Terence McKenna
COINCIDENCIA OPPOSITORUM:
THE UNION OF OPPOSITES

"Alchemy was not about the transmutation of crude metals into gold,
but was a magical art designed to bring the soul to completion."
—Terence McKenna

This film-in-progress from Mystic Fire is a visually rich exploration of a lost world of magic and alchemy set in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, at a time when alchemy reached a feverish pitch of interest in the European imagination.

The story, presented by Terence McKenna, centers on the alchemical/political/religious movements surrounding the Renaissance magus Dr. John Dee — mathematician, astrologer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. John Dee laid the ground for an alchemical and magically- based society that took root and flourished twenty years later in the marriage of Princess Elizabeth Stuart of England to the Palatinate Prince Frederick V of Heidelberg.

The film, shot in England, Heidelberg, and Bohemia; includes enacted scenes from Dee's diary; as Dee and his skryer Edward Kelley invoke the guidance of angels in seances as they traveled through Northern Europe on Dee's mission to Bohemia. This little-known incident in European history holds essential clues to understanding the evolution of modern science and the nature of a lost world of magical and alchemical thinking.

Photos (from top counterclockwise) Terence McKenna on location at Heidelberg Castle; the gateway to the castle built by Frederick V for Elizabeth on her birthday; alchemical laboratory below the castle. Photos by Liza Stelle.