [1]
Its however more with an eye towards dentistry and with characteristic humour that Browne in the consolatory epistle A Letter to a Friend informs his reader -
'The Egyptian Mummies that I have seen, have had their Mouths open, and somewhat gaping, which affordeth a good opportunity to view and observe their Teeth, wherein 'tis not easie to find any wanting or decayed: and therefore in Egypt, where one Man practised but one Operation, or the Diseases but of single Parts, it must needs be a barren Profession to confine unto that of drawing of Teeth, and little better than to have been Tooth-drawer unto King Pyrrhus, who had but two in his head'.
Browne's knowledge of Egyptian medicine was acquired through reading the Greek historian and traveller Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BCE) whose Histories wasthe solitary source of information about ancient Egypt for centuries. [2] In Browne's day there was a well-established trade in mummia. Because the skills in Egyptian mummification appeared to preserve the human body for the afterlife in an extraordinary way, the crushed and pulverised parts of Egyptian mummies became popular remedies for all manner of disease and illness. Often mixed or contaminated with bitumen, in reality mummia was of little medicinal value. Thomas Browne for one, deplored its usage in medicine, declaiming in Urn-Burial -
'The Egyptian Mummies, which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mummie is become merchandise, Miriam cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams'.
Browne's interest in ancient Egypt developed through his friendship with an Oxford contemporary, John Greaves (1602–1652). John Greaves was a professor of astronomy, a mathematician and antiquarian who visited Cairo in 1638 in order to measure the Pyramids of Giza and as such he's credited with conducting the first scientific survey of the great Pyramid of Giza. Greaves' book Pyramidographia, or a Description of the Pyramids in Egypt (1646) is referenced a number of times in subsequent editions of Browne's encyclopaedic endeavour, Pseudodoxia Epidemica which was first published in 1646.
The two Oxford University alumni shared their interest in ancient Egypt over many years. Even after Greaves' death in 1652, when amending the fourth edition of Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1658, its with his old friend in mind that Browne, noting of an experiment, informs his reader that-
'we have from the observation of our learned friend Mr. Greaves, an Egyptian idol cut out of loadstone, and found among the mummies; which still retains its attraction though probably taken out of the mine about two thousand years ago. [3]
In essence, Browne justified the study of so-called pagan, pre-Christian antiquities and beliefs in exactly the same manner as the Italian Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and his successor, Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), by giving credence to a Prisca Theologia, a single, true theology which threads through all religions and whose wisdom was passed down in a golden chain of mystics and prophets which included Zoroaster, the Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Plato, and the Hebraic figures of King Solomon and Moses. For devout Christians the Hebrew prophet Moses in particular was a strong link in this golden chain, Browne for one believing Moses to be 'bred up in the hieroglyphicall schooles of the Egyptians' [4]. But above all others, it was Hermes Trismegistus, the first and wisest of all pagan prophets who was revered. Modern scholarship has now determined Hermes Trismegistus to be a composite figure, an amalgam of the Egyptian god Theuth or Thoth with the ancient Greek god of revelation, Hermes. Christianity duly appropriated hermetic teachings for their own agenda, proposed that Hermes Trismegistus or ‘thrice greatest’ on account of his being the greatest priest, philosopher and king, was a contemporary of Moses who anticipated the coming of Christ. Such imaginative comparative religion not only justified the study of philosophers such as Plato but also sanctioned the antiquity, wisdom and superiority of the Bible to devout Christians.
Throughout his life Browne was attracted to all kinds of unusual, hidden or secret forms of knowledge, including the triumvirate of astrology, alchemy and the kabbalah. It must nonetheless have surprised many English readers of his European best-seller Pseudodoxia Epidemica which debunked folk-lore and superstitions, to discover its pages included a whole chapter entitled Of the Hieroglyphicall Pictures of the Egyptians. In an earlier chapter of his popular, up-to-date work of scientific journalism, Browne names many scholars from antiquity and the Renaissance-era of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, endorsing above all others, the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-80).
'The Hieroglyphical doctrine of the Egyptians (which in their four hundred years cohabitation some conjecture they learned from the Hebrews) hath much advanced many popular conceits. For using an Alphabet of things, and not of words, through the image and pictures thereof, they endeavoured to speak their hidden conceits in the letters and language of Nature. ........the profound and mysterious knowledge of Egypt; containing the Arcana's of Greek Antiquities, the Key of many obscurities and ancient learning extant. Famous herein in former Ages were Heraiscus, Cheremon, Epius, especially Orus Apollo Niliacus: who lived in the reign of Theodosius, and in Egyptian language left two Books of Hieroglyphicks, translated into Greek by Philippus, and a large collection of all made after by Pierius. But no man is likely to profound the Ocean of that Doctrine, beyond that eminent example of industrious Learning, Kircherus'. [5]
Athanasius Kircher has been defined as ‘the supreme representative of Hermeticism within post-Reformation Europe’. Like Browne he disseminated and popularized much new scientific knowledge, including recent discoveries confirmable to early scientists in the field of optics and magnetism. The English musicologist Joscelyn Godwin describes Kircher thus -
'Kircher was a Jesuit and an archaeologist, a phenomenal linguist, and at the same time an avid collector of scientific experiments and geographical exploration. He probed the secrets of the subterranean world, deciphered archaic languages, experimented with alchemy and music-therapy, optics and magnetism. Egyptian mystery wisdom, Greek, Kabbalistic and Christian philosophy met on common grounds in Kircher's work, as he reinterpreted the history of man's scientific and artistic collaboration with God and Nature'. [6]
Kircher believed that Egyptian paganism was the fount of all other beliefs and creeds whether Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Chaldean or even Indian, Japanese, Aztec and Inca. His greatest work, the three door-step size volumes of Oedipus Egypticus are over 2000 pages in total and a triumph of the printing-press, taking over five years in completion (Rome 1652 -56). In Oedipus Aegypticus the Jesuit priest sets out to explore the esoteric traditions and theosophical systems of Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato and the Hebrew Kabbalah. Just like the Norwich doctor, Athanasius Kircher had an insatiable curiosity and fascination with obscure or esoteric learning which are listed in the introduction to Oedipus Aegypticus as - ‘Egyptian wisdom, Phoenician theology, Hebrew kabbalah, Persian magic, Pythagorean mathematics, Greek theosophy, Mythology, Arabian alchemy, Latin philology’.
Kircher's Oedipus Egypticus includes an engraving of the Bembine Tablet. (illustration above).
The Bembine Tablet was named after Cardinal Bembo, an antiquarian who acquired it after the 1527 sack of Rome. Its an important example of ancient metallurgy, its surface being decorated with a variety of metals including silver, gold, copper-gold alloy and various base metals. The Bembine Tablet was the Rosetta Stone of its age. Many antiquarians attempted and failed to decipher the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs from it. It has long since been identified as a syncretic Roman work dating from circa 250 CE, and a copy or imitation of a much earlier ancient Egyptian artefact, and is not, as both antiquarians believed, a work originating from ancient Egypt whatsoever. In the final analysis the Bembine Tablet continues to ask more questions than it answers.
The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne and his son Edward's libraries lists no less than seven titles by Kircher including Oedipus Egypticus. Browne's enthusiasm for the latest and greatest of his favourite author's books, which he acquired when first published, spills over into his own esoteric work The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Its as a pioneering scholar of comparative religion that Browne discusses the Egyptian Ankh symbol as seen in the Bembine Tablet. The Egyptian Ankh symbol is the most frequent and easily recognisable symbol of all Egyptian hieroglyphs. Sometimes referred to as the key of life and symbolic of eternal life in Ancient Egypt, the Coptic church of Egypt inherited the ankh symbol as a form of the Christian cross.
'We will not revive the mysterious crosses of Egypt, with circles on their heads, in the breast of Serapis, and the hands of their Geniall spirits, not unlike the characters of Venus, and looked on by ancient Christians, with relation unto Christ. Since however they first began, the Egyptians thereby expressed the processe and motion of the spirit of the world, and the diffusion thereof upon the Celestiall and Elementall nature; implyed by a circle and right-lined intersection. A secret in their Telesmes and magicall Characters among them. Though he that considereth the plain crosse upon the head of the Owl in the Laterane Obelisk, or the crosse erected upon a picher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphics of the brasen Table of Bembus; will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them.
The key phrase, 'will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality', is a classic example of how hermetic philosophers such as Browne 'christianized' so-called pagan civilizations as anticipators of the coming of Christ. Browne's objective, like Kircher's, was to reconcile the wisdom of antiquity with Christianity. A good example of how such syncretic thinking operated can be seen in Kircher's synthesis of the Egyptian zodiac to the Greek zodiac. (Below).
Browne's own alchemical experiments are fleetingly alluded to in the penultimate paragraph of The Garden of Cyrus. Its concluding sentence invites Freudian interpretation, however the Cleopatra which he names relates to alchemy. 'Cleopatra's art' was one of the many names by which alchemy was once known. Very little is known of Cleopatra, a Greek alchemist other than she's believed to have lived in Alexandria circa 200-300 CE and is mentioned by the Arabic writer Kitab al-Fihrist circa 988 CE. Cleopatra the alchemist is credited with the invention of the alembic, and with quantifying alchemy by working with weights and measures.
Browne's highly poetic imagery is suggestive of the alchemical feat of palingenesis, that is, the reviving of a plant from its ashes to blossom once more, which the radical Swiss alchemist Paracelsus claimed to have performed and which Browne seems to have not succeeded in -
'and though in the bed of Cleopatra, can hardly, with any delight raise up the Ghost of a Rose'.
Part Two
In the foreword to Mysterium Coniunctionis; 'An inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in Alchemy', the seminal psychologist C. G. Jung informs his reader that -
'the "alchemystical" philosophers made the opposites and their union one of the chiefest objects of their work'. [7]
I've written before about how Thomas Browne's diptych Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus exemplify the Nigredo and Albedo stages of the alchemical opus - of how the two Discourses are opposite each other in respective theme, imagery and truth. The dark and gloomy doubts, fears and speculative uncertainties upon Death featured in Urn-Burial are mirrored by cheerful certainties in the discernment of archetypal patterns in The Garden of Cyrus - of how the two works fulfil the template of basic mandala symbolism with their metaphysical constructs of Time (Urn-Burial) and Space (The Garden of Cyrus) and of the many polarities which they display such as - World/Cosmos, Earth/Sky, Accident/ Design, Decay/Growth, Darkness/Light, Conjecture/Discern, Mortal/Eternal and of course, Grave/Garden.
The concept of polarity (a word Browne is credited with introducing into the English language in its scientific context) is a vital construct of much esoteric schemata. The opposites and their union, as C.G. Jung noted, were a fundamental quest of Hermetic philosopher and alchemist alike. Browne’s literary diptych is, not unlike the human psyche, a complex of opposites or complexio oppositorum (complex of opposites). Unique as a literary diptych, it corresponds to the polarity of the Microcosm-Macrocosm schemata of Hermeticism in which the microcosm little world of man and his mortality, (Urn-Burial) is mirrored by the vast Macrocosm and the Eternal forms or archetypes (The Garden of Cyrus). The polarity of the alchemical maxim solve et coagula (decay and growth) also closely approximates to the diptych's respective themes, as does the diptych's imagery which progresses from darkness and unconsciousness (Urn-Burial) to Light and consciousness (Garden of Cyrus). The previously mentioned alchemical feat of palingenesis, that is, the revivification of a plant from its ashes which the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) claimed to have performed, shares close semblance too. The funerary ashes of Urn-Burial burst into flower in the botanical delights of The Garden of Cyrus.
C.G. Jung stated that whenever a complex of opposites occur, a unifying symbol, capable of transcending paradox, sometimes emerges. Its far from improbable that Browne found in his study of ancient Egypt two such symbols which he subsequently embedded in his Discourses namely, the Egyptian god Osiris and the Pyramid. As the literary critic Peter Green noted, 'Mystical symbolism is woven throughout the texture of Browne's work and adds, often subconsciously, to its associative power of impact'. [8]
Osiris was one of the most important gods of Ancient Egypt. He plays a double role in Egyptian theology, as both the god of fertility and vegetation and as the embodiment of the dead and resurrected king. Osiris is utilized in Browne's proper-name symbolism in Urn-Burial as an example of how Time devours even the names of the gods themselves - 'Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osyris in the Dogge-starre'. However, in The Garden of Cyrus the Egyptian god Osiris assumes a more important role, as the god of vegetation and growth who is assisted by his secretary, the great Hermes Trismegistus. In a short paragraph in which the game of Chess, Pyramids, Egyptian gods and astronomy coalesce in an extraordinary stream-of-consciousness association, Browne exclaims -
'In Chesse-boards and Tables we yet finde Pyramids and Squares, I wish we had their true and ancient description, farre different from ours, or the Chet mat of the Persians, and might continue some elegant remarkables, as being an invention as High as Hermes the Secretary of Osyris, figuring the whole world, the motion of the Planets, with Eclipses of Sunne and Moon'.
C.G. Jung noted how Egyptian theology influenced Christianity thus-
'The Osiris cult offers an excellent example. At first only Pharaoh participated in the transformation of the god, since he alone "had an Osiris"; but later the nobles of the Empire acquired an Osiris too, and finally this development culminated in the Christian idea that everyone has an immortal soul and shares directly in the Godhead. In Christianity the development was carried still further when the outer God or Christ gradually became the inner Christ of the individual believer, remaining one and the same though dwelling in many'. [9]
Though little recognised, Browne's literary diptych is united through the symbol of the Pyramid. In Urn-Burial the burial chamber of the Pharaohs is condemned as a foolish endeavour in wanting to be remembered for eternity. The Christian moralist in Browne declaiming- 'Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids ?' and - 'Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vain-glory, and wilde enormities of ancient magnanimity.'
But as C.G.Jung observed, only the symbol is capable of transcending paradox. In The Garden of Cyrus, the Pyramid is once more encountered, only this time as a geometric shape, evident in optics and botany, and one of the Eternal Forms of Plato.
In summary, Browne's life-long study of ancient Egypt, at times misguided, was nonetheless pioneering. Though little known as an Egyptologist, he can be placed, alongside Kircher, as one of Europe's earliest Egyptologists. Furthermore, his diptych discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are conjoined and united through psychologically dynamic proper-name symbolism derived from Browne's life-long interest in Ancient Egypt.
Notes
Header photo - Double-headed Sistrum fragment of Hathor 26th dynasty (663-526 BCE) Faience approx 8 cm. Sainsbury Centre, UEA SC 920
One of the most recent realizations of Ancient Egypt occurs in the music of Philip Glass ( b. 1937) composer of the opera 'Akhnaten' (1983) - 'Window of Appearances'
When first appraised as a two-in-one, unified work, literary critics declared Thomas Browne's discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) to be 'a paradox and a cosmic vision' and 'one of the deepest, complex, and most symbolically pregnant statements upon the great double theme of mortality and eternity'.
However, when those perceptive comments were made, almost 300 years after the first publication of Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus, Browne's relationship to Western esoteric traditions had been little, if ever, discussed. Its only relatively recently that the many misapprehensions and prejudices which once surrounded Western esoteric disciplines such as Hermetic philosophy and alchemy have evaporated, primarily through the demise of Christianity as the dominant arbiter of spiritual values.
From the ground-breaking scholarship of writers such as Frances Yeats and Adam Maclean in Britain, Joseph Campbell and James Hillman in America, and above all others the Swiss psychologist, C. G. Jung, we now possess the analytical tools necessary to understand and appreciate the vital influence which Western esoteric disciplines once wielded upon 'alchemystical' philosophers such as Thomas Browne. 'Though overlooked by all', Browne's discourses, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are revealed to be exemplary works of Hermetic philosophy in the canon of English literature.
A quick perusal of the many esoteric titles listed as once in Browne's library swiftly dispels the notion that the philosopher-physician's interest in Western esotericism was merely casual, nor is there any reason to believe he ever deviated from his declaration in Religio Medici (1643) that-
'The severe Schools shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible'. [1]
And in fact Browne makes allusion and reference to concepts associated with Western esotericism in each and every one of his writings.
Composed during the seventeenth century, the 'Golden Age' of alchemy, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus tick each and every box required of a mandala. Their polarity and symmetry, alongside their visual imagery, as well as the multiplicity of geometric forms and numbers encountered in The Garden of Cyrus permit a confident identification of Browne's diptych as forming an alchemical mandala, ingeniously crafted and unique in Western Literature. Crucially, Browne's discourses Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus engage the reader in the mandala's highest function, as art objects of great beauty, inspiring contemplation and capable of imparting spiritual wisdom to a receptive beholder.
This essay discusses how Sir Thomas Browne's two discourses are structured upon templates associated with mandalas, namely circularity, symmetry and polarity. It concludes with a look at the historical background influencing Browne's creative motivation in writing two philosophical discourses and analysis of the symbol of the Quincunx; both of which take on new meaning when viewed through the prism of C. G. Jung's understanding of alchemy. First however, its worthwhile clarifying what exactly a mandala is.
The word 'mandala' originates from a Sanskrit word meaning 'disc' and many mandalas are circular in shape. Defined also as a geometric configuration of symbols which can be used as a spiritual guidance tool, mandalas are universal, they can be found not only in Tibetan Buddhist religious art, but also in Christian iconography, as well as the iconography of Western esoteric traditions such as alchemy, astrology and the kabbalah. Although usually associated as visual art-works, mandalas are not exclusively visual. The German composer J.S. Bach's late musical work Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue BVW 1080) with its abstract and meditative thematically related canons and fugues, is in structure, content and function, an aural representation of a mandala [2].
In nature many species of flower have radiating, wheel-like petals and circular centres making them mandala-like, their beauty inviting contemplation. In India there's a dance known as the nyithya dance which is named the mandala dance, while in the French choreographer Maurice Bejart's interpretation of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, a mandala is formed by dancers with a sacrificial victim at their centre (below).
In his 'The Alchemical Mandala: A survey of the mandala in the western esoteric traditions' (1989) Adam Maclean (b.1948, Glasgow) the leading British authority on alchemy, discusses over thirty mandalas taken from the iconography of 17th century European alchemical literature. Each Western esoteric mandala is accompanied by the author's insightful knowledge of alchemy's rich and complex symbolism. Maclean notes that Western mandalas are an important but neglected aspect of art history which urgently require the attention of scholars and historians. From his generous reproduction of all three mandala variants in Andrea Libavius' Alchemia (1606) conclusive evidence of the seventeenth century funerary monument known as the Layer monument was cemented in 2013 [3].
Returning to the dominant themes and imagery of Urn Burial and the Garden of Cyrus. Inspired by a recent archaeological discovery in Norfolk, Urn-Burial opens with a survey of the burial rites and customs of various nations, highlighting Browne's comparative religion studies. Imagery of darkness, night, sleep and the invisible pervade its pages. Life's ending's and beliefs about death are sombrely surveyed, and Browne the doctor reminds his reader of their mortality, the inevitability of their death and the unlikeliness of their being remembered for very long. Urn-Burial has been lauded throughout the centuries for its stately, ornate Baroque flourishes of prose. The strongly Christian and stoical half of the diptych includes mention of ghosts, spirits, vampirism and even altered states of spiritual consciousness. Urn-Burial has been described as a threnody to the dead of the English Civil war, at a time when England's population was estimated to have been a little over 5 million its estimated that over 200,000 lives were lost in the seven year period of the English Civil war (1642-49) exceeding anything England has ever experienced to the present-day. English society was further traumatised psychologically when living under the experimental, Puritan Republic of Cromwell (1650 -59).
In complete polarity, The Garden of Cyrus examines life's visible beginnings, including germination and growth in botany. Its hasty in style and playful in tone, whilst also repeatedly demonstrating the ubiquity of the number five and the Quincunx pattern in art, nature and religious symbolism. Imagery involving Light, optics and growth crowd its pages. Overtly hermetic in content, its alludes to several esoteric disciplines which Browne subscribed to, including Paracelsian medicine, physiognomy and the kabbalah. The discourse also features Browne's highly original proper-name symbolism, often originating from Biblical and Ancient world sources; its central chapter is crowded with numerous sharp-eyed botanical observations, botany being an essential pursuit for physicians in Browne's time.
Just how The Garden of Cyrus hasn't been positively identified as a literary writing influenced by hermetic philosophy before now remains a great mystery; its very first page features major themes, symbols and preoccupations associated with western esoteric traditions. Opening with the patron "deity" associated with Paracelsian alchemy, namely Vulcan, featuring Browne’s study of comparative religion, employing highly original spiritual-optical imagery, speculating upon the Creation and life’s beginnings, citing Plato’s discourse Timaeus, (the supreme authority for Hermetic philosophers) and finally, conjuring the potent alchemical 'coniunctionis' symbol of Sol et Luna, Browne could not spell out the esoteric theme of his discourse harder if he tried. Little wonder that for three and a half centuries its pages have baffled most and delighted few, such as the Romantic poet, Coleridge for example. [4]
Browne reconciled the wisdom of Western esoteric traditions such as alchemy and the kabbalah to Christianity in exactly the same way as the vanguard Renaissance advocates of esotericism, Marsilio Ficino (b.19th October 1433- d.1499) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494); by giving credence to a Prisca Theologia, a belief in a single, true theology shared by all religions and whose wisdom is passed on in a golden chain through a series of mystics and prophets which included Moses and Zoroaster, Pythagoras and Plato. In particular, the mythic Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus or ‘thrice greatest’ (being the greatest priest, philosopher and king) was appropriated by Hermetic philosophers as a wise pagan prophet who foresaw the coming of Christ. In reality the writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to Hermes Trismegistus originated from the early Christian era, and not before, as believed. Such imaginative comparative religion sanctioned the study of pagan philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato, and justified the Bible's antiquity, wisdom and superiority to devout Christians.
Frank Huntley is credited as the first to identify the circular nature of Browne's discourses. Huntley saw evidence of Browne's creative intent of the circle uniting his two Discourses in the penultimate paragraphs of The Garden of Cyrus where imagery involving night, darkness, sleep and death returns; thus Browne's essay on life's beginnings, The Garden of Cyrus unites with Urn Burial with its thematic concern of life's endings and imagery of darkness, night and sleep. Huntley viewed this return of Urn-Burial's theme and imagery as evidence of Browne utilizing imagery of the tail-eating snake of alchemy, known as the Ouroboros, shaping his twin Discourses' overall structure [5]. Browne had reflected upon the tail-eating snake or Ouroboros in his medical essay A Letter to a Friend (c.1656) -
'that the Tail of the Snake should return into its Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity, is indeed a remarkable Coincidence, which tho' Astrology hath taken witty pains to salve, yet hath it been very wary in making Predictions of it.
The conclusion of The Garden of Cyrus uses imagery distinctly allusive to the Ouroboros. Browne reassures his reader, both contemporary and future, of a return to social and political stability.
'All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of Heaven'.
An early visual realization of the Ouroboros has the motto Hen et Pan (One is All) inscribed at its centre (below). The Ouroboros was adopted by Gnostics of the early Christian era and later by Renaissance alchemists as symbolic of their art and its considered to be the basic mandala of alchemy. Note how in the Gnostic illustration below duality or polarity is highlighted through the use of black and white, not unlike what is termed the basic mandala of eastern esotericism, the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol.
One of C.G. Jung's greatest achievements was his discovery that at its deepest strata human consciousness is undifferentiated, thus symbols originating from civilizations remote to each other in time and geography nevertheless often display striking similarities. The symbols of the Greek Ouroboros (above) and the Chinese Yin Yang symbol (below) express the self-same duality or polarity, and balanced view of the total forces of good and evil, life and death.
The heraldic coat of arms of the Browne family bears resemblance to the Chinese Yin-Yang symbol in its symmetrical design.
If Urn-Burial with its grave meditations upon human mortality and death can be said to be the gritty and dark underbelly of Browne's literary serpent, then The Garden of Cyrus with its repeated demonstrations of 'how God geometrizeth and observeth order', is surely the decorative, designed upper half of Browne's Ouroboros. And indeed, accompanying the menagerie of birds, insects and animals in The Garden of Cyrus several species of snake along with their markings and motions are mentioned -
'A like correspondency in figure is found in the skins and outward teguments of animals, whereof a regardable part are beautiful by this texture. As the backs of several Snakes and Serpents, elegantly remarkable in the Aspis, and the Dart-snake, in the Chiasmus and larger decussations upon the back of the Rattlesnake, and in the close and finer texture of the Mater formicarum, or snake that delights in Ant-hills; whereby upon approach of outward injuries, they can raise a thicker Phalanx on their backs, and handsomely contrive themselves into all kindes of flexures: Whereas their bellies are commonly covered with smooth semi-circular divisions, as best accommodable unto their quick and gliding motion'.
C.G. Jung noted that -The image of the circle was regarded as the most perfect form by Hermetic philosophers since Plato's Timaeus, the prime authority for Hermetic philosophers'. And of the circular figure of the Ouroboros he stated - 'In the age-old image of the ouroboros lies the though of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite i.e. of the shadow. This feedback process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the ouroboros that he slays himself and brings to life, fertilizes himself an gives birth to himself. [6]
The Labyrinth is closely related to the mandala in several ways. Unlike a maze, a Labyrinth offers no alternative route, its unicursive path however, always leads to a centre, a feature common in many mandalas. Symbolic of pilgrimage during the Medieval era, labyrinth paths were laid out in ground plans of monasteries, cloisters and churchyards and walked as symbolic of ascending towards salvation. Walking their twisting turns, one loses track of direction, time and the outside world, calming the mind and inducing contemplation. Walking a labyrinth is therefore not unlike physically stepping into a mandala for spiritual exercise.
The earliest of all known Western mandalas originates from Ancient Greece, namely, the Cretan Labyrinth of Knossos along with Homer's descriptive account of Achille's shield in The Illiad. Both are featured in The Garden of Cyrus.
Throughout the Renaissance the study of numismatics provided easy access to the ancient world for collectors such as Browne. Coins from the Classical world of ancient Greece and Rome, supplied the antiquarian with a wealth of information. A numismatic depiction of the Labyrinth of Knossos sparks Browne's creative imagination in chapter two of The Garden of Cyrus,
'And, though none of the seven wonders, yet a noble piece of Antiquity, and made by a Copy exceeding all the rest, had its principal parts disposed after this manner, that is, the Labyrinth of Crete, built upon a long quadrate, containing five large squares, communicating by right inflections, terminating in the centre of the middle square, and lodging of the Minotaur, if we conform unto the description of the elegant medal thereof in Agostino'. [7]
One of Western civilization's earliest mandalas originates from the poetry of the ancient Greek author Homer (circa 500 BCE). Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, not unlike Browne's discourses, are also a two-in-one literary work, the masculine theme of the Trojan war in The Iliad differs starkly to the adventures and affairs of the heart of The Odyssey, with its hero Odysseus endeavouring to return to his wife, Penelope. Both of Homer's epic poems are mentioned in Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus. Its at the apotheosis of The Garden of Cyrus that Browne alludes to the weaponry of the Greek warrior Achilles, shortly before delivering his scientific credentials -
'Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer. But Vulcan and his whole forge, sweat to work out Achilles' his armour'
Homer’s long and detailed description of the Achilles' shield of over 100 lines is utterly mandala-like in concept. Angelo Monticelli's visual realization of Achilles’ shield (circa 1820) divides the shield into five concentric rings. From its centre it depicts the whole universe, with constellations and planets, as well as human life, including a wedding, a marketplace and tribunal. Wartime is represented by a victim of a siege, peacetime by sowing, a harvest and dancing. The stream of Oceanus encircles the land mass. The twelves signs of the zodiac and Apollo riding a chariot of four horses can be seen at its centre. [8]
In alchemy the primordial symbolism of colour is represented by the colour schemata of Nigredo and Albedo (Blackness and Whiteness) . There's a strong case to be made for Urn Burial as a symbolic realization of the Nigredo stage of alchemy. As the first of four stages in the alchemical opus, the Nigredo (Blackness) represents the psychological state of melancholic gloom and despair which the adept faced beginning the alchemical opus. The historical circumstances in which Urn-Burial was written with its many grave and sombre meditations upon Death, mortification, putrefaction, embalmment, funerary urns and monuments, its repeatedly condemnation of the vain-glory of being remembered after death as a futile hope, makes it utterly exemplary of the Nigredo . Browne's poetic phrase, 'lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing' encapsulates the Nigredo stage of alchemy, which C. G. Jung describes thus-
'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 journey to the underworld as Dante experienced it'. [9]
It should come as no surprise that several 'Soul Journey's of Classical literature are named in Urn-Burial, for mandalas often symbolize the spiritual journey of the soul. Homer's Voyage of Ulysses, Plato's myth of Er, the Roman poet Macrobius' 'Dream of Scipio' and Dante's descent to the Underworld are all works of 'Soul Journey' literature which are named in Urn Burial.
In contradistinction to the Job-like suffering of the Nigredo, the albedo or 'Whitening' of the alchemical opus represents a return to innocence. Closely associated with Biblical accounts of the Creation and Paradise, we can confidently view The Garden of Cyrus as representative of the Albedo stage of alchemy. Browne opens The Garden of Cyrus with the Creation, and etymological understanding of Paradise, before speculating on the location of the Garden of Eden. According to C.G. Jung -
'By means of the opus which the adept likens to the creation of the world, the albedo or whitening is produced.' [10]
'For alchemists Paradise was a favourite symbol of the albedo, the regained state of innocence'. [11]
The Hamburg based physician and hermetic philosopher Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605) synthesized symbolism from Christianity, the Kabbalah and the mystic Rose of alchemy to form the mandala reproduced in his Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae of 1595 (Above).
The gordian knot of how and why of Browne's creative motivation in writing two 'conjoyned discourses remained uncut for centuries. In a typical self-depreciating manner, Browne states simply of the relationship between his two Discourses-
That we conjoyn these parts of different Subjects, or that this should succeed the other; Your judgement will admit without impute of incongruity; Since the delightful World comes after death, and Paradise succeeds the Grave.
This solitary clue far from explains Browne's creative motivation for the multiplicity of polarities or complexio oppositorum in his diptych Discourses.
There's a multipicity of opposites or polarities in Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus their primary thematic polarities being Time and Space, Darkness and Light, Decay and Growth, Invisible and Visible, Accident and Design, Conjecture and Discernment, Microcosm and Macrocosm among others, as well as oppositional imagery and literary style. Such distinctive polarity alerts those familiar with basic tenets of Western esotericism, for polarity features strongly in nearly all esoteric schemata. One of the basic maxims of alchemy, solve et coagula for example, which exhorts the alchemist to 'dissolve and coagulate' loosely approximating to the biology of decay and growth, is itself a polarized maxim which corresponds to the dominant themes of each Discourse respectively, Urn Burial being a meditative soliloquy on decay and life's endings, whilst The Garden Of Cyrus lyricizes upon life's beginnings and growth.
C. G. Jung's radical interpretation of the psychological importance of alchemy did much to alleviate prejudices against Western esoteric traditions. When he died in 1961 the publication of his collected writings gathered apace. The very title of Jung's late magnum opus work, Mysterium Coniunctions: An enquiry and synthesis of the psychic opposites in alchemy', first published in 1963, has relevance to the psychic opposites of melancholy in Urn-Burial and cheerfulness in The Garden of Cyrus. In its foreword Jung trenchantly states -
-'the "alchemystical" philosophers made the opposites and their union one of the chiefest objects of their work'. [12]
The growing popularity of Jung's psychology throughout the 1960's was such that he was included in the pantheon of writers, artists, poets, pop and film stars assembled in Peter Blake's photomontage artwork for the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club. (1967). The British singer/songwriter David Bowie (1947-2016) also paid homage to Jung in his 1973 song 'Drive-in Saturday' ('Jung the foreman/prayed at work').
Amusingly, there's a slender connection between the 'fab four' landmark album Sgt. Pepper to the phantasmagoria of The Garden of Cyrus in as much as both can loosely be defined as psychedelic art-works (that is, in the original Greek meaning of the words, Psyche Mind/Soul + Delos 'Clear, manifest'). The rapid, near kaleidoscopic procession of examples from art, nature and religious mysticism related to the Quincunx symbol in The Garden of Cyrus has indeed a psychedelic dimension. Throughout its pages the active imagination of the alchemist in operation is visibly manifest. Little wonder therefore that The Garden of Cyrus has astonished and bewildered countless readers for centuries.
Concluding this digression of loose associations to psychedelia in general, its also in The Garden of Cyrus that Browne introduces the medical word 'Hallucination' into the English language.
Thomas Browne possessed the ability to lucid dream, that is, the ability to manipulate and control the fantasy world of dreams at will. He informs his reader of this ability in Religio Medici
'yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is fruitful I would chose never to study but in my dreams'. [13]
Browne's gift of lucid dreaming is of great significance in the light of C.G. Jung's observation that,
'with the help of dreams, the unconscious produces a natural symbol technically termed a mandala which has the functional significance of a union of opposites, or a meditation'. [14]
C. G. Jung's ground-breaking study of alchemy illumines interpretation of Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus as an alchemical mandala. Structured upon the basic templates of life, namely Time (Urn-Burial) and Space (The Garden of Cyrus) there's a multiplicity of polarities, or 'oppositional conjunctions' in Browne's 'twin' discourses in their subject-matter, imagery , truth and even literary style. Any serious scholar of esotericism would immediately be alert to this fact, for polarity plays no small part in almost all esoteric schemata; the alchemical maxim solve e coagula (decay and growth) the declaration of the mythic Hermes Trismegistus of, 'As above, so Below,' the time-honoured schemata of the Renaissance of Man as Microcosm inhabiting the vastness of the Macrocosm, the alchemical colour symbolism of Nigredo and Albedo (Black and White) all utilize polarity in their symbolism and are fundamental templates to Browne's 'twin' discourses. Indeed, its from his study of magnetism that Browne, a vigorous coiner of new words, is credited with introducing the very word 'polarity' into the English language. Fundamental imagery involving Darkness in Urn-Burial and Light in The Garden of Cyrus pervade the respective pages of Browne's discourses.
According to C.G. Jung the opposites play a decisive role in the alchemical process [15] In his view, 'the real subject of Hermetic philosophy is the coniunctio oppositorum [16]. One simply cannot think of a better examplar of a Hermetic philosopher delineating polarised opposites in highly original optical-spiritual imagery than Browne in his alchemical mandala.
The Jungian psychoanalyst James Hillman for one, explains why polarities such as Light and Darkness exist in alchemical literature thus-
'The linking of light and darkness sets the stage for a fundamental and recurring theme in both alchemy and Jungian psychology, namely, the coniunctio oppositorum, the unity of opposites, a bringing together of light and darkness into an illuminated vision'.[ 17]
Johannes Daniel Mylius (c. 1583 – 1642) was a composer for the lute and writer on alchemy. The mandala reproduced in his Opus medico-chymicum dated 1618 (above) synthesizes symbolism taken from the Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, avian symbolism and mythology. At its centre there stands an alchemist in a grove of trees representing the planetary metals. A raven symbolizing the Nigredo and the Swan representing the Albedo in the lower hemisphere along with a celestial choir in its upper hemisphere are only visible once the page unfolded.
The 1650's decade saw the greatest volume of esoteric literature ever published in England. Many important esoteric titles were translated or made available in English for the first time under the liberalisation and relaxation of printing press licensing laws during the Protectorate of Cromwell. The antiquarian Elias Ashmole tested the waters of this new liberalisation in order to publish in 1652 his anthology of British alchemical authors, the Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum,a copy of which is listed as once in Browne's library. It was followed by Cornelius Agrippa's influential Three books on Occult Philosophy and by Thomas Vaughan's translation of the Fama and Confessio of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. Incidentally, the spiritual alchemist Thomas Vaughan (c.1621-65) who knew of, and admired Thomas Browne, may have had the diptych Discourses in mind when alluding to the dominant symbol of each Discourse he declared Mercurius, the patron 'deity' of alchemy, to be, 'not only a two-edged sword, but also our true, hidden vessel, the Philosophical Garden, wherein our sun rises and sets'. And a copy of Vaughan's evocatively titled A Hermetical Banquet drest by a Spagyrical cook (1652) is listed as once in Browne's library. [18]
It must have been nigh on impossible for an avid bibliophile such as Browne to be unaware of this publication trend throughout the 1650's decade. And the temptation to add his own influential voice to the chorus of esoteric literature which poured forth from England's printing presses, must surely have inspired him. This creative urge, along with experiencing extreme psychological distress from the uncertainty and vulnerable social status of being a defeated Royalist with a profession to protect in order to support his large family, may well have induced Browne, consciously or unconsciously, to construct his own personal mandala, for according to Jung-
'the Mandala encompasses, protects and defends the psychic totality against outside influences and seeks to unite the opposites and is an individuation symbol'. [19]
Individuation symbols such as those produced by the mandala were in Jung's view spontaneous products of the psyche which arise whenever the psyche is in crisis and in need of transforming or protection. C.G. Jung observed that alchemical symbolism frequently incorporated geometric forms stating -
Alchemical symbolism has produced a whole series of non-human forms, geometrical configurations like the sphere, circle, square, and octagon, or chemical configurations like the Philosopher's Stone, the ruby, diamond, quicksilver, gold, water, fire, and spirit (in the sense of a volatile substance). [20]
Urn-Burial focusses almost hypnotically upon the symbol of the Urn or Vessel which in alchemy was the womb-like matrix where the Philosopher's Stone incubated. ('Incubation' being yet another Of Browne's neologisms). In complete contrast The Garden of Cyrus is jam-packed with symbols, geometric forms, numbers and hieroglyphs - the triangle, square, hexagon, pyramid, Egyptian Ankh, the letter X as well as the Quincunx pattern , all of which are utilized by Browne in his demonstration of the interconnection of the worlds of art, nature and religious mysticism. For Jung such symbols were none other than variants upon the foremost symbol of the psyche, the mandala , writing - 'Empirically the self appears spontaneously in the shape of specific symbols and its totality is discernible above all in the mandala and its countless variants'. [21]
C. G. Jung was a keen scholar of comparative religion. He became familiar with the Quincunx symbol from his long study of alchemy. Originally, little more than a unit of measurement of 5/12th in the Roman era, the Quincunx gained its esoteric associations when the German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) named it as an aspect of both astronomy and astrology. Kepler's books are well-represented in Browne's library. [22]
Although its unlikely that C. G. Jung knew of The Garden of Cyrus other than from hearsay, Browne's discourse being utterly untranslatable, nevertheless he did know that - 'The quinarius or Quinio (in the form of 4 + 1 i.e. Quincunx ) does occur as a symbol of wholeness (in China and occasionally in alchemy) but relatively rarely.' [23]
Jung even utilized the Quincunx pattern for his own purposes, stating in an essay, 'Their union in a quincunx signifies union of the four elements in a world-body' [24]. Astoundingly, in 'Flying Saucers: A modern myth' (1958) Jung likens the Quincunx to be, 'a symbol of the quinta essentia which is identical with the Philosopher's Stone. [25]
As the centrepiece of Browne's mandala, the Quincunx pattern is thus a symbol of totality and wholeness, representing the achievement of Unio mentalis or self-knowledge of the alchemists. As Jung succinctly observed - 'The self is a complexio oppositorum itself'. [26]
Browne's creative motivation in penning his twin discourses is to share his psychological understanding of the Self, the true Philosopher's Stone, in order to provide his reader with an unique spiritual text. His alchemical mandala is both a portrait of himself personally with his hobbies of archaeology and botany and of the Collective Self, with all the irrational fears and inspired ideas we share; it operates upon the reader primarily through the effects of synergy, which is defined as - the interaction of two or more agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects'.
Like all good empirical scientists, Browne knew that simply by juxtaposing object A with object B, a new perspective upon each object is gained, inasmuch as differences and similarities are heightened whenever objects, or indeed whenever philosophical discourses are placed within close proximity to each other. As C.G. Jung puts it - ''A judgement can be made about a thing only if its opposite is equally real and possible'. [27]
Its the resultant synergy from reading these two quite different discourses which generates Browne's alchemical mandala and which effectively operates upon the reader. The individual reader's conscious and unconscious association of Browne's highly original, home-grown symbolism, their comprehension of his many Classical and Biblical references along with receptivity towards the dominant themes of each respective discourse which contribute towards psychic realization and activation of Dr. Browne's alchemical mandala.
To repeat, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus adhere to mandala symbolism in their circularity and symmetry as well as their frequent usage of symbolism. Crucially, they engage in the mandala's highest function - as art-objects of great beauty worthy of contemplation and which remind their beholder of their own 'soul- journey' and place in the cosmos, thus bestowing spiritual enlightenment.
Augmenting and summarizing in Adam Maclean's words- 'Hermetic philosophers such as Thomas Browne can be said to be pioneering proto-psychologists who were open to their inner worlds and perceptions which they 'projected' onto outer symbols, in doing so they discovered a universal language which transcended words to communicate their experience of the soul's architecture. Thomas Browne's ability to lucid dream is a vital contributing factor in this alchemical act of active imagination. If we choose to contemplate the symbolism of alchemical mandalas, whether they are visual, auditory or couched within literary works such as Thomas Browne's two philosophical discourses, they can lead us deep into the mysteries of our inner world. Thus, far from the received wisdom of Urn Burial being a gloomy antiquarian essay, with an essay on gardening appended, in order to bulk out for the printer, as was once believed, Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus can be conceptualized as an alchemical mandala, capable of unlocking the mysteries of the soul's architecture. [28]
Notes
[1] Opening quote from Heideman M.A. 'Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus' A Paradox and a Cosmic Vision' University of Toronto Quarterly, XIX 1950 .
Next - Green, P. Sir Thomas Browne Longmans, Green & Co (Writers and Their Work, No.108 1959) followed by Browne Religio Medici 1:12
[2] Recommended recording : Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue) - Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Harmonia Mundi 2011
[5] Huntley, Frank . Sir Thomas Browne: A Biographical and Critical Study, Ann Arbour 1962
[6] Collected Works 11. 92 and Vol 14 :759
[7] Agostino's book is listed in the 1711 Sales Catalogue of Browne's Library p. 38 no. 5. The full title of Agostino's book is - Ant. Agostini Dialoghi intorno alle Medaglie, Inscrissioni & altre Antichita Romanze tradotti di Lingua Spagnola in Italiana da D Ottav. Sada, e dal Medisimo accresciuti, con Annot. & illustrati con disegni di molte Medaglie &c. Rome 1650.
[8] Link to Book 18, lines 478-608 of Homer's Iliad .https://poets.org/poem/iliad-book-xviii-shield-achilles
Although long recognized as a work of World literature, for many Urn-Burial (1658) is neither easy or comfortable to read. With its melancholic meditations on the uncertainty of life, the unknowingness of the human condition, the fragility of our mortality and the certainty of death, all couched in splendid flourishes of Baroque oratory, Thomas Browne's philosophical discourse will never be everyone's favourite bedtime reading.
In addition to its ornate literary style and to modern sensibilities near taboo subject-matter, another stumbling block hindering appreciation of Urn-Burial is that it frequently shifts focus, giving expression to quite different facets of its author. This results in surprising changes of perspective, alternating from the viewpoint of pioneering scholar of comparative religion to that of local historian, to scientist and archaeologist, to antiquarian and Christian moralist, often without any warning to the reader, other than beginning a new paragraph.
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-Burialhas 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 illustratedin 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.
Urn-Burial also features a short, but detailed description of Browne's single, credited scientific discovery, the formation of the waxy substance which coagulates upon the body fat of a corpse, named as adipocere.
'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 Nigredostage 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-Burialcan 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.
Originally an Italian agricultural god, other implements associated with Saturn include the pruning-hook, spade and the hour-glass, as well as the oar for its slow, regular strokes which, like the ticking of a clock, propel a boat through time.
Positive aspects of Saturn's symbolic attributes include the highest insight of the scholar, spiritual revelation and the crystallization of ideas.
Interest and knowledge of astrology and alchemy along with planetary symbolism advanced considerably during the Renaissance. Browne's era, the seventeenth century is considered to be the Golden Age of alchemy, its long decline beginning at the century's close.
In his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643)Thomas Browne candidly confesses-
‘If there be any truth in Astrology, I may outlive a Jubilee, as yet I have not seen one revolution of Saturn, nor hath my pulse beat thirty years’. [8]
Like many thinkers and artists during the Renaissance, Thomas Browne was able to identify with the psychological aspects of planetary symbolism, stating in Religio Medici -
'I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me'. [9]
Although often associated with melancholy, Saturn like Mercury, was also associated with transformation, and the two alchemical 'gods' are frequently linked together in western esoteric tradition literature and iconography. Because of its powers of transformation Saturn was also considered by alchemist and hermetic philosopher alike, to be a touchstone of the alchemical art as much as Mercury or Hermes, the more commonly associated 'deity' of alchemy. Hermetic themes preoccupy much of Urn-Burial's counterpart, The Garden of Cyrus, a literary work which is replete with planetary symbolism.
Its interesting to note in passing that Browne's Saturnine characteristics seem to have appealed to the German author, translator and UEA academic, W. G Sebald (1944-2001). Meditations about Browne and his prose weave throughout W.G. Sebald's much admired hybrid work The Rings of Saturn (1995 English translation 1998).
The woodcut reproduced in the Theatrum Chemicum (above) is a symbolic illustration of the Nigredoof alchemy. The adept, seen encased within a bubble has the two great luminaries, the Sun and Moon, along with the five planets above him. He is depicted as under the influence of the black star, Saturn. A raven, of the Corvid family of birds, alights upon his stomach while two angels keep watch over him.
Consisting of five folio volumes the Theatrum Chemicum (1613) was the most comprehensive anthology of alchemical writings in the seventeenth century and the handbook of many a would-be hermetic philosopher. Both C.G. Jung and Thomas Browne owned an edition of the Theatrum Chemicum.Isaac Newton filled the margins of his copy with annotations. [10]
The woodcut illustration of the Nigredo was copied and reproduced in countless editions of alchemy until the 18th century. It must have fascinated C.G.Jung for he reproduced it in his collected works twice. Highly apt as lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing,it wouldn't have been totally out of place as a frontispiece for Urn-Burial.
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.
The English composer William Alwyn (1905-85) was a prolific film-score composer who had a life-long love of the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. His 5th Symphony entitled Hydriotaphia is based upon his reading of Browne and was first performed in Norwich in 1973.
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