This most extraordinary of by-gone arts,
the Palingenesis, has yet to be described.
It ought, though doubtlessly once considered
far otherwise, rather, we think, to be classed
with the clever and often inexplicable illusions
of magic, than to be gravely registered
amongst the achievements of science.
"The alchemists of the sixteenth century,"
says Mr. Tighe, in his erudite notes to his
poem on the Rose, ( vide his
Plants,)
"speak of this apparent resuscitation as a
thing easy and well known.
The seeds, or the ashes, pounded, and
prepared principally with dew, are to be
exposed to heat in a close, glass vessel,
when there will appear a stem, leaves,
and flowers, in short, the apparition of a
perfect plant, rising from the midst of its
ashes. On removing the heat, the image
vanishes; and it can be revived again in
the same manner.
This Palingenesis, as they called it, was
not confined to the rose, though that plant,
according to the relation, was used most
frequently; nor was it confined to the
vegetable kingdom: lobsters, pounded in
a mortar, are said to have re-appeared
in the same manner to Sir Kenelm Digby,
Scottus, and others. See these authors
---Kircher's
Mundus Subterraneus,
and Guillemeau, page 200, who quotes
also Quercetan, (du Chesne,) physician
to Henry IV, and De Claves, as vouchers
for this story; and says that the Emperor
Ferdinand III purchased the secret at a
high price. Baker, in his work on the
Microscope, speaks thus of it:---
"The famous physician Quercetanus,
tells a strange story of a Polonian doctor,
who showed him a dozen glasses
hermetically sealed, in each of which was
a different plant; as a rose in one, a tulip
in another, a clove (July)gilly-flower in a
third, &c.
When these glasses were first brought
to view, you saw nothing in them but
a heap of ashes at the bottom; but on the
application of some gentle heat under any
of them, there presently arose out of the
ashes, the idea of the flower, and stalks
belonging to those ashes; and it would
shoot up and spread about to the due
height, and dimensions of such a flower,
and had the perfect colour, shape,
magnitude, and all other accidents, as if
it were really the flower.
But, whenever the heat was withdrawn
from it, as the glass and the included air
and matter cooled by degrees, so would
this flower sink down little by little, till it
would bury itself in its bed of ashes; and
thus it would do as often as a moderate
heat was applied or withdrawn." ~ M.L.B.
~ from :
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement,
and Instruction,Volume XXVIII.
by Reuben Percy, John Timbs,
John Limbird, 1836.
Pages 132-133.
Downloadable @GoogleBookshttp://tinyurl.com/chaq35=========================
"Let us speak naturally, and like philosophers.
The forms of alterable bodies in these sensible
corruptions perish not; nor, as we imagine,
wholly quit their mansions; but retire and
contract themselves into their secret and
inaccessible parts; where they may best
protect themselves from the action of their
antagonist.
A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes to
a contemplative and school-philosopher
seems utterly destroyed, and the form to
have taken his leave forever; but to a
sensible artist the forms are not perished,
but withdrawn into their incombustible part,
where they lie secure from the action of that
devouring element.
This is made good by experience, which can
from the ashes of a plant revive the plant,
and from its cinders recall it into its stalk
and leaves again." In the correspondence of Sir Thomas Browne
will be found a letter addressed to him by Dr.
Henry Power, intreating "an experimental
eviction" of "so high and noble a piece of
chemistry, viz. the re-individuality of an
incinerated plant." And among Dr. P's papers
in the British Museum, (
MSS. Sloane 1334,
folio 33) is preserved, under the head of
"Experiments and Subtilties," the following :
An admirable secret of representing the
very forme of plants by their ashes
philosophically prepared. Spoken of by
Quercetanus [Joseph Duchesne] and
Angelus Salae." Take (saith hee) the salt, both the fixed
and the volatile also. Take the very spirit
and the phlegme of any herbe, but let
them bee rightly prepared; dissolve them
and coagulate them, upon which if you put
the water stilled from May-Dew, or else
the proper water of the hearb you would
have appeare; close them all very well in
a glasse for the purpose, and by the heate
of embers or the naturall heate of ones body,
at the bottom of the glasse, the very forme
and idaea thereof will be represented; which
will suddenly vanish away, the heate being
withdrawn from the bottome of the glasse."
We cannot refrain from giving a passage on
this subject from
D'Israeli's Curiosities of
Literature.
" Never was a philosophical imagination more
beautiful than that exquisite
Palingenesis,
as it has been termed from the Greek, or a
regeneration; or rather, the apparitions of
animals and plants.
Schott, Kircher, Gaffarel, Borelli, Digby, and
the whole of that admirable school, discovered
in the ashes of plants their primitive forms,
which were again raised up by the force of
heat. Nothing, they say, perishes in nature;
all is but a continuation, or a revival.
The semina of resurrection are concealed in
extinct bodies, as in the blood of man; the
ashes of roses will again revive into roses,
though smaller and paler than if they had
been planted: unsubstantial and unodoriferous,
they are not roses which grew on rose-trees,
but their delicate apparitions; and, like
apparitions, they are seen but for a moment!
The process of the
Palingenesis, this picture
of immortality, is described. These philosophers
having burnt a flower, by calcination disengaged
the salts from its ashes, and deposited them
in a glass phial; a chemical mixture acted on
it, till in the fermentation the assumed a bluish
and spectral hue. This dust, thus excited by
heat, shoots upwards into its primitive forms;
by sympathy the parts unite, and while each is
returning to its destined place, we see distinctly
the stalk, the leaves, and the flowers, arise :
it is the pale spectre of a flower coming slowly
forth from its ashes. The heat passes away,
the magical scene declines, till the whole
matter again precipitates itself into the chaos
at the bottom.
This
vegetable phoenix lies thus
concealed in its cold ashes, till the presence
of heat produced this resurrection-as in its
absence it returns to its death."
The following experiment by Sir Thomas
Browne, preserved in his hand-writing in
the British Museum, will throw light upon
the real character of these supposed
vegetable resurrections.
" The water distilled out of the roote of
bryonia alba, mixed with
sal nitri,
will send forth handsome shootes.
Butt the neatest draughts are made in
the sand or scurvie grasse water, if you
make a thin solution therein of
sal
ammoniac, and so let it exhale; for
at the bottom will remain woods and
rowes of filicular shaped plants, in an
exquisite and subtle way of draught,
much answering the figures in stones
from the East Indies."
~
MSS. Sloane 1847.---Ed.Sir Thomas Browne's Works.
Religio Medici.
Pseudodoxia Epidemica,
Books 1-4
by Thomas Browne
Edited by Simon Wilkin
page 69-71.
Downloadable @GoogleBookshttp://tinyurl.com/cb4vztThomas BrowneFrom
Wikipediahttp://tinyurl.com/dhtxo6====================
"The chemists demonstrate that the
palingenesis, or a sort of restoration
or resurrection of animals, insects,
and plants, is possible and natural.
When the ashes of a plant are placed
in a phial, these ashes rise, and
arrange themselves as much as they
can in the form which was first
impressed on them by he Author of
Nature.
Father Schott, a Jesuit, affirms that
he has often seen a rose which was
made to arise from its ashes every
time they wished to see it done, by
means of a little heat.
The secret of a mineral water has
been found by means of which a
dead plant which has its root can be
made green again, and brought to
the same state as if it were growing
from the ground. Digby asserts that
he has drawn from dead animals,
which were beaten and bruised in a
mortar, the representation of these
animals, or other animals of the
same species.
Duchesne, a famous chemist, relates
that a physician of Cracow preserved
in phials the ashes of almost every
kind of plant, so that when any one
from curiosity desired to see, for
instance, a rose in these phials, he
took that in which the ashes of the
rose-bush were preserved, and
placing it over a lighted candle, as
soon as it felt a little warmth, they
saw the ashes stir and rise like a little
dark cloud, and, after some movements,
they represented a rose as beautiful
and fresh as if newly gathered from
the rose-tree.
Gaffard assures us that M. de Cleves,
a celebrated chemist, showed every
day plants drawn from their own ashes.
David Vanderbroch affirms that the
blood of animals contains the idea of
their species, as well as their seed...
~ from :
The Phantom World :
~ Or ~
The Philosophy of Spirits,
Apparitions, &cBy Augustin Calmet
Translated by Henry Christmas,
1850.
Page 361.
Downloadable @GoogleBookshttp://tinyurl.com/ck49bhAntoine Augustin CalmetFrom
Wikipediahttp://tinyurl.com/cmsefu====================
" Origen, in his second book against
Celsus (continues the reverend Father
Dom Augustin Calmet), relates and
subscribes to the opinion of Plato,
who says "that the shadows and
images of the dead, which are seen
near sepulchres, are nothing but the
soul disengaged from its gross body,
but not yet entirely freed from
matter."
From the same old book, which is
probably read by few, I cannot
forebear transcribing the following
curious account, which, however
impossible, appears to have been
at one time generally believed:---
" If there is any truth in what we are
told by the learned Digby, chancellor
to Henrietta, Queen of England, by
Father Kircher, a celebrated Jesuit, by
Father Schott of the same order, and
by Gaffarel and Vallemont, concerning
the wonderful mystery of the
Palingenesis, or resurrection of plants,
it will help to account for the shades
and phantoms which many will confidently
assert they have seen in churchyards."
The account which these curious
naturalists give of their performing the
wonderful operation of the Palingenesis
is as follows:---
"They take a flower, and burn it to ashes,
from which, being collected with great care,
they extract all the salts by calcination.
These salts they put into a glass phial; and,
having added to them a certain composition
which has the property of putting the ashes
in motion upon the application of heat, the
whole becomes a fine dust of a bluish colour.
From this dust, when agitated by a gentle
heat, there arise gradually a stalk, leaves,
and then a flower; in short, there is seen the
apparition of a plant rising out of the ashes.
When the heat ceases the whole show
disappears, and he dust falls into its former
chaos at the bottom of the vessel. The return
of heat always raises out of its ashes this
vegetable phoenix, which derives its life from
the presence of this genial warmth, and dies
as soon as it is withdrawn."
Then follows the manner in which Father
Kircher endeavours to account for the wonderful
phenomenon; and the author continues with
an assertion that the members of the Royal
Society at London had (as he was informed)
made the same experiment upon a sparrow,
and were then hoping to make it succeed
upon men. "
~ from :
Zophiel;
or,
The Bride of SevenBy Maria Del Occidente
(Maria Gowen Brooks)
Edited by
Zadel Barnes Gustafson,
1879.
Notes to Canto Second,
pages 215-216.
Downloadable @GoogleBookshttp://tinyurl.com/chst6dMaria Gowen BrooksFrom
Wikipediahttp://tinyurl.com/c2d7rs===================
The Imperial Secret of Ferdinand IIIby Fra. Athanasius Kircher
1.) Take four pounds of the seed of
the plant which you mean to raise
from its ashes; the seed must be
thoroughly ripe. Pound it in a mortar,
put it in a glass bottle, perfectly clean,
and of the height of the plant: close
the bottle well and keep it in a
moderate temperature.
2.) Expose the pounded seed to the
night dew, choosing for this operation
an evening when the sky is perfectly
clear; spread it upon a large dish that
the seeds may be thoroughly
impregnated with the vivifying virtue
which is in the dew.
3.) Spread a large cloth, which must
be perfectly clean, in a meadow,
stretched out and fastened to four
stakes, and with this collect eight pints
of of the same dew, which you must
put in a clean glass bottle.
4.) Replace the seed which has been
impregnated with the dew in its bottle,
before the sun rises, lest the vivifying
virtue should evaporate, and place the
bottle, as before, in a moderate
temperature.
5.) When you have collected dew enough
you must filter and afterwards distil it,
in order that no impurities may remain.
The dregs must be calcined to extract a
salt from them.
6.) Pour the distilled dew imbued with
this extracted salt upon the seed, and
then close the vessel with pounded glass
and with borax. It must then be kept for
a month in a hot bed of horse-dung.
7.) Take out the vessel and you will see
that the seed at the bottom has become
like jelly; the spirit will float on the top
like a thin skin of divers colours; between
the skin and the thick substance at the
bottom you will see a kind of greenish dew.
8.) Expose the vessel, being well closed,
during the summer to the sun by day,
and to the moon by night. When the
weather is thick and rainy, it must be
kept in a dry and warm place.
Sometimes the work is perfected in
two months, sometimes it requires
a year. The signs of success are, when
you see that the muddy substance
swells and raises itself; that the spirit
or thin skin diminishes daily, and that
the whole is thickening. Then when
you see in the vessel by the reflection
of the sun, subtle exhalations rising
and forming light clouds, verily these
are the first rudiments of the renascent
plant.
9.) In fine, of all this matter there
ought to be formed a blue powder,
and from this powder when it is excited
by heat, there sprouts the stem, leaves,
and flowers, in one word the whole
apparition of the plant rises out of the
ashes. As soon as the heat ceases,
the whole spectacle disappears, and
the whole matter becomes deranged,
and precipitates itself to the bottom of
the vessel to form there a new chaos.
The return of heat always resuscitates
this
vegetable Phoenix which lies hid in
its ashes; and as the presence of heat
gives it life, its absence causes its death."
~ from :
Mundus Subterraneus, L.XII.
Sect IV. Cap. 5, Exp. 1.
Athanasius KircherFrom
Wikipediahttp://tinyurl.com/c99jkh
