The Mutilation of Alexander Seton
Much has been written about Michael Sendigovius, but so far nothing that honours the truth with regard to the source of his knowledge of alchemy. What I am about to convey to you may surprise you. Sir Isaac Newton certainly did not believe us when we visited him in London in the year 1693 Anno Domini.
To his death he considered us both mad, my husband and I, and no matter how solemnly we swore on the cross our account was truthful, he merely sought our company to hear about the transmutation. Even the great professor was not immune to the lure of gold.
Our marriage took place in Munich, where Alexander performed no transmutations, but managed to capture the interest of two very important people, one to be his wife in the few happy days of his life that remained, and one to become his murderer.
The last gruesome act of the public life of Alexander Seton took place in the easternmost electorate of The Holy Roman Empire, Saxony. Here, documented by many historical witnesses, The Great Alchemist was tortured to death under the personal supervision of Christian II, Elector of Saxony, merely two years after having set foot on the European mainland.
His arrival was portended by many ominous harbingers.
In 1601, the very year William Shakespeare staged the first performance of Hamlet following the beheading of Robert Devereux for his rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I, our no less dramatic but far more obscure drama began by the coast of Scotland near Edinburgh.
As a Dutch vessel wrecked by the shore a small group of sailors were rescued by Alexander Seton, the greatest alchemist to ever walk the Earth, not to be mistaken for the Earl of Dunfermline. Alexander Seton, as he chose to call himself, treated the sailors with great kindness and gave them wherewithal to return to Holland.
The sailors were particularly astonished by the speedy recovery of one injured sailor who had wounds so severe that none of the other survivors thought it likely that life his soul would remain in his body. For medicine Alexander Seton made use of his intricate knowledge about the effects of herbs, a skill so impressive to the most learned of the sailors they moved on to distribute his fame upon their arrival in Amsterdam.
The following year Alexander received an invitation from Captain James Haussen, the captain of the Dutch crew Alexander had rescued, to visit him in Enkhuysen in Holland. Alexander, eager to visit the continent for the sake of conversation with other scientists and artists of the Dutch seaborne empire, accepted the invitation.
In Enkhuysen Alexander confessed to being a Master of Alchemy, and since the bourgeoisie in Holland was very snobbish and only put in awe by vulgar displays of wealth he performed several transmutations in which he apparently transformed a piece of led into gold. This was in the eyes of the commoners as well as the noblemen his most commendable talent, even if it was neither the most extraordinary nor the most useful.
Due to the fierce condemnation of alchemy by the church and a disappointing contempt among the bourgeoisie for all artists - and alchemists were largely considered artists, and frequently were - many alchemists sought to make a living as travelling healers and surgeons, which was possible due to their intricate knowledge of human anatomy and the effect of plants on the organism.
The church forbade dissection, but Alexander had secretly performed dissections, and he was not unaware of the work of Vesalius of Brussels, a surgeon who had daringly published his own illustrated medical manual called The Fabric of the Human Body in 1543.
Alexander, as many other skilled practitioners of alchemy, also knew that blood circulates around the body with the heart acting as a pump with valves to control the flow, and that the blood must carry components from the air around in order to make the limbs function.
As a simple mean to spread their fame and open the doors for invitations alchemists oftentimes used the illusion of transmutation. My Alexander was among the most skilful in performing this illusion, which was tragically to become the root of his undoing.
James Haussen was so impressed by the performance that he gave the local doctor a piece of gold, one which had been produced during one of Seton’s transmutation sessions. The good doctor of Enkhuysen notified his more esteemed colleagues, Dr. Wolfgang Dienham of Fribourg and Dr. Jacob Zwinger of Basel, both elderly men with the scepticism that comes with a long life.
They insisted on witnessing the process. They let Alexander know in advance they considered it no more than a cheap trick to capture the imagination of the masses.
Now, instead of allowing the doctors to witness the operation Alexander appointed the doctors to be his assistants, while he himself acted as Master of Ceremonies, instructing the doctors as they fumbled around with the lumps of led and sulphur.
So adept was Alexander’s sleight of hand he gained, in one afternoon, two devoted and most influential witnesses to his genius:
“Although we were as doubting as St. Thomas himself, we did everything he told us. We ended up with gold better than the excellent Hungarian and Arabian gold”, Dr. Dienham stated, a testimony which was soon spread all across the Holy Roman Empire, where monarchs and aristocrats were always seeking ways to stockpile more gold.
Thus grew the fame of Alexander Seton across the continent, and he decided to travel further, also concerned that by staying in the same place for too long he would eventually call down demands to convey the secret to producing gold from common metals.
From Enkhuysen he went to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Italy, Zurich and Basel, where he healed many patients with scrofula and tuberculosis, diseases which were thought to be only curable by the king, as well as many other illnesses.
After leaving Basel Alexander ventured to Strasburg, Cologne and Hamburg, leaving behind him a larger trail of admirers and adepts of alchemy than any Rosicrucian had ever managed to persuade, including the insidious Michael Sendigovius who was to receive his fame from Alexander Seton’s writings.
It was, I am certain, Michael Sendigovius' cunning advice that led Christian II to imprison Alexander Seton in Dresden, certain his alchemic recipe was the source of unimaginable wealth.
At first the Prince Elector feigned curiosity, inviting Alexander Seton to visit several sick people, some close relatives to Christian II, and every patient miraculously recovered. His real purpose, however, was to ask Alexander to perform the transmutation in his presence.
As for bidding like this Alexander had no choice but to acquiesce, for his safety depended on the protection from the monarch. The church could easily be notified, and if he was to fall into the hands of the inquisitors, accused of treating patients with herbs and potions, he would likely be put to death by hanging or drowning.
The young Christian II grew increasingly inquisitive, and when Alexander declined to inform him about the secret to the transmutation, he fell into a serious depression.
Alexander now found himself in a severe conundrum. He feared that he was running out of excuses to decline the recurring invitations from Christian II. Having grown weary of performing the transmutation he was tempted to confess it was simply a cheap trick in order to bring awareness about the principles of science.
At last Christian II lost his patience, and he ordered the arrest of Alexander Seton under accusations of sorcery, only two years after our wedding.
The Prince Elector personally supervised Alexander Seton’s torture, and both the times I was allowed to visit him in prison Christian II was present, ever more gloomy and staring at me with menace as if he considered to have me subjected to the same inhuman treatment.
“You will tell me the secret, or your husband will suffer all the pangs of hell”, he swore to me the first time I was allowed to visit.
This was before I saw the terrible state of my husband and in private quarters, where he proceeded to ask me all kinds of questions about Alexander Seton’s real name, Alexander Seton’s purpose for leaving England, Alexander’s Seton’s former whereabouts and what else he could think of to ask me, at this point a simple an uneducated young woman.
Perhaps it was on one of these occasions he came up with the most outrageous of his schemes to uncover the secret to the transmutation. Alexander, eager to gain more insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm, was greatly excited by the manifestos of Rosicrucian Enlightenment.
The rumour that alchemists were preparing to transform the arts, sciences, religion, and political and intellectual landscape of Europe had caught Alexander’s interest, as he was a believer in peace and heartbroken by the wars of politics and religion ravaging the continent.
This I told the Prince Elector, and from this he must have drawn the conclusion that combining cunning with cruciation might be the way to break my husband’s spirit.
Christian II therefore sent for Michael Sendigovius, a Polish born Rosicrucian who was sent out to disseminate the first tracts, such as Fama Fraternalis and Consideratio Brevi, and so happened to be in the vicinity.
Michael Sendigovius was allowed to visit far more frequently than I. He had obtained employment at the court in Dresden, and he claimed he had desired to meet Alexander Seton ever since he had heard of his extraordinary mastery in alchemy.
Sendigovius himself was a far lesser magician, even if he had studied in Krakow, where magic was taught in the university and Chaldean, Persian and Arab spells not even banished from the pulpits.
The circumstances under which the two great minds met could hardly have been more unfortunate.
My dear Alexander was, at this point, already torn asunder. His torturers began the treatment that lasted several weeks by beating him with rods. They proceeded to burn his hands and feet with melted led and pierce his body with needles.
Crucified to a cross like the St. Andrew of his homeland Alexander Seton, the Great Alchemist, had his body torn at with red hot tongs.
None of these violent efforts to pry the secret to making gold out of Alexander Seton succeeded. Alexander kept repeating the same response to Christian II:
“I swear by God, it is an illusion, a mere trick of light and disorientation and handy machinery.”
To which Christian II of Saxony replied:
“How am I to believe an oath sworn by a man, who confesses to quackery and deceit?”
Yet Alexander had never confessed to forging any recovery among his patients, some of which Christian II had witnessed by himself. Neither did The Prince Elector doubt Alexander’s ability to transmute; the more he denied it the more enraged his captor became, thinking it even more likely Alexander was lying to keep the secret to himself.
So deep was his infatuation with the precious metal he never stopped to consider the matter in any rational way.
“Why would we hide the secret from you, but do nothing to exploit the wealth of opportunity from knowing such a formula”, I argued. “We are living humble lives, as you can see for yourself, never extending ourselves beyond our means.”
“What better disguise for a man of infinite wealth than poverty?” was his reply.
Alexander continued to try to explain that transmutation is merely a stage act to raise interest in what he called “the true gold”, the Hermetic teachings about the sciences of nature and the structure of the universe.
He even offered to convey all of these secrets, all of which could have brought significant advantages to his court and his kingdom.
“I can reveal to you how to manipulate nature, improve a crop or strengthen a herd. I can explain to you how the four elements interact. The true secret of value is in medicine, in the study of natural generation, in the discovery of the universal seed of every living body and the building blocks of the universe itself”, Alexander said.
“But to make gold from common metals, this is something no man can hope to accomplish.”
Naturally, Christian II did not believe this. He was no man of science like Isaac Newton, and even Newton secretly believed to his dying day that transmutation could be achieved.
Also, this was a time of great ambitions and military aspirations, with growing tensions between the Protestants and Catholics looming above all peaceful activity.
In France Cardinal Richelieu, the de facto ruler of France, supported the Protestant side in order to undermine the Habsburgs and establish France as the preeminent European power.
As a stern supporter of the Habsburg family Christian II hungered for gold, in order to be able to present to his ruler a source of wealth that would enable his side, the Catholics, to equip armies and buy mercenaries.
So captivating was the illusion created by the myth of transmutation it allured an entire empire; so sturdy was the character of my beloved Alexander that all the criminal aspirations of the great empire was brought to despair.
Christian II therefore told Michael Sendigovius to visit Alexander one last time, and during this visit he would act as if he had managed to bribe the guards. Sendigovius would become Alexander’s salvation, and in return the alchemist would promise to give up his best guarded secret.
He would do it for the sake of the Enlightenment that the Rosicrucian movement sought to spread.
So, after weeks of interrogation, Michael Sendigovius dragged the horribly disfigured body of Alexander Seton out of the prison cell to a cart, where I waited. Sendigovius had given me a forewarning of our escape, and I had gathered all the possessions we had, selling whatever little was of any value to provide funds for our journey across the land.
Even if Alexander was struggling for his life we kept moving, avoiding villages and main roads for fear of the emperor’s eyes and ears. Meanwhile I did my best to mix herbal essences according to the recipes that my husband had memorized.
The only external organs they had not destroyed were, in fact, his eyes and his mouth. Until the very end his torturers hoped he would spill his secrets, and his eyes they needed to supervise them as they performed the transmutation.
At this point I was unaware of the treacherous soul inside Michael Sendigovius, and even Alexander seemed to trust that he was an esteemed member of the secret society of Rosicrucians.