Khidr the Green Prophet

Khidr and Elijah, 16th-century Persian manuscript

In his devotion to bhang, with reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allah alone, the North Indian Mussulman joins hymning to the praise of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of Islam the holy spirit in bhang is not the spirit of the Almighty, it is the spirit of the great prophet Khizr, or Elijah. That bhang should be sacred to Khizr is natural, Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still more Khizr means green, the revered color of the cooling water of bhang;. So the Urdu poet sings “When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its color to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.” The prophet Khizr or the green prophet cries “May the drink be pleasing to thee.” (Campbell, Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Reportm 1894)

Attar and other Sufis are reported to have used el-Khidr, the green man, as a hidden reference to hashish and bhang. Attar’s name means “chemist.”

The Green Prophet Khidr’s feast day is April 23. That’s also St. George’s Day, International Book Day, on account of the birth (and death) of Shakespeare being observed, as well as the death of Cervantes.

Elias Artista: Elijah in the Alchemical Tradition

​”Elias Artista — A Precursor of the Messiah in Natural Science” - Herbert Breger:

​The history of Elias artista is the history of an almost forgotten utopian concept in natural science. The advent of the modern age brought with it a widespread belief amongst physicians and chemists, particularly in Germany, that God in a not too distant future would be sending a person, capable of revealing all nature’s secrets to humanity, that person being Elias artista. His disclosures were to coincide directly with the end of this iniquitous world and the beginning of a messianic age (a golden world or the millennium).

Paracelsus, Book Concerning the Tincture of Philosophers:

​Nothing is concealed that shall not be revealed. There are many more secrets concerning the transmutation, though they are little known, for if they are revealed to someone their fame is not immediately common. With this art, the Lord bestows the wisdom to keep it secret until the advent of Elias Artist. Then shall be revealed what has been concealed.

Jerry’s Eurdite Gentleman

Eirenaeus Philalethes, An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King:

​My Book is the precursor of Elias, designed to prepare the Royal way of the Master; and would to God that by its means all men might become adepts in our Art - for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching. Virtue would be loved for its own sake.

Walter Pagel, “The Paracelsian Elias Artista and the Alchemical Tradition”:

To Paracelsus Helias represents various features of an ideal through which enlightenment and happiness will descend upon future generations and lift the veil of obscurity which still blinds him and his age. Helias is the perfect adept to come . . . Paracelsus’s Helias artista with his messianic associations and the vision of a super-chemistry coming true in a distant future ties up with a strong mediaeval tradition.

Islamic miniature of Khidr filling his cup at the fountain of life

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. —Malachi 4:5-6

“Elijah comes first and restores all things, but Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him.”

There’s an interesting parallel with the humorist P.G. Wodehouse. What Garcia did in the flesh, he did on paper first. They were both tremendous workhorses and absolute masters of their craft, and they both created parallel worlds halfway between heaven and earth, populated with eccentric characters and suffused with Sweetness and Light, where no one's problems were too serious. Garcia was named after composer Jerome Kern, who is pictured on the far right here, Wodehouse is second from the left. If you read Wodehouse, it will give you a feel for good writing, and if you learn to discern good writing from bad, it will do you great service.