A Dublin Alchemist Refuses the Ticket

This is an excerpt from a book whose overall merits I won’t be commenting on, but it contains a plausible example of an early Ticket-offering.

From G.H. Pember. “Earths’s Earliest Ages”

…The brother of the last-mentioned lady drew my attention to a very remarkable attempt to entangle a correspondent of the well-known Methodist divine. Dr. Adam Clarke. The circumstances are narrated at the beginning of Book V of the Account of Dr. Clarke’s life, ed. 1833.

Clarke was a famous Methodist theologian who started as an itinerant preacher and ended up being wrong about the Rosetta Stone. (He wrongly thought it was made of basalt and identified its third language as Coptic instead of the correct Demotic.) He was also wrong to deny Christ as God’s Son prior to the Crucifuxion, a perspective that most of Methodism rejected.

Regardless, he had skill with languages and was a member of many scientific societies.

Clarke on the left, Jeffrey Epstein on the right. Just sayin’, quite the resemblance.

His interest in chemistry led to a long friendship with a Mr. Richard Hand, who is described as “eminent as a man of science, a gentleman of character, and one who would not on any account knowingly misrepresent any fact.”

On December 2nd, 1792, Mr. Hand wrote from Dublin to Dr. Clarke that,

The 2nd of November last, came to my house two men, one I thought to be a priest, and yet believe so, the other a plain sedate-looking man; they asked for me. As soon as I went to them, the last-mentioned person said ” He had called to see some of my stained glass and hoped as he was curious, I would permit him to call and see me now and then “: of course. I said I should be happy that he would do so. After much conversation he began to speak of metals and their properties, and of alchemy. asking me “If I had ever read any books of that kind” (but I believe he well knew that I had). After some time, and many compliments passing on my ingenious art, they went away.

I understand this was typical behavior for early scientists, who were often so distant from each other that physical visits were special occasions, and meanwhile they corresponded with each other so frequently that we know more about them than if they’d written a proper book.

This coming account, for example, would never have shown up in a textbook.

At twelve 0 clock the next forenoon he came himself. Without the priest, and told me “He had a little matter that would stain the glass the very colour I wanted” and which I could never get: that is, a deep blood red.

Not as diabolical as one might think.

Segue

h ttps://renegadeartglass.net/about-us/techniques/stained-glass/

Glass is colored by adding metal oxides or metal powders to molten glass. Depending on the metal, the glass takes on a particular color. You may have seen “cobalt blue” glass –yes, that color comes from adding cobalt. Copper oxides also make glass blue to bluish green. Sulfur and cadmium make yellow. Iron oxides produce greens and browns. Tin produces white. Chrome produces emerald greens. In early glass production, the rarest of colors was red. This is because red required the most costly of additives – gold. Today, chemists have found other ingredients that produce red, but you will not see much red glass in truely antique stained glass. (Learn more: See the Geology.com article “Elements of Color” for more on metal oxide coloring of glass…)

End segue

Said he. “If you have a furnace hot we will do it. for the common fire will not do well.” I replied, “Sir, I have not one hot, but if you will please to come with me I will show you my little laboratory and I will get one lighted.”

When we came out he looked about him, and then said, ” Sir. do not deceive me, you are an alchemist.”

“Why do you think so, Sir ?”

I infer from this, that Hand was a glass-blower by trade, which explains well why a priest would be interested in his work. Also, why Hand might develop an interest in alchemy.

“Because you have as many foolish vessels as I have seen with many others engaged in that study.”

“I have,” I answered “worked a long time at it, it is true, without gain, and I should be glad to be better instructed.”

” Do you believe the art ? “

“Yes, Sir.”

“Why? “

“Because I give credit to many good and pious men. He smiled. “Will you have this air furnace lighted?”

“Yes Sir.” I did so: he then asked for a bit of glass—‘opened a box. and turned aside, and laid a little red powder upon the glass with a pen-knife–put the glass, with the powder on it, into the fire, and when hot took it out, and the glass was like blood.

Traditionally gold chloride, but more modern methods are selenium oxide or various copper oxides. The first is a brownish liquid and the second is a white powder. Yes… I checked whether he was doing it the old way just to trick Mr. Hand into thinking he had special knowledge, but nope.

“Have you scales?”

I got them for him, and some lead: he weighed two ounces : he then put four grams of a very white powder in a bit of wax and when the lead was melted put this into it, and then raised the fire for a little while:-then took it out and cast it into water :-never was finer silver in the world! I exclaimed and said, “0 God! Sir you amaze me!”

This can’t have happened per chemistry, except by nuclear reaction. Silver is a brittle metal compared to lead and the density is much different, so I assume Mr. Hand would not be caught off-guard by a plating or other trick.

“Why,” he replied, “do you call upon God do you think He has any hand in these things? “

” In all good things, Sir,” I said.

“Ah, friend, God will never reveal those things to man. Did you ever learn any magic?”

“ No. Sir.”

“Get you, then,–he will instruct you; but I will lend you a book, and will get you acquainted with a friend who will help you in that knowledge. Did you ever see the devil?”

“ No, Sir, and trust I never shall.”

“Would you be afraid?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need not be, he harms no one; but is every ingenuous man’s friend. Shall I show you something wonderful?”

“Not if it is anything of that kind.”

“It is not, Sir…”

Bullshit. “You shouldn’t invoke God. He’d never teach you these tricks, but we will. Say, have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Then how do you know you wouldn’t like it?”

“…Please to get me a glass of clean water.” I did so. He pulled out a bottle, and dropped a red liquor into it and said something I did not understand. The water was all in blaze of fire, and a multitude of little live things like lizards moving about in It. I was in great fear: this he perceived took the glass, and flung it into the ashes, and all was over.

“Now, Sir,” said he, ” if you will enter into a vow with me as I see you are an ingenious man, I will let you know more than you will ever find out.”

This I declined, being fully convinced it was of the devil; and it is now I know the meaning of. “coming improperly by the secret.” After Some little he said “He must go, and would call again when I should think better of his offer.” He left me the two ounces of luna.

In a letter of the next month, Mr. Hand gave further details of the experiments, and said:

“I was not imposed upon in the transmutation, having used a quarter of an ounce of the silver in my own work and sold the remainder of it for pure silver.” 

He added:

On his flinging the water on fire under the grate with the lizards in It, I looked to see if I could observe them there: he observed me and said:

“They are gone.”

“Where?”

“From whence they came.”

“Where is that?”

“Oh, you must not know all things at once!”

“Why, Sir, I believe this is magic. You could, I have no doubt, raise the devil if you liked.”

“Would you be afraid?”

“Yes, Sir, I hope ever to be saved from having anything to do with him.” He replied:

“You are a very ingenious man, Mr. Hand, and I wish you to be better acquainted with Nature and the things in this curious world through which I have myself almost been, and I have more knowledge than most I have met with, and yet I know many wonderful men.”

“Do you know any person, Sir, who has the red stone?”

“I do, multitudes.”

“I wish I knew some.”

“You shall, and the whole secret.”

“Sir you are very good.”

“But you must know that we are all linked like a chain, and you must go under a particular ceremony and vow.”

Context of Ireland, that meant either Jesuit or Freemason. I’d guess the latter given the overt rejection of God.

“I will vow to God, Sir,” I replied, “that I will never divulge—-“ Here he stopped me, and said: “I was going beyond the question,” and appeared vexed. He said the vow must be made before another; and with an angry tone, “It is no matter to you whether it be before God or the devil, if you get the art.”

Then, indeed, my dear friend, I saw almost into his inmost soul, and I grew all on fire, and said : “I will never receive anything, not even the riches of the world, but from God alone.”

“Oh, Sir,” he replied, “you seem to be angry with me. My intention was to serve you; you are not acquainted with me, or you would rather embrace than offend me.”

He told me that there was but one way on earth of knowing the transmutation of metals, and of that he said I knew nothing.

On May 13th following, Mr. Hand added:

Since I wrote to you last, I met the man who was at my house, and who made the transmutation, and did the other matter. I said:

“How do you do, Sir ?” He replied:

“Sir I have not the honour of knowing you”

”Do you not remember,” said I, “the person who .stains glass and to whom you were so kind as to show some experiments ?”

“No, Sir, you are mistaken,” and he turned red in the face.

That’s a rejection technique as old as Scripture, as current as Judgment Day and as sharp as a pimp slap.

“Sir ” I answered, “if I am mistaken, I beg your pardon for telling you that I was never right in anything in my life, and never shall be.”

“Sir, you are mistaken, and I wish you good morning.”

He several times turned round to look after me; but be assured I never saw a man if that man was not the one who was with me.

—

Surely this was a deliberate attempt by evil powers to inveigle an able and inquiring mind into their toils. One is reminded by it of a statement by the founder of the Theosophical Society, Colonel Olcott, concerning the ” Masters,” who are alleged to be ever at hand to help seeking souls towards the “Great Reality,” that “some have encountered them under strange guises in unlikely places” (Old Diary Leaves, The True History of the Theosophical Society, 19). How does the Christian need to pray, “Deliver us from the Evil One:’ and to watch and to pray that he enter not into any temptation. Is it beyond possibility that some of the modem chemical discoveries, now in use for wholesale massacre, have been revealed diabolically, perhaps to minds not so cautious as Mr. Hand?

Speak of the devil, Olcott was himself a notorious Freemason. Ticket-taking has surely been a thing for as long as there have been secret-keeping societies. Not all of them were diabolical; it was common for businesses to hoard methods of manufacturing as recently as the recipe for Coca-Cola, with many dire punishments for he who broke the silence; but it suggests that mystery cults say much about human psychology.

For a closing note regarding the above boldfaced, I find that while the devil is not a creator himself, he is a past master at seizing upon new technologies for maximum advantage. The Communists had a monopoly on television news until the advent of cable; Bill Gates seized control of operating system architecture; and here, a Freemason used a newfangled process for stained glass to tempt a soul directly into Hell. I am tempted to add the privatization of spaceflight but still have unanswered questions about Elon Musk’s loyalties. One the technical questions of these technologies were worked out, the devil swooped in to… monetize it, for want of a better term.

The devil doesn’t understand tech but he does understand people.