Dog Days of Summer

[malsperanza]

Some more Harry Potter nattering.


Probably all of this has been discussed in detail over the years, and I just never knew it. (I can't deal with the HP message boards and listservs; the volume of HP4GU is too daunting and the endless speculation about ships and the casting game is too tiresome.)

Hogwarts is a Body Politic. The classical/medieval system divides the body into 4 parts: Heart, Mind, Stomach, and Soul. This roughly corresponds to the 4 Houses: mind (Ravenclaw), heart (Hufflepuff), spirit (Gryffindor), and stomach (i.e., appetites: Slytherin). This isn't exact, because heart is both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor; spirit is probably present in all 4; and I am not convinced that Slytherin is pure appetite. Slytherin is wit, ambition, the sense of Self--what the Freudians have mistranslated as "ego" (a term not used by Freud). Cunning Odysseus is a Slytherin: wily, clever, scheming, patrician.

But even though we can't match up each House directly to one of the parts of the body politic, we can see the main point: that without all 4, the body dies.

I sometimes wonder if Sirius might have been a Slytherin. I bet the Black family were.

So, first, the Alchemy connection.

Alchemy is a secret science/art whose aim is to

1) convert base metal into gold;

2) purify the soul and/or achieve wisdom and insight through a process of the soul's journey and the mind's education;

3) achieve immortality.

Voldemort is a corrupt alchemist, a seeker after immortality through the transmutation of materials (which, in JKR's scheme of the magical world is what all magic does). Harry is, presumably, learning to be a true alchemist: that is, one who seeks enlightenment through the transmutation of the self; transmutation of base metals into gold being just a metaphor for the higher quest.

Which makes magic as a whole a metaphor the transformation of the self. (Quidditch is, of course, another such metaphor, though a humorous one.)

The Philosopher's Stone is the gold made by converting base metal. It confers immortality on the one who achieves the conversion. The metal is converted by a series of secret, arcane chemical processes *accompanied by* the alchemist/philosopher's parallel set of metaphysical processes.

The activity of converting metal to gold is called the Opus Magnum, the Great Work. This is divided into 4 separated operations, each assigned a color. They are (IIRC) the white work(Opus Albedo), the yellow work (Citrinitas), the black work(Nigredo), and the red work (Rubedo).

I'm not sure I've gotten the order right, though I know red is the last. These correspond, chemically and spiritually, to processes of separation, distillation, cooking, disintegration (or putrefaction), and reconstitution, or refining. The Refiner's Fire that smelts (purifies) gold from raw ore is a metaphor for the torturous process of the purification of the soul. The purified soul is immortal. To get there, you have to dismantle yourself, break yourself down into raw elements (prima materia) and recreate yourself. It is, therefore, a process of education.

The Opus Nigredo, the black work, disintegration and putrefaction, is a necessary step. In Hero's Journey terms, it corresponds to the Descent into the Underworld, death and obliteration. In HP terms, this is Harry's Descent (the Greeks call it a katabasis, a Going Down) into the Dept. of Mysteries. I think we have so far seen only the first step in Harry's Nigredo; he is undoubtedly going to try to get back down into the Chamber of Death, to rend the veil, Seeking Sirius.

The 4 houses of Hogwarts don't parallel these 4 operations, but the terms and processes of alchemy have clearly influenced JKR in a more general way. (Note the names Albus and Rubeus, for example: White and Red.)

Alchemy also has a very complicated and muddled relationship to the Zodiac and astronomy. Each of the planets has a metal assigned to it, and a day of the week:

Sol/Gold/Sunday (nobility, power, enlightenment)

Luna/Silver/Monday (wisdom)

Mars/Iron/Tuesday (war, courage)

Mercury/Quicksilver/Wednesday (Mercredi, Mercoledi in French and Italian) (swiftness, speed of thought, wit; quicksilver is a very alchemical metal, because it adheres to gold and because its form is liquid and mutable)

Jupiter/Tin/Thursday (related to lightning)

Venus/Copper/Friday (remember Cypriot Venus? Cyprus = Kupros whose name means "copper") (love)

Saturn/Lead/Saturday (time, death, old age)

While I don't want to make too much of this, we should pay attention to dates like Harry's birthday, the equinoxes and solstices, the names of the constellations and stars that appear in the names of pureblood wizards and witches, and the dates when school terms begin and end.

For example, Harry's birthday (July 31) falls during the period known as the Dog Days of summer, which run from early July to early September. They are so called not because they are hot and dogs lie about doing nothing, but because (quoting from a couple of websites):

The brightest of the stars in Canis Major (the Great Dog constellation) is Sirius, which also happens to be the brightest star in the night sky. In fact, it is so bright that the ancient Romans thought that the earth received heat from it.

In the summer, Sirius, the "dog star," rises and sets with the sun. During late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days before the conjunction to 20 days after, "dog days" after the dog star.

The conjunction of Sirius with the sun varies somewhat with latitude. And the precession of the equinoxes (a gradual drifting of the constellations over time) means that the constellations today are not in exactly the same place in the sky as they were in ancient Rome. Today, dog days occur during the period between July 3 and August 11.

The hot, sultry dog days of summer coincidentally occur when the Dog Star, Sirius, appears closest to the sun. The dog days start when Sirius is first seen close to the rising Sun at dawn, and continue for about 40 days. The exact length of the dog days tends to be a regional definition. The cause for the intense heat was once thought to be this rising together of the Sun and the "scorching" Dog Star, Sirius.

Alas, Sirius.

So Luna is wisdom. Of course, Luna/Moon is other things too: Artemis/Diana/Semele, the virgin goddess of the hunt, for example. We have been led to believe that Luna is called Luna because she's Loony (lunatic). But that is just JKR being veryverysly.

Colors
I hoped I could find a direct connection between the 4 colors of the Houses and the colors that correspond to the 4 Operations of the Magnum Opus. It didn't quite work. The 4 main colors of alchemy are red, black, white, and yellow, each associated with metals, but the associations vary from text to text. (E.g., some esoteric manuscripts make gold red, others make it yellow).

There is no green or blue Operation. That is, some alchemical texts do refer to a fifth, Green opus, called Viriditas. Johannes Agricola mentions it. (I can't recall if Agricola is one of the alchemists mentioned in HP or not.) Curiously, it is associated with wisdom, which doesn't seem very Slytherin somehow. And there is a heraldic figure in alchemy called the Green Lion--which also doesn't seem to correspond to the green of Slytherin. If anything, the Lion, which corresponds to gold, is connected to Gryffindor (Goldgriffon, as its name is in French or Italian: Grifondoro).

Of course, the 4 main colors are also the colors of the Humours of the human body in early medicine (blood, bile, pus or semen, urine), hence the quasi-alchemical description of personalities as bilious, choleric, saturnine, phlegmatic, sanguinary, etc. The human body is, by metaphoric extension, an alembic or athanor (alchemical still or furnace).

Alchemy is all about the metaphors--what's called the Doctrine of Signatures (i.e., signs and symbolic systems). A useful set of definitions of alchemy comes courtesy of a slightly odd website (http://www.monmouth.com/~equinoxbook/alchemy.html):

1. A theory of nature as made up of primary elements (four in Greek alchemy, five in Chinese alchemy).

2. A belief in the gradual evolution and transformation of substance.

3. A system for inducing transmutation.

4. The imitation of nature by a gentle technology

5. The faith that one's inner being is changed by participation in external chemical experiments.

6. A general system of synchronistic correspondence between planets, herbs, minerals, species of animals, signs and symbols, parts of the body, etc., known as the Doctrine of Signatures.

7. Gold as the completed and perfected form of the metals, in specific, and substance in general. (Alchemy is the attempt to transmute other substance in gold, however that attempt is understood and carried out.)

8. The existence of a paradoxical form of matter, sometimes called the Philosopher's Stone (the lapis), which can be used in making gold or in brewing elixirs and medicines that have universal curative properties.

9. A method of symbolism working on the simultaneity of a series of complementary pairs: Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, and Christ/Man.

10. The search for magical texts that come from a[n imagined] time when the human race was closer to the source of things or are handed down from higher intelligences, extraterrestrials, aliens, guardians, or their immediate familiars during some Golden Age (in Greece, Egypt, Atlantis, or before). These texts deal with the creation or synthesis of matter and are a blueprint for physical experimentation in a cosmic context (as well as personal development). They have been reinterpreted in terms of the Earth's different epochs and nationalities. [I like this one. In addition to aliens, guardians, etc., one could add Wizards and Witches.]

11. In the Occident, alchemy is early inductive experimental science and is closely allied with metallurgy, pharmacy, industrial chemistry, and coinage.

12. In the Orient, alchemy is a system of medication in which one's body is understood as elementally and harmonically equivalent to the field of creation. Between East and West, the body may be thought of as a microcosm of nature, with its own deposits of seeds, elixirs, and mineral substances.)

13. Alchemy is joined to astrology in a set of meanings that arise from the correspondence of planets, metals, and parts of the body, and the overall belief in a cosmic timing that permeates nature.

So there we have it: we are in the Dog Days, when we slowly cook in the sealed furnace of the world, close to the sun, seeking its proximity.

Comments

[dreamstigmata.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

you amaze me.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Am impressed that anyone read it :-)

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

I am in awe, refined by the fire of your intellect.

One of these days I will figure out this whole technology thing.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

That's OK, because I am in awe of your storytelling talent, which had my nephews sitting roundeyed and breathless late into the night.

Aren't you supposed to be feverishly working, Ma'am, instead of reading HP natterings? ;-)

I edited a book on alchemy once, and the fascination with it just kind of stuck. So when I read HP, I thought, yah, Waycool! I am even on an alchemy listserve, which puts me in the realm of Really Odd People who actually transmute metals in the basement in places like Kutna Hora. (You will recall that Kutna Hora is the home of the Bone Chandelier. See? All Things Are Connected.)

Re: One of these days I will figure out this whole technology thing.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Eeep! You are right, I should be working, but LJ is my Bad Writing Habit.

I am fascinated with alchemy and have read a little on it, but it seems to trickle out of my head afterward. What I am most fascinated with, however, is the way you manage to make all things connect.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Reads. Reads again. Plans to read again later.

God, I love this kind of thing. Thank you for writing it!!

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Because I am a technology moron, you will probably get this message twice. Oh well.

Yah, the waycool thing about alchemy is that it is so insanely overloaded with symbols and images and systems and arcana and mysteries that you can pretty much make what you want of it. I do think JKR has paid some attention to the basic aspects of alchemy, as the
early mention of Flamel in vol.1 hinted. I keep meaning to hunt down the alchemical symbolism of the golden Phoenix (Fawkes), which is the firebird, and very alchemical.

[kearie.livejournal.com]

Read a book on alchemy book, mainly because I went to a strict Catholic school and we were told to do a report on a book by a certain author (Mircea Eliade). I found he wrote a book on alchemy so of course I chose that, and was shocked at how religious it actually is. It wasn't at all a fluke that this religious author wrote something about it. Of course, I hi-lighted a bunch of passages that sort of applied to HP, but I never fleshed anything out remotely like this. It amazes how coherently you tied it all together!

Also, must ask a favor...I play Trelawney in an RPG; may I steal (not word for word...just the idea) the bit about the Dog Days of Summer and Sirius? It would be an utterly insensitive way for Trelawney to rub in his death without meaning to!

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

By all means use it--it isn't mine at all: it's JKR's. Sirius's name is one of her strokes of genius.

Eliade is an amazing scholar--I love his books.

Re:

[kearie.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) It may be JKRs but you brought it all to light, at least for me...

The only other one I read was Shamanism, and religion's not really my thing, but yes, he did make it interesting.

Incroyable

[(Anonymous)]

Am very very impressed.
Couldn't help resist commenting.
Vespertine