COUNT MICHAEL MAIER. LIFE AND WRITINGS J. B. Craven, Ibis Press, Berwick (Maine), 2003. Forward by R.A. Gilbert. Paperback, xx and 165 pages, £13.99. ISBN 0-89254-083-4. Distributed by Airlift Books, telephone 0208 804 0400.

This gem is a reprint of a work by Rev Dr J B Craven, a Freemason, first published in 1914. Craven was attracted to the world of alchemy, as was his subject, Count Michael Maier of Rostock (1568-1622). Frances Yates tried to penetrate the meaning of Maier’s alchemical universe in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, 1972, but settled on dubbing him ‘the deepest of the Rosicrucians’. Recognising a brilliant mind, she was unsure whether Maier’s alchemical riddling betokened advanced knowledge or an ‘élitist’ tendency to obfuscate. New Maier readers may share Yates’ reserve.
    Maier interpreted ancient myths as veiled disclosures of alchemical processes. His Arcana Arcanissima, 1614, deals exclusively with this subject, crisply summarised by Craven – as are the contents of all Maier’s published work. Maier’s mind tended to ‘light up’ every time he saw a classical reference to gold, stones, lions or black ravens. His universe was alchemical and, as such, instructive to enter upon.
    A Paracelsian physician, Maier perceived alchemy as insight into how God constructs the universe and marries it to man-the-microcosm. He saw the events of Christ’s Passion (the mystery of death and resurrection) signalled throughout the natural world.
    Was Maier a Rosicrucian, as is often claimed? This is not the book in which to find an answer to this question. R.A Gilbert’s Foreword suggests he was, but his reasons are unconvincing. In fact, Maier initially dismissed news of the Brotherhood, only grasping the subtlety of the Rosicrucian Manifestos’ method in 1616 (Symbola Aureae Mensae, 1617), two years after the publication of the Fama Fraternitatis. Maier’s alchemical enthusiasm would shape later perceptions of what a ‘Rosicrucian’ was.
    Maier may have glimpsed the idea of a virtual fraternity. A masonic lodge, properly understood, shares the characteristic of being a ‘virtual’ locus for the inner processing of its constituents. Elias Ashmole in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) states that masons and other craftsmen had always looked on alchemy with favour. As it was then, so mote it be.
    Tobias Churton