Appendix: Table Talk and Memorabilia of Mary Anne Atwood, Part 4
Introduction: Mary Anne Atwood’s reflections illuminate the Hermetic art’s transformative power, guiding the soul to divine unity through the interplay of will and light. This section explores the alchemical regeneration of consciousness, unveiling the path to universal truth.
The Dynamics of Divine Regeneration
Atwood describes the Hermetic art as a process of regenerating the soul by dissolving its “self-willed” forms, as St. Martin suggests, aligning it with the Universal Will. The “Corascene dog” and “Armenian bitch” symbolize opposing wills—self and divine—merging into a “sky-colored” essence, as Ripley notes, reflecting divine harmony. This transformation, requiring the adept to avoid selfish haste, elevates consciousness to the “Chief Corner Stone,” akin to Christ’s redemptive unity.
The process, as Boehme’s Signature Rerum illustrates, involves a “central action” where the soul’s light, freed from its “petrifaction,” shines forth, uniting microcosmic centers (head, heart, lumbar) with the Universal Spirit.
The Alchemy of Will and Motion
The Hermetic art, as Atwood explains, is a “mechanical and alchemical” process, using the body’s members—eyes, hands—as instruments to stir the “Vulcan” of motion. This motion, unlike the halting linear life, returns the soul to its circular, eternal source, as the Chaldaic Oracles suggest: “The reins of fire stretch to the unfashioned soul.” Mesmerism, as a preliminary step, initiates this motion, dissolving sensory bonds to awaken divine light, aligning with your life force energy interests (September 7, 2025).
The adept’s will, purified of “false sulphurs,” becomes a vessel for the “Proteus” of universal life, as Sendivogius notes, unlocking the soul’s creative potential through divine alignment.
The Universal Quest for Truth
Atwood emphasizes that true knowledge is an “experimental contact” with the divine, where the soul, as Fichte and Boehme experienced, merges with the Universal Spirit. The Hermetic process, an “inquisition into life,” dissolves doubts through light, as St. Martin’s broad inquiries illustrate. This path, requiring humility and faith, transcends modern metaphysics, offering a holistic truth that resonates with OAK’s meditative unity (October 2, 2025).
Closing: This appendix unveils the Hermetic art’s regenerative dynamics, transforming the soul into divine light. The journey into further reflections deepens in our next post, unveiling more secrets of this sacred art.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
Nevertheless no one seemed to pay any attention to the ugly one but I. And sometimes it seemed to me, as if a chirping and whistling sound as of mice came out from his bulging satchel. Not infrequently he rolled his squinty eyes toward me and laughed impudently at me, as if we were old acquaintances. I racked my brains, in fact, to find out where I might have seen this mask before, but as hard as I tried, I could not think of it. After a while, a beautiful carriage stopped in front of the inn, and several handsome merchants entered the drinking room, and were very courteously welcomed by the innkeeper’s wife and the barmaid. Then I thought that it was now time for me to go, and crept out of the door. But when I found myself on the wet street in the roaring dew wind, I held my fluttering rags with my hands to cover the worst of the bare spots, there was such a shrill laugh right next to me, that I collapsed. The man with the hunter’s hat walked next to me, as if he had been my companion all his life, and looked at me piercingly from the side. “Well, your Baronial Grace,” he grumbled, “what peculiar garb I must find you in again. The new, lavender-gray little coat suited you better that day, when you were watching with your strict father, as the magistrate cracked Heiner’s rough bones.” I looked up, now I knew where I had seen him. It was at Zotenbock, where he had been hanging around in the linden trees, eavesdropping at the market place. “Who are you?” I asked. “Me? I’m just Fangerle,” he replied, suddenly quite humble. “I’m glad when, with much toil and trouble I fill my blue satchel so that my master, who is called the Highest- Lowest, can be content. I now have an extremely annoying job and would be really happy if someone wants to take some of the work off my hands. It is nice money to be earned. Don’t you feel like it, your Baronial Grace?” “Listen,” I said, raising my ash stick. “I am in great distress, but if you have come with your gallows face to mock me, then I will show you that even in rags I can still be a gentleman, if need be.” He ducked his head as if he were afraid, and asked me not to be rude. He was a joker by trade, he said, and as such earned a lot of money at peasant weddings and funeral banquets. And whether I got angry if he said it now – it is a disgrace that one of the house of Dronte is in such an outfit, when it would have been no trouble to earn a bare hundred thalers in a few moments. And before I could reply he reached into his satchel with his crooked fingers and pulled out a handsome canvas pouch, in which it clinked. “A full hundred,” he whispered in my ear. “Hihi – hoho!” he laughed, and it was as if an echo came down from the skies. But it was only a great train of crows and Jackdaws, which moved with Krah and Kjak in the sky, and when I looked up, a crow detached itself from the flock, swooped down and fluttered very low above our heads, so that I saw how it moved its cunning, black ball eyes. At that the thin man straightened up and called out to it: “Black Dove, go and tell the Highest – Lowest, that Fangerle is on the way and to take the quiet one his consolation!” “Krah – Krag!” cried the bird and shot after the others. “What are you chattering about?” I prevailed over my uninvited companion, who was jingling his money bag. “What are you talking about?” “This?” he gave in reply. “One of my jokes, nothing else. Remember: If you’re riding in a wagon and there is a barking mutt, like your master father’s black Diana, following behind, you need only turn and tell the animal where to go. Then it will leave you immediately. This and nothing else I have done with the raven. Otherwise Master Hämmerlein’s songbird would fly with us.” My eyes were glued to the clinking money bag, and I thought of how I could equip myself with a hundred thalers and become a human being again. There was another strange squeaking in his satchel. “What do you have in it?” I asked, pointing with my finger, “that it squeaks like that?” “There in the blue satchel?” The merchant made a face. “It’s little animals that I’ve caught and bring them to their place.” “What kind of little animals?” I pressed him. “Soul mice, tiny soul mice that I’ve been gathering around there.” “Soul mice?” “It’s just a word,” he laughed, reaching into the sack and quickly pulled out a small, shadowy-gray thing that wriggled and screamed. Quickly he hid it again, and although I had not been able to see what it had actually been, a violent shudder ran through my body. Then came a howling gust of wind and almost pulled me down. The money bag fell out of the old man’s hand. Flashing, brand-new thaler pieces rolled out. He quickly picked them up from the ground and threw them back in with the others, and once again my desire for all that money awoke. “What must I do to make the money mine?” He stopped, rolled his eyes, and muzzled his mouth. “In a moment, my boy, my brave boy, just be patient until we reach the two Ka- Ka -“ A fit of coughing almost tore his throat. I followed the direction of his outstretched hand and saw a chapel by the road, not far from the village I was walking toward. I hurriedly strode and the merchant, who suddenly seemed to get sour from walking, only followed with difficulty. When we came to the little church, he stopped, bent over and scratched himself with his nails behind his pointed ears, with his mouth hanging down. “Now you will tell me,” I said angrily, “or do you think you can continue to mock me?” Then he became completely submissive, bowed to me and said softly and almost shyly: “Baron Dronte, I am a coward, and I am afraid of many things that a brave soldier does not fear. There is one lying in there, and he’s dead, so he can’t bite. In his hands are two wooden sticks, one long and a shorter one, which I must take from him for all the world. It is only a handle and a hitch, so he must leave them.” “That would be robbing a corpse,” I stammered, startled. “That would be the gallows.” “Many names exist for the businesses in which there is much to earn. And there are many gallows, but most stand empty.” Under his broad hat, his eyes glistened like St. John’s beetles. “I’d love to,” he croaked hoarsely, “but I can’t touch such sticks. Everyone has their own characteristics. Like, for example, many a man would rather die than touch a toad with his bare hand. “ “What kind of sticks are they, for which you have such a great desire?” “Don’t need them,” he hissed crossly. “Only that the one in there shall be free of them.” Again there was a clang and a sound. My wound hurt. The water stood in my pierced shoes and bit open my frostbite. “I’ll do it,” I said, and reached for the door handle. He looked at me like a hawk. It dawned heavily. The wind rumbled over the steep roof of the chapel. The trees rustled. I entered. In the middle of the whitewashed room, in the corners of which the darkness was already eerily stretching, there was a coffin in front of the altar on the collar. A single light flickered at its head end. A guard sat on the floor and slept. Next to him glittered an empty bottle. In the open coffin, however, lay an old, distinguished man with a face in which life had drawn furrows and wrinkles. He was dressed in a new coat made of black, watered silk; also the vest, the leggings and the stockings were black. A white, well coiffed state wig framed the wax-yellow, smartly pinched face. In his folded hands he held a small wooden cross. I had seen many dead people and even had to help bury them. I didn’t feel much at the sight of lifeless bodies that were left to decay. But this old man with his wise and so unmoving face, in which countless joys and sufferings had been marked, this defenseless man, whose guardian lay there in deep drunkenness and left him defenseless and exposed to everything that might befall the lonely church. I took pity on him. And what was I supposed to steal from him? Then I recognized it: It was the death cross, which his hands were holding tightly. I was supposed to snatch it from him. This should not be difficult. I took hold of the cross. Who sighed there? I almost fell to the ground from fright. But then I got hold of myself, remembered that the dead are dead forever, and reached out my hand again. But I lowered it. What did it matter to the merchant with his disgusting eyes of a bitch, whether this deceased was brought under the lawn with or without his cross? And now he would give me a talking to, the barnacle-eyed fellow with his thalers. I went toward the door. It was only two steps, but I looked back at the dead man. He was lying quietly and peacefully, and as if in great fear, the pale fingers closed around the cross. I had to think of the despicable guy who had hired me. How could this madman or villain think that I would take the cross of a lifeless man away from him? What had he been chattering about, how the ravens flew over us? “To take the silent man’s comfort -?”
Appendix: Table Talk and Memorabilia of Mary Anne Atwood, Part 3
Introduction: Mary Anne Atwood’s reflections illuminate the Hermetic art’s regenerative power, guiding the soul to divine unity through will and light. This section explores the alchemical transformation of consciousness, unveiling the path to universal wisdom.
The Regeneration of Consciousness
Atwood describes the Hermetic art as a process of regenerating the soul’s “third life” (mineral) through the celestial, aligning it with divine wisdom, as Eirenaeus’ metaphor of the “bottomless Mercury” suggests. The adept, by purifying the will, dissolves the “Great Salt Sea” of selfish desires, allowing the “Solar Tincture” of divine light to shine, as St. Martin’s teachings echo. This transformation, akin to Christ’s redemptive work, elevates consciousness to the “Paradisaical life,” free from sensory chains.
The process, requiring contrition and love, reverses the soul’s linear path into a circular eternity, as Boehme’s Signature Rerum illustrates: “The soul perceives the Divine through its essence.”
The Alchemy of Divine Will
The Hermetic art, as Atwood notes, is a “magnetism of Light,” where the Universal Will dissolves false forms, like the “Walls of Troy,” to reveal the divine essence. The adept, through disciplined inquiry, navigates three microcosmic centers—head (animal), heart (vegetable), lumbar (mineral)—to align with the divine, as the Chaldaic Oracles suggest: “The reins of fire stretch to the unfashioned soul.” This process, avoiding self-willed haste, ensures purity, as Norton warns: “Haste is the Devil’s part.”
Mesmerism, as a preliminary step, dissolves the sensuous medium, opening the soul to divine light, but requires a pure will to avoid corruption, resonating with your life force energy interests (September 7, 2025).
The Universal Truth of Creation
Atwood emphasizes that true knowledge is an “experimental contact” with the divine, where the soul, purified of “false sulphurs,” becomes a vessel for the Universal Spirit. The Golden Treatise and Boehme’s ontology describe this as a return to the “Nothing” that is everything, where will and love unite to manifest divine creation. The adept, like Oken, sees nature’s virtues through divine wisdom, transcending modern metaphysics to achieve a holistic truth, as OAK’s meditations aspire to (October 2, 2025).
Closing: This appendix unveils the Hermetic art’s regenerative principles, transforming consciousness into divine light. The journey into further reflections deepens in our next post, unveiling more secrets of this sacred art.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
He fell silent, exhausted, breathing heavily. “Not everything he says is a lie,” murmured Repke. “You too?” roared Zulkov, spitting on the ground. “Oh, about you Germans! You misjudge what alone is necessary for the salvation of the German nation, the army and the wise hand to guide it.” “Germans are over here and over there. Have always been a poor, betrayed people,” said Repke. “It’s a pity that I’ve shot my powder outside, Fritze Zulkow,” sneered Wetzlaff. “Otherwise maybe you would like a warm plaster glued to your mouth with all the strength of your body, you foot stinker, you are the miserable archetype and symbol of the subservient subject. Decomposing even in a living body and still singing the praises of the one whose furies flay us and torment us until death. But you just wait until they put me on outposts again. I’ll cross over; I’ll cross over, so help me God… O hell, filth and Satan — it overcomes me again –!” With a staggering leap he was up, and again we heard his blood gurgling outside. “He has a bad fever!” waved Repke at the enraged Zulkov angrily. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about in his pain.” Then Kühlemiek raised his nasally trembling voice and began to sing from his book, so that we all shuddered: “The abomination in the darkness, The stigma in the conscience The hand that is full of blood The eye full of adulteries, The naughty mouth full of curses, The heart of the scoundrel is revealed.” “Oh my God -!” It was I who cried out thus. Then a loud trumpet blared. – “Alarm!” Zulkov shouted, squeezing his sore feet into his frozen shoes. “Alarm!” At the glow of the extinguishing fire, we gathered everything together. Distant shots. The trumpets began to scream all around. Wetzlaff stumbled in. “Up, brothers, up! We want to light up the royal bastard’s home. Vivat Fridericus!” That was Wetzlaff. Bent with body ache, he took up his rifle. Zulkov moaned softly with every step. All around there was noise, horses neighing, clanking. But in all the raving, running, shouting orders and muffled noise of the shooting in front swung mewling and horrible the merciless voice of the pietist, who sang his song to the end. Dreadful fear descended from the tones. The fear of what would happen after death. The drums were beating. Heavy smoke rolled in thick clouds, dissipated, came in new blue-white balls, and dissipated again. Fog and stink lay over everything. Dull roaring thuds, crashes, whipping bang, chirping of bullets. I stood with the others in lines and ranks, bit off the bullet twisted in rancid paper, kept it in my mouth, poured the black powder into the hot barrel, ran my fingers between my teeth and pushed the cobbled lump of lead down with the ramrod until it rested firmly and the iron rod jumped. Just as it had been drilled into me. Then powder on the pan, with the thumb on the cock, aimed it horizontally, and into the wall of fog in front of me, in which shadows were moving. The stone gave off sparks and it flared up before my eyes, and then came the rough recoil against my sore shoulder. The lieutenant on the wing waved the halberd and shouted. “Geg – geg – geg,” was heard, not understanding a word. A big iron ball rolled and danced across the frozen snow, then a second one. A third bounced along beneath us and smashed Kühlemiek’s feet out from under him. “O Jesus Christ!” he cried out, crawling a little on his hands in his own blood. Then he fell with his face in the snow, became silent. “Flü – flü – flüdeldideldi,” lured the pipes. “Plum – plum – plum.” The drummers worked with sweaty faces. The legs lifted and lowered in time with the beat, one was sitting there, with his head between his spread legs. The blister on my heel was burning, the lice were crawling restlessly on my scratched skin, and there was a rumbling in my guts. I looked around… rows, rows of blue coats, skinny faces with small mustaches, white bandoliers, and bare barrels. “Kühlemiek – Kühlemiek – miekeliekeliek”, trilled from the lips of the pipers. In front of us a row of red lights flashed. A cloud of gray smoke rose behind it. Repke roared and grasped with both hands between his thighs. A tall soldier leaped like a carp and drove with his head into a snowdrift, his feet stretched upwards. Next to me, one screamed like a frog. I could still see the blood pouring out of his ear, before he collapsed to his knees. Zulkov suddenly had no head anymore, walked next to me and sprayed me with hot blood. Then he fell down. The squire was knocked backwards as if he had been hit by an axe. Wetzlaff sat down first, screamed, “I can’t,” and then lay down. In front of me crawled a man who was blind-shot, and Ramler had his right hand twisted and hanging out of his sleeve. He looked at it in amazement and stayed behind. His rifle fell to the ground. Large shapes came swaying out of the haze, and quickly became clear. White coats, black cuirasses. Broad blades stabbed at us, horses’ heads snorted, fled to the side startled. A horse stood on its hind legs in front of me. I saw the rider, who was holding the hand with the broadsword hilt in front of his face, with his left hand clasping the saddle horn. I saw the whiteness of his coat under the edge of the dark armor and hastily thrust with the bayonet. It was soft. He fell forward onto the horse’s neck, glared in my face, and cried out. “You-!” It was Phoebus Merentheim… He rattled down. I no longer saw him. But another one came, lifted himself in the stirrups and hit me on the head with lightning speed, so that I staggered around. The edge of the tin hood cut my forehead, warm and thick water flowed into my eyes. My feet went on. My arms pushed the barrel forward with the bayonet. I tore it from the neck of a brown man. The horsemen were gone all at once, vanished. “No rest – no rest – no rest,” the drums murmured. I slept while walking. We were suddenly among houses. A woman cried out in fear; fell on her face with her arms outstretched. A pig ran between us. Then there was a small forest in front of us. People stepped on bodies, on guns. A dog, skinny and with its tail between its legs, crept past. A peasant lay there with his body open – without intestines. The dog came from him. There were bushes, white-ripe, dense, and impenetrable. I crawled into them. Moss lay there on a pile as if someone had gathered it together. A bed, a bed. I burrowed into it. No one saw me. Wonderful, warm, soft moss. Somewhere in the snowy forest lay the rifle with the bayonet, with Phoebus’ blood on it, the tin hood and the bandolier with the sidearm.
I had been wandering about the border for many days. I had found the torn coat in a shot-up house, the pants on a hanged man. The right leg had received a weeping wound from frost and vermin, which bit and hurt me, my nose and lips were etched from the running sniffles. I had slept in barns and haystacks, teeth chattering, and the previous years frozen and woody rotten beets had to fill my stomach. In this inn on the country road it was the first time that the landlady gave for God’s sake a bowl of warm food to me and allowed me to sit at the back by the warm stove. If, however, distinguished guests came, I should generally trot myself out and not be begging for something around the tables, she said. The barmaid also took pity on me and secretly slipped me a large wedge of bread, and just as stealthily she poured my empty glass full of thin beer. I, the baron Melchior von Dronte, had lived the life of the despised and the poor, the outcast and the lawless. And with the most miserable of them, I had sometimes found more Christian charity than among those who were sitting in their own chair in the church. But how hard people had been against me in the last days! Of course, these were the times that no one should open the door to a stranger in bad clothes without necessity. War and terror all around, victory and parley, robbing, plundering, desecrating and burning without end. So it was like a miracle to me that the landlady said: “Come and eat and warm yourself. You look like the death of Basel.” Not far from me at a small table sat a merchant or cattleman in a light, thick fleece, a large Hessian peasant hat next to him on the bench and a satchel over his shoulder, the leather flap of which was inlaid with all kinds of brass figures. The face of this skinny person was the most disgusting, that I had ever encountered in my life. Soon he pulled his wide mouth into a gap that reached from one of his pointed ears to the other, and then he stretched it out like a pig’s trunk to drink from the glass. His vulture nose lowered against the upwardly curved chin, and his yellow wolf’s eyes, in which the black was transverse and elongated like those of a goat, squinted pathetically.
Appendix: Table Talk and Memorabilia of Mary Anne Atwood, Part 2
Introduction: Mary Anne Atwood’s reflections deepen the Hermetic art’s spiritual essence, guiding the soul to divine unity through alchemical transformation. This section explores the interplay of will, light, and regeneration, unveiling the path to universal wisdom.
The Threefold Life and Divine Regeneration
Atwood describes three modes of consciousness—sensible (animal), perceptive (vegetable), and powerful (mineral)—within humanity, with the Hermetic art perfecting the lowest, mineral life to mirror Christ’s divine unity, as Khunrath suggests. This process reverses the soul’s “inversion,” raising it through the celestial life to divine consciousness, as Boehme’s Signature Rerum illustrates: “The soul perceives the Universal through its essence.”
The adept, through disciplined fermentation, transforms the “dark vapour” of the mineral life into a radiant essence, purifying the will to align with divine love, as seen in the Golden Treatise’s cyclical process.
The Alchemy of Will and Light
The Hermetic art, as Atwood explains, is a “magnetism of Light,” where the will, the “Universal Loadstone,” becomes a creative force when aligned with divine wisdom. The “Walls of Troy,” built by Apollo’s harmony, symbolize the soul’s lower life, dissolved through alchemical processes to release the “Mercurius” of divine sound. This transformation, as Haly notes, involves a “terrible sound” of liberation, aligning the soul with its eternal source.
The adept’s will, purified of “false sulphurs” (selfish desires), becomes a vessel for the “Philosophic Matter,” a radiant light born through contrition and divine alignment, as St. Martin’s teachings echo.
The Path to Universal Truth
Atwood emphasizes that true knowledge is an “experimental contact” with the divine, where the soul, freed from sensory chains, merges with the Universal Spirit. The Chaldaic Oracles and Boehme’s descriptions of emanation—where will transforms from “Nothing” to “Something”—mirror this process, as the adept’s consciousness returns to its “First Cause.” This sacred art, requiring purity and reverence, transcends physical science, offering a path to immortality through divine unity, as OAK’s meditations suggest.
Closing: This appendix unveils the Hermetic art’s transformation of will and light into divine unity. The journey into further insights deepens in our next post, unveiling more secrets of this sacred art.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
Ronde came. Kregel had been missing for a week, and no one knew more than that he had received a letter from home, about which he was visibly offended and upset. He was one of the abandoned Germans who lived in the stolen land of the area of Kolmar. One day a royal forester came to the Colonel and reported that children had found a soldier hanging in a tree. They had however, immediately ran away in fright and now no longer knew where the place was. And so he thought one or two companies should search the forest so that the dead man could be buried in the ground. So we went in search of Kregel and roamed through the large pine forest. As we slipped through the thickets and sticks it happened to me that I got completely lost from the others and when I shouted for the others as commanded in such cases received no answer. When I was so alone with myself, I had to think about Kregel, who was now freed from all torture and torment. How, was it not most clever, to put this dog’s life behind him? I thought how yesterday an eighteen-year-old boy, the Squire von Denwitz, had stabbed me with a rapier, the tip of which had lead embedded in it, because there was a chalk stain on my coat from cleaning the white stuff; how the corporals beat us to their hearts’ content, how miserable the food was that was served to us like sows in large tin buckets; how the bread crunched with sand when it was cut. All this would have been bearable. But that no hope showed itself, how and when it could ever get better, that one day after another was filled with curses and sorrow, to allow another, just as gruesome, to rise, that was the bad thing. For man must have some hope, if he is not to wither and wilt. In this hard school, which God’s hand had thrust me into, I learned to force myself. I didn’t make a face when my breast ached from burning pity for the unjustly mistreated, and I kept silent about the most severe insults which I received by anyone who was elevated by a braid or finer cloth. Perhaps it was a punishment that had come to me. But then it could also be an eternal justice, but how was that possible when far worse than I could live in joy and glory until the end of their lives. So why did this burden of suffering fall on me? What purpose could higher powers, if there were any, have pursued with me by placing on me burdens of my own and other people’s torment, to endow me with the finest sensibility for every injustice that happened to others and gave me more sensitive feelings than probably all my comrades? They cracked their jokes even when the worst and most unbearable of arbitrariness had happened to them, and found full consolation with a glass of schnapps and in the arms of their soldier’s wives. I was mad at everything that had hitherto been upright and consoling of my being and I could not believe what was happening in front of me day in and day out, I could not believe in a divine meaning of all these events. What does a person do who lives in a chamber with hostile, crude, violent, bad, cowardly, false, and evil people and sees no one in the whole circle, who wants to create order and justice and has the ability to do so? One leaves such a chamber. He closes the door behind him and rejoices, to have escaped the abominable existence in such a room. So I now thought to act. Kregel, the poor lad from Alsace, had shown me the way. And there were enough trees all around; I wanted to attach my trouser belt to some branch. I prepared to walk across the small sunlit clearing to finish my last deed in the deciduous wood when I had to stop, because in the middle of the open space sat someone, and I was not alone. It was the man in the robe with the black turban. He was resting on a tree stump and his walking stick lay beside him in the forest moss. His noble hands held the string with amber beads. It was Ewli. Once again the strange man, whose small image was under the high glass dome in my children’s room, stepped in my path in an intangible way. How did the stranger in his unusual dress get everywhere? Unmolested, and not even noticed by the children, he had been sitting at the wayside shrine, when the Prussian recruiters came for me and my companions of fate, until the recruiters took me and my comrades away on their wagon. At that time I could not connect him with myself any more than I could about his mysterious interest with my person in the prayer-filled church. And just as I did not find him in front of the church anymore, he had disappeared from my view at the lime trees of Distelsbruck. This time, however, he was to speak to me before I started the work of self-destruction. Nevertheless, I could not put one foot in front of the other. Because the man from the Orient was not alone. In front of him stood a deer, which rubbed its narrow head flatteringly against Ewli’s knees. In his hand, which held a birdcage, perched a jay with a pinkish-grey head and blue wing feathers, and in the bramble bush to his right chirped uncounted colorful balls of feathers. Two squirrels, chasing each other, a reddish-brown one and a black one, went up onto his body, hiding themselves in the folds of his robe, rolling and chattering, and to my horror the reddish brown one suddenly disappeared into his robe, as if it had melted into the same color of the coarse fabric, while the second one crawled onto the black turban, lost its outline and did not appear again. I looked at the face of Ewli, overcome by the radiance of his eyes. Was he looking at me? Were the dark stars directed into the far distance? I did not know, I just felt how warm, divine love enveloped me. Slowly, however, he stood up, walked across the clearing and disappeared between the tall trees. Then I came to and was able to move. I ran. Where were the animals? Not a bird, not a deer was to be seen. Where was Ewli? I ran into the middle of the high wood and suddenly stood among my comrades. They had just found Kregel and cut him down. Horrible to look at, black-blue and green spots on his face, the swollen ink-colored tongue stretched out, with open, complaining eyes, he lay on the ground, the rope in the furrow of his neck. Nobody paid any attention to me. They had spades with them and dug in the deep, soft forest soil, where the mouse tunnels ran crisscross and root snakes crawled. It was late when we were finished. In the evening-red sky an endless train of crows flew silently. “That means war!” said Wetzlaff and looked at me.
How long had we been in the field? Nobody reckoned anymore, nobody knew. I was camped with four comrades in bitter winter. We had found makeshift quarters in a burned-down farmhouse. All we had were two piles of rotten, damp straw and a blanket singed by campfires. And this miserable property we had to protect and guard, so that not even more miserable ones stole it. The rifles had to be constantly cleaned without stopping. After a day they were red again with rust. Zulkov had frozen the toes of both feet. They were black and stank like the plague. I had to treat Repke with gun powder and a residue of brandy to wash out a graze on his back because no one else would do it, and he screamed so loudly that I took pity on him. Wetzlaff had gotten severe diarrhea and every five minutes he walked on wobbly legs in front of the house. Where he had squatted the snow was bloody all around from his stool. In the night he moaned so much, that no one could sleep. And although we all endured, they threw everything at him in the dark that they could grab with their hands. Then he limped out again to relieve himself with convulsions. The quietest of us all, a gloomy person named Kühlemiek, read in a small, tattered hymnal next to the fire and sometimes murmured: “O Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!” Repke was happy when I had bandaged his back again with old rags, and put dry nut leaves in his pipe. “The king has said -” he wanted to begin. But Wetzlaff interrupted him snorting: “He has said! He has said! If the King lets one go, you miserable wretches are blissful with doglike awe. Oh, you starving ribs, you cannon fodder! What is it then that makes such a king so great?” “Fridericus Rex is the greatest war hero of all time, you poisonous toad!” roared Zulkov. “Dare not to insult His Majesty!” “Dear brothers in Christ,” pleaded Kühlemiek, “turn your thoughts to the One who has entrusted all of our lives in His grace-giving hands!” “Shut up, old pietist!” Repke shouted at him, “Let Wetzlaff speak!” “Oooh!” he groaned, and hurriedly ran out again. We heard the sound of his discharges and his groaning all the way into the house. Then he came back again, white as lime, and let himself fall on the straw. “As I say, a man must edify and revive himself in the Lord and King,” Zulkov said after a while. “But there are some who forget the oath…” “Do you mean me?” asked Wetzlaff, straightening up with difficulty. “Refresh yourself, as much as you can with that cold fire that you have on your hind claws. Yes, you sheep’s head, so that Friederich can be a great war hero, you must keep your toes in your shoes, my intestines have to bleed out, a thousand have to be shoveled into the pits. I ask one, when all around, with the Austrians over there and us over there, if there were such guys as me, there would be no more king and empress, but also no war and no people-beating. But you are in general too stupid to understand such things. And from this stupidity of yours all kings and generals, princes and counts and barons down to our squire with the ass face live equally in glory and joy and sit enthroned like peacocks in all majesty, while we are kept as cattle and are driven to the slaughter with the trilling of pipes and the beating of drums. O you damned, thick-skinned fool, you horse-apple brains…”
Appendix: Table Talk and Memorabilia of Mary Anne Atwood, Part 1
Introduction: Mary Anne Atwood’s reflections unveil the Hermetic art’s spiritual essence, guiding the soul to divine wisdom through alchemical transformation. This appendix distills key principles, offering insights into the sacred process of awakening the light within.
The Alchemy of the Will
Atwood reveals that the Hermetic art, or “Holy Alchemy,” ferments the human spirit to awaken its divine potential. By aligning the will with God’s law, as seen in Moses’ righteous power versus the Egyptians’ self-willed magic, the adept transforms the soul’s essence into a radiant “Philosopher’s Stone,” the true form of divine light. This process, reversing the soul’s natural flow, connects it to the “Universal Loadstone,” the creative force of existence.
The art’s power lies in its ability to draw the Universal Spirit into the individual, as Atwood notes: “The mind becomes related to the Universal Vitalising Power.” This mirrors the fermentation of life, where the soul, freed from bodily chains, achieves immortality through divine unity.
The Threefold Life and Divine Order
Atwood describes three lives—terrestrial (animal), celestial (vegetable), and infernal (mineral)—each dominant in its natural kingdom and residing in humanity’s head, heart, and lumbar regions. The Hermetic art reverses their order, raising the infernal life through the celestial to receive divine light. This aligns with Boehme’s principles, where the “third life” becomes a medium for perceiving the divine, purified by a contrite will.
The adept, through disciplined fermentation, as Basil Valentine’s Keys illustrate, transforms the vital force’s magnetic attraction, creating a “heavenly body” from an earthly one, as the soul merges with its eternal source.
The Sacred Process of Transformation
The Hermetic process, as Atwood explains, involves a “vital chemistry” that dissolves the soul’s natural bonds, regenerating it under a divine law. The “Golden Fleece” symbolizes the radiant light enveloping the adept in this third life, while the “Caput Mortuum” preserves the body’s essence for restoration. This art, guided by love and faith, ensures the soul’s purity, avoiding the demonic pitfalls of self-will, as seen in ancient idolatry.
Closing: This appendix unveils the Hermetic art’s spiritual principles, transforming the soul into divine light. The journey into further reflections deepens in our next post, unveiling more secrets of this sacred art.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
He was a tall, very young boy with sunken cheeks. Apart from his pants and shoes, he was wearing only a dress shirt. He was shivering from frost and fear. Kregel was his name. All the sticks stood steeply in the air. Two sergeants walked at our backs to see who would be casual about the beating. The drums started pounding and the man was pushed into the alley. He ran. The sticks whistled, clapped down on him, the tatters flew off his shirt and skin. He shouted something that you couldn’t understand. I hit him on the neck, and saw raw flesh splattering. But he was through, and outside he fell down on all fours. They grabbed him and pulled him up. He groaned. “Forward!” shouted the provost. The deserter’s eyes protruded out of their sockets, saliva ran from his open mouth. His lips were torn. He was running again. The sticks struck smacking, blood ran, and chunks flew. The man jumped, bent down while running, whined like a dog, stretched out his beaten and swollen hands, pulled them back screaming when a blow hit the knuckles, fell to the ground and collapsed like a sack at the end of the double row. He lay motionless, gray in the face. One could see his heart beating furiously under the bleeding skin; under the back, on which he was lying, a dark pool formed. The army doctor came, took a breath and laid his hand on the ribs of the prone man, then beckoned two soldiers and told them to turn the unconscious man over. Then he pulled out a bottle of wine spirit from his bag and poured it on the torn back. With a piercing cry of pain, the runner came to. “He’s beeping again!” said the man next to me, Wetzlaff. “They always recover their strength with the palm leaf!” They picked up the senselessly slurring man and pushed him into the alley for the third and last time. But this time he did not get far. After a third of the way he fell down, and as much as his comrades tried, even from behind by beating him with a stick urging him on, he did not move any longer. “Now he is done for!” said one of them, and the sticks lowered. But all of a sudden the fallen man jumped up and shot like an arrow through the alley. A few blows hit, the others missed. Furious, the corporals beat those who had allowed themselves to be fooled. “Such a false dog – such a cunning scoundrel!” they scolded. Outside the alley, the runner stood still and smiled in spite of his pain. From above came a peculiar giggling sound. We looked up. At the windows of the officers’ quarters stood a number of preened ladies, holding handkerchiefs in front of their mouths and laughing their heads off. “Plum – plum – berum!” Warned the drums, urging us to move in.
In the guardroom, an oil sparkle was burning. The wall was thickly stained with squashed bugs. The bottles of brandy were empty, and the tobacco smoke drifted in blue clouds under the sooty ceiling. It had been a retreat for a long time, but no one stretched out on the cot. “If only she comes, Kinner!” said Private Hahnfuss, “but such prizes are smarter than clever!” But he had not yet finished speaking when the door opened and Wetzlaff entered with the girl. The sergeant nodded, looked at the thing with a half a glance, and then, as if by chance, walked quickly out of the guardroom. Behind him the door was immediately locked and barred. The soldier-Catherine now stood alone among the many men in the middle of the room and looked from one to the other. Her cheeky smile became anxious and shy. Her hood was crumpled, the striped skirt was stained, and the heels on her shoes were badly worn. She scratched her hip. But when everyone remained silent, she became afraid and made a movement as if she wanted to run away. She threw a stray glance at the closed door and then she said with a gulp in her throat: “Well, you won’t let me out, boys?” “That’s the way it is, girl,” said the corporal, putting the burning sponge to his pipe. “You lied to us. Didn’t you?” “I keep my mouth shut,” she said, “what’s this all about? What am I supposed to have lied about?” “We asked you once how it was with your internal health, girl – didn’t we? Because otherwise – we would not touch you! And now look at Beverov! – Come here to me, Beverov!” One of the guards stepped forward. The corporal opened his coat, vest and shirt. The man’s chest was covered with nasty red spots. “Do you know what that is, little Cathrine?” the corporal asked treacherously. “They are – real Frenchmen aren’t they!” In the girl’s face shock alternated with fear and anger. “From me? From me?” she shrieked and put her hands on her hips. “You pack of louses, you tripe eaters – I’m still with the sergeant – let’s see if -“ “It’s the same!” the corporal interrupted her and at the same time hit her so hard on the mouth that she cried out. But then she was silent. A drop of blood stood on her lower lip. “Down with the skirt!” She screamed, squealed like a rat, kicked her feet and bit. But it did her no good against the fists that were angrily attacking her from all sides. In a few moments she was standing in the pathetic nakedness of her spent body, writhing under the hard hands that held her wrists and arms. “Bring the lamp!” The corporal shone the oil sparkler all around her. A hot drop fell on her skin, making her cry out. “Don’t worry – you’re not going to be roasted!” he reassured her. “Look, comrades there -!” And he pointed with his finger to many white spots, which clearly stood out from the brownish skin of the neck and the shoulders. “Do you still want to deny that you have the French, are contaminated and infectious, you lout, you?” She did not answer. But then she raised her head and spat her reddish saliva right into the corporal’s face. “Well wait, you human!” He said calmly and wiped his face with his sleeve. “What do you think comrades? I’m for some horseplay.” “Do it!” everyone shouted. “Horseplay!” “You are a fungus from birth,” continued the corporal, blowing the stinging smoke of his smoldering pipe into her face. “What do you want to be? A fox – or what?” “Damned pig,” she hissed and cringed, snatching at the restraining hands and snapping. “I want out! Let me out! Let me out!” “Black is my favorite color!” the private shouted into the hubbub. “Give me the boot polish -!” Amidst roaring laughter, in which the voice of the desperate creature was drowned, they spat into the jerk-off boxes, dipped the coarse brushes into them and went to it. So far I had sat on a cot as in half anesthesia and watched the incomprehensible to me happenings. But now I was seized with horror and agonizing pity for the miserable, broken and destroyed creature. I saw how they reached for her, heard the insane shrieks and screams of the martyred woman, as they dragged her by the hair and stepped on her bare feet with their clumsy shoes. She squirmed like an eel, screamed with a squeal when one of them approached with a whip in his hand, whimpered for mercy and in one breath uttered the most vile curses. “What do you want with the wench?!” I shouted at Wetzlaff and held him by the sleeve. “Well first she must be scrubbed shiny,” he grinned in my ear. “And then she must run at the long leash until she can no longer. That’s our horseplay, boy!” A shrill scream went up. The corporal had grabbed her from behind and held her tightly, however much she resisted. “Go for it, comrades!” he encouraged the others. Then I jumped over, tore his hands from her trembling body and stood wide in front of her. “Let her go!” I shouted loudly. “Let her go!” “Oho!” he roared back at me. “Look! Dronte!” With his fists clenched and his face contorted in anger Wetzlaff stepped toward me. I looked at him firmly and calmly. His angry eye strayed from mine, his clenched fists opened. The others fell silent, looking at me as if amazed. “Comrades,” I said, “have mercy. She is not guilty. And she is as poor and abandoned as the rest of us!” No one answered. I went to the door, without anyone trying to hinder me and opened it. Then I bent down, picked up the prostitute’s rags and gave them to her. “Go, Cathrine!” I heard myself speak, in the surrounding silence. She stared at me with wide eyes, bent down as if to kiss my hand, then laughed hoarsely and was out in one leap. We heard her walk on bare soles along the stone-paved courtyard. Nobody said anything. Slowly, people put boxes and brushes to their designated places. One of them yawned loudly. Then Wetzlaff laughed strangely, stood in front of me, swayed his head back and forth and looked at me penetratingly. “It is so,” he growled. “Dronte has it in the gaze- He has the power in his eye.” No one remarked anything to it. Silently they stretched out on the hard cots to get some more sleep before Ronde arrived.
Introduction: The Hermetic art unveils the philosopher’s stone as the key to divine wisdom, uniting the soul with universal truth through reason and faith. This final section reflects on the art’s transformative power, urging seekers to pursue the light within.
The Lost Wisdom of the Ancients
Modern science, as Atwood laments, prioritizes external utility, dismissing the ancient wisdom that sought causal truth. The “catholic torch” of Hermetic philosophy, kindled by divine light, reveals the soul’s potential to transcend sensory limits, as Bacon’s pursuit of causes unwittingly echoed. The ancients’ poetic fables, far from mere stories, encoded a profound understanding of life’s essence, now lost to “spiritless interpretations.”
This wisdom, accessible through introspective inquiry, offers a “golden ore” of truth, illuminating the soul’s path to divine harmony, unlike the fleeting gains of external pursuits.
The Call to Seek Within
The Hermetic art, as Atwood urges, invites the adept to seek the “Root of Reason” within, overcoming the “turbulent sea of sense.” This journey, guided by faith and disciplined inquiry, unveils the philosopher’s stone—a radiant essence that transforms mind and matter. The adept, as the Kabalah suggests, aligns with divine will, becoming a vessel of universal light that radiates joy and wisdom.
Unlike modern sciences, which fragment knowledge, the Hermetic art unites moral and physical realms, offering a holistic truth that fulfills humanity’s deepest aspirations.
The Promise of Divine Light
The philosopher’s stone, as Atwood concludes, is the “nucleus of the Hermetic Mystery,” embodying the light of life. Those who pursue it with sincerity, as the ancients did, will find the “Promised Land” of divine wisdom, as Proverbs declares: “Wisdom is better than rubies.” This sacred art, accessible only to the studious and faithful, promises a future where truth prevails, transforming society through enlightened understanding.
Closing: This chapter unveils the Hermetic art’s transformative call to divine wisdom. The journey into its future rediscovery by modern minds begins anew, unveiling further secrets of this sacred art.
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