There are many reasons for seeking knowledge--as many as there are seekers thereof probably--but the reason for seeking alchemical knowledge is clearly stated in all texts to be that, of one's own good fortune, one may aid the fortune of others, particularly the indigent and abandoned. In other words, that wisdom is to manifest in compassion, and that compassion and compassion alone is the enactment of wisdom. All other goals are fool's gold. ~Mike Dickman, Alchemical Compendium I, Hermetic Studies No. 3 Glasgow

—5—

the following is an ongoing distillation of a series of letters...  and—to tell the truth—a bit of an exorcism.

 "....IF she has come out pure gold from the assay..."

 CLARISSA

PART 5                               (click thumbnails TO ENLARGE)

ouroboros,
    the emblem Clarissa wants on her coffin

The symbols of the circle and the quaternity, the hallmarks of the individuation process, point back, on the one hand, to the original and primitive order of human society, and forward on the other to the inner order of the psyche. It is as though the psyche were the indispensable instrument in the reorganization of a civilized community as opposed to the collectives which are so much in favor today.... CGJUNG The Psychology of Transference

I lay particular stress on the phenomena of assimilation in alchemy because they are, in a sense, a prelude to the modern approximation between empirical psychology and Christian dogma--an approximation which Nietzsche clearly foresaw. Psychology, as a science, observes religious ideas from the standpoint of their psychic phenomenology without intruding on their theological content. It puts the dogmatic images into the category of psychic contents, because this constitutes its field of research. It is compelled to do so by the nature of the psyche itself: it does not, like alchemy, try to explain psychic processes in theological terms, but rather to illuminate the darkness of religious images by relating them to similar images in the psyche. ... A rapprochement between empirical science and religious experience would in my opinion be fruitful for both. *Harm can result only if one side or the other remains unconscious of the limitations of its claim to validity.* CGJUNG CW vol 14, 457

The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the uroboros, the snake that eats its own tail’. In the age-old image of the uroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The uroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e.of the shadow. This “feed-back” process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the uroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilises himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolises the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which,..unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious. CGJUNG C.W. Vol. 14

"....IF she has come out pure gold from the assay...," Lovelace writes. Clary is imprisoned, tried, perfected through his torments, becoming ultimately the Lapis Philosophorum through which he is driven to seek his own perfecting.

"An unseen hand makes all our moves—For destiny plays us all!"

. . . as Lovelace quotes. He is driven. He CANNOT turn away. The alchemist is always part of his experiment. Aware or unawares, he is inextricably bound to the process.

"Looks like he's holding a flask with the white stone coming to flower..." mike dickman

Clarissa's very name means crystalline, another name for the alchemical prima materia , as is orphan — and Clary is said to belong to no one.

Obvious symbols are the ouroboros she wants on her coffin, the constant references made to trials and reformations, to her proving 'gold', the lightening /whitening as she approaches death. The whole captive bird thing is classic. As is the image of Clary in her coffin, seeming split in two — and the flaming/red salamander eyes, the implied dismemberment / putrifactio of Ms. Sinclair. (That last name is significant; in itself, and as St. Claire .) We hear about Lions who tear ladies apart. . . Clary's uniting with Lovelace in her father's house . All these images speak the alchemical language of dissolve and coagulate .

Rosarium Philosophorum, emblem 6

Letter 152, April 24, Lovelace to Belford: " But I am not angry with thee, Jack. I love opposition. As gold is tried in fire and virtue by temptation; so is sterling wit by opposition."

It strikes me: Belford doth also drive this reaction. He makes the wager. He is catalyst — and more than catalyst. Like Eros's brother Anteros, the 'avenger of unrequited love or the opposer of love', he functions as Lovelace's complement/counterpoise.

And Anna, catalyst to Clary... and Arabella, Clarissa's sister; the name ara bella translates as altar of beauty. Arabella acts as an overall catalyst to the very end.

". . . you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment..." There is a thread to be followed. Things that feed the imaginal mythos/the ineffable mysteries of Becoming — and that is the function of Art.

ONLY CONNECT:

"The ouroboros ... represents the closing in of a process upon itself, forming an integral ring of being." — Adam McLean

Adam (McLean) has a nice introductory essay on alchemical symbols — the first paragraph and (especially) the last third gives an excellent feel for the allegory. Alchemy, though now too often thrown off as mumbo jumbo into the bin of things occult, was a well-known symbol system in Richardson's time. I see it as a form of meditation, where mind and body, spirit and matter meet in the dream-language of archetype.

Usually expressed as image, Archetype is the psyche's analog to the 'knowledge' / matrix intrinsic within matter: the 'memory' of hydrogen bonding in water that ' knows' to form ice, the crystal lattice that forms diamonds from carbon. Not the compound, not the image per se — but the matrix behind, within.

"Jung never held that the archaic contents rise up in modern man with all their original coherence and consistency, like a massive and fully visible mountain, but only that enduring elements of forgotten myths emerge, like the summits of of sunken mountain ranges." ELEUSIS, Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter by Carl Kerenyi

Psychologist, poet, author, Alice O Howell defines archetype as "personifications of processes both in the outer and inner worlds, which to the ego are opposites, but ... are one in the unus mundus."

Long before Archetype theory developed, there was myth, story, novel — creations spawn of fascination. Thus—CLARISSA.

"Although we still mistake the space of the mind ... for the space outside, we are learning the former is no less powerful than the latter. Identity, power, and historical truth have their roots in these imaginative realms. Every individual thinks part of a tradition and therefore is thought by it..."
—Ioan Culiano

We're so quick to see it all Clary's way—she who sits dutifully as the minister rants on about the woman and her snake. But there, the ouroboros: She mutates eden's snake with her death, even as it transforms her.

She is absolutely an Anima figure for Lovelace. The Anima is always of the Eternal: Persephone as Night, the feminine unconscious. Yin/Yang as wings of black and white, female and male each containing the seed of their opposite. Love, transcending even death. And I think this is what Lovelace finally understands.

Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike... —Plotinus

   Let this expiate!

Expiate is the word Lovelace uses as he dies. Expiate:

Expiate (v. t.) v. t.
1. To extinguish the guilt of by sufferance of penalty or some equivalent; to make complete satisfaction for; to atone for; to make amends for; to make expiation for; as, to expiate a crime, a guilt, or sin.
2. To purify with sacred rites.
3. Terminated.

Atone. At-one.

ATONE: [Middle English atonen, to be reconciled, from at one, in agreement : at, at; AT1 + one, one; see ONE.]

And so they are at one: the consummation of this marriage. And it's a wrap, honey.

James Hillman writes:

"At first the entanglements which Eros constellates seem personal, as if all of love hung on the right word or move at the magical right time, as if it were a matter of effort and doing.  But then the entanglements become reflections of archetypal patterns that appear in everyone's life.  The images (eidola) are what everyone has experienced in his psyche through loving.  In this way Eros leads to the archetypes behind the patterns, and we are played into myth after myth: now a hero, now a virgin running, now a satyr who must clutch, now blind, now soaring.  Precisely this mythical awareness and enactment result from psychological creativity.

"Thus we begin to recognize in ourselves that eros and psyche are not mere figures in a tale, not merely configurations of archetypal components, but are two ends of every psychic process*.  They always imply and require each other.  We cannot view anything psychologically without it entering our soul.  By experiencing an event psychologically, we tend to feel a connection with it; in feeling and desire we tend to realize the importance of something for the soul.  Desire is holy, as D.H. Lawrence, the romantics, the Neoplatonists insisted, because it touches and moves the soul.  Reflection is never enough."
(*Ouroboros again.) 

...in art Eros relates the parts to the whole - as a seamless web of relations and as unified vision. —Maureen Roberts

These two pairs —the quaternity— represent the original elements as Empedocles and those before him wrote so many years ago: All water, the tears of Persephone: The deflowering that is destructive, creative, and transforming: The necessary agony of the conditions of incarnation.

Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire. ~Deut. xviii. 10 (Douay version)

Odd stray spec:

Lovelace as Mars ruled by Venus.  He says he loves revenge, loves his warfare; he says he is ruled by Love (see end of Letter 31).  Even his name says this: Love-lace, that is, love- noose ; love- snare [ LACE: a cord, a tie. (F.-L.) M.E. las, laas. — O.F. las, laqs, a snare, noose — L. laqueus, a noose, snare, knot. Allied to L. lacere , to allure ; cf. E. elicit, delight. ].  He's both noun and verb. He calls marriage the shackle .  And he does want the shackle game.  (See Letter 107.)  Sort of. (Ambi-valence is classic Eros.) He's Roman: thee and thou-ing.  He doth fear Eos (Dawn/Aurora — how many times he mentions dawn!) and so acts out the goddess's part, just as in the Roman wedding, the groom acted out an abduction of the bride. 

A magic to control what you fear, the hocus-pocus...

And I am — and I'd say thou art listing that way as well — more Greek and Orphic than Roman.  Like Oscar Wilde says:

When the gods choose to punish us, they merely answer our prayers.

So there.  My misunderstanding of the classic.  

Hal Bloom in his Yeats book talks about every artist drawing what their heart will from the artists they love, and in their misinterpretations and twisted misunderstandings, they create totally new art.  SO: imitate the creator, as the Kabbalah says.  We work by mutation too.

Of course, there's more to Richardson's novel. This is only what I personally draw from it as a reader with passions and interests of my own, enamored as I am by all that Tantric Unus Mundus mumbo jumbo.

~A good novel expands time sideways.
Go for it.~

(At least buy the DVD. You won't regret it.)

A deep reading of CLARISSA reveals a depth of influences that only proves the characters all the more rich and complex. A few excellent resources: The Clarissa Project, Lilia Melani's Richardson, Ellen Moody's real time reading of Clarissa , Richardson from U Oxford, and C18L ,'an international, interdisciplinary forum for discussing all aspects of 18th-century studies — that is, the "long 18th century," which extends roughly from 1660 to 1830.'

Re the Hermetic tradition (reflected in Alchemy, Masonry, and Jung), the essay by Peter Kingley: Knowing Beyond Knowing: THE HEART OF HERMETIC TRADITION.

Summa Felicitas,

 Deborah

who, thanking you for your time, now vanishes

Angelic Muse:

Know ye that we simple mortals of the Last Thursday are honored that you would select our humble electrons to help illuminate in any way your most scholarly capturing of Clarissa.  We are here but to serve.

Hell, we live in the desert in New Mexico, what else can we do?

Use us as you wish,
Dispose of us as you desire,
We are but the dust of yesteryear,
Once bright, twice alight with fire.

Most Appreciatively,
The Last Thursday Book Club
"feo, fuente, y formal"

muse wrote:

Dear Last Thursday-ite,

It seems I've spontaneously given you a link from my page. Please say it is all right for it to stay.  The Johnson wasjust so wonderful.  (Better rephrase that.) The dialogue between Johnson and Boswell fit so perfectly.

Thank you, whichever way you decide.

Regards,
deborah
"esse est percipere"

Clarissa's dream

PROJECT GUTENBERG e-TEXT

Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment
 

*clarissa graphics from the dvd.

*honestly, except for SBean, the Lady C  is awful. Couldn't get through it. sorry.

all pages in muse  © 1998 deborah