THE Golden Age Restored is a stunning piece of alchemical work that is vivid in its descriptions and a Jungian utopia for dream analysis and analogy of the individuation process. It is a classic example of spiritual alchemy where medieval chemical terminology is almost non-existent, instead, the author explains the alchemical process in terms of dreams he had and through the use of scripture. But before we delve into the text and its meaning, I want to take a moment to appreciate some of the background behind the writing.
The text is signed under the name of Henry Madathanas who may have lived in Germany and is listed as one of the seven founders of the mythical Fraternity Rosae Crucis[ See the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis website for more information – http://fraternitasrosaecrucis.org/].
However, we know that this is a pseudonym because he tells us as such in his introduction into the text, where he writes:
“Let all and sundry be certified that the number of my name is 1613: by this number my whole name is written in the book of Nature with two dead ones, and seven living ones. After that, the letter 5 is the fifth part of B, and 15 the fifth part of 12. With this information you must be satisfied.”
This numbering of the name shows us that the author had read, understood, and implemented the teaching of Dr John Dee, particularly his text the Monas Hieroglyphica, where Dee explains the importance of finding the true number of ones name. The concealment of an author’s identity was of course particularly important when dealing with subjects that the church found questionable – such as Hermetic alchemy. It is believed that the true identity of the author is the German alchemist and physician Adrian von Mynsicht[ Zur Literatur über die Rosenkreuzer by Gustav Krüger] (1603 – 1638), however, we will refer to him still as Madathanas.
The body of The Golden Age Restored is told to us by Madathanas as a description of a series of dreams he has had, and how he relates them to the Song of Solomon and other Biblical scriptures. Therefore, to fully appreciate what Madathanas is trying to convey, it helps to have read the Song of Solomon and to have a grasp on what it means. To fully interpret it goes beyond the scope of this introduction, but the reader might be interested to know that the song is the only text in the Bible that is an ode to physical and intimate love. There have been many interpretations on this, but at its core, I am sure many would agree that what we are reading is a union of the masculine and feminine aspects of the psyche which is what Madathanas appears to also be trying to convey.
In Madathanas’ writing, he tells us of a series of dreams that he has in which he is visited by King Solomon and his harem. He is told to choose on the countless virgins to be his wife, but sees that each of them is clothed in venomous garments. Mirroring the Song of Solomon, Madathanas’ story is about the union of masculine and feminine, the importance of which he tells us early on:
“The fiery spirit of this person [the virgin] was the Key for the opening of the Temple, for entering the Holy of Holies, and taking hold on the horns of the Altar.”
Madathanas is telling us that through this union of masculine and feminine, the individual becomes the Temple and has the ability to not only house the divine but to be able to experience it on this tactile plane. However, the union of masculine and feminine aspects is no easy task which the reader is soon to discover. After describing the beauty of the virgin, Madathanas then tells us that:
“Her garments, which were rancid, ill-savored, and full of venom, lay at her feet, where she had cast them.”
At this point we can begin to understand that, what until now had seemed like the feminine aspect of the psyche, may in fact be closer to what Jung describes as the Shadow, or at least bearing aspects of it. For though this aspect of unconscious is so beautiful and can give so much to the individual, it is wrapped in venom. These rancid garments are the neuroses and negative traits that we all have within ourselves. In most cases they go undetected and denied until the day that we are brave enough (or forced) to cast them into the light and to examine them for what they truly are. At first, we are all terrified to face our darkness, but in Madathanas’ dream, Solomon tells him:
“The smell of her garments is to the wise like the smell of Lebanon—but to the ignorant an abomination.”
The wise King is reassuring us that these neuroses are not all bad because if we can process them correctly, we can transmute the venom into proverbial gold. If we see the venom as the neuroses caused by Jung’s shadow, and the smell of Lebanon as enlightenment, then the following quote from Jung helps us to understand what Madathanas is telling us:
“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”[ “The Philosophical Tree” (1945). In CW 13: Alchemical Studies. P.335]
So, it is obvious now that to make the darkness conscious, Madathanas will need to purge the venom and ill-savored garments, but how this is done is not immediately obvious. The author’s story does tell us that he first became aware of this aspect of his shadow in a dream – the place in which the subconscious emerges to speak with the conscious mind. But upon waking, Madathanas’ conscious mind recoils at the realization and he says:
“Now the poisonous odor of the garments which I had inhaled in my sleep was so sickening that my eyes could not see the time of grace, or my heart understand the great wisdom of Solomon.”
His comment eludes to the the blackened stage of alchemy, the nigredo, and is a common reaction to becoming aware of the darkness, and not knowing what to do with it. Madathanas’ blindness causes him to choose to do nothing for five whole years at which point he decides to forget the whole thing ever happened and move on. This choice triggers a dream where the mother of the virgin rebukes Madathanas, symbolic of the subconscious again protesting the conscious decision to ignore its pleas. The woman tells the author that he must remove a box from the clothes, and then clean the stain of the clothes from the box. This box is the kernel of gold buried in the dross, or, less symbolically, the healthy aspect of the self that was discarded by the ego-consciousness during the self’s development. The woman then tells Madathanas something of great importance in regards to the process of shadow work. She tells him that once sufficiently clean:
“The box will open of its own accord.”
What she is telling us is that the conscious cannot force the subconscious to do anything. In fact, the ego-conscious psyche and the subconscious shadow are truly two independent personalities, and the subconscious will open itself and reward the conscious with union once it is ready and safe.
Before I conclude this brief introduction into the text, I want to emphasize some words that the old woman tells Madathanas, and I want to focus on the choice of word in heritage. She says:
“You shall perceive and behold the great glory and beauty of your heritage.”
The gift given from this process was always within the practitioner. We do not receive something external through the alchemical process, or through shadow work, rather, we gain access to something that was given to us from the beginning from God, something that was always our own.
The Golden Age Restored is a stunning piece of alchemical work that is vivid in its descriptions and a Jungian utopia for dream analysis and analogy of the individuation process.
Originally written in 1622 by a German physician and alchemist under the pseudonym Henry Madathanas, The Golden Age Restored was published publically in the Musaeum Hermeticum (1625) and later translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite in his work The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I (1893). Waite’s version of the text has been diligently edited by Jones so that it can be easily digested by modern readers.
Jones has also included a foreword introducing the text and diligently footnoted the work to give meaning and context to the original writing.
Thank you for listening, if you enjoy this content please let me know in the comments and please subscribe to hear more.
All audiobooks, ebooks, print books and links are available here: https://linktr.ee/robertdjones