Speculum Alchemiae: Pop goes the laboratory!

In 2002, a massive flood swept through Prague, washing out part of a basement wall of one of the city's oldest buildings. The rest, as one says, is history.

You never know what you'll stumble across in the somewhat random course you bounce along in pursuit of your secret passions, aided by joyful chaos, be it on the Internet or in life. Nor is it possible to predict what curiosities acts of Nature might, literally, unearth.

I discovered this place in my cyber-searches, and while you can access plenty by photos, I still think it might be worth putting on the bucket list for sheer power to fascinate --- at least for a potion lover like me.

The destruction wrought by the 2002 flood yielded a beautiful surprise. Beyond the wall lay three connected rooms, sealed for centuries, which comprised the lair of a group of 16th century alchemists. Or perhaps merely one alchemist, who may even have been the renowned Edward Kelley, hired by Holy Emperor Rudolph II.

Prague has a long occult history. Here in this anthill-like cluster of brick lined rooms, the alchemists worked in secret, lest they be discovered and punished (perhaps fatally) by the Inquisition, conducting experiments with furnace, chemical and retort.

Rudolph II wanted nothing to do with the frequent Catholic-Protestant clashes of the time. Unlike many authorities of the day, he endorsed the mystical arts, and hired alchemists and other bright minds to collaborate with him --- often secretly. As the story runs, he hoped to cure various of his ailments, including severe depression, using alchemical potions. When practicing alchemy, I suppose it does help to have a kinglike figure (and his real gold) backing your efforts.

Despite the belief of Rudolph II and others in mystical forms of healing, alchemy was sadly considered an illegal black art. The laboratory's third room even contained a glass furnace and "glory hole" so the team could manufacture their own retorts and other laboratory glassware: Glass likes to break, yet any alchemy-related equipment might be grounds for investigation, compared to an incoming order of less conspicuous raw materials.

A happy fate awaited the long-lost sorcerers' nest. The city turned it into a museum, recreating the scene as exhibits.

Located in the center of historic Prague, the museum consists of a cheerfully quirky ground floor welcome space, full of shelves laden with books, retorts, bits of critters, and other, often whimsical artifacts and curios related to alchemy and its bygone era.

The once-forgotten rooms are revealed when a tour guide opens a hidden door, by twisting a certain statue in the library. A narrow staircase leads underground, to where the laboratory sprawls beneath the building. Here we find the actual work area, arranged with dusty distillation retorts, soot-stained furnaces, and crucibles; whether these ever held gold is up for speculation.

There's also the lower end of a secret tunnel, to allow the alchemists to flee for safety into the forest if any God-smacking jerks came calling on behalf of the Pope. Warlocks and gold-conjurors like to watch their backs, and no wonder! At least one tunnel is known to have linked to the palace of Rudolph II; clandestine healers needed easy, yet private, access.

I do have to wonder, when would I ever get to a place like Prague? When my career is off the ground, of course. Pushing beer bottles about hasn't brewed me up very much gold!

I must say, though, in a basement clearly more cramped than Professor Snape's notorious dungeon, I wince at the idea of what those poor blokes might have inhaled on a regular basis. I hope their ventilation system was well-engineered; we now know quicksilver is not the best tonic for the mind, and don't even mention the lead. Does that deter me from wanting my own laboratory lair someday?

Ha! What do you think.

Not when my own living space, barring hand-blown glass retorts and brick furnaces, increasingly resembles such an establishment!

Another great reason to visit this city would be its famous astronomical clock, supposedly built in 1410 and repaired many times. Each hour, it performs a complicated show of sculpture and motion.

My greatest reward, however, would probably be to read the clock properly, after having studied and practiced --- in the true manner of an apprentice of the Old Ways.

Update, June 15, 2018: Astronomical Clock Simulator!

 Having learned to read this clock after a fresh upsurge of interest in old mystical and navigational tools, such as the nocturnum and astrolabe, I can't not post a totally cool link I found (ancient-souled mage shifts to blatantly modern diction here, dude).
 This simulator is not only fun, and educational in helping one to learn to read Prague's astronomical masterpiece, but it's super-useful! Say I want to know what the Moon was up to on January 21st of this year, at 0-dark-47 in the morning. I plug it in, and we see the Moon was newly waxing in Aries while the Sun, of course, squatted between Capricorn and Aquarius . . . Prague time. Luckily, this simulator lets you switch time zones. The Internet is truly a magnificent place for the modern mage!!! (I can't believe how much time these sheeple waste playing stupid app games. My Gods.)
 Here it is:

http://drifted.in/horologium-app/

 • Set a predefined or a custom date and see the changes in the astronomical clock configuration.
 • Change the latitude and investigate hypotetical appearance of the astronomical clock in the given location.
 • Press F11 to switch the browser into a full screen mode and thus enhance your experience.
 • Click the More Info link and get more information about the application features and also the astronomical clock itself.
 • Have fun with this application!
(from page)

 I have to say that an equally cool part of this whole thing, and of the clock itself, is knowing how many millions of people through the ages --- probably including Edward Kelley and his brethren, the great alchemists and the frauds --- have looked upon its face to measure their days, and the feeling of now being able to follow in their mind's eye and gaze.
 "Hm, Moon in Aries tomorrow. Time to pull some weeds."
 "Curses, sunset in an hour. (And no electric lights.) Time to grab those loaves and hams and get home, before wife gets angry."
 "I hear the bell. Time to go to work."
 And year after year, the statue of Death rings its little bell as the Apostles come out, reminding us all not to waste our hours, and that one by one we'll all fall away into the crucible of time, but with hope a fresh generation will come along to care for what we have been assigned to steward.
 Thank goodness this clock survived World War II! This very year, it underwent some reconstruction, replacing post-war-installed metal gears with the traditional wooden ones. And so we will continue to measure our days and wonder!