Excerpt from the Notre Dame chapter
(scene: a deserted barn west of London along the Thames):
After carefully observing the area to ensure no one was around, Tom went into the barn and swept leaves and dirt from the corner where they buried the box, then removed the layer of bricks. The box lay where they had left it, undisturbed and perfectly dry. He pried open the lid and pulled out the charred bundle of Dorn’s extensive notes. With a couple hours of sunlight remaining, Tom knew he would have to act quickly. He didn’t want to risk lighting a flame lest someone see him.
The paper Dorn had written on was from a mill in Xàtiva, made from mulberry bark, hemp, and linen. It was quite thick, which made it very durable. After Dorn’s time in Toledo, he had gone to the mill near Valencia and brought back a large quantity to London. Ever since Tom was rescued, he witnessed his master fill the large pages with inscriptions, drawings, diagrams, and arcane signs, using ink from pounded hawthorn branches mixed with claret and iron salt, which he showed him how to make. Blocks of writing in a tiny, precise script were wedged between drawings, with lines of text continuing downward, then sideways, backwards, sometimes turning upside-down, running off the edge, only to continue on the backside, wending from page to page. Each thread of text, if followed through the pages to the end, led to a different result. Sometimes the path of ink went back to the beginning. That was Dorn’s way of disguising his work and misleading anyone attempting to discover his research. Although Tom had watched Dorn record his notes after every process they attempted, there were pages he had never seen, since his master had been at it for many years before Tom was ever born. It was those pages that he concentrated on.
About halfway through the stack was a page with NOTRE DAME • PARIS written above a drawing in the shape of a cross, which looked liked the floor plan of a cathedral. Notre Dame, Our Lady. Tom remembered Elias telling him that many cathedrals were dedicated to the Mother, the source of all life. She was the Prima Materia, the root of all things. Her son Jesus represented the celestial flame, the fire of baptism. Underneath the drawing of the cathedral were neat writings in his master’s hand.
CRUCIBLE • FROM CRUX • CROSS
ALCHEMICAL HIEROGLYPH
CHRIST • FIRST MATTER
SUFFERS THE PASSION IN THE CRUCIBLE
JESU DIES TO BE RESURRECTED
PURIFIED • TRANSFORMED
CHURCH IS THE CRUCIBLE
The next drawing was a woman sitting on a throne, holding a scepter in one hand and two books in the other. Before her was a nine-runged ladder.
CYBELE • PHRYGIAN GODDESS OF WISDOM
OVER ENTRANCE ON GREAT PORCH
ONE BOOK OPEN • FOR THE UNKNOWING/UNWORTHY
THE OTHER CLOSED • ESOTERIKÓS •
FOR THE ENLIGHTENED
LADDER • 9 RUNGS • 9 STEPS OF THE WORK
Tom was astonished. Here was the goddess Cybele that Elias had told him about, holding the closed book containing all the other sacred books. The truths of the world religions, all in one tome. The nine rungs, nine steps puzzled him. Elias had taught him twelve, one for each sign of the zodiacus, beginning with the black death of the metal, the calcination stage under Aries, the Ram, and ending with Pisces, casting the transmuting powder onto the molten metal. He decided to not worry about that and continued reading. On the next page was a drawing of a sculpture of a bearded man in a hat.
NORTH TOWER
ALCHEMIST
PHRYGIAN CAP
More images followed with notations under each, which Elias must have drawn as he walked through the cathedral. Tom realized that Notre Dame embodied Christ’s journey as the alchemical process they had been seeking.
BIRTH
PUTREFACTION
REMOVAL OF IMPURITIES
WISDOM OF MERCURY
TRANSMUTATION OF ABRAHAM
LAST JUDGEMENT • THE GREAT WORK
Tom couldn’t believe his eyes. The quest that he and Elias had been seeking for so long was in the cathedral itself, all laid out for the world to see, but like the Philosopher’s Stone, was invisible to the unworthy. He had learned enough to know that Cybele’s open book was the knowledge the Church taught its flock, and the contents of the closed book, the esoterica, were in signs, inscriptions, and statues all around the cathedral, but having meaning to only those who knew.