Each year, at the annual meeting of The Canadian Poets’ Hall of Fame, one of the Kangaroo City
BEN JONSON’S ‘THE ALCHEMIST’:
OLD MESSAGE FOR THE NEW AGE?
It is the nature of alchemy that it is secret – it is the province of those in the know, those who are acquainted with mystery – if they are successful, that is, in the objectives of alchemy. All sorts of people can, not being in the know, conduct all sorts of experiments in unsuccessful attempts to get into the know. Through the centuries, much derision has been directed towards those unsuccessful – but it is only the failures that have been recorded. This is something about the nature of alchemy that contradicts the norm in other respects: usually the victor, not the loser, writes history.
Many great men are alleged to have had a connection with another dimension from which they were able to extract knowledge not otherwise available. For some, such other dimension was simply a secret society that had preserved ancient knowledge. For others, it really was some form of inter-dimensional communication. Having once received such knowledge (from either source), the great man must now decide: should the knowledge be shared? Jesus once remarked ‘cast not your pearls before swine’. In this play’s introduction to the reader, Jonson hints that he is like-minded when he says that he does not want
‘to do good on any man against his will’.
If the receiving of new knowledge were put to a vote, he says:
‘the worse would find more suffrages,
because the most favour common errors’.
They choose to be swine. This is why, in political terms, I have long favoured republicanism over democracy: democracy imposes the will of the incompetent majority, whereas republicanism protects even the minority of one person. When we look at such great men as Nikola Tesla or Viktor Schauberger, who tried to share their discoveries with the world, we see another problem in addition to the resistance by those whose financial interests would be damaged by new discoveries: even favourable propaganda requires money. The dissemination of knowledge must be financed in some way, and our economic system, based on competition rather than co-operation [nature is harmony, not struggle] does not permit this. Is there a difference in today’s New Age, where more people are willing to accept change? Knowledge demands growth or change.
I want tonight to review Ben Jonson’s play, keeping three questions in mind, and I want to look only at the text of the play itself to answer those questions, keeping to my general habit of always viewing the primary source, or as near to it as available to me. I am using the1947 edition, edited by Gerald Eades Bentley, published in New York
1]How does the alchemy of 1610 compare with today’s New Age?
2]Was Ben Jonson one of those with access to hidden mysteries?
3]What contemporary issues does Jonson deal with?
First, some general background on Jonson. He thought that literature should contribute to the improvement of society, and therefore, it should depict contemporary life realistically. Characters should undergo common-place experiences, and should be like the people one meets on the streets. A comedy should so present contemporary folly that, by laughing essentially at themselves, the audience members are led to better conduct in their own lives. To facilitate this, the structure of the literary device should be kept simple. The story should be confined to one place and to a period of less than 24 hours. The characters should repeatedly display their dominant characteristics. The people should speak the language of their time, including slang. As a foot-note to that, I mention that speaking the language of the day was an issue debated in the religious circles of Jonson’s time in the wake of the then-recent Church of England’s adoption of The 39 Articles, one of which forbade ‘languages not understandeth by the people’. In our time, a similar debate continues on the use of ‘inclusive’ language. Resistance continued during Jonson’s life-time, with some cultural activity such as passion plays still being conducted in Latin. As a result of the slang which Jonson did use, I must add the second foot-note that some of the slang used in this play is now unintelligible even to the scholars who write the footnotes. The Alchemist is an excellent example of Jonson following his own advice.
The Alchemist was written and first performed in 1610, but remains contemporary today. In his introduction, Jonson raises an issue we are still debating four centuries later. He complains of a
‘great deal of violence’
in plays; -- and we hire Judy LaMarsh to run a Royal Commission investigating violence on television. Things have not changed! Jonson complains of tastelessness and vulgarity in plays:
‘the unskilful…..think rude things greater than polish’d’;
-- and we listen to Captain Kangaroo’s ongoing crusade against vulgarity on prime-time TV. Things have not changed!
One of the characters, Mammon, dreams about what he will do with the large sums of money he hopes to come into. His listing of the ingredients of ‘having a good time’ sounds just like a contemporary lottery winner’s wish list: sexual extravagance, exaggerated aesthetics, personal servants, extreme foods. How many ways can you spend a fortune? In the list of personal servants, Jonson makes one of two gentle digs at fellow-poets. Mammon will hire:
‘…..my poets
The same that writ so subtly of the fart,
Whom I will entertain still for that subject.’
The other reference to poets comes in a description of a character whose task is to deceive a clergyman:
‘…..a special gentle
That is heir to forty marks a year,
Consorts with the small poets of the time,
Is the sole hope of his old grandmother…..
Will take his oath o’ the Greek Xenophon
In Jonson’s first edition, he used the words ‘New Testament’, not ‘Xenophon’. The change was necessitated by political correctness [nothing has changed!] initiated by the Calvinist invasion of England
‘A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,
That scarce have smil’d twice sin’ the king came in’
[i.e., since James ascended the throne in 1603]. It was forbidden to smile on a Sunday in Calvin’s Geneva England from Holland England because they had been expelled from England England from Holland
‘dead Holland
In our own times, we have a pharmaceutical cartel trying to make huge profits by selling people drugs that they do not need, drugs that do not work, drugs that merely create an artificial need for other drugs. It is an industry based on frauds of various types. Contrasted to this is the field of simple and inexpensive holistic medicine. This whole scenario is the theme of The Alchemist, with the characters Subtle, Face and Dol trying to con customers into buying their potions. Contrasted to this are ordinary people, such as Drugger the tobacconist, who prefer more natural solutions:
‘…..did cure me,
With sodden ale, and pellitory o’ the wall:
Cost me but twopence.’
It is perhaps ironic that a tobacconist comes to the defence of honest medicine. Certainly in our day and age the tobacco industry is under attack, and we have recently begun to receive written warnings on every tobacco product that we purchase. Two of my ancestors who lived for more than 100 years smoked for more than 85 years without harmful effects, but they smoked unadulterated tobacco. This has become one of the issues before us: is the adulteration of marijuana and tobacco what is causing the harm? Is the documented habitual dumping of radioactive nuclear wastes on the tobacco fields of south-western Ontario
‘He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil,
Nor washes it in muscadel and grains,
Nor buries it in gravel, under ground,
Wrapp’d up in greasy leather, or piss’d clouts,
But keeps it in fine lily pots’
This implies both that some people were adulterating tobacco, and that there is a proper way to store it.
Jonson makes some very short references to subjects which are current amongst today’s New Agers:
‘All sounds of voices, in few marks of letters’
refers to studies of the ancient symbolism of our alphabets;
‘By pouring on your rectified water’
refers to attempts to restore or enhance the memories contained in water -- [and let me interject a commercial here: this year’s corporate sponsor is Mississauga Living Water, and before you leave tonight, please visit their display at the back of the auditorium and take along one of the free brochures, take the water taste test, or purchase one of their books or water revitalizers];
‘…..look over, sir, my almanac,
And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither
Bargain, nor trust upon them’
refers to Drugger keeping track of his bio-rhythm.
I want to make the point that Jonson does not denigrate alchemy in this play. He never loses faith in alchemy, nor does he express any doubts as to its efficacy. In the description of The Persons of the Play at the beginning, he clearly indicates:
‘Subtle [a rogue who poses as an alchemist]’
In the play, Jonson brings forth characters who are fraudulently representing themselves as alchemists; they cannot be counted on to demonstrate true alchemy, which is never questioned. There is a sceptical character, Pertinax Surly, who exposes the frauds at the end of the play, and provides many laughs along the way. An example: when the con artists are listing the vegetable ingredients to one of their potions, Surly says, in an aside to the audience:
‘we’re having a salad’.
He is my favourite character in the play, but although he manages to evade all attempts to con him, and exposes all the frauds, I deeply regret that he doesn’t get the girl at the end.
Tradition has it that alchemy is knowledge preserved from a primordial time when technology was at a superior level than what it is today, although we are rapidly catching up. The ancients and Ben Jonson, for example, knew the secrets of anti-gravity:
‘…..divine secret that doth fly in clouds
From east to west’
This vast store of knowledge was memorised in cryptic terminology and passed on from generation to generation. Most of the generations along the way had no idea of what they were talking about. How would you describe a spacecraft to someone completely unacquainted with flight? In recent years, many people have become amazed at the extent of ancient knowledge which has awaited the dawn of the modern age in order to be interpreted correctly. Witness the books by Zechariah Sitchin, for example. In this play, there are several references to the age of knowledge and to how it has been hidden:
‘…..Was not all knowledge
Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the Scriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapp’d in perplexed allegories?’
There is a detailed example of creating the cryptic Green language:
‘…..He first shall have A BELL
And by it standing one whose name is DEE ,
In a RUG gown, there’s D, and rug, that’s drug;
And right anenst him a dog snarling ER;
There’s drugger, Abel Drugger. That’s his sign.
And here’s now mystery and hieroglyphic!’
This tradition of hiding things goes way back:
‘…..Jason’s fleece too,
Which was no other than a book of alchemy,
Writ in large sheepskin’
and
‘…..as our philosophers have done,
The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood,’
and
‘Will you believe antiquity? Records?
I’ll show you a book where Moses, and his sister,
And Solomon have written of the art:
Ay, and a treatise penn’d by Adam –
…..in High Dutch’
[‘High Dutch’ is transliteration of ‘Hoch Deutsch’, meaning High German, which has a much closer derivation from Sanskrit and Karamayic (Adam’s language) than English.]
The play is full of references to the content of this hidden knowledge. In addition to the references already given, we have a playful reference to heavy metal poisoning:
‘…..metals, that intoxicate
The brain of man, and make him prone to passion.
Where have you greater atheists than your cooks?
Or more profane, or choleric, than your glass-men?
More anti-Christian than your bell-founders?
What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you,
Sathan, our common enemy, but his being
Perpetually about the fire, and boiling
Brimstone and arsenic?’;
Several elaborations of the homeopathic principles:
‘…..first one ounce convert a hundred,
After his second loose, he’ll turn a thousand;
His third solution, ten; his fourth a hundred;
After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces’
and
‘…..on a knife’s point,
The quantity of a grain of mustard of it’;
the efficacy of apple cider vinegar:
‘Three drops of vinegar in at your nose’;
the benefits of ultra sound:
‘…..cry “hum”’;
knowledge of sacred geometry:
‘…..the flower of the sun’.
My answer to my three questions at the outset tonight, therefore, is that Ben Jonson was an initiate into hidden knowledge, that such knowledge has a lot of parallels to what is being redeveloped amongst today’s New Agers, and that this makes the play very contemporary. The play also provides circumstantial evidence to my assertion elsewhere, that the Industrial Revolution, in addition to introducing poverty into an age of abundance, brought about a set-back from the standards of spiritual and esoteric education which existed two centuries before it, and from which we have only begun to recover in the last two decades. And over-all, my assessment is that Ben Jonson had a lot of fun knowing that much of his play was going over the heads of much of his audience.
