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2004-09-16 21:48:49 ET Who is the Borellus mentioned in Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana"? He is specifically mentioned in the quote: ‘Tis likely, that all the Observations of such Writers, as the Incomparable Borellus, will find it hard enough to produce our Belief, that the Essential Salts of Animals may be so Prepared and Preserved, that an Ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Study, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure: And, that by the like Method from the Essential Salts of Human Dust, a Philosopher may, without any Criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any Dead Ancestor from the Dust whereinto his Body has been Incarcerated.” Some of you may recognize that quote from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." I went to the mid-Manhattan library a while back and actually looked at a notated copy of "Magnalia Christi Americana" which gave the full name of the aforementioned Borellus. The quote from Cotton Mather seems to indicate the alchemical practice of palingenesis ("again" + "born") which is the process of raising an object or the form of the original object through some alchemical process using saltes derived from the original object. Dictionary.com also defines palingenesis as: "The repetition by a single organism of various stages in the evolution of its species during embryonic development." I've first heard that in Aleister Crowley's "Magic Without Tears" the only Aleister Crowely book that I own. He basically mentioned it in passing. Also Manly P. Hall in his work "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" claims that palingenesis is a process relating to the mind and not to the physical world. I'm not sure. I don't really care. Who the hell is Borellus? |
