CAN BLOOD OVERCOME DEATH?

Hubert Larcher

1957

(Except)

THE BLOOD OF SAINT JANUARY AND ALCHEMY

If the phenomenon is due to the presence of a particular substance in the blood contained in the vial, it would be necessary to consider not only the possibility of its exogenous origin, but also that of its elaboration from the blood itself, without any foreign contribution .

In both cases, it is appropriate to examine whether the history of the chemical sciences before Lavoisier speaks of substances which may be involved in these alternations of solutions and coagulations.

However, before Lavoisier reigned alchemy. It is therefore she whom we must interrogate.

We will ask operative alchemy if it is possible to conceive that the Neapolitan ampulla results from an artificial preparation.

To speculative alchemy, we will then pose the question of whether its conceptions present some analogy with the facts which concern us.

Gosset, associate doctor at the College of Physicians of the city of Amiens, tells us of this Balduinus who claimed to make a garden bloom in winter, that "he also shows a thermometer that he has built with his blood reduced to quintessence, all the changes of which combined and accorded with the various degrees of health and the different dispositions which he felt in himself, predicting also that when he came to die, this essence would perish.

The least that can be said is that the ancients were much more interested in this kind of phenomena than we are: their analogical methods bound them less than our methodical doubt binds us.

We show timid minds compared to theirs "he was not confined to the rigor of statistical laws but also sought out particular or exceptional cases as long as they were of value in their eyes, patiently striving to achieve in the laboratory the "almost impossible". sayings of the alchemists, must occur in the second part of the Great Work.

WAS THE BLOOD OF SAINT JANUARY "PREPARED"?

ANALOGY BETWEEN ITS CONDITIONING AND THAT OF THE GREAT WORK

We have already seen that the first part of the Great Work consisted of a separation of the five elements of Nicolas Le Fèvre: mercury and phlegm, sulphur, and finally salt and earth, in order to be able to exclude from these five principles, which make up any mixture, the two passive principles generating corruption: phlegm and earth. At the end of this analysis, there remained the triad of the three active principles: mercurial, sulphurous and saline, rigorously purified.

Then came the second part of the Great Work, which consisted in realizing the synthesis of these three principles by the same means of fire which had already served for their separation.

But, while the distillation was done in two hermetically sealed vessels, so as not to lose any of its products while separating them, the synthesis had to be carried out in a single hermetically sealed vessel, hence its name "Egg of the Philosophers".

"...the Philosophers insist a lot on the complete closure of the Egg; some, like Bacon, used a lid which they fixed with a lut or with bitumen, but most used the seal of Hermes (2)".

For his part, Lully uses two adjoining vessels: "There are two vessels of the same shape, size, and quantity at the top where the nose of one enters the belly of the other, so that, by the action of the heat, which is in one part rises in the head of the vessel, and afterwards, by the action of coldness, it descends into the belly (3). "Similarly Libavius: "Some use round or oval glass vessels. Others prefer the shape of Aludel. They take a vessel whose short neck enters another vessel which serves as a cover. They are lute (4)."

Finally Huginus a Barma specifies the capacity of the Egg: "The vase of Art is the Egg of the Philosophers, which is made of very pure glass, having a neck of medium width; the upper part of the neck can be hermetically sealed and that the capacity of the Egg is such that the matter that one puts in it only fills a quarter (5)"

"This Glass Egg, in which was enclosed the matter of the Great Work, was called prison, sepulchre, bridal chamber, vial, etc."

We see that the two ampoules or phials which contain the substance of Saint January recall the two pieces of an Aludel, and that, in any case, the one which is spoken of above all from 1389, hermetically sealed, corresponds perfectly to the description of the Egg of the Philosophers, both in its form and in its capacity relative to its content.

"In the Viatorium Spagyricum, the Egg with matter is represented by a glass sepulcher where the King and Queen are imprisoned (6)." Now, the Naples ampulla is indeed a glass sepulcher for this blood and for this hypothetical matter which would be contained therein.

The Egg was placed “in a special furnace called “Athanor”, ​​​​from the Greek word Athanatos which means: immortal.

"...the middle part...offered three projections arranged in a triangle, on which rested the bowl containing the Egg. This part was pierced along one of its diameters with two opposite holes, closed by crystal discs, which made it possible to observe what was happening in the Egg (7)".

We see that this Athanor has a middle part completely comparable to the reliquary in which the Naples ampulla is enclosed.

Finally the philosophical fire was lit and we saw that it was very sweet.

As, on the other hand, we have already said that ordinary heat acting on old bones ends up achieving the equivalent of a very slow distillation, we can admit that the "Italian fire", although milder, even in Naples, that the "fire of Egypt" of the alchemical texts, could suffice, without any flame, to ensure an extremely slow cooking of the material contained in the bulb.

"What good are these violent flames since the wise do not use burning coals, nor flaming wood to do the hermetic work (8). "

The synthesis then only required very slow and very regular cooking, without any other manipulation, since the three principles were enclosed in their glass matrix. “I only command you to cook, cook at the beginning, cook in the middle, cook at the end, and do nothing else (9). exactly the conditions of the Philosophical Egg in the Athanor.

ANALOGY BETWEEN ITS SUBSTANCE AND THE MATTER OF THE GREAT WORK

Let us now examine whether the matter which is enclosed in the Neapolitan ampulla responds on its side by some analogy to what the ancients described inside the Egg.

"Many alchemists are in error because they do not know the disposition of the fire which is the key to the work, because it dissolves and coagulates at the same time, which they cannot grasp because they are blinded by their ignorance (10)."

"Matter being enclosed in the philosophical Egg, and the fire lit, the bodies brought together immediately react on each other."

"There are various chemical actions...phenomena called operations by alchemists (11)."

"Alchemists differ markedly from one another in the number and denomination of operations (12)."

If Pernety distinguishes twelve operations, Hélias: seven, Albert le Grand: four and Bernard le Trévisan: only one, Basile Valentin, he only admits two: the solution and the coagulation, that is to say passages successions of matter "from the state of rest in the state of movement (13)".

Tradition recognizing Basil Valentine as one of the greatest alchemists, his testimony takes on great value when we see that it applies entirely to the phenomenon observed in Naples.

However, one must admit a difference between the phenomenon of Naples and the descriptions of the alchemists.
The operations that occurred in the Egg evolved in three stages:

Putrefaction: "set of phenomena that occur when matter is black. (Synonyms: death, destruction, perdition, corruption...) (14)".

Dealbation: bleaching of matter which signifies its rebirth, its resurrection in the form of the "Stone of the Philosophers" by the marriage of the fixed and the volatile.

Rubification: "characterized by the appearance of the color red, indicating that the work is perfect (15)", that is to say that the volatile mercurial principle is entirely fixed to the sulphurous principle thanks to a henceforth irreversible combination: the Philosopher's Stone, royal child born of their union.

In the Naples ampulla, neither the second time is observed. except its beginning when the material liquefies, nor the third, although a transient reddening is observed.

However, this difference could be explained by the fact that the "fire of Naples" is always the same — apart from its seasonal variations — and that if it suffices for the appearance and maintenance of the first phenomenon, it is insufficient. to quickly produce the following phases which, according to the ancients, required a stronger fire.

Indeed, dealbation or ablution is nothing other than "the abstraction of blackness, stain, defilement, and filthiness, which is done by the continuation of the second degree of the fire of Egypt (16)". And "when the Stone, having reached the red color, begins to crack and swell, it is calcined in the street lamp fire where it completes settling completely and perfectly (17)".

We can therefore admit that the phenomena observed at Naples answer entirely to those described by the investigators of old, and that, if it is necessary to appeal to the presence of a particular substance in the blood of the ampulla, this substance responds to the characteristics Attributed to the raw material of the Great Work. Thus operative alchemy makes it possible to conceive the possibility either of the presence of a "prepared" substance in the Neapolitan ampulla, or of an experimental preparation of this blood, which, moreover, would in itself be very remarkable.

NATURE OF THE SUBSTANCE WHICH WOULD BE MIXED WITH THE BLOOD OF SAINT JANVIER

Many authors or experimenters have sought to give a physico-chemical explanation of the Naples phenomenon, and have attempted to reproduce it experimentally.

P. Saintyves perfectly sums up their general conclusions by judiciously remarking that "pure blood would long ago have been corrupted and decomposed; this blood must therefore be mixed with some substance capable of ensuring its preservation: balsamic essence or aromatic resin" (18)" .

Now, it just so happens that such mixtures are fusible at low temperature and "melt easily in the hot rays of the Italian sun. We know, moreover, that the Egyptian priests, to prevent the blood of their dead from rotting, aromatics and thus obtained a mixture that was not only incorruptible but very remarkable for its fusibility.Two Neapolitan engineers who devoted themselves to researching their processes, were able to obtain with calf's blood and balsamic resins, a solid mixture which enters into fusion after about forty minutes of exposure , in a room where the temperature is approaching twenty degrees, and this is precisely what happens in the miracle of Saint January. It sometimes takes even longer and has never occurred below 17° centigrade (19)".And Saintyves concludes that "this famous miracle is in fact only a laboratory experiment (19)".

What then is the nature or the origin of this anti-corrupting, balsamic substance, which fuses at low temperature, which would have been mixed with the blood of Saint Janvier without altering its oxyhaemoglobin spectrum?

Is it not a substance analogous to that which reacted with the blood of Saint Pantaleon in the hands of Father Beatillo? He wrote in 1627: "A few years ago, certain relics of great value were found in the town of Benevento, and in particular certain bones and coagulated and hardened blood of the glorious martyr Saint Pantaleon. The rector of our college of Benevento received some fragments from the liberality of the bishop and shared them with myself. I deposited these precious parcels in a small glass vial; now it happened afterwards that, having put why, in the same vial, a little of the manna of Saint Nicolas, the whole suddenly came to a boil and mixed. These are the same relics that are now venerated in the cathedral of Bari and kept there in a silver reliquary (20). "

If this were so, the substance contained in the blood of Saint January would be analogous to the manna of Saint Nicholas and would thus fall into the category of myroblyte oils. What adds to this probability is that this blood exhaled a "heavenly odor" when the relic was taken out of the reliquary which contains it, before the ampoule was sealed (21), and we have mentioned the relationship between the odors of holiness and the oils likely to fix them.

One cannot fail to be struck by the remarkable convergence between these data and these observations, those of operative alchemy, and those of thanatology.

Indeed, alchemy speaks to us of the combination of two principles, one volatile mercurial and the other fixed sulphurous and oily in nature, the result of which, subject to certain conditions of heat and the passage through alternations of solutions and coagulations, is none other than the white "Stone of the Philosophers", heralding the definitive fruit which is the red "Philosopher's Stone".

The analogy is striking with the combination of two substances, one of which—blood—left to itself would dry up, losing its volatile parts by evaporation, and the other of which—oil, fat, balsam, or manna—would be capable of giving the clot particular properties, forming with it a compound mass. According to Saintyves, the bipolarity of this compound mass could be manifested by phase changes and momentary divisions between crystalloids and colloids under the influence of certain heat conditions as well as movements imparted to the reliquary (22). "Time therefore operates, concludes Saintyves, a dissociation by change of state and, by giving freedom to the elements of the mixture, re-establishes the conditions necessary for their liquefaction (23)."

That the substance mixed with the blood of Saint January is of a fatty nature is all the more easily understood since there are examples of fats which liquefy in the same way as this blood: we have already recalled that the fat of Saint Thomas Aquinas had liquefied under the same conditions as his blood, although the two were enclosed in two separate containers. It is almost certain that this fat was not entirely devoid of blood elements, nor this blood of fatty elements.

One could even, by pushing the analogies, think that the dealbation of the Great Work, which seems to be lacking in the miracle of Saint January to make it the complete analog, is the lactescent manifestation of the fatty component when it is in sufficient quantity , or that conditions facilitate this manifestation, or that the white color is not masked by rapid rubification.

"The blood of Saint Pantaleon preserved in Valicella is mixed with a milky substance. In the countryside of Rome, the blood of Saint Lawrence is, we are told, more like fat than blood; but in boil, blood and fat divide in a very apparent way (24)."

For its part, thanatology offers us convergent data: the thanatochemical evolution goes, from the physical point of view, in the direction of fluidity, diffusibility and homogeneity, and we have seen that the two essential components of "new inner environment" were, apart from water, blood and fluidized fats or oils.

We even mentioned in passing the "balsamic spirits of the blood" of Becher, able to mingle with him to make him incorruptible and anti-corruptive, and considered the possibility of his medullary bone origin.
The comparison is essential with the experience of Father Beatillo who saw the dried blood of Saint Pantaleon react in the presence of oil from the bone marrow of Saint Nicholas of Myra.

By studying the alchemical meaning of thanatology, we considered the possibility for the components of the "new inner environment" to react with each other.

We asked ourselves: "If the operations which occur in the functionally dead body could reach their true end, would not this end be the Great Work of nature? Now, the operations of the blood of Saint January make us assist to a prodigious aspect of these reactions, in vitro, as in a laboratory, and these reactions, whether they owe their origin to nature, to art, or to supernature, go precisely in the very direction of the Great Work."

Until now, when studying the marvelous operations of Saint January's blood in vitro, we have too much neglected to attach them to their biological and above all thanatological context. This blood, this manna, come from human organisms that were alive, and it is in vivo, in rerum natura, intus et in cute, that they should be replaced in an attempt to understand the phenomena they produce.

Only P. Saintyves seems to have attempted an effort in this direction: "When we wanted to reconstitute the miracle, he wrote, we were too preoccupied with the rigging of the reliquary. For those who will now take up this task, I believe that it It will now be necessary to search above all, among the spontaneous products of the Apulian burials, for the substances which make up the marvelous mixture... And I have no doubt that, in order to reconstitute the miracle, it is first necessary to obtain and analyze manna and balm which has illustrated the bodies of several saints in this volcanic country (25)."

that is to say the modifications of weight of the reliquary, embarrassing for his theory but which he could not however ignore since in this same article he published drawings from Léon Cavene's 1909 book which gives details of the double weighing experiments carried out in 1902 and mid -1904. It is therefore arbitrarily and not without a suspicion of bad faith that, passing aside alchemical perspectives, Saintyves was able to consider that a balsamic substance mixed with the blood of Saint Janvier could only have come from outside and been placed there by the hand of men , and that this mixture was banal. that is to say the modifications of weight of the reliquary,

ALCHEMICAL THEORY OF KARL VON ECKHARTSHAUSEN

But if, leaving operative alchemy, we agree to examine certain theories of speculative alchemy, we will see that it is not necessary to suspect a skilful and facetious alchemist of having added philosophical substances to the blood of Saint January. . Indeed, the alchemical doctrines themselves teach that such substances can originate in the blood itself.

And it must be agreed that the endogenous origin of these substances would be more satisfying for the mind than an artificial preparation, even fortuitous, if one considers that the bloodstains found at Pozzuoli react in the same way as the contents of the Naples ampoule.

Finally, this endogenous origin would be consistent with the little we know of thanatochemistry, and it is satisfying for the mind to consider that intimate relationships can be established between two substances which have a community of origin in the marrow of the bones.

Also, in spite of the imprecision—desired more—of the alchemical texts, it is not useless to examine the speculative theories which are connected with the mysteries of the blood.

This is how Christian alchemists considered the essence of the blood of Jesus Christ to be the Philosopher's Stone itself,

This Precious Blood was kept in the Grail where its operations continued beyond the reach of centuries.
It was Councilor Karl von Eckhartshausen who expressed himself most explicitly about the relationship between "humanity's state of disease" and blood on the one hand, and on the other hand the essential role of blood in the regeneration of man, biological aspect of his redemption.

STATE OF DISEASE AND POSSIBILITY OF CURE OF HUMANITY

The man whom we consider as normal and whose state seems to us physiological in relation to our pathology would in reality be a hereditary patient whose state would be pathological in relation to a previous primitive state, to a preternatural Adamic balance lost following poisoning symbolized by the eating of the "forbidden fruit".

"The state of disease in men is a real poisoning. Man has eaten of the Fruit of the Tree in which the corruptible and material principle predominated, and has poisoned himself by this enjoyment (27)."

"The first effect of this poison was that the incorruptible principle, which might be called the body of life as the matter of sin is the body of death, the expansion of which formed the perfection of Adam, became concentrated within and abandoned the exterior to the government of the elements. It was thus that a mortal matter soon covered the immortal essence, and the natural consequences of the loss of light were ignorance, passions, pain, misery, and death (27)."

"Man is unhappy because he is sick in body and soul and has no true medicine for either body or soul (27)."

The cause of this general disease is in the destructible matter of which man has been composed since his poisoning. This caused to appear in his blood a ferment of endogenous corruption of soul and body, hereditarily transmissible.

This ferment is "a sticky matter (called "gluten"), hidden, which has a closer kinship with animality than with the spirit". On the one hand, it obscures our mental and spiritual functions by chronically intoxicating our brain; on the other hand, it is the main cause of the corruptibility of the flesh, the exogenous agents of destruction coming only after it.

The cause of physical and moral corruption being in our substantial nature, the remedy cannot be purely moral. "The healing of mankind is possible only by the destruction in us of this leaven of sin; hence we need a physician and a remedy (28).

"Only the Indestructible can make the destructible indestructible; only what is alive can animate what is dead. Hence one must not seek the physician and the means of healing in destructible nature where all is death and corruption One must seek the physician and the remedy in a higher nature where all is perfection and life (28)."

It was therefore necessary that a man having escaped the general hereditary poisoning, while being clothed with corruptible matter like the others, should give himself to be known as "being the pure substance of which everything was made", and agree to spread outside from his carnal envelope his blood which contained the incorruptible substance lost by the others and alone capable of regenerating them by slowly dissolving the corrupting poison.

THE COUNTER-POISON

Here is how Karl von Eckhartshausen likens the universal medicine to a counterpoison: "When man, by the enjoyment of a corruptible fruit and which carried within him the leave of death, was poisoned in such a way that all that was around him became mortal and destructible, the divine mercy must necessarily establish a counter-poison which could likewise be absorbed, and which contained within itself the substance which encloses and vivifies all, so that, by the enjoyment of this immortal nourishment, the man poisoned and subject to death could be healed and delivered from his misery (28)".

This counter-poison, Eckhartshausen locates it in the blood of Jesus Christ, free from any poisoning, and even in what he calls the "tinctorial strength" of this blood.

He attributes to this substance not only possibilities of extraordinary vital action, but even a power of cosmic action, which he sees manifesting itself in a particular way from the moment of the death of Jesus Christ.

"The tinctorial force which flowed from his shed blood penetrated the innermost part of the earth, raised the dead, broke the rocks, and caused the total eclipse of the Sun..." thus laying the basis for the future glorification of the world ( 28)".

"Since the death of Jesus, the divine force instilled in the center of the earth by his shed blood is always working to exteriorize itself and to make all substances gradually capable of the great upheaval which is in store for the world (28)."

"In the clear understanding of the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ lies the true and pure knowledge of the effective regeneration of man."

"Corporal union with Jesus Christ is the supreme achievement (28)."

THE PHILOSOPHICAL STONE OF ENDOGENOUS ORIGIN

This "corporal union" can be understood not only as the integration of men into the mystical body of Christ, a theological mystery, but also, from the point of view of biology, as a synthesis, in each living man, of the chemical substances linked to the virtues of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

This synthesis would be obtained by prayer, by the Eucharist and by an assiduous and intelligent imitation to ask, allow and favor the action of Grace even on the somatic plane, and, in fact, certain wounds of mystical love can result of this impersonation.

This voluntary participation of men in the life of their model, as well as the communication that this model gives them of its substance and its power, would ultimately allow any man who suitably strives for it to realize in himself, in his own blood, the regenerative counterpoison.

In the very spirit of speculative alchemy, this Christic substance, that is to say: of spiritual anointing, can just as well be understood from the chemical point of view as from the mystical point of view: to its spiritual quality responds to its mercurial principle which is a "volatile spirit", while its unctuous substance responds to its sulphurous principle, of an oily nature.

Finally, the marriage of "sulphur" and "mercury", of oil and blood corresponds, on the substantial plane which concerns biology, to the marriage of the soul and the Spirit which comes to inhabit it, whose speak the sciences of mystical life.

In summary, the mystical wedding of the soul and the Spirit would correspond, on the biological level, to the chemical wedding of the "King" and the "Queen" whose "Royal Child" will be the Philosopher's Stone.

However far from our current conceptions such theories may seem to some, it was necessary to recall them, because they are the only ones to which we can refer if we want to reconsider chemistry in a broader framework than that in which it is locked up since Lavoisier.

Lavoisier's chemistry then only appears as one of the branches of the Tree of Chemical Sciences.
But from the old trunk it remains possible to go back to other branches, abandoned and thankless perhaps, but no less fertile than that which our time exploits almost exclusively, but which is powerless to explain the changes in the weight of the blood of Saint January .

RELATIVIST THEORY OF OV BY L. MILOSZ

Moreover, the theories that we have just recalled have not been completely abandoned, since they were taken up again at the beginning of the 20th century by 0. V. de L. Milosz.

Here is how - in a poetic language whose intended darkness is in no way inferior to that of his predecessors - he recalls the presence in the blood of a primordial substance, illuminator of consciousness and universal antidote at the same time, of which we only possess the remains: "Ask, my dear child, this blood which, from the consistency and the color, appears to you of such a celestial substance. "..." It will reveal to you its thousand poisons and its remedy. unique."

"... Magnum Compositum whose active virtue is still agitated in the midst of the terrors of the spiritual eclipse; and the proof of this is in the help lent to an impure science by the counterpoises drawn from the blood, furtive rays, all together memories and harbingers of spiritual magnificence.”

“Knowledge of the primordial substance slumbers within us in the darkness of pride, like gold under the weight of mountains. like a bone, is only an obscure correspondence of the magisterium with which the interior of our holy house of clay shines."

For Milosz, there is a direct relationship between this substance and the phenomena of consciousness. To tell the truth, total consciousness would be, thanks to it, contained in the blood, and the role of the brain would not be to develop this consciousness, but to inhibit it and "sift" it so that it does not blind us. not, because if we had access to it, we would no longer be able to select its useful aspects for practical life, and we would find ourselves frozen in contemplation.

Here is how — still in that lyrical language proper to subjective science — Milosz expresses this opinion, which Bergson has philosophically supported elsewhere (30):

"Your heart is an anatomical sun, propellant of your blood microcosm. And if the brain...is...hermetic moon, it is not only by color analogy."

"The brain is only the satellite of the heart. It only receives, filters, and restores the light of affirmation sent to it by the heart in its spiritual radiation." "Moon and brain are receivers and orderers of light. They humanize the superhuman, make accessible to our fragile eyes the blinding god (29)."

Milosz then sees the blood as the place of total consciousness, and as this consciousness is based on memory, "when the spirit of the earth dictates to me: subconscious, me, in the only place located, I write: Sun of Memory".

The alchemist poet returns throughout his work to this "Sun of Memory" which would dazzle us with absolute consciousness and knowledge if we could contemplate it face to face, but which, as a result, would forbid us all life. functional by reducing us to immobility.

“Land of bliss, where the achievement of mental movement is the correspondence of the stillness of infinite matter.”

Here, then, is the crucial point of view: this correspondence between matter and memory which makes the latter the function of fixing, in the instant of consciousness, what the movement of matter inscribes in space and time.

Now, if memory corresponds well to this spatio-temporal matter in incessant movement, that is to say "non-situated", thus never representing "the only situated place", the absolute Place, Pascal's point, and if this same memory has the power to fix its history in the instant of consciousness, it is because, according to Milosz, the primordial substance which is found in the blood at the meeting point of matter and memory can, from the point of view of matter, appear, in the movement inscribed within space and time, as a material substance, and, at the same time, from the point of view of memory, as the point or the place "alone located" in the creative moment.

This curious relationship between matter and memory ultimately leads Milosz to consider blood as the place of origin of movement and of the matter-space-time triad, in other words as the place of essential manifestation of the creative "yes".

"Our blood perpetuates the moment of the first emission, and all the consciousness of the spiritual propellant is still in it, always ready to reveal itself progressively to the intelligences which, with the magic weapon of prayer, have reconquered the absolute place of the affirmation .”

“All the cosmic blood is still in the momentum of the first ejaculation; initial motive, it teaches us to situate all things of space in the only movement, and all things of time in the only instantaneousness. the secret of the old masters and the celestial origin of their double concept of the unity of matter and the identity of the two worlds (30)."

"Transmutation once admitted as a fundamental principle, the progress of my work over theirs had to be limited to a simple extension, for there remained for me, after Boehme, Sendivogius and Paracelsus, only to identify matter with time and space, and, having thus captured all three of them in movement, in chasing movement itself, trusts its bond (which, as I have recently learned and reveals here, is the blood), to cause the all in the still instantaneousness of the sun of memory (30) ."

"This blood, essence of movement and universal rhythm, is the container, the foundation, the place, in a word, of the simultaneity and instantaneity of time, space: and matter."

"He will finally reveal to you the secret of universal transmutation, for he is the alchemist who, under the robe of Ruby, conceals the Bread and the Wine of the Last Supper (30)."

It follows from this conception that the blood contains the secret of all consciousness, a secret which can only be approached from the perspective of relativity: "The sun of our memory is only obscured, and everything will be returned to us with the secret Blood in the virtue of a science brought back by Relativity to its celestial origins (30).

This Relativity hidden in the movements of the blood, which the alchemist poet indicates to biologists, he had already indicated in January 1917, in his literary language, in connection with cosmic movements, before its mathematical expression had been formulated by Einstein: "A stranger to mathematics, by publishing my Epistle to Storge in January 1917, I was therefore only a metaphysical herald of the theory of generalized relativity, of which I was unaware at that time of the first word and in which I hailed, for a few years later , less a confirmation of the result of my twenty-year meditation on matter, space and time, than the dawning of a new and wondrous era of mind (30)."

If I judged it useful to stop with attention on the relativistic theory of blood expressed by Milosz, it is not only because of the glorious precedent of the confirmation by Einstein of the fruits of his meditation on matter, space and time, but again and above all because it is the only one which has hitherto seemed compatible with the changes in blood weight of the former bishop of Benevento.

Couldn't Milosz be the metaphysical herald of a theory of blood relativity?

“Space, time and matter, he says, are enclosed in this unfathomable but sensitive unity that creates in us, and projects through the walled-up eye, harmonizing inner movement, blood and spirit, so as not to point to name at first glance thought of blood (30)."

Poetic boldness? Maybe! but singularly close to the judgment of a biologist on the subject of the most recent blood operations of Saint Janvier: "This clot defies time and our knowledge, indifferent to the laws which govern phenomena and their succession, regulating itself in an inexplicable and personal way The freedom and variability of the phenomenon recall the freedom enjoyed by thought, this spiritual freedom understood by philosophers as an active spontaneity or as an elective power of self-determination, as if a spiritual phenomenology had taken hold of this clot to replace the laws governed by the determinism of physics and biology!(31)"


NOTES

1. Doctor Gosset: Cabalistic revelations of a universal medicine drawn from wine, Godart, Amiens, 1735, p. 134. Balduinus: De Auro Aurae.
2. Albert Poisson: Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists, Chacornac, Paris, 1891.
3. Raymond Lully: Clarification of the will.
4. From Lapide Philosophorum.
5. Huginus a barma: The Reign of Saturn.
6. Albert Poisson: Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists, Paris, 1891, p. 105.
7. Albert Poisson: Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists, Chacornac, Paris, 1891, p. 106.
8. Marc Antonio Grimblade: Light coming out of darkness by itself.
9. The Peat of the Philosophers.
10. Raymond Lully; Vade mecum seu De tincturis compendium,
11. Albert Poisson: Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists, Chacornac, Paris, 1891, p. 117.
12. Id.
13.Id.
14. Id.
15. Rouillac: Compendium of the Great Work.
16. Albert Poisson: Theories and Symbols of the Alchemists, Chacornac, Paris, 1891, p. 117.
17. Arnauld de Villeneuve: Novum Lumen.
19. P. Saintyves: The Blood of Saint January, Esculape, n°3, March 1926.
20. PR Ant. Beatillo (Barese della Compagnia di Giesu): Historia di Bari principal cita delta Puglia nel Regno di Napoli, in Napoli, 1627, in-40, pp. 221-222, quoted by P. Saintyves in The Relics and Legendary Images, Mercure de France, Paris, 1912, pp. 30-31.
21. W. Deonna: Ancient and modern beliefs: the sweet smell of the gods and the elect, Geneva, XVII, Geneva, 1939, p. 246. FD Domenico: Panegyric of Saint January, Naples, 1884. Trede: Das Heidentum in der römischen Kirche, Gotha, 1890, I, p. 161.
22. These phase changes are better known today thanks to research on thixotropy. However, thixotropy cannot explain either the volume changes or the weight changes of the mixture.
23. P. Saintyves: Relics and Legendary Images, Mercure de France, Paris, 1912, p. 33.
24. P. Saintyves: Relics and legendary images. Mercury of France, Paris, 1912, p. 3U. Abbé Lecaku: Dictionary of Prophecies and Miracles, Paris, 1884, p. 902.
25. P. Saintyves: Relics and legendary images. Mercury of France, Paris, 1912, pp. 32-33.
26. P. Saintyves: The Blood of Saint January, Esculape, n° 3, March 1926.
27. Karl von Eckhautshausen: The Cloud over the Sanctuary, Paris, 1948.
28. Karl von Eckhautshausen: The Cloud over the Sanctuary, Paris, 1948.
29. 0. V. by L. Milosz: Ars Magna, A. Sauerwein, Paris, 1924.
30. Henri Bergson: Spiritual Energy, Presses Universitaires de France, 1940, p. 77.78.
30. 0. V. by L. Milosz: Ars Magna, A. Sauerwein, Paris, 1924.
31. Doctor Elio Biancani: Judgment of a biologist, The New Man, November 6, 1955, p. 6.