  The tradition of craftsmanship in metallurgy, an art that was practiced from the earliest times, was during the speculative period of human culture, saturated with philosophy. Especially was this the case in Egypt, where metallurgy, as the source of royal riches and especially the methods of gold mining and extraction, were guarded as a royal secret. In the Hellenistic period the art of metal working, knowledge of which has spread abroad and in which the interest had been raised to almost scientific character, was penetrated by the philosophical theories of the Greeks: the element and atom ideas of the nature-philosophers and of Plato and of Aristotle, and the religious views of the neoplatonists. The magic of the orient was amalgamated with it, Christian elements were added—in brief, the content of the chemistry of that time, which mainly had metallurgy as its starting point, took a vital part in the hybrid thought of syncretism in the first centuries after Christ. As the chemical science (in alchemy, alkimia, al is the Arabic article prefixed to the Greek ??e?a) has come to us from the Arabs (Syrians, Jews, etc.) it was long believed that it had an Arabian origin. [pg 113] The idea of the production of gold was so dominant in alchemy that it was actually spoken of as the gold maker's art. It meant the ability to make gold out of baser material, particularly out of other metals. The belief in it and in the transmutability of matter was by no means absurd, but rather it must be counted as a phase in the development of human thought. As yet unacquainted with the modern doctrine of unchangeable elements they could draw no [pg 114] Under philosophical influences the doctrine arose that metals, like human beings, had body and soul, the soul being regarded as a finer form of corporeality. They said that the soul or primitive stuff (prima materia) was common to all metals, and in order to transmute one metal into another they had to produce a tincture of its soul. In Egypt lead, under the name Osiris, was thought to be the primitive base of metals; later when the still more plastic quicksilver (mercury) was discovered, they regarded this as the soul of metals. They thought they had to fix this volatile soul by some medium in order to get a precious metal, silver, gold. That problematic medium, which was to serve to tincture or transmute the baser metal or its mercury to silver or gold, was called the Philosopher's stone. It had the power to make the sick (base) metal well (precious). Here came in the idea of a universal medicine. Alchemy desired indeed to produce in the Philosopher's Stone a panacea that should free mankind of all sufferings and make men young. It will not be superfluous to mention here, that the so-called materials, substances, concepts, are found employed in the treatises of the alchemists in [pg 115] A very significant and ancient idea in alchemy is that of sprouting and procreation. Metals grow like plants, and reproduce like animals. We are assured by the adepts (those who had found it, viz., the panacea) in the Greek-Egyptian period and also later, that gold begets gold as the corn does corn, and man, man. The practice connected with this idea consists in putting some gold in the mixture that is to be transmuted. The gold dissolves like a seed [pg 116] In this connection belongs also the ancient alchemic symbol of the philosopher's egg. This symbol is compared to the “Egyptian stone,” and the dragon, which bites its tail; consequently the procreation symbol is compared to an eternity or cycle symbol. The “Egyptian stone” is, however, the philosopher's stone or, by metonomy, the great work (magnum opus) of its manufacture. The egg is the World Egg that recurs in so many world cosmogonies. The grand mastery refers usually and mainly to thoughts of world creation. The egg-shaped receptacle in which the master work was to be accomplished was also known as the “philosophical egg” in which the great masterpiece is produced. This vessel was sealed with the magic seal of Hermes; therefore hermetically sealed. A wider theoretical conception, originating with the Arabs, is the doctrine of the two principles. They were retained in the subsequent developments and further expanded. Ibn Sina [Avicenna, 980-ca. 1037] taught that every metal consisted of mercury [pg 117] From the Arabs alchemy came to the occident and spread extraordinarily. Among prominent authors the following may be selected: Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Vincent of Beauvais, Arnold of Villanova, Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Lully, etc. The amount of material that could be adduced is enormous. It is not necessary, however, to consider it. What I have stated about the beginnings of alchemy is sufficient in amount to enable the reader to understand the following exposition of the alchemic content of the parable. And what I must supply in addition to the alchemic theories of the time of their prevalence in the west, the reader will learn incidentally from the following analysis. In concluding this preliminary view I must still mention one novelty that Paracelsus (1493-1541) introduced into the theory. Ibn Sina had taught that two principles entered into the constitution of metals. Mercury is the bearer of the metallic property and sulphur has the nature of the combustible and is the cause of the transmutation of metals in fire. The doctrine of the two principles leads to the theory that for the production of gold it was necessary to get from metals the purest possible sulphur and mercury, in order to produce gold by the union of both. Paracelsus now adds to the two principles a third, salt, as the element of fixedness or palpability, as he terms it. According to my notion, Paracelsus has not introduced an essential innovation, but only used [pg 118] The alchemists' usual coupling of the planets with metals is probably due to the Babylonians. I reproduce these correspondences here in the form they generally had in alchemy. I must beg the reader to impress them upon his memory, as alchemy generally speaks of the metals by their planetary names. According to the ancient view (even if not the most ancient) there are seven planets (among which was the sun) and seven metals.
Relative to the technical language, which I must use in the following discussion also, I have to make a remark of general application that should be carefully remembered. It is a peculiarity of the alchemistic [pg 119] The alchemistic interpretation of our parable is a development of what its author tried to teach by it. We do not need to show that he pursues an hermetic aim, for he says so himself, and so do the circumstances, i.e., the book, in which the parable is found. In this respect we shall fare better in the alchemistic [pg 120] In one respect we are therefore better off, but in another we are much worse off. For the matter in which we previously worked, the unconscious, remains approximately the same throughout great periods; the unconscious of the wanderer is in its fundamentals not very different from that of a man of to-day or from that of Zosimos. [Zosimos is one of the oldest alchemistic writers of whom we have any definite knowledge—about the 4th century.] It is the soul of the race that speaks, its “humanity.” Much more swiftly, on the contrary, does objective knowledge change in the course of time and the forms also in which this knowledge is expressed. From this point of view the conscious is more difficult of access than the unconscious. And now we have to face a system so very far removed from our way of thinking as the alchemistic. Fortunately I need not regard it as my duty to explain the parable so completely in the alchemistic sense that any one could work according to it in a chemical laboratory. It is much more suitable to [pg 121] First of all it will be necessary for me to draw in a few lines a sketch of how, in the most flourishing period of alchemy, the accomplishment of the Great Work was usually described. In spite of the diversity of the representations we find certain fundamental principles which are in general firmly established. I will indicate a few points of this iron-clad order in the alchemic doctrine. There is, in the first place, the central idea of the interaction or the coÖperation of two things that are generally called man and woman, red and white, sun and moon, sulphur and mercury. We have already seen in Ibn Sina that the metals consist of the combination of sulphur and mercury. Even earlier the interaction of two parts were figuratively called impregnation. Both fuse into one symbol, and indeed so much the more readily, as it probably arose as the result of analogous thoughts, determined by a sexual complex. Also there occurs the idea that we must derive a male activity from the gold, a female from the silver, in order to get from their union that which perfects the mercury of the metals. That may be the reason that, for the above mentioned pair that [pg 122] In the “Turba philosophorum” “the woman is called Magnesia, the white, the man is called red, sulphur.” Morienus says. “Our stone is like the creation of man. For first we have the union, 2, the corruption [i.e., the putrefaction of the seed], 3, the gestation, 4, the birth of the child, 5, the nutrition follows.” Both constituents come from one root. Therefore the authors inform us that the stone is an only one. If we call the matter “mercury,” we therefore generally speak of a doubled mercury that yet is only one. Arnold (Ros., II, 17): “So it clearly appears that the philosophers spoke the truth about it, although it seems impossible to simpletons and fools, that there was indeed only one stone, one medicine, one regulation, one work, one vessel, both identical with the white and red sulphur, and to be made at the same time.” Id. (Ros., I, 6): “For there is only one stone, one medicine, to which nothing foreign is added and nothing taken away except that one separates the superfluities from it.” Herein lies the idea of purification or washing; it occurs again. Arnold (Ros., II, 8): “Now when you have separated the elements, then wash them.” [pg 123]The idea of washing is connected with that of mechanical purification, trituration, dismemberment in the parable, grinding (mill), and with the bath and solution (dissolution of the bridal pair). “Bath” is, on the other hand, the surrounding vessel, water bath. Arnold (Ros., I, 9): “The true beginning, therefore, is the dissolution and solution of the stone.” Fire can also cause a dissolution, either by fusion or by a trituration that is similar to calcination. They are all processes that put the substances in question into its purest or chemically most accessible form. Arnold (Ros., I, 9): “The philosophical work is to dissolve and melt the stone into its mercury, so that it is reduced and brought back to its prima materia, i.e., original condition, purest form.” Through the opening of the single substance the two things or seeds, red and white, are obtained. But what is the “subject” that is put through these operations, the matter that must be so worked out? That is exactly what the alchemists most conceal. They give the prima materia (raw material) a hundred names, every one of which is a riddle. They give intimations of interpretations but are not willing to be definite. Only the worthy will find the keys to the whole work. The rest of the procedure can be understood only by one that knows the prima materia. Much is written on it and its puzzling names. They are, partly as raw material, partly as original material, partly as prime condition, called among other names Lapis philosophicus (philosopher's [pg 124] It will be evident to the psychoanalyst that the original material is occasionally identified with secretions and excretions, spittle, milk, dung, menstruum, urine. These correspond exactly to the infantile theories of procreation, as does the fact that these theories come to view where the phantasy forms symbols in its primitive activity. It is also to be noticed that countless alchemic scribblers who did not understand the works of the “masters” worked with substances like urine, semen, spittle, dung, blood, menstruum, etc., where the dim idea of a procreative essence in these things came into play. I will have something to say on this subject in connection with the Homunculus. I should meanwhile like to refer to the close relationship of excrement and gold in myth and folklore. [Cf. Note B at the end of this volume.] It is clear that for the art of [pg 125] To the action of analyzing substances before the reassembling or rebuilding, besides washing and trituration, belongs also putrefaction or rotting. Without this no fruitful work is possible. I have previously mentioned that it was thought that semen must rot in order to impregnate. The seed grain is subject to putrefaction in the earth. But we must remember also the impregnating activity of manure if we wish to understand correctly and genetically the association rot—procreate. Putrefaction is one of the forms of corruption (= breaking up) and corruptio unius est generatio alterius (the breaking up of one is the begetting of another). Arnold (Ros., I, 9): “In so far as the substances here do not become incorporeal or volatile, so that there is no more substance [as such therefore destroyed] you will accomplish nothing in your work.” The red man and the white woman, called also red lions and white lilies, and many other names, are united and cooked together in a vessel, the philosophical Egg. The combined material becomes thereby gradually black (and is called raven or ravenhead), later white (swan); now a somewhat greater heat is applied and the substance is sublimated in the vessel (the swan flies up); on further heating a vivid play of colors appears (peacock tail or rainbow); finally the substance becomes red and that is the conclusion of the main work. The red [pg 126] We have spoken just now of the main work and the after work. I mention for completeness that the trituration and purification, etc., of the materials, which precedes the main work, is called the fore work. The division is, however, given in other ways besides. Armed with this explanation we can venture to look for the alchemic hieroglyphs in our parable. I must beg the reader to recall the main episodes. In the wanderer we have to conceive of a man who has started out to learn the secret of the great work. He finds in the forest contradictory opinions. He has fallen deep into errors. The study, although difficult, holds him fast. He cannot turn back (Sec. 1). So he pursues his aim still further (Sec. 2) and thinks he has now found the right authorities (Sec. 3) that can admit him to the college of wisdom. But the people are not at one with each other. They also employ figurative language that obscures [pg 127] We have come to the fight with the lion, which takes place in a den. The wanderer kills the lion and takes out of him red blood and white bones, therefore red and white. Red and white enter later as roses, then as man and woman. I cite now several passages from different alchemistic books. Hohler (Herm. Phil., p. 91) says, apparently after Michael Meiers, “Septimana Philosophica”: “The green lion [a usual symbol for the material at the beginning] encloses the raw seeds, yellow hairs adorn his head [this detail is not lacking in the parable], i.e., when the projection on the metals takes place, they turn yellow, golden.” [Green is the color of hope, of growth. Previously only the head of the lion is gold, his future. Later he becomes a red lion, the philosopher's stone, the king in robe of purple. At any rate he must first be killed.] The lion that must die is the dragon, which the dragon fighter kills. Thus we have seen it in the [pg 128] Berthelot cites (Orig. de l'Alch., p. 60) from an old manuscript: “The dragon is the guardian of the temple. Sacrifice it, flay it, separate the flesh from the bones, and you will find what you seek.” The dragon is, as can be shown out of the old authors, also the snake that bites its own tail or which on the other hand can also be represented by two snakes. Flamel writes on the hieroglyphic figure of two dragons (in the 3d chapter of his Auslegung d. hierogl. Fig.) the following: “Consider well these two dragons for they are the beginning of the philosophy [alchemy] which the sages have not dared to show their own children.... The first is called sulphur or the warm and dry. The other is called quicksilver or the cold and wet. These are the sun and the moon. These are snakes and dragons, which the ancient Egyptians painted in the form of a circle, each biting the other's tail, in order to teach that they spring of and from one thing [our lion!]. These are the dragons that the old poets represent as guarding sleeplessly the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperian maidens. These are the ones to which Jason, in his adventures of the golden fleece, gave the potion prepared for him by the beautiful Medea. [See my explanation of the [pg 129] The dragon, who is killed at the beginning of the work, is also called Osiris by the old alchemists. We are now acquainted with his dismemberment, also his relation to lead ore. Flamel calls the vessel [pg 130] Janus Lacinius gives in his Pretiosa Margarita the following allegory. In the palace sits the king decorated with the diadem and in his hand the scepter of the whole world. Before him appears his son with five servants and falling at his feet implores him to give the kingdom to him and the servants. [The author takes the thing wrong end to. The gold, king, is assailed by the other six metals, because they themselves wish to be gold. The king is killed. Essentially the same thing happens as above.] Then the son in anger, and at the instigation of his companions, kills his father on the throne. He collects the father's blood in his garment. A grave [the lion's den, the grave] is dug, into which the son intends to throw the father, but they both fall in. [Cf. the dangerous walk of the wanderer on the wall, Section 8, where the people fall off.] The son makes every effort to get out again, but some one comes who does not permit it. [Symbolism of obstruction, the locked door, etc., in the parable. [pg 131] As bearers of both seeds, male and female, the lion is androgynous. Actually the subject (i.e., the first material) is conceived as twofold, bisexual. It is called by names that mean the two sexes, it is also called “hermaphrodite.” It is represented as rebis (res bina = double thing), as a human with a male and a female head standing on a dragon. From the conquered dragon (lion) comes forth the Double. The substance is also called Mercurius; his staff bears the two antagonistic serpents mentioned by Flamel. In the parable also appears an hermaphrodite, [pg 132] In Section 9 of the parable, and also later, red and white appear in roses. The white and the red tincture are often in alchemy compared to white and red roses. In Section 9 the wanderer comes to those houses where people work alone or by twos. They work in a slovenly fashion. The alchemistic quacks are generally called “bunglers” and “messy cooks” by the masters of the art. These are the ones who do not work according to the “possibilities of nature,” which is, nevertheless, the touchstone of all right production. The garden (Sec. 10, 11) is one of the “rose gardens” of which, e.g., the alchemist, Michael Meier, likes to speak. There are difficulties in uniting the red youths with the white maidens. A wall separates them. The wanderer removes the obstruction in unlocking the door. That may indicate a chemical unlocking, by which the bodies are chemically brought nearer together. The wanderer comes to a mill (Sec. 11). The mill naturally indicates the already mentioned trituration of the substance. It has, however, also reference to fermentation and in particular to that by means of meal. Rulandus (Lex., pp. 211 ff., s. v. Fermentum): [pg 133] Now begins the main work—marriage, prison, embrace, conception, birth, transfiguration—to which the rest of the parable is devoted. The prison is the philosophic egg. It is also called “Athanor, a sieve, dunghill, bain-marie (double cooker), a kiln, round ball, green lion, prison, grave, brothel, vial, cucurbit.” It is just like the belly and the womb, containing in itself the true, natural warmth (to give life to our young king). The warmth that is used must first be gentle, “like that after the winter”; it must be stronger like the sun in spring, in summer [cf. the seasons in our parable]. (Flamel, pp. 50 ff.) Daustenius (Ros., VII): “... And this thing can be a symbol of a woman's belly, which, when she has conceived, will immediately close the womb.” Id. (Ros., VII): “Therefore, when you have put them (the white woman and the red man) in their vessel, then close it as fast as possible....” [Seal of Hermes.] Id. (Ros., VIII): “Therefore that you arrange the substances right and fine, and regulate your [pg 134] Id. (Ros., VII): “So now this is our solution, that you marry the Gabricum with the Beja, which when he lies with the Beja, dies immediately and is changed into her nature. Although the Beja is a woman, still she improves the Gabricum because he is come out of her.” [Death of the bridegroom son. It should be remembered in this connection that all metals or all substances generally—consequently also the [Symbol: Sun]—come forth from the “mother,” the primal substance [Symbol: Mercury].] In a “Vision” of Daustenius, the king is to return into his mother's womb in order to be procreated afresh. The king “goes into his bedroom and unexpectedly is fired with a great desire for coition, and goes to sleep at once, and has lain with a surpassingly beautiful maiden, who was a daughter of his mother” [weakened form of mother incest]. Later the vision says, “The woman, however, incloses her man, as a mother, quite carefully in the innermost part of her body.” The bodies inclosed in the vessel fall to pieces and are partly volatile. The vapors [soul] return, however, into the bodies. There conception takes place. Daustenius [Ros. IX.]: “... From that are airy spirits come, that with each other rise into the air, and there have conceived life, that is blown into them by their dampness, as the human being has life from air, by which it increases.... For life of [pg 135] The bestowing of life by a blowing in of air plays a great part in myths. Also there occurs quite frequently special impregnations by air and wind. It is a primitive impregnation theory, that is found also in the ideas of children. Children think of the blowing in of air into the anus as a natural sexual theory. I know several cases where this practice is carried out with emphasis on the erotic under the pretense of “playing doctor.” A child once told what papa and mamma do when they are alone; they put their naked backsides together and blow air into each other. Another infantile theory explains impregnation by the swallowing of an object. In myths and fairy lore this motive occurs with extraordinary frequency. To the swallowing as conception, corresponds defecation as parturition. Incidentally we should note that the bodies in the philosophic egg turn actually into a rolling, stinking, black mass, which is expressly called dung by many authors. The water is also called urine. The prima materia is also called urine. In the philosophical egg the white woman swallows the red man, man-eating motive. (Stucken.) Liber Apocal. Hermetis (Cited by Hohler, p. 105 f.): “... Therefore the philosophers have married this tender young maiden to Gabricus, to have them procreate fruit, and when Gabricus sleeps he dies. The Beja [i.e., the white maiden] [pg 136] Now as to the intra-uterine nourishment of the fetus by means of the water of life: Daustenius [Ros. vi.]: “... The fruit in the womb is nourished only by the mother's blood.” Id. (Ros. x): “Without seeds no fruit can grow up for thee: First the seed dies; then wilt thou see fruit. In the stomach the food is cooked tender From which the limbs draw the best to themselves. When too the seed is poured into the womb Then the womb stays right tenderly closed. The menstruum does not fail the fruit for nourishment Till it at the proper time comes to the light of day.” Later he says (Id., XI): “Lay the son by her that she suckle him.” [The water of life is therefore also the milk.] The new king is born, and now he and his consort appear in priceless garments (cf. Section 18 of the parable). The color change of the substance is expressed by means of the change of garments, like peacock's tail, rainbow. The process goes from black through gray to white, yellow, red, purple. The end is reached with purple. The wanderer at the end describes the virtues of the philosopher's stone. We have already compared the great elixir with soma. In the old alchemistic book, which bears the name of the Persian magician, Osthanes (Berthelot, Orig., p. 52), the divine water heals all maladies. Water of life,—elixir of life. [pg 137]Many readers will shake their heads over the psychoanalytic exposition of the parable. The gross development of sexuality and the Œdipus complex may seem improbable to him. The alchemistic hieroglyphic has now in unexpected manner shown after all, that these surprising things were not read into the parable by psychoanalysis, but rightly found in it, even though psychoanalysis has not by any means exhausted the contents of the parable. What might at first have appeared to be bold conjecture, as for example, killing of the father, incest with the mother, the conception of the red blood and white bones as man and woman, the excrementitious substance as procreative, the prison as the uterus, has all been shown to be in use as favorite figurative expression among the alchemistic authors. The alchemists like to dwell on the process of procreation, and on infantile sexual theories. The deep interest that they show in these matters, and without which they would not have used them so much in their hieroglyphics, the meaning that these things must have, in order to be regarded as worthy to illustrate the processes of the great work, and finally, the meaning that in some form or other they actually have in the emotional life of every man, all of this makes it evident that the line of imaginative speculations with which we have become acquainted, deserves independent treatment. In practice there was a fission, and procreation becomes an independent problem for alchemists. Yet the followers of the art did learn from nature, in order that their art [pg 138] Generally Paracelsus is regarded as the author of the idea, which to the somewhat uncritical, could not, in my opinion, help being in the air. There are different views regarding the part played by Paracelsus. The instructions that he gives for the production of the homunculus are found in a work (De natura rerum) whose authorship is not settled. And supposing that Paracelsus was the writer, it must be considered whether he does not lay before the inquisitive friend to whom the work is dedicated merely a medley of oddities from the variegated store that he had collected from all sources on his travels among vagrant folk. We must accept the facts as we find them; the question as to whether it was Paracelsus or not would be idle. Enough that there is a book by some writer who describes the [pg 139] Paracelsus begins with the fact that putrefaction transforms all things into their first shape and is the beginning of generation and multiplication. The spagiric [One of the names for alchemy. From sp?? (separate), and a?e??e?? (unite).] art is able to create men and monsters. Such a monster is the Basilisk. “The Basilisk” grows and is born out of and from the greatest impurity of women, namely from the menstrua and from the blood of sperm that is put into a glass and cucurbit, and putrefied in a horse's belly. In such putrefaction is the Basilisk born. Whoever is so daring and so fortunate as to make it or to take it out or again to kill it, who does not clothe and protect himself before with mirrors? I advise no one but I wish to give sufficient warning. [Many fables about the Basilisk were then current. The belief, too, was general that this terrible animal was produced from a hen's egg. [pg 140] “And although such a thing has hitherto been hidden from natural man, it has not been hidden from the fauns and the nymphs and giants, but has been revealed for a long time; whence they too, come. For from such homunculi, when they come to the age of manhood come giants, dwarfs and other similar great wonder people, [Just like Genesis vi, 4] that were used for a great tool and instrument, who had a great mighty victory over their enemies and knew all secret and hidden things that are for all men impossible to know. For by art they received their life, through art they received body, flesh, bone and blood, through art were they born. Therefore the art was embodied and born in them and they had to learn it from no one, but one must learn from them. For because of art are they there and grown up like a rose or flower in the garden and are called the children of fauns and nymphs because that they with their powers and deeds, not to men but to spirits [pg 142] In the description of the generation of the homunculus the power of rotting material has been pointed out. There is clearly evident a feeding with a magisterium from blood (water of life) corresponding to the intrauterine alimentation. We note that from the homunculi come giants and dwarfs and wonderful beings. The idea of palingenesis appears to have no little significance for the existence of the homunculus production. They imagine that a dead living being could be restored, at least in a smokelike image, if they carefully collected all its parts, triturated them and treated the composition in a vessel with the proper fire. Then there would appear after a time, like a cloud of smoke, the faint image of the former being, plant, bird, man. The clouds vanish if the heating is interrupted. Further it would be possible, even if more difficult, to pass beyond this mere adumbration, and cause the former being to arise again from the ashes, fully alive. In the recipes for this an important rÔle is regularly played by horse manure or some other rotting substance. Many authors tell fables of all sorts of wonderful experiments that they have made. One tells that he has reduced a bird to ashes and made it live again, another will have seen in his retort and coming from the moldering corpse of a child its shadow image, etc. We see here in actuality the mythical motive of dismemberment and revivification expressed in a [pg 143] The human child as result of cooking or else of a similar process in a vessel, is not infrequent in primitive myths. I could mention a Zulu myth (Frobenius, Zeitalt. d. Sonneng., I, p. 237) of a formerly barren woman. It was said that she should catch a drop of blood in a pot, cover it up and set it by for eight months, and should open it in the ninth month. The woman did as she was advised and found a child in the pot. The drop of blood, be it noted, came from herself. The numerous whale dragon myths (Frobenius) where it is very hot inside of the whale, belong here in motive. From the whale's belly comes indeed the baked young (sun) hero. [Who moreover generally gets nourishment in the whale-dragon's belly. Nutritio. Heart motive according to Frobenius.] It is interesting that the idea of cooking human beings occurs very clearly in a well analyzed case of dementia precox. (Spielrein in Jb. ps. F., Ill, pp. 358 ff.) In the strongly regressive phantasies of the invalid, fragments of all sorts of things are cooked or roasted and the ashes can become men. A very interesting variant of the infantile theories of procreation of the living in dung is found in the book, “De Homunculis et Monstris” (Vol. II, pp. 278 ff. of the Strassburg edition of the works of [pg 144] As they did with alchemy in general, so charlatans also made use of the production of the homunculus. Their business was based on the great profits that were offered by the possession of a homunculus and that are equivalent to those of mandrake alum. Mandrake alum gave a certain impetus to the development of the homunculus idea and practice. It can be shown that secrets of procreation seem partly to underlie this also. It is easy to show the possibility that many a duffer was led toward the production of the homunculus by erroneous interpretation of the procreation symbolism occurring in the alchemistic writings. It was merely necessary, in their limitations, to take literally one or another of the methods. In this way there actually occurred the most ludicrous blunders. Because the philosopher's egg was mentioned, they took eggs as the actual subject. Because the spermatic substance and seeds were mentioned they thought that the prima materia was human semen, and so arose the school of seminalists. And because it was written of the subject that it was to be found wherever men dwell, and that it was a little despised thing which men threw away not realizing its worth, and because they thought of putrefaction as such, they thought to find the real substance in human excrement, and so the school of stercoralists was [pg 145] The homunculus topic is exceedingly interesting. Unfortunately I cannot in the space of this book go into it thoroughly. I shall do so in another place. |
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