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    Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic
    Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic
    Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic
    Ebook70 pages52 minutes

    Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic

    By Arthur Edward Waite

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    About this ebook

    This early work by Arthur Edward Waite was originally published in the early 20th century and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic' is a biography of the life of the 13th century Majorcan philosopher and logician. Arthur Edward Waite was born on the 2nd of October, 1857 in America. Waite was a scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. As his biographer, R.A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of western occultism - viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of proto-science or as the pathology of religion."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateSep 13, 2016
    ISBN9781473359611
    Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic

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      Book preview

      Raymund Lully - Illuminated Doctor, Alchemist and Christian Mystic - Arthur Edward Waite

      DOCTOR

      RAYMUND LULLY

      ILLUMINATED DOCTOR, ALCHEMIST AND CHRISTIAN MYSTIC

      CHAPTER I

      A PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY

      THERE are few names in mediæval literature and in the history of its philosophical thought, around which has gathered a more curious woof of legend confused with fact than the name of Raymund Lully. There is nothing within my knowledge at any place or period, in any bibliographical record, corresponding to the peculiar growth which arose out of that complex and the life within it during a space of some five centuries. It happens to be a growth of literature, represented by at least two and, as it may be, three cycles of books. The explanation is that we are confronted by a duality or trinity of persons subsisting under a single denomination and identified therefore as one, though when their memorials pass under examination the multiple prodigy by no means stands for unity. To the earliest cycle belongs Raymund Lully of Majorca in the Balearic Isles, an historical character about whom we know something, and could certainly extend our knowledge by research into his own memorials and into Spanish history of his period. Something in this direction is attempted by the present monograph. He is the central figure, who has been clothed upon by all the legends, a hero of romance, a memorable Catalonian poet, an illuminated doctor, an apostle and missionary in the Name of Christ, in fine a martyr for that faith of which he was the champion. He is also a figure of some consequence in intellectual thought, and must not be ignored in the philosophical history of his age, for he devised an art of knowledge and reasoning, which was by no means neglected in his day, and was taught subsequently at certain centres for about two hundred years. It was called Ars Magna Sciendi¹ and Ars Lulliana, even the Universal Science,² and its title to consideration resides in the fact that it embodied a formal scheme to displace the scholastic method at the seats of learning in Europe. The historical Raymund Lully stands for more than this, as we shall find, and as I have indeed intimated, but at the moment he may be presented thus.

      Some time after his death the name and fame which he left behind, brought to birth a second Lully, made in his own image, and after his formal likeness, but with other concerns and claims. The Doctor Illuminatus and his so-called Inventive Art, reached the completion of his cycle in the commentaries to which his works gave rise. The second Lully—who was Doctor Alchemicus—originated a new cycle, and by all lovers of the Hermetic Art he was accounted ab origine one of the Great Masters of Alchemy, a witness whose authority was unquestioned and whose word was held final on the mystery of transmuting metals. A new legend arose in this manner, was incorporated with the first, and—although exceedingly late in its final and most popular form—is now a thing of repute in the history of Hermetic Philosophy.

      There is a sense in which the third Lully—if I can venture so to designate him—has been discovered by myself, for he has remained in the obscurity of various Latin texts, till, in years long past, I had the courage to evoke his shade,¹ though so far only by presuming the fact of his existence. Whether he was Lully of Majorca in another mood or—as I think—a third personality, it seems good that here and now I am able to give brief account concerning him, hoping perhaps that, in some spacious day to come, it may be possible to proceed further. For in truth the third Lully, who is a kind of Doctor Mysticus, emerges as chief of all, another and more enlightened Master, no longer discoursing on Ars Inventiva Veritatis, explaining the high art of stuffing the head with knowledge and fitting it with machinery of debate, but concerned rather with the paths and thresholds leading to that deeper mode in which the mind is emptied of images, that it may be filled with the glory of God. The third Lully is a theosophist who has drawn spiritual intimations and reflections alike from East and West, though he depends most generally on his own inward resources rather than on authorities of the past. It is not my intention to magnify the import of his record beyond its due measures, as if Arbor Philosophice Amoris and De Amico et Amate had sounded deepest wells of Divine Experience; but this spiritual doctor knew something at first hand of that admirable and rare state in which God enters the soul and abides therein.

      The legend of the original Lully has been expanded to incorporate the personality and work of the alchemist, while—as it seems to me—the third has been joined with the others by an indiscriminate disposition to father on the first Raymund whatever was produced by his followers, or could, on any artificial warrant, be connected with his name. When Ars Lulliana was little more than a

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