Hat tip, Adam! A scene from the second series of Black Adder programs which were set in Elizabethan England. For the Green Lion reference, see this HogPro classic, ‘Snape as Vitriol — The Green Lion Alchemical Catalyst?‘

It’s “Outrageous Hogwarts Professor Gaffes’ time, again, All-Pros! Not a month after learning I don’t know my King’s Cross stations from my underground tubes, I find out that I have symbolism dyslexia — or is it alchemical myopia? Either way, I’ve got red and gold egg on my face.

Kati from Germany writes:

A note on Gryffindor – the lion isn’t red, as you say (first time on p 12 or 21 of Looking for God, I think) – but rather its ‘natural’ golden colour set on a red background. As to why the symbol of Gruffindor isn’t a Griffin… I guess it would be too confusing with Ravenclaw’s Eagle.

I responded:

Dear Kati, if I may,

Your prayers.

(Sound of hand slapping forehead)

I confess that the names discussion left me cold but I was stunned by the observation above. How could I have missed this — and, more incredible (I’m notorious for blowing details), how could all the serious readers of the Hogwarts Saga have missed my error all these years?

Thank you for the gracious way you shared this. The golden griffin (Griffin d’or) is a golden lion only missing the eagle’s wings. Your conjecture on why it is not a griffin — to avoid confusion with Ravenclaw — is possible but I think it may have at least as much to do with the alchemical symbolism.

How did I make this mistake — and repeat it for almost a decade of talks? I think there are three reasons.

(1) Exeter conditioning: the prep school I went to had a red lion mascot. I think of lions as being red.

(2) Narnia Trips: I have spent just enough time in the alternate reality of C. S. Lewis’ Narniad that it’s a stretch for me not to think of emblems and symbols featuring lions, as in King Peter’s silver shield, as having a red lion on them rather than an Aslan-like golden hue.

(3) Seeing what you want to see: the ‘red lion’ in alchemical lore and Christian art has a special resonance and meaning that helped my argument in the Potter Panic war with the Harry Haters. ‘Gold’ certainly has an alchemical and Christian meaning in itself that is helpful and traditional (the griffin in Dante’s Purgatorio is golden, etc.) but it doesn’t have the association that the red lion has.

Which is to say, I saw what I wanted to see. Doggone it.

Thanks again to Kati for this find and for the kind way she shared my gaffe with me. It’s still crow I’m eating but it’s not quite as humiliating when I learn of my mistakes with an “oh, by the way..” rather than via a bashing.

If anyone has a copy of How Harry Cast His Spell, let us know if the mistake Kati found in Looking for God also made it into the updated edition….

The Granger family has almost settled its home into a new house (new to us; it’s a bungalow closer to 100, I’m guessing, than 75 years old) in Oklahoma City. I’ve started a new job — reading Kidnapped and learning Latin fundamentals with nine young friends — and have hopes of one day returning to writing here more than once a month. Right now, still spinning in the learning curve and re-location maelstrom, those seem to be vain hopes, but we’ll see what God and my commitments here allow. Building and putting up a yurt is pretty time intensive, I’m learning.

Fortunately, I have an email inbox full of Guest Posts that serious readers from around fandom have been sending me, all of which are better than anything I might be writing in the distracted state I am in. I will be sharing these over the next two weeks for your comment and consideration.

The first is from William Sprague and touches on two subjects close to HogPro All-Pro hearts, namely, Ring Composition and Literary Alchemy. Mr. Sprague makes the argument that the front and back of the series ring is a set of parallel analogies with the front being a reverse alchemical process (i.e., rubedo, albedo, nigredo) to match the return trip’s proper order. I confess to being intrigued by the idea — and delighted by his exposition. I trust you will be as well. Take it away, Mr. Sprague!

Ring Alchemy

Thank you, John! After reading the book Harry Potter as Ring Composition, I found myself wondering if the Alchemical process itself worked on a book-to-book level as a chiasm as well. It seemed strange to me that the fifth, sixth and seventh books were so obviously black, white and red respectively yet their chiastic counterparts were not alchemically colored as well.

It then dawned on me that the first book was named Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. That Stone is the end of the alchemical process, not its beginning.  I began from there and began to see a sort of theoretically reversed alchemical process that finds its end in the lead-like Incarnation of the Dark Lord. We see the pattern of red, white, and black in the first three books; the following three paragraphs will spell out some of the reverse-alchemical aspects of each of these books.

We start with the Philosopher’s Stone, and “Red” Rubeus Hagrid as the cabby for Harry (who turns out to be the True/Good Philosopher’s Stone in the seventh book) and the Stone itself retrieved from Gringotts. Hagrid is constantly around Harry throughout the book because he is “Red”. Interestingly, the actual problem of the whole series is what the Philosopher’s Stone itself represents: undying life apart from love. It is not a solution because it is an alchemical object instead of the alchemical subject. Of course, it is a red stone, and is destroyed at the end, thus ending the reverse rubedo.

As is fitting in a white book, water is everywhere throughout Chamber. In the sixth book, the ablution and purification that Harry goes through revolve around his occlumency lessons. He is attempting to control/eradicate his connection with Voldemort within his mind. In Chamber he discovers impurities in himself, such as Parselmouth, which marks him as the Heir of Slytherin because of Voldemort within him. Moreover, the water that is present is the means by which the serpent moves. The water itself is impure as a result. Lucius Malfoy (a white haired, pale fellow) is the initiator instead of Dumbledore; the reverse Alchemist is wicked. This implies that it is not a redemptive albedo. At the end of the book Dumbledore reveals that Voldemort is in Harry; there is impurity within. This is the opposite of the albedo process which is intended to get rid of impurities in the subject!

Sirius Black is a main player in Prisoner, just as he is in the fifth book. Dementors are black beings that play a sort of reverse nigredo on the object of their kiss: they take away everything except the body, while the nigredo is supposed to [do the opposite?]. In a crucial Quidditch match, Harry doesn’t catch the snitch (prima materia) but rather falls from his broomstick. Harry keeps on reliving his parents’ death, an important nigredo theme; however, it is clear that the nigredo is working backwards because the message of the book is that the dead, those we lose in the nigredo, are always with us. Sirius Black is actually something gained at the end of the book, which makes Harry no longer family-less, no longer an orphan. This is the opposite of the loss of Black in the fifth book, the true nigredo.

The product of the alchemical process in reverse is the Incarnation of the Dark Lord. I can’t think of any one product more lead-like in composition. The Black Mass process is a reversal of a Holy thing, and the product is the polar opposite of the alchemical product (gold/Philosopher’s Stone, which gives life). The Alchemist throughout this process was definitely a bad guy (Moody impostor) and the object was Harry (the Subject of the three reverse alchemical processes) during the Triwizard tournament challenges.

The reverse process is completed when Voldemort is incarnated, and the true Alchemy (books 5-7) results in his final destruction. That said, I don’t believe that Harry becomes worse throughout the reverse alchemical processes, but that he is shown to be the means by which the worst anti-alchemical product could be attained. It is hard to imagine Alchemy working this way in each individual book’s chiastic structure, but I would not be surprised if it did. I hope that somebody else works that out, if it is indeed true.

The series, despite this chiastic structure is still a linear series where Harry goes through multiple correct alchemical processes and ends up as the true Philosopher’s Stone (as a Subject) who can thereby give to his friends a sacrificial love that grants true life and fears no death.

William Sprague

For More on Ring Composition and Literary Alchemy, see John’s lecture notes on Ring Composition, his Deathly Hallows Lectures, and the essays on chiasmus and Goblet of Fire in the new essay collection Harry Potter for Nerds.

Traditional Christians of both East and West are observing Great and Holy Friday today in remembrance of the sacrificial death of Jesus of Nazareth whom they revere as ‘Christ’ or Messiah. As one of those believers, I offer some thoughts I have had before and after, and, alas, even during the services of this past week along these lines. I have been startled by how much of the imagery of the books we discuss here resonate with the historical events and eternal verities we commemorate this weekend. If you are not a Christian, I doubt these musings below the jump will have any value to you; I will return to my more profane posts for all readers on Monday.

My thinking started with a search for a recording of Dorothy Sayers’ The Man Born to be King, her dramatization of Holy Week and the human choices and qualities mixed up in the transcendent and world-altering death and resurrection of the Christ. It turns out there isn’t a recording, at least not one available for retail purchase, My researches, though, turned up that one could be had through a bit of pirating (?) technology called ‘torrent.’ Having no experience with this sort of thing, I wrote a good friend, the man in fact with whom I first experienced Man Born to be King in a C. S. Lewis Society on the Left Coast, to ask for his advice about the ‘whether’ and ‘how to’s of downloading this sort of thing.

He emailed me the necessary advice (I have decided against Torrent) and with it he added this jarring aside:

Getting off the tech talk… yes, “That Man Born to Be King” is terrific!  Though years later, I no longer find myself interested so much in the naturalistic psychology of Judas that Sayers did a good job expanding upon.  Fr, Alexander Schmemann’s exegesis below now seems more apt and to the point:

=== Fr. Alexander Schmemann on distorted love ===

But this hour of ultimate love is also that of the ultimate betrayal. Judas leaves the light of the Upper Room and goes into darkness. “And it was night.”(John 13:30) Why does he leave? Because he loves, answers the Gospel, and his fateful love is stressed again and again in the hymns of Holy Thursday. It does not matter, indeed, that he loves the “silver.” Money stands here for all the deviated and distorted love which leads man into betraying God. It is, indeed. Love stolen from God and therefore, Judas is the Thief. When he does not love God and in God, man still loves and desires, for he was created to love and love is his nature, but it is then a dark and self-destroying passion and death is its end. Each year, as we immerse ourselves into the unfathomable light and depth of Holy Thursday, the same decisive question is addressed to each one of us: do I respond to Christ’s love and accept it as my life, or do I follow Judas into the darkness of the night?

Love, in brief, is the reason Judas betrays Christ, a love for the wrong things but love nonetheless, even if this love leads to an end of Love Himself.

Reflecting on this, and, inevitably, on the things, the personal idols of self and material, which I worship rather than identifying with and adoring What brings us into existence moment to moment, I thought of Tom Riddle, Jr., Lord Voldemort, and his idolatry. Dumbledore says several times to Harry that the Dark Lord does not love and knows nothing of love. I think Fr. Alexander’s exegesis of Judas’ love of silver, the lunar quality of reflected light compared to the solar light of gold and of Love properly, suggests strongly that the Dark Lord for all his inhumanity loved nonetheless because, as images of God, we are designed to love. His love of his ego existence and persona, however, was the love felt by the fallen person for ephemera rather than the eternal. Hence his agony, his transformation into a serpent, and his death when he meets a man who has chosen instead the path of sacrificial love and identity with the good, the true, and the beautiful, the Heir of the Potter.

I thought, too, of Suzanne Collin’s Mockingjay song, ‘The Hanging Tree,’ and the call Katniss feels, Finnick, too, to join the man singing to them. I wrote about this heavy Calvary resonance embedded in the Hunger Games finale last year this way:

(1) When a writer puts a symbol or a poem or story into the narrative line, it is a very good bet that understanding this image, poem, play, or prose piece is a key that unlocks the story-line. Think of Nabokov’s Pale Fire for an over the top example of imbedded poetry or of the ‘triangular eye’ symbol and ‘Tale of the Three Brothers’ in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As I explain in ‘The Seeing Eye’ chapter of The Deathly Hallows Lectures, Ms. Rowling is explaining via her characters’ attempts to understand the Hallows symbol and Brothers tale how to interpret the most important artistry and meaning of her book.

(2) Oddly enough, the meaning of that Hallows symbol — the bisected triangle enclosing a circle — was most profoundly explained in text not by Xenophilius Lovegood, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger (no relation), or even Albus Dumbledore. Harry shows us what it means when he buries Mad-Eye Moody’s magical eye in the shadow of the oldest oak tree he can find and carves a cross on the tree trunk (again, see Lectures). The tree is the heart of the symbol in Hallows as it is to the esoteric meaning of ‘The Hanging Tree’ in Mockingjay; as the country western tune puts it, the Hanging Tree is the “Tree of Life.”

A tree is an apt symbol of God and His relationship to the world because, like a tree, especially an ancient one,

• He is relatively immortal or timeless,
• His beginning is unknowable and invisible,
• He is a unity at His core or base
• that grows into a seemingly infinite extension at His periphery.

All traditional cultures, consequently, understand trees as natural transparencies through which any thinking person can see God, the Creator who brings everything into existence (see, for instance, Romans 1:20). ‘The Hanging Tree,’ from this understanding, is death to the individual ego and carnal concerns but the greater life and love available in God. The seeming contradiction of having to lose your life to gain it, of course, is at the heart of the teachings of the Galilean (see John 12:24-25 and Luke 17:33).

The “tree” of this song, in one word, is the Cross, the “murdered three” is a not-so-opaque reference to the three who were murdered by the state at Calvary, and the criminal calling his beloved to take up his cross is Christ.

“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” (Acts 5.30.)

“And we are witnesses of all things which he [Jesus] did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 10.39.)

“And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.” (Acts 13.29.)

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness” (Peter 2.24.)

This is the Mockingjay’s song because sacrificial love and death to one’s ego is the most radical and revolutionary politics that no regime, the World, can tolerate. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Just as at the beginning of Games, when Katniss sacrifices herself to save Prim, she offers herself as a sacrifice at the end of the series to save all the Prims who will die in the revived Hunger Games if Coin lives.

Katniss, in having embraced the Pearl of Great Price in Fire, the example and teaching of Peeta the Christ figure, and committing herself to die for him becomes the sacrifice that redeems the world in Mockingjay; she answers the call of Christ on the Cross and becomes a “murderer,” executing President Coin, knowing it means her death, which, of course, means her greater life with Peeta as Christ.

This is why he intervenes at the assassination to prevent Katniss’ death. She answers the call of the man on the tree, her beloved, the light and life of the world, to join him, a sacrifice prefigured in Fire by “the lightning tree” that is her means of transcending the fallen, murderous world of the arena if she is willing to die to herself and confront “the real enemy.” Mockingjay, throughout which she and Finnick are making nooses from rope pieces as Katniss did as a child on hearing the ‘Hanging Tree’ song, is the story of her preparation to die to self and join her beloved on the tree.

I offer for your consideration that this sacrificial love and means to transcendence is also the meaning of Hunger Games that resonates most profoundly in the hearts of Ms. Collins’ readers, who with Katniss, have the message of ‘The Hanging Tree’ if not its words within them.

End exegesis of ‘The Hanging Tree.’ Several readers found this interpretation forced and even evangelical; others thought it spot-on. I still find the Calvary echoes here hard to overlook in light of the Eliade thesis that books serve a mythic or religious function in as secular culture and our corollary that the most popular books will be the ones that serve that function most deftly and powerfully.

I’d offer as my closing thought before heading out to Royal Hours that this kind of reading of text and of history as transparencies to eternal truths and realities is an atrophied human capability that needs to be nourished rather than a denominational tick one should suppress in company of others. As evidence of that, I offer St. Maximos the Confessor’s reading of Jesus of Nazareth’s meeting with Pontius Pilate and a Parthian thought about those at the Cross this Holy Friday.

71. Pilate is a type of the natural law; the Jewish crowd is a type of the written law. He who has not risen through faith above the two laws cannot therefore receive the truth which is beyond nature and expression. On the contrary, he invariably crucifies the Logos, for he sees the Gospel either, like a Jew, as a stumbling-block or, like a Greek, as foolishness (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23)

72. When you see herod and Pilate making friends with each other in order to destroy Jesus (cf. Luke 23:12), you may discern in this the concurrence of the demons of unchastity and self-esteem, who combine together to put to death the Logos of virtue and spiritual knowledge. For the demon of self-esteem, making a pretence of spiritual knowledge, refers to the demon of unchastity, and the demon of unchastity, putting on a hypocritical show of purity, refers back to the demon of self-esteem. Thus it is said, ‘When Herod had arrayed Jesus in a gorgeous robe, he sent Him again to Pilate’ (Luke 23:11)

73. The intellect should not yield to the flesh or cling to the passions. For, it is said, ‘men do not gather figs from thorns’, that is, they do not gather virtue from the passions, ‘nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush’ (cf. Matt. 7:16), that is, they do not gather from the flesh that spiritual knowledge which gladdens the heart.

74. An ascetic tested by the patient acceptance of trials and temptations, purified by bodily training, and perfected by attention to the higher forms of contemplation, receive the blessings of divine grace. ‘For the Lord’, says Moses, ‘came from Sinai,’ that is, from trials and temptations, ‘and appeared to us from Seir,’ that is, from bodily hardships, ‘and hastened down from mount Paran with ten thousands of Kadesh’ (Deut. 33:2. LXX), that is, from the mountain of faith with untold sacred knowledge.

75. Herod exemplifies the will of the flesh; Pilate, the senses; Caesar, sensible things; and the Jews, the soul’s thoughts. When the soul through ignorance associates with sensible things, it betrays the Logos into the hands of the senses to be put to death and proclaims within itself the kingship of perishable things. For the Jews say, ‘We have no king but Caesar’ (John 19:15).

76. Again, Herod exemplifies the activity of the passions; Pilate, a disposition that is deluded by them; Caesar, the ruler of the world of darkness; and the Jews, the soul. When the soul submits to the passions and betrays virtue into the power of an evil disposition, it manifestly denies the kingdom of God and transfers itself to the destructive tyranny of the devil.

First Century on Theology (Philokalia, Vol II, pp 128-129)

In brief, St. Maximos sees in the persons of the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ the story of every person’s faculties of soul and the right ordering as well as the fallen hierarchy and relationship of these faculties. I don’t doubt that a modern or postmodern reader of St. Maximos sees only an overly enthusiastic believer projecting his spiritual anthropology onto text; we, as a rule, see history and text relating history as more or less accurate one-to-one correspondences of each other.

St. Maximos, however, sees both text and the historical events relayed as both such a mechanical correspondence and as a window through which to see an account of human psychology and, more important, soteriology. In the events leading to Calvary, we see fallen man and the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice as Logos in a transparency, a historical event window through which we see and know specific time and space events in Jerusalem and, in them, the verities of human life transcending history and the individuals involved.

I thought of this last night while looking at the icon of the Crucifixion and listening to the Passion Gospels as they were read in church. We talk a lot here about ‘soul triptychs’ and their use in popular fiction. It’s a powerful imagery that is obviously effective; why else do we see variants of it in Harry-Hermione-Ron, Bella-Edward-Jacob, and Peeta-Katniss-Gale? They are shadows of Alyosha-Ivan-Dmitri Karamazov, and, to the point, of the soul’s intellect (nous) or ‘inner heart,’ the spirit in popular parlance, and mind or will with body, the Biblical ‘belly’ or desires. ‘Call it  Body-Mind, and Spirit,’ these fictional characters are stand-ins or transparencies in which and through which our souls’ faculties see and experience their right alignment and are imaginatively transformed.

I thought of this while looking at the icon of the Crucifixion and listening to the Passion Gospels because of the triptych of onlookers there, specifically, St. Gestas, the crucified thief forgiven by Christ and promised deliverance to the Kingdom, and Sts. John the Theologian and Longinus the Centurion at the foot of the Cross. It doesn’t take a St. Maximos to see in the three men looking to Christ as He dies the suffering body, the will in obedience, and the loving spirit all recognizing in wonder the Christ as dying, sacrificial God.

Rene Guenon, a Sufi sheikh, observes in his The Symbolism of the Cross that

The cross is a symbol which in its various forms is met with almost everywhere, and from the most remote times; it is therefoe far from belonging peculiarly and exclusively to the Christian tradition as some might be tempted to believe. It must even be stated that Christianity, at any rate in its outward and generally known aspect, seems to have somewhat lost sight of the symbolic character of the cross and come to regard it as no longer anything but the sign of a historical event. Actually, these two viewpoints are in no wise mutually exclusive; indeed the second is in a sense a consequence of the first; but this way of looking at things is so strange to the great majority of people today that it deserves dwelling on for a moment in order to avoid possible misunderstandings.

The fact is that people too often tend to think that if a symbolical meaning is admitted, the literal or historical sense must be rejected; such a view can only result from unawareness of the law of correspondence, which is the very foundation of all symbolism. By virtue of this law, each thing, proceeding as it does from a metaphysical principle, translates or expresses that principle in its own fashion and in accorsdance with its own order of existence; so that from one order to another all things are linked together and correspond in such a way as to contribute to the universal and total harmony, which, in the multiplicity of manifestation, can be likened to a reflection of the principial unity itself….

This holds good for historical facts no less than for anything else; they likewise conform to the law of correspondence just mentioned, and, thereby, in their own mode, translate higher realities, of which they are, so to speak, a human expression. We would add that from our point of view (which obviously is quite different from that of the profane historians), it is this that gives to these facts the greater part of their significance. The symbolical character, while common to all historical events, is bound to be particularly clear-cut in the case of of events connected with what may be called “sacred history”; thus it is recognizable in a most striking way in all the circumstances of the life of Christ. If the foregoing has been properly grasped, it will at once be apparent not only that there is no reason for denying the reality of these events and treating them as mere myths, but on the contrary that these events had to be such as they were, and could not have been otherwise; it is clearly impossible to attribute a sacred character to something devoid of all transcendent significance.

In particular, if Christ died on the cross, it can be said that this was by reason of the the symbolic value which the cross possesses in itself and which has always been recognized by all traditions; thus without diminishing in any way its historical significance, the latter may be regarded as directly derived from the symbolical significance that goes with it.

Symbolism of the Cross (Luzac, 1975, pp xi-xii)

Christ dies on the cross, in other words, because it was the Roman instrument of tortuous execution at that time and place, yes, but more importantly because of the metaphysical significance of that symbol and death. The cross is the revelation of the center, it defines the point which is the origin and unknown and unknowable beginning of the circle reflecting the principial unity and totality to which Guenon refers. Christ as God’s Creative Word or Logos is this mystical center, simultaneously the origin and resolution of all contraries, and his loving, sacrificial death or resolution on the cross at Calvary reveals his divine nature in its way in as profound a way as His Transfiguration, Theophany, and Resurrection do,

St. Maximos writes:

The centre of a circle is regarded as the the indivisable source of all the radii extending from it; similarly, by means of a certain single and indivisible act of spiritual knowledge, the person found worthy to dwell in God will perceive pre-existing in God all the inner essences (logoi) of created things.

Second Century on Theology #42, op.cit., p 138

We are called, in other words, as persons created in the image of God wanting to grow in His likeness, to pursue a specific vision by which we recognize in everything existent the creative logos of God which is their metaphysical cause or center. As triptychs of body-mind-and-spirit we experience stories that are told as rings, with alchemical drama of contraries seeking resolution, and with character triptychs with whom we identify as shadows of Sts. John-Longinus-and Gestas on Calvary seeing the Logos center Himself in resolution, even seeming dissolution, to transcend by this act in His person the polarity without duality of time and space, a sacrifice that delivers us, as much as we join ourselves to this death, to our eternal life in Him.

Harry Potter travels every year to an inner chamber where he dies a sacrificial death and rises from the dead in the presence of a symbol of Christ. Bella Swan, similarly, sacrifices herself in each book of the Forks Saga on her path to apotheosis, the conjunction of the human heart and the Divine Mind. Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay on Fire or Phoenix, is the resurrection bird of her Hunger Games adventures, too, who identifies and joins herself to the man calling from the Hanging Tree. I suggest in brief that these stories have their power and hold on us largely through their shared powerful resonance with the events of Calvary and the consequent Resurrection, whose historical-metaphysical meaning is our means to transcending self and our hope of immortality.

I pray that your observances of this Holy Week have been edifying and challenging and that your celebrations of our Lord’s Resurrection will be joyous. “Re-member us in Thy Kingdom,” as St. Gestas cries from his cross, as triptychs in disarray all looking to Thee, the Divine Origin and Cause of all things.

Fraternally,

John

The News from Summit Entertainment this week (H/T to James!) is that the Twilight film makers understand something of what made the Forks Saga the bonanza it has been for them. I’m pretty confident they’d call it “paranormal romance” and “love triangle” rather than “literary alchemy” or “soul triptych” but those of you who have listened to my talks on Harry Potter and Twilight that I gave last weekend at the Eighth Day Institute will recognize the features. From the MTV article, ‘Summit Entertainment To Bring Frankenstein to Life:‘

Summit Entertainment’s already worked box office magic with vampires and werewolves, but can they do the same for Frankenstein (the mad scientist, not the monster)? According to Deadline, the studio behind “The Twilight Saga” has acquired the screen rights to the upcoming YA novel “This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein” by Kenneth Oppel, which hits bookstores August 23.

The novel is a prequel of sorts to Mary Shelley’s classic “Frankenstein.” The plot centers around young Victor Frankenstein and his quest to save sick twin brother Konrad. He seeks help from a mysterious alchemist, who sends Victor and his friend Elizabeth on a dangerous journey to find the three ingredients needed to create a serum called the Elixir of Life that will heal Konrad. Like any YA novel worth its salt, the inevitable love triangle ensues.

Checking out the Amazon page Book Description, we learn the trio’s hero journey has three stages:

Victor and Konrad are the twin brothers Frankenstein. They are nearly inseparable. Growing up, their lives are filled with imaginary adventures…until the day their adventures turn all too real.

They stumble upon The Dark Library, and secret books of alchemy and ancient remedies are discovered. Father forbids that they ever enter the room again, but this only peaks Victor’s curiosity more. When Konrad falls gravely ill, Victor is not be satisfied with the various doctors his parents have called in to help. He is drawn back to The Dark Library where he uncovers an ancient formula for the Elixir of Life. Elizabeth, Henry, and Victor immediately set out to find assistance in a man who was once known for his alchemical works to help create the formula.

Determination and the unthinkable outcome of losing his brother spur Victor on in the quest for the three ingredients that will save Konrads life. After scaling the highest trees in the Strumwald, diving into the deepest lake caves, and sacrificing one’s own body part, the three fearless friends risk their lives to save another.

So we have a doppelganger not in Shelley’s original story which suggests self-other mirror elision identity issues.  Add to that what I’m guessing is a body-mind-spirit triptych on a nigredo-albedo (underwater caves!) -rubedo journey of loving sacrifice to save the dying Self.

Sound familiar? I doubt we’ll have the Alchemical Wedding before the opening of the red stage — we have to expect there be contractions and omissions of the whole alchemical formula in a one volume adventure — but the rest is there and the doppelganger piece is one neglected in Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, and Chaos Walking.

I think this will have to be our last August reading at HogwartsProfessor. I think it will be a good test of what I’m calling ‘The Pearl Harbor Thesis.’

The Pearl Harbor Thesis in a nut-shell is this:

Perhaps the easiest way to grasp the effect of Ms. Rowling’s Shared Text on culture is to think of Harry Potter as something of a Pearl Harbor moment. Just as the bombing of the fleet in Hawaii didn’t magically call the Japanese threat in the Pacific into existence but brought this reality forcefully and undeniably to everyone’s full attention, so Harry and our grasp of what readers really want (and how to give it to them).

Potter Mania did not create the truth of the Eliade thesis that reading satisfies a spiritual need in a secular culture but the Hogwarts Saga has confirmed it spectacularly by its history making, off-the-chart book sales; delivering transcendent experience using traditional and Christian literary artistry as entertainment demonstrates the religious function of reading in a godless public square that Eliade postulated.

Harry Potter revealed rather than created as well the great spiritual hunger of our times – the longing of the eye of the inner heart for reflection and resonance in story – driving the boy wizard’s popularity. The Publishing Industry and Hollywood are now responding to this empirical data by delivering books and film on Rowling’s model of traditional symbolism and structures. They do so because of the reality in their bottom lines they cannot ignore because of the twin Potter-Twilight elephants in the accounting room.

Hence Hunger Games and Chaos Walking, and, I suspect, This Dark Endeavor. Readers now know what kind of transformative and cardio-edifying experience they can have in fiction and they not only want this kind of story-fix, they expect it. Writers and publishers, being an especially savvy bunch, aren’t slow to figure out the story elements that, when combined artfully, deliver on these newly revealed but old as the hills expectations: genre melange, Young Adult parameters on magisterial language and sexuality (i.e., none), soul triptych, literary alchemy, action adventure (chase scene for the movie deal!), and edifying transformation of the Heart-y Hero.

We’ll be talking about the Pearl Harbor Thesis this year in the run-up to the release of the last movie because I suspect there will be more than a little speculation about its meaning the “end” of Potter Mania. Considering what Ms. Rowling has wrought and revealed, the ‘last movie,’ if anything, only means the end of the beginning of her influence. The Hogwarts Saga has re-shaped the publishing and film industries in terms of what readers and movie-goers now know they want and will pay to get, namely, their Eliade fix of “mythic function in secular culture.”

If you doubt this, I suspect This Dark Endeavor will and won’t reflect the alchemical subtext of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s original Frankenstein. In the classic as you read in the excerpts posted below, we have a passionate young doctor who fuses the worst of the dark vision in alchemy (ego immortality; think ‘Voldemort’) and godless chemistry. The moral of Endeavor, again I’m guessing, might very well be similar in that the trio elect not to save young Konrad’s life because it would curse him with a false life.

But the adventure itself, as an exercise in literary alchemy for the reader, seems to promise a return to the Rowling formula for alchemical drama and cathartic experience and transformation. Look for some kind of resurrection post sacrifice and no little Christian imagery.

I covet your comments and corrections of my ‘Pearl Harbor Thesis’ (PHT!) and your thoughts on This Dark Endeavor. And, if you haven’t already, go back to the front page, scroll down one post, and enjoy the relevant first chapters of Shelley’s Frankenstein for your hermetic reflections and pleasure reading.

I’m writing today  — scroll up! — about the Summit Entertainment plans to film the Frankenstein pre-quel This Dark Endeavor. I wanted, though, to put up a few chapters from the original Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley classic before this to give you a chance to read the chapters in which Dr. Frankenstein’s modern genius, of which the book is largely a critique, is revealed as the worst of alchemy and chemistry combined.

Without further ado, then, Shelley’s Frankenstein, the opening alchemy chapters.

Chapter 2

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science.

When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page of my book and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child’s blindness, added to a student’s thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard.

It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.

Chapter 3

When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country. My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred—an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. “My children,” she said, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world.”

She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized.

My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled.

She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal. She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget.

The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce.

We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word “Farewell!” It was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning’s dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there—my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend.

I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure—I was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were “old familiar faces,” but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent.

I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased.

The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chance—or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father’s door—led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. “Have you,” he said, “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?”

I replied in the affirmative. “Every minute,” continued M. Krempe with warmth, “every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew.”

So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted.

I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.

Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town.

Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were nearly black. His person was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: “The ancient teachers of this science,” said he, “promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”

Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of the fate—enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public, for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor. He heard with attention the little narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said that “These were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.” I listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure.

“I am happy,” said M. Waldman, “to have gained a disciple; and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.” He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I took my leave.

Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.

Chapter 4

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation. I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners, but not on that account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found a true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at first fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.

As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress. Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and I, who continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly that at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay.

One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me—a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.

Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.

I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.

When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began.

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.

These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.

The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I well remembered the words of my father: “I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected.”

I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings, but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed.

I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight—so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete.

Great, right? The rest of Shelley’s Frankenstein can be found by clicking the title. ‘Lemmeno what you think of the Pearl Harbor Thesis, though, in the post above before you leave to go there!

I am just back from two days in Wichita, Kansas, where I gave two talks on ‘Imagination and the Soul,’ the Eighth Day Institute’s theme. I spoke about the Soul Triptychs, Literary Alchemy, and Ring Composition of the Hogwarts and Forks Sagas. The talks were recorded by Ancient Faith Radio, and, unbelievable to procrastinating me, both have already been posted with the lectures given by Fr. Josiah Trenham and Bryan Smith. The Potter talk was Whence Potter-Mania?: The Spiritual Content and Christian Message of the Hogwarts Saga and the Edward and Bella part Bedazzled at Twilight: What Bella and Edward Teach Us About God. If you want the Ring Composition slides I used for the Ring Composition part of the Hogwarts lecture, you can buy the book here.

Eighth Day Institute is an outgrowth of the unique and invaluable Eighth Day Books, which if you haven’t heard of it, you need to browse their web site, ask for a catalog (the only catalog in existence for which I think readers receive education and edification), and buy some books. In an age where even homogenized booksellers are struggling, Eighth Day Books is something of an icon of what Independent Book selling can be — ‘independent’ not only from corporate control but from the prevalent regime of conformity, consumerism, and conveyor belt complicity. Listen to Warren Farha’s talk Why Bother With Books? on AFR to learn more about this.

My thanks to Warren, to Erin Doom of the Institute, and to Joshua Sturgill and the Pattons for their hospitality. It was a wonderful weekend for this Potter Pundit and a rough coming back to earth in snowy, upstate New York. L. Frank Baum was born nearby which makes me think I have been through the Reverse Oz Effect, in which Kansas is paradise…

It is the week of Nativity for traditional Orthodox Christians and it promises to be a white Christmas here in upper New York State where my family and I are living. More than eighty inches of snow since 1 December… In the slow-down to the lead-up to the big day Friday (services begin tomorrow night and will go through the weekend), I’ve put aside my writing and publishing projects for some reading between shoveling shifts. I’m on something of a Charles Williams binge of late after reading David Downing’s Looking for the King in which historical novel Williams is featured. I just finished his The Greater Trumps (1932) and I thought I’d share some very brief notes here for serious Potter readers of the echoes of Williams’ supernatural thriller that we find in the Hogwarts Saga.

In no particular order:

1. The Greater Trumps’ most interesting character is Sybil, the Aunt of the lead character, Nancy. She is not an occult figure or Prophetess as you might expect in a book featuring  Tarot Cards but a woman who is remarkably at peace at all times and a vehicle of love. I offer for your consideration the possibility that Professor Trelawney has the same name with a slightly different spelling and swears by the revelations of her Tarot deck as a hat tip to Williams’ hermetic Christian saint in Trumps.

2. The phrase “All is well” is spoken at three times at critical moments in the plot. We’ve discussed here at some length the possible source’s of the Epilogue’s last words, “All was well,” namely, Julian of Norwich, Henry Scott Holland, and T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. I don’t think what are almost certainly Julian references in The Greater Trumps displaces any of those possibilities, but I think the Williams book has to be added to the list.

3. The alchemical trappings of the book are not obvious but I do think Williams is deliberately using Henry Lee and Nancy Coningsby as his novel’s Quarreling Couple. We see black-white-red, too, in the beginning of the book being dark to melancholic, the storm of wind and water that Henry conjures at nightfall has the effects one expects in the white stage, and that storm is met in the story’s crisis by a golden mist reminiscent of God’s Glory, “the cloud of the beginning of things.” Nancy’s apotheosis by story’s end — Sybil declares she is the “Messias” — and the brilliance of the Light at the end of Christmas Day, well into the night, reflect her transformation consequent to her decision in church Christmas morning to “adore the mystery of love” (‘Christians, Awake!’ John Byrom). We still don’t have a clue as to what kind of alchemical books Ms. Rowling read before beginning to write Harry’s adventures; if she meant a host of alchemical novels rather than discursive texts on metallurgy or psychology, then Greater Trumps may be in the pile.

4. Love is the power that Aunt Sybil has and which her Nancy niece gains via her adoration (see #3).Sybil is able to heal injuries and mental disturbance with her prayers, which are extendings of her love rather than invocational requests. She also has power over the elements or natural forces others are incapable of enduring or acting on. Her counsel to Nancy in church to “Try it, darling,” that is, to give herself to love, the only reality, reminded this Potter-phile of the Headmaster’s comments about love to Harry. Nancy is a much quicker study…

5. It is love that gives Sybil the equanimity which is both supernatural in origin and in its effect on others. Williams writes: “Equanimity in her was not a compromise but a union, and the elements of that union, which existed separately in others, in her recognized themselves and something other than themselves which satisfied them.” Logos epistemology? I think so, especially given her ability to see The Fool, the naught card of the Tarot Greater Trumps, which Williams uses as a cipher for the Word or Christ. This sight, her transformed vision, reflects her ability to know more because of her identification with the Love that is the cause of existence and all knowledge. Y’know, like Harry Potter. [See Chapter 5 of The Deathly Hallows Lectures if that went right by you.]

6. Williams quite clearly spells out the soul triptych of the story whose powers he calls “grace and intellect and corporeal strength” in the finale by labeling the characters with these name tags as they come down the stairs: “the lovers” Nancy and Henry are Grace as the Couple is at last joined, Mr. Coningsby is “the Intellect” by which Williams means “rational mind” rather than anything spiritual (trust me!), and Ralph and Stephen are “corporeal strength” or body. Ms. Rowling, of course, pins much of the Hogwarts Saga drama on the body-mind-spirit triptych of Ron-Hermione-Harry.

7. One of the few important Tarot references in Harry Potter is the comi-tragic scene in Half-Blood Prince in which Harry sees the distracted Sybill Trelawney walking the halls the night Dumbledore is blasted from the Astronomy Tower. Hours before the Headmaster’s demise, the Divination Professor is flipping Tarot Cards and says:

“The Headmaster has intimated that he would prefer fewer visits from me. I am not one to press my company upon those who do not value it. If Dumbledore chooses to ignore the warnings the cards show –” Her bony hand closed suddenly around Harry’s wrist. “Again and again, no matter how I lay them out – ” And she pulled a card dramatically from underneath her shawls. ” — the lightning-struck tower,” she whispered. “Calamity. Disaster. Coming nearer all the time …” (Prince, chapter 25, p. 543)

All the Greater Trumps in the Tarot deck are present in one scene or more in Williams’ thriller but only one of the cards other than The Fool is featured in a character’s transformation as the subject of a chapter with its name: The Falling Tower. As Williams describes it, it is the card more commonly known as The Lightning-Struck Tower.

8. And is it a Ring Composition? I’d have to give it a much more careful reading than I have to give a definite answer but there are enough signs of this to make the question worth exploring. Note, for instance, that the chapter which is the story center, Chapter 8 – Christmas Day in the Country, is the one in which Nancy decides to “adore the Mystery of Love,” which choice joins the problem set in the beginning and resolved in the end. Williams, too, discusses ‘Wheels within Wheels’ in chapter 15 which, with the near constant references to the Great Dance of the Cosmos reflected in the circular motion of the archetypal figures, the Images, means he understands and is using the circle as a story theme; it’s not much of a jump from that to story scaffolding. Especially as the story is in two neat halves: the last eight chapters are the events of Christmas Day. [For more on the Dance of the Cosmos, see Chapter 8 of E. M. W. Tillyard's Elizabethan World Picture, an invaluable little guide.]

That’s all I noted on the first run through but I really wish this were a Charles Williams site, at least for a night, and that y’all had read the book so we could discuss what the man C. S. Lewis called the “esemplastic” element of the Inklings is saying in Trumps about the occult and its relationship to esoteric Christianity, not to mention his use of eye, hands, and light symbolism. Gavin Aschenden writes in his Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration about the “integration of natural and supernatural” in his novels and it’s not much of a struggle to see why they excited — and inspired — Lewis to try the same (as he did, of course, in Space Trilogy and the Narniad).

Lewis is the more obvious and much more discussed influence on Ms. Rowling, who, to my knowledge, has never mentioned Charles Williams in an interview (I await your correction). I suggest, though, that what Ms. Rowling almost certainly picked up from the one she has second hand from Lewis’ inspiration, Charles Williams.

Your comments and corrections, as always, are coveted.

I have been writing John Patrick Pazdziora the past two or three weeks on Narniad subjects and the last few days he has been peppering me with questions about literary alchemy. If you don’t know who Mr. Pazdziora is, stay tuned, because I hope he will be introducing himself soon enough. Though this exchange does not constitute anything like an introduction to the topic of literary alchemy as tradition and reader experience, I do think it is a helpful addition to the discussion of hermetic artistry in The Deathly Hallows Lectures. For those of you already familiar enough with the colors, sequences, and principal figures of alchemy, e.g., the Quarreling Couple, Philosophical Orphan, Alchemical Wedding, etc. from that and posts here, this Q&A back and forth between John Patrick in Scotland and John in Syracuse may help you grasp the sudden ubiquity of alchemy in today’s best sellers in the wake of Ms. Rowling’s juggernaut Hogwarts Saga.

John Patrick’s questions are in red and my responses black and white. Make of that what you will.

I think at some point you need to ask the question whether Literary Alchemy functions solely empirically–we see these colours and those events, and classify this as literary alchemy–or if it carries theoretical weight? (I suggest that it does.) Does Literary Alchemy, on other words, bleed through story in archetypal form, appearing even if the author never studied alchemy? At what level does this influence the text? If you could answer those and resultant questions, at least to yourself, I think you’d find that helpful.

Forgive me for being slow if I’m missing the question, but what I think you’re saying seems a false dichotomy, the ‘one or the other’ fallacy. Literary alchemy is a traditional sequence with specific colors, symbols, and events that can be used in any combination and an indefinite number of ways — hence Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Romeo and Juliet, Tale of Two Cities and Perelandra all being ‘alchemical’ dramas and experiences — and authors use it not just to conform to a received tradition but because it works.

I can imagine a black-white-red story ‘happening’ accidentally or subconsciously because three-act plays are set up this way as simple exposition (introduction with problem, drama, crisis and conclusion). The specific colors, mercury-sulphur references, alchemical wedding, philosophical orphan/stone, and ablutionary and mythic elements, though, make me think it would be a real stretch to think anyone could ‘stumble’ into this sort of story because of their sensitivity to a collective unconscious (that s/he shares with Shakespeare?).

Some of this is simple. Black is an excellent representation of repentance and turning away from self and ego because this part of the spiritual life seems to be an eclipse or advent of darkness. White, too, is fitting for purification and illumination. Red is apt for crisis and the dawn or appearance of the re-created person. The symbols, from the alchemical wedding to the Stone or Orphan, are appropriate ciphers and ultimately transparencies, even translucencies for things greater than themselves and than the reader.

The problem in getting this, of course, especially for academics is that literary alchemy presupposes the existence of supernatural realities, of a faculty in the human person that is not individual for the perception and incarnation of these realities, and of story-telling largely being about the experience of this faculty perceiving its reflection in the story plot, symbols, and resolution-experience. That’s quite the leap or set of leaps for deconstructing types, right?

The tradition’s perseverance, though, is evidence, if not an argument really or anything like a demonstration, that indeed the heart is more than a pump, that the world is much more than matter and energy, and stories are not only not just diversion, they are concentrating on the very most important objective in becoming truly human.

One final question: what determines appropriateness, or aptness? What makes white, for instance, ‘fitting for purification and illumination’? Is this a cultural appropriateness, determined by historical patterns of usage? And, if so, would these colours–apt symbols–perhaps have parallels if not exact correspondences in other cultural and literary traditions? (I’m aware of at least one culture that used black for purity–because black is the colour of clean skin–and white for filth–you’ve been sitting too close to the fire and gotten covered in white ash.) I think this is particularly important since you reference ‘becoming truly human’; if limited alchemy is limited to the Western (using that in the broadest sense) tradition, it would be interesting to find out what effects the transformation to true humanity in other cultures–the other faces of alchemical change, as it were.

I think the aptness of the colors have to do with light, namely, black being the absence of and consequent longing for light, white being the absence of color and hence the representation of what reveals color, light itself, and red being the color of fire which is, if you will, the embodiment or incarnation of light (think of a burning log and glowing ember).

This correlation is the reason or signature of each alchemical stage.

• The nigredo or stage of repentance is the realization that one is in Dante’s “dark forest” and, cognizant of the darkness in the life of ego, the beginning of the seeker’s pursuit of light.
• The albedo is the stage of concealed illumination or enlightenment in which the subject, having been reduced to prime matter, is cleansed and restored.
• The rubedo, the reunion of purified soul and body, is the incarnation in crisis of the transformed person, his glorification, if you will.

I think this derives from the Christian understanding of God’s Word and His Energies as light, His glory. This is the underlying fabric of existence, the stuff and substance of created reality, hence Christ being “the light of the world,” man’s inner heart or uncreated noetic faculty being “the light that comes into the world in every man,” represented, too, by the eye, “the light of the body.”  The center that is the “inside bigger than the outside” because it is both prior and causal Christians think of in terms of light. Baptism is photismos or “illumination,” “becoming light” in Greek; Western culture, even its atheistic elements, still thinks of “enlightenment” as something of a summum bonum.

My comparative religion knowledge is pretty weak, admittedly, but I’m confident this idea of light is not exclusively Christian. I suspect your examples of white meaning dirty and black meaning clean are much more the exception than the rule in human cultures — and universal human and even plant preference for light over darkness suggests this is a function of design rather than something we learn.

I’d suggest, too, that our longing for the resolution of contraries, the “peace that passeth all understanding,” is more than something we pick up with cultural taboos about clean and unclean. Our design for vision, hearing, and bipedal walking, not to mention the bicameral mind, points to our telos in resolution. Literary alchemy, then, is as pervasive, effective, and enduring as it is in poetry, drama, and novels because it touches on our hard wiring as human beings.

[Your comments and correction, as always, are coveted.]

Once upon a time, Travis Prinzi, the Young Lion of Potter Punditry, wrote to me to ask “what else” he could read that was written on a traditional, alchemical scaffolding. I recommended C. S. Lewis’ Perelandra because it seemed to me that, from Lewis’ use of the word albedo and the red-and-white “pie-bald man” to the Dance of Archetypal Contraries and the white coffin filled with red roses, it was a hermetic no-brainer. Mr. Prinzi wrote back not many days later saying how excited he was to recognize the alchemical signatures throughout the book, signs and symbols he gratefully and gracefully allowed I had taught him. I blushed then and blush now to say that I had missed many of the great catches he made.

I tell this story (forgive me, please, if you have heard it before) because another serious reader, this one in the UK and a George MacDonald scholar, claims me as his alchemical mentor — and, then, just as Mr. Prinzi did, he demonstrates that he has a much greater grasp of the essence and the mechanics of literary alchemy than his supposed master. For a delightful exegesis of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale, Cinderella, as an example of the power and flexibility of hermetic artistry, I urge you to read ‘unsettling wonder‘ at The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond.