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Title: Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts

Author: Herbert Silberer

Translator: Smith Ely Jelliffe

Release date: January 9, 2009 [eBook #27755]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27755

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIDDEN
SYMBOLISM OF ALCHEMY AND THE OCCULT ARTS ***

Hidden Symbolism of

ALCHEMY and the OCCULT ARTS
(Formerly titled: Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism)

by Dr. Herbert Silberer
Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.

Dover Publications, Inc.

New York

1971

Contents

Translator's Preface
Part I. The Parable.
Section I. The Parable.
Section II. Dream And Myth Interpretation.
Part II. Analytic Part.
Section I. Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of The Parable.
Section II. Alchemy.
Section III. The Hermetic Art.
Section IV. Rosicrucianism And Freemasonry.
Section V. The Problem Of Multiple Interpretation.
Part III. Synthetic Part.
Section I. Introversion And Regeneration.
A. Introversion And Intro-Determination.
B. Effects Of Introversion.
C. Regeneration.
Section II. The Goal Of The Work.
Section III. The Royal Art.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
Footnotes

[pg ii]

This Dover edition, first published in 1971, is an unabridged and unaltered
republication of the work originally published by Moffat, Yard and
Company, New York, in 1917 under the title Problems of Mysticism and its
Symbolism.

International Standard Book Number: 0-486-20972-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-176356

[pg iii]

Translator's Preface

Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large
rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more
northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that inhabited
northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons of time that
have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks that live to-day.
Down through the countless centuries the living stream has carved its
structural habitations in much the same form. The science of Paleontology
has collected this history and has attempted a reconstruction of life from its
beginnings.

The same principle here illustrated is true for the thought-life of mankind.
The forms in which it has been preserved however are not so evident. The
structuralizations are not so definite. If they were, evolution would not have
been possible for the living stream of energy which is utilized by mind-stuff
cannot be confined if it would advance to more complex integrations.
Hence the products of mind in evolution are more plastic—more subtle [pg
iv] and more changing. They are to be found in the myths and the folk-lore
of ancient peoples, the poetry, dramatic art, and the language of later races.
From age to age however the strivings continue the same. The living vessels
must continue and the products express the most fundamental strivings, in
varying though related forms.

We thus arrive at a science which may be called paleo-psychology. Its
fossils are the thought-forms throughout the ages, and such a science seeks
to show fundamental likenesses behind the more superficial dissimilarities.

The present work is a contribution to such a science in that it shows the
essential relationships of what is found in the unconscious of present day
mankind to many forms of thinking of the middle ages. These same trends
are present to-day in all of us though hidden behind a different set of
structural terms, utilizing different mechanisms for energy expression.

The unceasing complexity of life's accumulations has created a great
principle for energy expression—it is termed sublimation—and in popular
parlance represents the spiritual striving of mankind towards the perfecting
of a relation with the world of reality—the environment—which shall mean
human happiness in its truest sense. One of the [pg v] products of this
sublimation tendency is called Mysticism. This work would seek to aid us

to an understanding of this manifestation of human conduct as expressed in
concrete or contemplated action through thought. It does so by the
comparative method, and it is for this reason I have been led to present it to
an English reading public.

Much of the strange and outre, as well as the commonplace, in human
activity conceals energy transformations of inestimable value in the work of
sublimation. The race would go mad without it. It sometimes does even
with it, a sign that sublimation is still imperfect and that the race is far from
being spiritually well. A comprehension of the principles here involved
would further the spread of sympathy for all forms of thinking and tend to
further spiritual health in such mutual comprehension of the needs of others
and of the forms taken by sublimation processes.

For the actual work of translation, I wish to express my obligations to
friends Wilfred Lay, and Leo Stein. Without their generous and gifted
assistance I would not have been able to accomplish the task.

Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D.
New York, Oct. 27, 1917.

[pg 001]

Part I.

The Parable.

Section I.

The Parable.

In an old book I discovered an extraordinary narrative entitled Parabola. I
take it as the starting point of my observations because it affords a welcome
guide. In the endeavor to understand the parable and get a psychological
insight into it, we are led on to journey through these very realms of fancy,
into which I should like to conduct the reader. At the end of our journey we
shall have acquired, with the understanding of the first example, the
knowledge of certain psychical laws.

I shall, then, without further prelude introduce the example, and purposely
avoid at the outset mentioning the title of the old book so that the reader
may be in a position to allow the narrative to affect him without any
preconceived ideas. Explanatory interpolations in the text, which come
from me, I distinguish with square brackets.

[1]. As once I strolled in a fair forest, young and green, and contemplated the
painfulness of this life, and lamented how through the dire fall of our first
parents we inherited [pg 002] such misery and distress, I chanced, while
thinking these thoughts, to depart from the usual path, and found myself, I
know not how, on a narrow foot path that was rough, untrodden and
impassable, and overgrown with so much underbrush and bushes that it was
easy to see it was very little used. Therefore I was dismayed and would
gladly have gone back, but it was not in my power to do so, since a strong
wind so powerfully blew me on, that I could rather take ten steps in advance
than one backward.

[2]. Therefore I had to go on and not mind the rough walking.

[3]. After I had advanced a good while I came finally to a lovely meadow
hedged about with a round circle of fruit bearing trees, and called by the
dwellers Pratum felicitatis [the meadow of felicity], I was in the midst of a
company of old men with beards as gray as ice, except for one who was quite

a young man with a pointed black beard. Also there was among them one
whose name was well known to me, but his visage I could not yet see, who
was still younger, and they debated on all kinds of subjects, particularly
about a great and lofty mystery, hidden in Nature, which God kept concealed
from the great world, and revealed to only a few who loved him.

[4]. I listened long and their discourse pleased me well, only some would
break forth from restraint, not touching upon the matter or work, but what
touched upon the parables, similitudes and other parerga, in which they
followed the poetic fancies of Aristotle, Pliny and others which the one had
copied from the other. So I could contain myself no longer and mixed in my
own mustard, [put in my own word], refuted such trivial things from
experience, and the majority sided with me, examined me in their faculty and
made it quite hot for me. However the foundation of my knowledge was so
good, that I passed with all honors, whereupon [pg 003] they all were
amazed, unanimously included and admitted me in their collegium, of which
I was heartily glad.

[5]. But they said I could not be a real colleague till I learned to know their
lion, and became thoroughly acquainted with his powers and abilities. For
that purpose I should use diligence so as to subdue him. I was quite confident
in myself and promised them I would do my best. For their company pleased
me so well that I would not have parted from them for a great deal.

[6]. They led me to the lion and described him very carefully, but what I
should undertake with him none could tell me. Some of them indeed hinted,
but very darkly, so that the (Der Tausende) Thousandth one could not have
understood him. But when I should first succeed in subduing him and should
have assured myself against his sharp claws, and keen teeth, then they would
conceal nothing from me. Now the lion was very old, ferocious and large, his
yellow hair hung over his neck, he appeared quite unconquerable, so that I
was almost afraid of my temerity and would gladly have turned back if my
promise and also the circumstance that the elders stood about me and were
waiting to see what I would do, had allowed me to give up. In great
confidence I approached the lion in his den and began to caress him, but he
looked at me so fiercely with his brightly shining eyes that I could hardly
restrain my tears. Just then I remembered that I had learned from one of the
elders, while we were going to the lion's den, that very many people had

undertaken to overcome the lion and very few could accomplish it. I was
unwilling to be disgraced, and I recalled several grips that I had learned with
great diligence in athletics, besides which I was well versed in natural magic
[magia] so I gave up the caresses and seized the lion so dextrously, artfully
and subtlely, that before he was well aware of it I forced the blood out of his
body, [pg 004] yea, even out of his heart. It was beautifully red but very
choleric. I dissected him further and found, a fact which caused me much
wonder, that his bones were white as snow and there was much more bone
than there was blood.

[7]. Now when my dear elders, who stood above around the den and looked
at me, were aware of it, they disputed earnestly with each other, for so much
I could infer from their motions but what they said I could not hear since I
was deep down in the den. Yet as they came close in dispute I heard that one
said, “He must bring him to life again, else he can not be our colleague.” I
was unwilling to undertake further difficulties, and betook myself out of the
den to a great place, and came, I know not how, on a very high wall, whose
height rose over 100 ells towards the clouds, but on top was not one foot
wide. And there went up from the beginning, where I ascended, to the end an
iron hand rail right along the center of the wall, with many leaded supports.
On this wall I came, I say, and meseems there went on the right side of the
railing a man several paces before me.

[8]. But as I followed him awhile I saw another following me on the other
side, yet it was doubtful whether man or woman, that called to me and said
that it was better walking on his side than where I went, as I readily believed,
because the railing that stood near the middle made the path so narrow that
the going at such a height was very bad. Then I saw also some that wished to
go on that path, fall: down below behind me, therefore I swung under the
railing; holding tight with my hands and went forward on the other [left] side,
till I finally came to a place on the wall which was very precipitous and
dangerous to descend. Then first I repented that I had not stayed on the other
[right] side and I could not go under to the other side as it was also
impossible to turn round and get on the other path. So I [pg 005] risked it,
trusted to my good feet, held myself tight and came down without harm, and
as I walked a little further, looked and knew of no other danger, but also
knew not what had become of wall and railing.

[9]. After I came down, there stood in that place a beautiful rose bush, on
which beautiful red and white roses were growing, the red more numerous,
however, than the white. I broke off some roses from the bush and put them
on my hat. But there seemed to be in the same place a wall, surrounding a
great garden. In the garden were lads, and their lasses who would gladly be in
the garden, but would not wander widely, or take the trouble to come to the
gates. So I pitied them. I went further along the path by which I had come,
still on the level, and went so fast that I soon came to some houses, where I
supposed I should find the gardener's house. But I found there many people,
each having his own room. They were slow. Two together they worked
diligently, yet each had his own work. [The meaning may be either that
working alone they were slow, but in twos they worked diligently; or two of
them worked together and were diligent. Both amount to the same thing as
we shall later realize.] But what they did, it seems, I had myself done before
and all their work was familiar to me. Especially, thought I, see, if so many
other people do so much dirty and sloppy work, that is only an appearance
according to each one's conceit, but has no reason in Nature, so it may also
be pardoned in you. I wished, therefore, because I knew such tricks vanished
like smoke, to remain here no longer in vain and proceeded on my former
way.

[10]. After I had arrived at the gate of the garden, some on one side looked
sourly at me, so that I was afraid they might hinder me in my project; but
others said, “See, he will into the garden, and we have done garden service
here [pg 006] so long, and have never gotten in; we will laugh him down
if he fails.” But I did not regard all that, as I knew the conditions of this
garden better than they, even if I had never been in it, but went right to a gate
that was tight shut so that one could neither see nor find a keyhole. I noticed,
however, that a little round hole that with ordinary eyes could not be seen,
was in the door, and thought immediately, that must be the way the door is
opened, was ready with my specially prepared Diederich, unlocked and went
in. When I was inside the door, I found several other bolted doors, which I
yet opened without trouble. Here, however, was a passage way, just as if it
was in a well built house, some six feet wide and twenty long, with a roof
above. And though the other doors were still locked, I could easily see
through them into the garden as the first door was open.

[11]. I wandered into the garden in God's name, and found in the midst of it a
small garden, that was square and six roods long, hedged in with rose thorns,
and the roses bloomed beautifully. But as it was raining gently, and the sun
shone in it, it caused a very lovely rainbow. When I had passed beyond the
little garden and would go to the place where I was to help the maids, behold
I was aware that instead of the walls a low hurdle stood there, and there went
along by the rose garden the most beautiful maiden arrayed in white satin,
with the most stately youth, who was in scarlet each giving arm to the other,
and carrying in their hands many fragrant roses. I spoke to them and asked
them how they had come over the hurdle. “This, my beloved bridegroom,”
said she, “has helped me over, and we are going now out of this beautiful
garden into our apartment to enjoy the pleasures of love.” “I am glad,” said I,
“that without any further trouble on my part your desires are satisfied; yet see
how I have hurried, and have run so long a way in so short a time to serve
you.” After that [pg 007] I came into a great mill built inside of stones, in
which were no flour bins or other things that pertained to grinding but one
saw through the walls several water wheels going in water. I asked why it
had equipment for grinding. An old miller answered that the mill was shut
down on the other side. Just then I also saw a miller's boy go in from the
sluice plank [Schutzensteg], and I followed after him. When I had come over
the plank [Steg], which had the water wheels on the left, I stood still and was
amazed at what I saw there. For the wheels were now higher than the plank,
the water coal black, but its drops were yet white, and the sluice planks were
not over three fingers wide. Still I ventured back and held onto the sticks that
were over the sluice planks and so came safely and dry over the water. Then I
asked the old miller how many water wheels he had. “Ten,” answered he.
The adventure stuck in my mind. I should have gladly known what the
meaning was. But as I noticed that the miller would not leave I went away,
and there was in front of the mill a lofty paved hill, on which were some of
the previously mentioned elders who walked in the sun, which then shone
very warm, and they had a letter from the whole faculty written to them, on
which they were consulting. [In our modern mode of expression, the elders
had directed a letter to the sun, and so I find the passage in an English
version of the parable. This generally bungling translation is nevertheless not
in the least authoritative. And although an acceptable meaning is derived
from it, if one regards the sun as the just mentioned “prince,” yet I believe a
freer translation should be given ... the elders walked in the warm sunshine;

they consulted about a letter written to them by the faculty.] I soon noticed
what the contents must be, and that it concerned me. I went therefore to them
and said, “Gentlemen, does it concern me?” “Yes,” said they, “you must [pg
008] keep in marriage the woman that you have recently taken or we must
notify our prince.” I said, “that is no trouble as I was born at the same time as
she and brought up as a child with her, and as I have taken her once I will
keep her forever, and death itself shall not part us, for I have an ardent
affection for her.” “What have we then to complain of?” replied they. “The
bride is content, and we have your will; you must copulate.” “Contented,”
said I. “Well,” said one, “the lion will then regain his life and become more
powerful and mighty than before.”

[12]. Then occurred to me my previous trouble and labor and I thought to
myself that for particular reasons it must not concern me but some other that
is well known to me; then I saw our bridegroom and his bride go by in their
previous attire, ready and prepared for copulation, which gave me great joy,
for I was in great distress lest the thing might concern me.

[13]. When, then, as mentioned, our bridegroom in his brilliant scarlet clothes
with his dearest bride, whose white satin coat shot forth bright rays, came to
the proper marriage age, they joined the two so quickly that I wondered not a
little that this maid, that was supposed to be the mother of the bridegroom,
was still so young that she appeared to be just born.

[14]. Now I do not know what sin these two must have committed except that
although they were brother and sister, they were in such wise bound by ties
of love, that they could not be separated, and so, as it were, wished to be
punished for incest. These two were, instead of a bride bed and magnificent
marriage, condemned and shut up in an enduring and everlasting prison,
which, because of their high birth and goodly state, and also so that in future
they should not be guilty in secret, but all their conduct should be known to
the guard placed over them and in his sight, was made [pg 009] quite
transparent, bright and clear like a crystal, and round like a sphere of heaven,
and there they were with continual tears and true contrition to atone and
make reparation for their past misdeeds. [Instead of to a bride bed the two
were brought to a prison, so that their actions could be watched. The prison
was transparent; it was a bright crystal clear chamber, like a sphere of
heaven, corresponding to the high position of the two persons.] Previously,

however, all their rare clothing and finery that they had put on for ornament
was taken away, so that in such a chamber they must be quite naked and
merely dwell with each other. [It is not directly understood by these words
that a cohabitation in modern sense (coition) is meant. According to modern
language the passage must be rendered, “had to dwell near each other naked
and bare.” One is reminded, moreover, of the nuptial customs that are
observed particularly in the marriage of persons of high birth. In any case
and, in spite of my reservation, what occurs is conducive or designed to lead
to the sexual union.] Besides they gave them no one that had to go into the
chamber to wait on them, but after they put in all the necessities in the way of
meat and drink, which were created from the afore mentioned water, the door
of the chamber was fast bolted and locked, the faculty seal impressed on it
and I was enjoined that I should guard them here, and spend the winter
before the door; the chamber should be duly warmed so that they be neither
too hot nor too cold, and they could neither come out nor escape. But should
they, on account of any hope of breaking this mandate, escape, I would
thereupon be justly subjected to heavy punishment. I was not pleased by the
thing, my fear and solicitude made me faint hearted, for I communed with
myself that it was no small thing that had befallen me, as I knew also that the
college of wisdom was accustomed not to lie but to put into action what it
[pg 010] said. Yet because I could not change it, beside which this locked
chamber stood in the center of a strong tower and surrounded with strong
bulwarks and high walls, in which one could with a small but continuous fire
warm the whole chamber, I undertook this office, and began in God's name to
warm the chamber, and protect the imprisoned pair from the cold. But what
happened? As soon as they perceived the slightest warmth they embraced
each other so tenderly that the like will not soon be seen, and stayed so hot
that the young bridegroom's heart in his body dissolved for ardent love, also
his whole body almost melted in his beloved's arms and fell apart. When she
who loved him no less than he did her, saw this, she wept over him
passionately and, as it were buried him with her tears so that one could not
see, for her gushing tears that overflowed everything, where he went. Her
weeping and sorrowing had driven her to this in a short time, and she would
not for deep anguish of heart live longer, but voluntarily gave herself to
death. Ah woe is me. In what pain and need and trouble was I that my two
charges had quite disappeared in water, and death alone was left for me. My
certain destruction stood before my eyes, and what was the greatest hardship

to me, I feared the threatened shame and disgrace that would happen to me,
more than the injury that would overtake me.

[15]. As I now passed several days in such solitude and pondered over the
question how I could remedy my affairs, it occurred to me how Medea had
revived the dead body of Aeson, and I thought to myself, “If Medea could do
such a thing, why should such a thing fail me?” I began at once to bethink me
how I would do it, found however no better way than that I should persist
with continual warmth until the waters disappeared, and I might see again the
corpses of our lovers. As I hoped to come off without danger and with great
advantage and praise I went on with my warmth [pg 011] that I had begun
and continued it forty whole days, as I was aware that the water kept on
diminishing the longer I kept it up, and the corpses that were yet as black as
coal, began again to be visible. And truly this would have occurred before if
the chamber had not been all too securely locked and bolted. Which I yet did
not avail to open. For I noted particularly that the water that rose and
hastened to the clouds, collected above in the chamber and fell down like
rain, so that nothing could come of it, until our bridegroom with his dearest
bride, dead and rotten, and therefore hideously stinking, lay before my eyes.

All the while the sunshine in the moist weather caused an exceedingly
beautiful rainbow to be seen, in the chamber, with surprisingly beautiful
colors, which overjoyed not a little my overpowering affliction. Much more
was I delighted that I saw my two lovers lying before me again. But as no joy
is so great but is mixed with much sadness, so I was troubled in my joy
thinking that my charges lay still dead before me, and one could trace no life
in them. But because I knew that their chamber was made of such pure and
thick material, also so tight-locked that their soul and spirit could not get out,
but was still closely guarded within, I continued with my steady warmth day
and night, to perform my delegated office, quite impressed with the fact that
the two would not return to their bodies, as long as the moisture continued.
For in the moist state nature keeps itself the same, as I then also found in fact
and in truth. For I was aware upon careful examination that from the earth at
evening through the power of the sun, many vapors arose and drew
themselves up just as the sun draws water. They were condensed in the night
in a lovely and very fruitful dew, which very early in the morning fell and
moistened the earth and washed our dead corpses, so that from day to day,
the longer such bathing and washing continued, [pg 012] the more

beautiful and whiter they became. But the fairer and whiter they became, the
more they lost moisture, till finally the air being bright and beautiful, and all
the mist and moist weather, having passed, the spirit and soul of the bride
could hold itself no longer in the bright air, but went back into the clarified
and still more transfigured body of the queen, who soon experienced it [i.e.
her soul and spirit] and at once lived again. This, then, as I could easily
observe, not a little pleased me, especially as I saw her arise in surpassingly
costly garments whose like was never seen on earth, and with a precious
crown decked with bright diamonds; and also heard her speak. “Hear ye
children of men and perceive ye that are born of women, that the most high
power can set up kings and can remove kings. He makes rich and poor,
according to his will. He kills and makes again to live.”

[16]. See in me a true and living example of all that. I was great and became
small, but now after having been humbled, I am a queen elevated over many
kingdoms. I have been killed and made to live. To poor me have been trusted
and given over the great treasures of the sages and the mighty.

[17]. “Therefore power is also given me to make the poor rich, show
kindness to the lowly, and bring health to the sick. But I am not yet like my
well-beloved brother, the great and powerful king, who is still to be
awakened from the dead. When he comes he will prove that my words are
true.”

[18]. And when she said that the sun shone very bright, and the day was
warmer than before, and the dog days were at hand. But because, a long time
before, there were prepared for the lordly and great wedding of our new
queen many costly robes, as of black velvet, ashen damask, gray silk, silver
taffeta, snow white satin, even one studded with [pg 013] surpassingly
beautiful silver pieces and with precious pearls and lordly bright-gleaming
diamonds, so likewise different garments were arranged and prepared for the
young king, namely of carnation, yellow Auranian colors, precious gear, and
finally a red velvet garment with precious rubies and thickly incrusted with
carbuncles. But the tailors that made their clothes were quite invisible, so that
I also wondered as I saw one coat prepared after another and one garment
after another, how these things came to pass, since I well knew that no one
came into the chamber except the bridegroom with his bride. So that what I
wondered at most of all was that as soon as another coat or garment was

ready, the first immediately vanished before my eyes, so that I knew not
whence they came or who had taken them away.

[19]. When now this precious clothing was ready, the great and mighty king
appeared in great splendor and magnificence, to which nothing might be
compared. And when he found himself shut in, he begged me with friendly
and very gracious words, to open the door for him and permit him to go out;
it would prove of great advantage to me. Although I was strictly forbidden to
open the chamber, yet the grand appearance and the winning persuasiveness
of the king disconcerted me so that I cheerfully let him go. And when he
went out he was so friendly and so gracious and yet so meek that he proved
indeed that nothing did so grace high persons as did these virtues.

[20]. But because he had passed the dog days in great heat, he was very
thirsty, also faint and tired and directed me to dip up some of the swift
running water under the mill wheels, and bring it, and when I did, he drank a
large part with great eagerness, went back into his chamber, and bade me
close the door fast behind him, so that no one might disturb him or wake him
from sleep.

[21]. Here he rested for a few days and called to me to [pg 014] open the
door. Methought, however, that he was much more beautiful, more ruddy and
lordly, which he then also remarked and deemed it a lordly and wholesome
water, drank much of it, more than before so that I was resolved to build the
chamber much larger. [Evidently because the inmate increased in size.] When
now the king had drunk to his satisfaction of this precious drink, which yet
the unknowing regard as nothing he became so beautiful and lordly, that in
my whole life I never saw a more lordly person nor more lordly demeanor.
Then he led me into his kingdom, and showed me all the treasures and riches
of the world, so that I must confess, that not only had the queen announced
the truth, but also had omitted to describe the greater part of it as it seemed to
those that know it. For there was no end of gold and noble carbuncle there;
rejuvenation and restoration of natural forces, and also recovery of lost
health, and removal of all diseases were a common thing in that place. The
most precious of all was that the people of that land knew their creator,
feared and honored him, and asked of him wisdom and understanding, and
finally after this transitory glory an everlasting blessedness. To that end help
us God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

The author of the preceding narrative calls it a parable. Its significance may
have indeed appeared quite transparent to him, and he presupposes that the
readers of his day knew what form of learning he masked in it. The story
impresses us as rather a fairy story or a picturesque dream. If we compare
parables that come nearer to our modern point of view and are easily
understood on account of their simplicity, like those of Ruckert or those of
the New Testament, the difference can be [pg 015] clearly seen. The
unnamed author evidently pursues a definite aim; one does find some unity
in the bizarre confusion of his ideas; but what he is aiming at and what he
wishes to tell us with his images we cannot immediately conceive. The
main fact for us is that the anonymous writer speaks in a language that
shows decided affinity with that of dreams and myths. Therefore, however
we may explain in what follows the peculiarly visionary character of the
parable, we feel compelled to examine it with the help of a psychological
method, which, endeavoring to get from the surface to the depths, will be
able to trace analytically the formative powers of the dream life and allied
phenomena, and explain their mysterious symbols.

I have still to reveal in what book and in what circumstances the parable
appears. It is in the second volume of a book “Geheime Figuren der
Rosenkreuzer aus dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert,” published at Altona
about 1785-90. Its chief contents are large plates with pictorial
representations and with them a number of pages of text. According to a
note on the title page, the contents are “for the first time brought to light
from an old manuscript.” The parable is in the second volume of a three-
volume series which bears the subtitle: Ein güldener Tractat vom
philosophischen Steine. Von einem noch lebenden, doch ungenannten
Philosopho, den Filiis doctrinae zur Lehre, den Fratribus Aureae Crucis
aber zur Nachrichtung beschrieben. Anno, M.D.C.XXV.

[pg 016]
If I add that this book is an hermetic treatise (alchemistic), it may furnish a
general classification for it, but will hardly give any definite idea of its
nature, not merely on account of the oblivion into which this kind of writing
has now fallen, but also because the few ideas usually connected with it
produce a distorted picture. The hermetic art, as it is treated here, the
principles of which strike us to-day as fantastic, is related to several

“secret” sciences and organizations, some of which have been discredited:
magic, kabbala, rosicrucianism, etc. It is particularly closely connected with
alchemy so that the terms “hermetic art” and “alchemy” (and even “royal
art”) are often used synonymously. This “art”—to call it by the name that
not without some justification it applies to itself—leads us by virtue of its
many ramifications into a large number of provinces, which furnish us
desirable material for our research.

So I will first, purposely advancing on one line, regard the parable as a
dream or a fairy tale and analyze it psychoanalytically. This treatment will,
for the information of the reader, be preceded by a short exposition of
psychoanalysis as a method of interpretation of dreams and fairy tales. Then
I will, still seeking for the roots of the matter, introduce the doctrines that
the pictorial language of the parable symbolizes. I will give consideration to
the chemical viewpoint of alchemy and also the hermetic philosophy and its
hieroglyphic educational methods.

Connections will be developed with religious and [pg 017] ethical topics,
and we shall have to take into account the historical and psychological
relations of hermetic thought with rosicrucianism in its various forms, and
freemasonry. And when we begin, at the conclusion of the analytical section
of my work, to apply to the solution of our parable and of several folk tales
the insight we have gained, we shall be confronted with a problem in which
we shall face two apparently contradictory interpretations, according to
whether we follow the lead of psychoanalysis or of the hermetic,
hieroglyphic solution. The question will then arise whether and how the
contradiction occurs. How shall we bring into relation with each other and
reconcile the two different interpretations which are quite different and
complete in themselves?

The question arising from the several illustrations expands into a general
problem, to which the synthetic part of my book is devoted. This will,
among other considerations, lead us into the psychology of symbol-making
where again the discoveries of psychoanalysis come to our aid. We shall not
be satisfied with analysis, but endeavor to follow up certain evolutionary
tendencies which, expressed in psychological symbols, developing
according to natural laws, will allow us to conjecture a spiritual building up

or progression that one might call an anabasis. We shall see plainly by this
method of study how the original contradiction arises and how what was
previously irreconcilable, turns out to be two poles of an evolutionary
process. By that means, several principles of myth interpretation will be
derived.

[pg 018]
I have just spoken of an anabasis. By that we are to understand a forward
movement in a moral or religious sense. The most intensive exemplar of the
anabasis (whatever this may be) is mysticism. I can but grope about in the
psychology of mysticism; I trust I may have more confidence at that point
where I look at its symbolism from the ethical point of view.

[pg 019]

Section II.

Dream And Myth Interpretation.

[Readers versed in Freud's psychoanalysis are requested to pass over this
chapter as they will find only familiar matter.]

In the narrative which we have just examined its dream-like character is
quite noticeable. On what does it depend? Evidently the Parable must bear
marks that are peculiar to the dream. In looking for correspondences we
discover them even upon superficial examination.

Most noticeable is the complete and sudden change of place. The wanderer,
as I will hereafter call the narrator of the parable, sees himself immediately
transported from the place near the lion's den to the top of a wall, and does
not know how he has come there. Later he comes down just as suddenly.
And in still other parts of the story there occurs just as rapid changes of
scene as one is accustomed to in dreams. Characteristic also is the fact that
objects change or vanish; the shift of scene resembles also, as often in a
dream, a complete transformation. Thus, for instance, as soon as the
wanderer has left the wall, it vanishes without leaving a trace, as if it had
never been. A similar change is also required in the garden scene where,
instead of [pg 020] the previously observed enclosing-wall, a low hedge
appears in a surprising manner.

Further, we are surprised by instances of knowledge without perception.
Often in a dream one knows something without having experienced it in
person. We simply know, without knowing how, that in such a house
something definite and full of mystery has happened; or we know that this
man, whom we see now for the first time, is called so and so; we are in
some place for the first time but know quite surely that there must be a
fountain behind that wall to which for any reason we have to go, etc. Such
unmediated knowledge occurs several times in the parable. In the beginning
of the narrative the wanderer, although a stranger, knows that the lovely
meadow is called by its inhabitants Pratum felicitatis. He knows intuitively

the name of one of the men unknown to him. In the garden scene he knows,
although he has noticed only the young men, that some young women
(whom on account of the nature of the place he cannot then see) are
desirous of going into the garden to these young men. One might say that
all this is merely a peculiarity of the representation inasmuch as the author
has for convenience, or on account of lack of skill, or for brevity, left out
some connecting link which would have afforded us the means of acquiring
this unexplained knowledge. The likeness to the dream therefore would in
that case be inadmissible. To this objection it may be replied, that the dream
does exactly like the author of the parable. Our study is chiefly concerned
[pg 021] with the product of the fancy and forces us to the observation
(whatever may be the cause of it) that the parable and the dream life have
certain “peculiarities of representation” in common.

In contrast to the miraculous knowledge we find in the dream a peculiar
unsureness in many things, particularly in those which concern the
personality of the wanderer. When the elders inform the wanderer that he
must marry the woman that he has taken, he does not know clearly whether
the matter at all concerns him or not; a remarkable fluctuation in his attitude
takes place. We wonder whether he has taken on the rôle of the bridegroom
or, quite the reverse, the bridegroom has taken the wanderer's. We are
likewise struck by similar uncertainties, like those during the walk on top of
the wall where the wanderer is followed by some one, of whom he does not
know whether it is a man or a woman. Here belong also those passages of
the narrative introduced by the wanderer with “as if,” etc. In the search for
the gardener's house he chances upon many people and “it seems” that he
has himself done what these people are there doing.

Quite characteristic also are the different obstructions and other difficulties
placed in the path of the wanderer. Even in the first paragraph of the
narrative we hear that he is startled, would gladly turn back, but cannot
because a strong wind prevents him. On top of the wall the railing makes
his progress difficult; on other occasions a wall, or a door. The first
experience, especially, recalls those frequent occurrences [pg 022] in
dreams where, anxiously turning in flight or oppressed by tormenting haste,
we cannot move. In connection with what is distressing and threatening, as
described in the precipitous slope of the wall and the narrow plank by the

mill, belong also the desperate tasks and demands—quite usual in dreams
and myths—that meet the wanderer. Among such tasks or dangers I will
only mention the severe examination by the elders, the struggle with the
lion, the obligation to marry, and the burden of responsibility for the nuptial
pair, all of which cause the wanderer so much anxiety.

Among the evident dream analogies belongs finally (without, however,
completing my list of them) the peculiar logic that appears quite
conventional to the wanderer or the dreamer, but seldom satisfies the reader
or the careful reasoner. As examples, I mention that the dead lion will be
called to life again if the wanderer marries the woman that he recently took;
and that they put the two lovers that they want to punish for incest, after
they have carefully removed all the clothes from their bodies, into a prison
where these lovingly embrace.

So much for the external resemblances of the parable with the dream life.
The deeper affinity which can be shown in its innermost structure will first
appear in the psychoanalytic treatment. And now it will be advisable for me
to give readers not intimately acquainted with dream psychology some
information concerning modern investigations in dream life and in
particular concerning psychoanalytic [pg 023] doctrines and discoveries.
Naturally I can do this only in the briefest manner. For a more thorough
study I must refer the reader to the work of Freud and his school. The most
important books are mentioned in the bibliography at the end.

Modern scientific investigation of dreams, in which Freud has been a
pioneer, has come to the conclusion, but in a different sense from the
popular belief, that dreams have a significance. While the popular belief
says that they foretell something of the future, science shows that they have
a meaning that is present in the psyche and determined by the past. Dreams
are then, as Freud's results show, always wish phantasies. [I give here only
exposition, not criticism. My later application of psychoanalysis will show
what reservations I make concerning Freud's doctrines.] In them wishes,
strivings, impulses work themselves out, rising to the surface from the
depths of the soul. When they come in waking life, wish phantasies are
sometimes called castles in the air. In dreams we have the fulfillment of
wishes that are not or cannot be fulfilled.

But the impulses that the dreams call up are principally such wishes and
impulses as we cannot ourselves acknowledge and such as in a waking state
we reject as soon as they attempt to announce themselves, as for instance,
animal tendencies or such sexual desires as we are unwilling to admit, and
also suppressed or “repressed” impulses. As a result of being repressed they
have the peculiarity of being in general inaccessible to consciousness.
[Freud [pg 024] speaks particularly of crassly egoistic actuations. The
criminal element in them is emphasized by Stekel.]

One not initiated into dream analysis may object that the obvious evidence
is against this theory. For the majority of dreams picture quite inoffensive
processes that have nothing to do with impulses and passions which are
worthy of rejection on either moral or other grounds. The objection appears
at first sight to be well founded, but collapses as soon as we learn that the
critical power of morality, which does not desert us by day, retains by night
a part of its power; and that therefore the fugitive impulses and tendencies
that seek the darkness and dare not come forth by day, dare not even at
night unveil their true aspect but have to approach, as it were, in costumes,
or disguised as symbols or allegories, in order to pass unchallenged. The
superintending power, that I just now called the power of morality, is
compared very pertinently to a censor. What our psyche produces is, so to
speak, subjected to a censor before it is allowed to emerge into the light of
consciousness. And if the fugitive elements want to venture forth they must
be correspondingly disguised, in order to pass the censor. Freud calls this
disguising or paraphrasing process the dream disfigurement. The literal is
thereby displaced by the figurative, an allusion intimated through a
nebulous atmosphere. Thus, in the following example, an unconscious death
wish is exhibited. In the examination of a lady's dream it struck me that the
motive [pg 025] of a dead child occurred repeatedly, generally in
connection with picnics. During an analysis the lady observed that when
she was a girl the children, her younger brothers and sisters, were often the
obstacles when it was proposed to have a party or celebration or the like.
The association Kinder (= children) Hinderniss (= obstacle) furnished the
key to a solution of the stereotyped dream motive. As further indications
showed, it concerned the children of a married man whom she loved. The
children prevented the man separating from his wife in order to marry the
lady. In waking life she would not, of course, admit a wish for the death of

the embarrassing children, but in dreams the wish broke through and
represented the secretly wished situation. The children are dead and nothing
now stands in the way of the “party” or the celebration (wedding). The
double sense of the word “party” is noticeable. (In German “eine Partie
machen” means both to go on an excursion and to make a matrimonial
match.) Such puns are readily made use of by dreams, in order to make the
objectionable appear unobjectionable and so to get by the censor.

Psychoanalytic procedure, employed in the interpretation of dreams of any
person can be called a scientifically organized confession that traces out
with infinite patience even to the smallest ramifications, the spiritual
inventory of what was tucked away in the mind of the person undergoing it.
Psychoanalysis is used in medical practice to discover [pg 026] and relieve
the spiritual causes of neurotic phenomena. The patient is induced to tell
more and more, starting from a given point, thereby going into the most
intimate details, and yet we are aware, in the network of outcropping
thoughts and memories, of certain points of connection, which have
dominating significance for the affective life of the person being studied.
Here the path begins to be hard because it leads into the intimately personal.
The secret places of the soul set up a powerful opposition to the intruder,
even without the purposive action of the patient. Right there are, however,
so to speak, the sore spots (pathogenic “complexes”) of the psyche, towards
which the research is directed. Firmly advancing in spite of the limitations,
we lay bare these roots of the soul that strive to cling to the unconscious.
Those are the disfigured elements just mentioned; all of the items of the
spiritual inventory from which the person in question has toilsomely
“worked himself out” and from which he supposes himself free. They must
be silent because they stand in some contradictory relation to the character
in which the person has clothed himself; and if they, the subterranean
elements still try to announce themselves, he hurls them back immediately
into their underworld; he allows himself to think of nothing that offends too
much his attitudes, his morality and his feelings. He does not give verbal
expression to the disturbers of the peace that dwell in his heart of hearts.

The mischief makers are, however, merely repressed, [pg 027] not dead.
They are like the Titans [On this similarity rests the psychologic term
“titanic,” used frequently by me in what follows.] which were not crushed

by the gods of Olympus, but only shut up in the depths of Tartarus. There
they wait for the time when they can again arise and show their faces in
daylight. The earth trembles at their attempts to free themselves. Thus the
titanic forces of the soul strive powerfully upward. And as they may not live
in the light of consciousness they rave in darkness. They take the main part
in the procreation of dreams, produce in some cases hysterical symptoms,
compulsion ideas and acts, anxiety neuroses, etc. The examination of these
psychic disturbances is not without importance for our later researches.

Psychoanalysis, which has not at any time been limited to medical practice,
but soon began with its torch to illumine the activity of the human spirit in
all its forms (poetry, myth-making, etc.), was decried as pernicious in many
quarters. [The question as to how widely psychoanalysis may be employed
would at this time lead us too far, yet it will be considered in Sect. 1, of the
synthetic part of this volume.] Now it is indeed true that it leads us toward
all kinds of spiritual refuse. It does so, however, in the service of truth, and
it would be unfortunate to deny to truth its right to justify itself. Any one
determined to do so could in that case defend a theory that sexual maladies
are acquired by catching a cold.

[pg 028]
The spiritual refuse that psychoanalysis uncovers is like the manure on
which our cultivated fruits thrive. The dark titanic impulses are the raw
material from which in every man, the work of civilization forms an ethical
character. Where there is a strong light there are deep shadows. Should we
be so insincere as to deny, because of supposed danger, the shadows in our
inmost selves? Do we not diminish the light by so doing? Morality, in
whose name we are so scrupulous, demands above everything else, truth
and sincerity. But the beginning of all truth is that we do not impose upon
ourselves. “Know thyself” is written over the entrance of the Pythian
sanctuary. And it is this inspiring summons of the radiant god of Delphi that
psychoanalysis seeks to meet.

After this introductory notice, it will be possible properly to understand the
following instructive example, which contains exquisite sexual symbolism.

Dream of Mr. T. “I dreamed I was riding on the railroad. Near me sat a
delicate, effeminate young man or boy; his presence caused erotic feelings

in me to a certain extent. (It appeared as if I put my arm about him.) The
train came to a standstill; we had arrived at a station and got out. I went
with the boy into a valley through which ran a small brook, on whose bank
were strawberries. We picked a great many. After I had gathered a large
number I returned to the railway and awoke.”

[pg 029]
Supplementary communication. “I think I remember that an uncomfortable
feeling came over me in the boy's company. The valley branched off to the
left from the railway.”

From a discussion of the dream it next appeared that T., who, as far as I
knew, entertained a pronounced aversion to homosexuality, had read a short
time before a detailed account of a notorious trial then going on in
Germany, that was concerned with real homosexual actions. [In
consciousness, of course. In the suppressed depths of unconsciousness the
infantile homosexual component also will surely be found.] An incident
from it, probably supported by some unconscious impulse, crowded its way
into the dream as an erotic wish, hence the affectionate scene in the railway
train. So far the matter would be intelligible even if in an erotic day dream
the image of a boy, considering the existing sexual tendency of T., had been
resolutely rejected by him. How are the other processes in the dream related
to it? Do they not at first sight appear unconnected or meaningless?

And yet in them are manifested the fulfillment of the wish implied in the
erotic excitement in the company of the boy. The homosexual action of this
wish fulfillment would have been insufferable to the dream censor; it must
be intimated symbolically. And the remainder of the dream is accordingly
nothing but a dextrous veiling of a procedure hostile to the censor.

[pg 030]
Even that the train comes to a standstill is a polite paraphrase. [Paraphrase
as the dreamer communicated to me, of an actual physical condition—an
erection.] Similar meaning is conveyed by the word station, which reminds
us of the Latin word status (from stare, to stand). The scene in the car
recalls moreover the joke in a story which often used to occur to T. “A lady
invited to a reception, where there were also young girls, a Hungarian
[accentuated now, on account of what follows] (the typical Vienna joker),

who is feared on account of his racy wit. She enjoined him at the same time,
in view of the presence of the girls, not to treat them to any of his spicy
jests. The Hungarian agreed and appeared at the party. To the amazement of
the lady, he proposed the following riddle: ‘'One can enter from in front, or
from behind, only one has to stand up.’ Observing the despair of the lady,
he, with a sly, innocent look, said, ‘But well then, what is it? Simply a
trolley car.’ Next day the daughter of the house appeared before her
schoolmates in the high school with the following:‘'Girls, I heard a great
joke yesterday; one can go in from in front or behind, only one must be
stiff.’ ” [A neat contribution, by the way, to the psychology of innocent
girlhood.] The anecdote was related to T. by a man later known to him as a
homosexual. T. had been with few Hungarians, but with these few,
homosexuality had been, as it happened, a favorite subject of conversation.

In the above we find many highly suggestive elements. [pg 031] The most
suggestive is, however, the strawberries. T. had, as appeared during the
process of the analysis, a couple of days before the dream read a French
story where the expression (new to him) cueillir des fraises occurred. He
went to a Frenchman for the explanation of this phrase and learned that it
was a delicate way of speaking of the sexual act, because lovers like to go
into the woods under the pretext of picking strawberries, and thus separate
themselves from the rest of the company. In whatever way the dream wish
conceived its gratification, the valley (between the two hills!) through
which the brook flowed furnishes a quite definite suggestion. Here also the
above mentioned “from behind” probably gets a meaning.

The circumstance that the dream has, as it were, two faces, with one that it
openly exposes to view, implies that a distinction must be made between the
manifest and the latent material. The openly exposed face is the manifest
dream content (as the wording of the dream report represents the dream);
what is concealed is the latent dream thoughts. For the most part a broad
tissue of dream thoughts is condensed into a dream. A part of the dream
thoughts (not all) belongs regularly to the titanic elements of our psyche.
The shaping of the dream out of the dream thoughts is called by Freud the
dream work. Four principles direct it, Condensation, Displacement,
Representability, and Secondary Elaboration.

[pg 032]
Condensation was just now mentioned. Many dream thoughts are
condensed to relatively few, but therefore all the more significant, images.
Every image (person, object, etc.) is wont to be “determined” by several
dream thoughts. Hence we speak of multiple determination or
“Overdetermination.”

Displacement shows itself in the fact that the dream (evidently in the
service of distortion) pushes forward the unreal and pushes aside the real; in
short, rearranges the psychic values (interest) in such a way that the dream
in comparison with its latent thoughts appears as it were displaced or
“elsewhere centered.”

As the dream is a perceptual representation it must put into perceptually
comprehensible form everything that it wants to express, even that which is
most abstract. The tendency to vividly perceptual or plastic expression that
is characteristic of the dream, corresponds accordingly to the
Representability.

To the Secondary Elaboration we have to credit the last polishing of the
dream fabric. It looks after the logical connection in the pictorial material,
which is created by the displacing dream work. “This function (i.e., the
secondary elaboration) proceeds after the manner which the poet
maliciously ascribes to the philosopher; with its shreds and patches it stops
the gaps in the structure of the dream. The result of its effort is that the
dream loses its appearance of absurdity and disconnectedness [pg 033] and
approaches the standard of a comprehensible experience. But the effort is
not always crowned with complete success.” (Freud, “Traumdeutung,” p.
330.) The secondary elaboration can be compared also to the erection of a
façade.

Of the entire dreamwork Freud says (“Traumdeutung,” p. 338)
comprehensively that it is “not merely more careless, more incorrect, more
easily forgotten or more fragmentary than waking thought; it is something
qualitatively quite different and therefore not in the least comparable with
it. It does not, in fact, think, reckon, or judge, but limits itself to remodeling.
It may be exhaustively described if we keep in view the conditions which
its productions have to satisfy. These productions, the dream, will have first

of all to avoid the censor, and for this purpose the dream work resorts to
displacement of psychic intensities even to the point of changing all psychic
values; thoughts must be exclusively or predominantly given in the material
of visual and auditory memory images, and from this grows that demand for
representability which it answers with new displacements. Greater
intensities must apparently be attained here, than are at its disposal in dream
thoughts at night, and this purpose is served by the extreme condensation
which affects the elements of the dream thoughts. There is little regard for
the logical relations of the thought material; they find finally an indirect
representation in formal peculiarities of dreams. The affects of dream
thoughts suffer slighter changes than their image [pg 034] content. They are
usually repressed. Where they are retained they are detached from images
and grouped according to their similarity.”

Briefly to express the nature of the dream, Stekel gives in one place
(“Sprache des Traumes,” p. 107) this concise characterization: “The dream
is a play of images in the service of the affects.”

A nearly exact formula for the dream has been contributed by Freud and
Rank, “On the foundation and with the help of repressed infantile sexual
material, the dream regularly represents as fulfilled actual wishes and
usually also erotic wishes in disguised and symbolically veiled form.” (Jb.;
ps. F., p. 519, and Trdtg., p. 117.) In this formula the wish fulfillment,
following Freud's view, is preponderant, yet it would appear to me that it is
given too exclusive a rôle in the (chiefly affective) background of the
dream. An important point is the infantile in the dream, in which connection
we must mention the Regression.

Regression is a kind of psychic retrogression that takes place in manifold
ways in the dream (and related psychic events). The dream reaches back
towards infantile memories and wishes. [Sometimes this is already
recognizable in the manifest dream content. Usually, however, it is first
disclosed by psychoanalysis. Strongly repressed, and therefore difficult of
access, is this infantile sexual material. On the infantile forms of sexuality,
see Freud, “Three Contributions to Sexual Theory.”] It reaches back also
from the complicated and completed [pg 035] to a more primitive function,
from abstract thought to perceptual images, from practical activity to

hallucinatory wish fulfillment. [The latter with especial significance in the
convenience dreams. We fall asleep, for instance, when thirsty, then instead
of reaching for the glass of water, we dream of the drink.] The dreamer thus
approaches his own childhood, as he does likewise the childhood of the
human race, by reaching back for the more primitive perceptual mode of
thought. [On the second kind of regression the Zurich psychiatrist, C. G.
Jung, has made extraordinary interesting revelations. His writings will
further occupy our attention later.]

Nietzsche writes (“Menschliches, Allzumenschliches”), “In sleep and in
dreams we pass through the entire curriculum of primitive mankind.... I
mean as even to-day we think in dreams, mankind thought in waking life
through many thousand years; the first cause that struck his spirit in order to
explain anything that needed explanation satisfied him and passed as truth.
In dreams this piece of ancient humanity works on in us, for it is the germ
from which the higher reason developed and in every man still develops.
The dream takes us back into remote conditions of human culture and puts
in our hand the means of understanding it better. The dream thought is now
so easy because, during the enormous duration of the evolution of mankind
we have been so well trained in just this form of cheap, phantastic
explanation by the first agreeable fancy. [pg 036] In that respect the dream
is a means of recovery for the brain, which by day has to satisfy the
strenuous demands of thought required by the higher culture.” (Works, Vol.
II, pp. 27 ff.)

If we remember that the explanation of nature and the philosophizing of
unschooled humanity is consummated in the form of myths, we can deduce
from the preceding an analogy between myth making and dreaming. This
analogy is much further developed by psychoanalysis. Freud blazes a path
with the following words: “The research into these concepts of folk
psychology [myths, sagas, fairy stories] is at present not by any means
concluded, but it is apparent everywhere from myths, for instance, that they
correspond to the displaced residues of wish phantasies of entire nations,
the dreams of ages of young humanity.” (Samml. kl. Lehr. II, p. 205.) It will
be shown later that fairy stories and myths can actually be subjected to the
same psychologic interpretation as dreams, that for the most part they rest

on the same psychological motives (suppressed wishes, that are common to
all men) and that they show a similar structure to that of dreams.

Abraham (Traum und Mythus)1 has gone farther in developing the
parallelism of dream and myth. For him the myth is the dream of a people
and a dream is the myth of the individual. He says, e.g., “The dream is
(according to Freud) a piece [pg 037] of superseded infantile, mental life”
and “the myth is a piece of superseded infantile, mental life of a people”;
also, “The dream then, is the myth of the individual.” Rank conceives the
myths as images intermediate between collective dreams and collective
poems. “For as in the individual the dream or poem is destined to draw off
unconscious emotions that are repressed in the course of the evolution of
civilization, so in mythical or religious phantasies a whole people liberates
itself for the maintenance of its psychic soundness from those primal
impulses that are refractory to culture (titanic), while at the same time it
creates, as it were, a collective symptom for taking up all repressed
emotion.” (Inz-Mot., p. 277. Cf. also Kunstl., p. 36.)

A definite group of such repressed primal impulses is given a prominent
place by psychoanalysis. I refer to the so-called Œdipus complex that plays
an important rôle in the dream life as also in myth and apparently, also in
creative poetry. The fables (sagas, dramas) of Œdipus, who slays his father
and marries his mother are well known. According to the observations of
psychoanalysis there is a bit of Œdipus in every one of us. [These Œdipus
elements in us can—as I must observe after reading Imago, January, 1913—
be called “titanic” in the narrower sense, following the lead of Lorenz. They
contain the motive for the separation of the child from the parents.] The
related conflicts, that in their entirety constitute the Œdipus complex
(almost always unconscious, because actively repressed) [pg 038] arise in
the disturbance of the relation to the parents which every child goes through
more or less in its first (and very early) sexual emotions. “If king Œdipus
can deeply affect modern mankind no less than the contemporary Greeks,
the explanation can lie only in the fact that the effect of the Greek tragedy
does not depend on the antithesis between fate and the human will, but in
the peculiarity of the material in which this antithesis is developed. There
must be a voice in our inner life which is ready to recognize the compelling
power of fate in the case of Œdipus, while we reject as arbitrary the

situations in the Ahnfrau or other destiny tragedies. And such an element is
indeed contained in the history of king Œdipus. His fate touches us only
because it might have been ours, because the oracle hung the same curse
over us before our birth as over him. For us all, probably, it is ordained that
we should direct our first sexual feelings towards our mothers, the first hate
and wish for violence against our fathers. Our dreams convince us of that.
King Œdipus, who has slain his father Laius and married his mother
Jocasta, is only the wish-fulfillment of our childhood. But more fortunate
than he, we have been able, unless we have become psychoneurotic, to
dissociate our sexual feelings from our mothers and forget our jealousy of
our fathers. From the person in whom that childish wish has been fulfilled
we recoil with the entire force of the repressions, that these wishes have
since that time suffered in our inner soul. While the poet [pg 039] in his
probing brings to light the guilt of Œdipus, he calls to our attention our own
inner life, in which that impulse, though repressed, is always present. The
antithesis with which the chorus leaves us

See, that is Œdipus,
Who solved the great riddle and was peerless in power,
Whose fortune the townspeople all extolled and envied.
See into what a terrible flood of mishap he has sunk.

This admonition hits us and our pride, we who have become in our own
estimation, since the years of childhood, so wise and so mighty. Like
Œdipus, we live in ignorance of the wishes that are so offensive to morality,
which nature has forced upon us, and after their disclosure we should all
like to turn away our gaze from the scenes of our childhood.” (Freud,
Trdtg., p. 190 f.)

Believing that I have by this time sufficiently prepared the reader who was
unfamiliar with psychoanalysis for the psychoanalytic part of my
investigation, I will dispense with further time-consuming explanations.

[pg 043]

Part II.

Analytic Part.

Section I.

Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of The Parable.

Although we know that the parable was written by a follower of the
hermetic art, and apparently for the purpose of instruction, we shall
proceed, with due consideration, to pass over the hermetic content of the
narrative, which will later be investigated, and regard it only as a play of
free fantasy. We shall endeavor to apply to the parable knowledge gained
from the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams, and we shall find that the
parable, as a creation of the imagination, shows at the very foundations the
same structure as dreams. I repeat emphatically that in this research, in
being guided merely by the psychoanalytic point of view, we are for the
time being proceeding in a decidedly one-sided manner.

In the interpretation of the parable we cannot apply the original method of
psychoanalysis. This consists in having a series of seances with the dreamer
in order to evoke the free associations. The dreamer of the parable—or
rather the author—has long ago departed this life. We are obliged then to
give up the preparatory process and [pg 044] stick to the methods derived
from them. There are three such methods.

The first is the comparison with typical dream images. It has been shown
that in the dreams of all individuals certain phases and types continually
recur, and in its symbolism have a far reaching general validity, because
they are manifestly built on universal human emotions. Their imaginative
expression is created according to a psychical law which remains fairly
unaffected by individual differences.

The second is the parallel from folk psychology. The inner affinity of dream
and myth implies that for the interpretation of individual creations of fancy,
parallels can profitably be drawn from the productions of the popular
imagination and vice versa.

The third is the conclusions from the peculiarities of structure of the dream
(myth, fairy tale) itself. In dreams and still more significantly in the more
widely cast works of the imagination creating in a dream-like manner, as
e.g., in myths and fairy tales, one generally finds motives that are several
times repeated in similar stories even though with variations and with
different degrees of distinctness. [Let this not be misunderstood. I do not
wish to revive the exploded notion that myths are merely the play of a fancy
that requires occupation. My position on the interpretation of myths will be
explained in Part I. of the synthetic part.] It is then possible by the
comparison of individual instances [pg 045] of a motive, to conclude
concerning its true character, inasmuch as one, as it were, completes in
accordance with their original tendency the lines of increasing distinctness
in the different examples, and thus—to continue the geometric metaphor—
one obtains in their prolongations a point of intersection in which can be
recognized the goal of the process toward which the dream strives, a goal,
however, that is not found in the dream itself but only in the interpretation.

We shall employ the three methods of interpretation conjointly. After all we
shall proceed exactly as psychoanalysis does in interpretation of folk-lore.
For in this also there are no living authors that we can call and question. We
have succeeded well enough, however, with the derived methods. The lack
of an actual living person will be compensated for in a certain sense by the
ever living folk spirit and the infinite series of its manifestations (folk-lore,
etc.). The results of this research will help us naturally in the examination of
our parable, except in so far as I must treat some of the conclusions of
psychoanalysis with reserve as problematic.

Let us now turn to the parable. Let us follow the author, or as I shall call
him, the wanderer, into his forest, where he meets his extraordinary
adventures.

I have just used a figure, “Let us follow him into his forest.” This is worthy
of notice. I mean, of course, that we betake ourselves into his world of
imagination and live through his dreams with him. [pg 046] We leave the
paths of everyday life, in order to rove in the jungle of phantasy. If we
remember rightly, the wanderer used the same metaphor at the beginning of
his narrative. He comes upon a thicket in the woods, loses the usual path....

He, too, speaks figuratively. Have we almost unaware, in making his
symbolism our own, partially drawn away the veil from his mystery? It is a
fact confirmed by many observations [Cf. my works on threshold
symbolism—Schwellensymbolik, Jahrb. ps. F. III, p. 621 ff., IV, p. 675 ff.]
that in hypnagogic hallucinations (dreamy images before going to sleep),
besides all kinds of thought material, the state of going to sleep also
portrays itself in exactly the same way that in the close of a dream or
hypnotic illusions on awakening, the act of awakening is pictorially
presented. The symbolism of awakening brings indeed pictures of leave
taking, departing, opening of a door, sinking, going free out of a dark
surrounding, coming home, etc. The pictures for going to sleep are sinking,
entering into a room, a garden or a dark forest.

The fairy story also used the same forest symbol. Whether on sinking into
sleep I have the sensation of going into a dark forest or whether the hero of
the story goes into a forest (which to be sure has still other interpretations),
or whether the wanderer in the parable gets into a tangle of underbrush, all
amounts to the same thing; it is always the introduction into a life of
phantasy, the entrance into the theater of the dream. The wanderer, if he had
not [pg 047] chosen for his fairy tale the first person, could have begun as
follows: There was once a king whose greatest joy was in the chase. Once
as he was drawn with his companions into a great forest, and was pursuing
a fleet stag, he was separated from his followers, and went still further from
the familiar paths, so that finally he had to admit that he had lost his way.
Then he went farther and farther into the woods until he saw far off a
house....

The wanderer comes through the woods to the Pratum felicitatis, the
Meadow of Felicity, and there his adventures begin. Here, too, our
symbolism is maintained; by sleeping or the transition to revery we get into
the dream and fairy tale realm, a land to which the fulfillment of our
keenest wishes beckons us. The realm of fairy tales is indeed—and the
psychoanalyst can confirm this statement—a Pratum felicitatis, in spite of
all dangers and accidents which we have there to undergo.

The dream play begins and the interpretation, easy till now, becomes more
difficult. We shall hardly be able to proceed in strictly chronological order.

The understanding of the several phases of the narrative does not follow the
sequence of their events. Let us take it as it comes.

The wanderer becomes acquainted with the inhabitants of the Pratum
felicitatis, who are discussing learned topics, he becomes involved in the
scientific dispute, and is subjected to a severe test in order to be admitted to
the company. The admission thus does not occur without trouble but rather
[pg 048] a great obstacle is placed in the way of it. The wanderer tells us
that his examiners hauled him over the coals, an allegorical metaphor, taken
possibly from the ordeal by fire. In these difficulties the attaining of the end
meets us in the first instance in a series of analogous events, where the
wanderer sees himself hindered in his activities in a more or less painful,
and often even a dangerous manner. After a phase marked by anxiety the
adventure turns out uniformly well and some progress is made after the
obstruction at the beginning. As a first intimation of the coming experiences
we may take up the obstacles in the path in the first section of the parable,
which are successfully removed, inasmuch as the wanderer soon after
reaches the lovely region (Sec. 3).

The psychology of dreams has shown that obstacles in the dream
correspond to conflicts of will on the part of the dreamer, which is exactly
as in the morbid restraint of neurotics. Anxiety develops when a suppressed
impulse wishes to gratify itself, to which impulse another will, something
determined by our culture, is opposed prohibitively. Obstructed satisfaction
creates anxiety instead of pleasure. Anxiety may then be called also a libido
with a negative sign. Only when the impulse in question knows how to
break through without the painful conflict, can it attain pleasure—which is
the psychic (not indeed the biologic) tendency of every impulse emanating
from the depths of the soul. The degrees of the pleasure that thus exists in
the soul may [pg 049] be very different, even vanishingly small, a state of
affairs occurring if the wish fulfilling experience has through overgrowth of
symbolism lost almost all of its original form. If we follow the appearances
of the obstruction motive in the parable, and find the regular happy ending
already mentioned, then we can maintain it as a characteristic of the
phantasy product in question, that not only in its parts but also in the
movement of the entire action, it shows a tendency from anxiety towards
untroubled fulfillment of wishes.

As for the examination episode, to which we have now advanced in our
progressive study of the narrative, we can now take up a frequently
occurring dream type; the Examination Dream. Almost every one who has
to pass severe examinations, experiences even at subsequent times when the
high school or university examinations are far in the past, distressing
dreams filled with the anxiety that precedes an examination. Freud (Trdtg.,
p. 196 ff.) clearly says that this kind of dream is especially the indelible
memories of the punishments which we have suffered in childhood for
misdeeds and which make themselves felt again in our innermost souls at
the critical periods of our studies, at the Dies irae, dies ilia of the severe
examinations. After we have ceased to be pupils it is no longer as at first the
parents and governesses or later the teachers that take care of our
punishment. The inexorable causal nexus of life has taken over our further
education, and now we dream of the preliminaries [pg 050] or finals;
whenever we expect that the result will chastise us, because we have not
done our duty, or done something incorrectly, or whenever we feel the
pressure of responsibility. Stekel's experience is also to be noticed,
confirmed by the practice of other psychoanalysts, that graduation dreams
frequently occur if a test of sexual power is at hand. The double sense of the
word matura (= ripe) (that may also mean sexual maturity) may also come
to mind as the verbal connecting link for the association. In general the
examination dreams may be the expression of an anxiety about not doing
well or not being able to do well; in particular they are an expression of a
fear of impotence. It should be noted here that not only in the former but in
the latter case the fear has predominantly the force of a psychic obstruction.

For the interpretation of the examination scene also, we note the fairy tale
motif so frequently appearing of a hard-won prize, i.e., any story in which a
king or a potentate proposes a riddle or a task for the hero. If the hero solves
or accomplishes it, he generally wins, besides other precious possessions, a
woman or a princess, whom he marries. In the case of a heroine the prize is
a beautiful prince. The motif of the hard-won prize matches the later
appearance of obstacles in the Parable. The nature of the prize is, for the
present at any rate, a matter of indifference.

A second edition of the examination scene meets us in the 6th section as the
battle with the lion. [pg 051] The advance from the anxiety phase to the

fulfillment phase appears clearly and the emotions of the wanderer are more
strongly worked out. The difficulty at the beginning is indicated in the
preceding conversation where no one will advise him how he is to begin
with the beast, but all hold out guidance for a later time when he shall have
once bound the lion. The beginning of the fight causes the wanderer much
trouble. He “is amazed at his own temerity,” would gladly turn back from
his project, and he can “hardly restrain his tears for fear.” He fortifies
himself, however, develops brilliant abilities and comes off victor in the
fray. A gratification derived from his own ability is unmistakable. The
scene, as well as a variation of the preceding examination, adds to it some
essentially new details. The displacement of the early opponents (i.e., the
examining elders) by another (the lion) is not really new. It is a mere
compensation, although, as we shall see later, a very instructive one.
Entirely new is the result of the battle. After killing the lion the victor brings
to light white bones and red blood from his body. Note the antithesis, white
and red. It will occur again. If we think of saga and fairy lore parallels, the
dragon fight naturally comes to mind. The victorious hero has to free a
maiden who languishes in the possession of an ogre. The anatomizing of the
dead lion finds numerous analogies in those myths and fairy tales in which
dismemberment of the body appears. It will be dealt with fully later on.

[pg 052]
As the next obstacle in the parable we meet the difficult advance on the
wall. (Para. 7 and 8.) We have here again an obstruction to progress in the
narrower sense as in Sec. 1, but with several additions. The wall, itself a
type of embarrassment, reaches up to the clouds. Whoever goes up so high
may fall far. The way on top is “Not a foot in width” and an iron hand rail
occupies some of that space. The walking is therefore uncomfortable and
dangerous. The railing running in the middle of it divides the path and so
produces two paths, a right and a left. The right path is the more difficult.
Who would not in this situation think of Hercules at the cross roads? The
conception of right and left as right and wrong, good and bad, is familiar in
mythical and religious symbolism. That the right path is the narrower
[Matth. VII, 13, 14] or more full of thorns is naturally comprehensible. In
dreams the right-left symbolism is typical. It has here a meaning similar to
its use in religion, probably however, with the difference that it is used
principally with reference to sexual excitements of such a character that the

right signifies a permitted (i.e., experienced by the dreamer as permissible),
the left, an illicit sexual pleasure. Accordingly it is, e.g., characteristic in the
dream about strawberry picking in the preceding part of the book, that the
valley, sought by the dreamer and the boy, “in order to pick strawberries
there” turns off to the left from the road, not to the right. The sexual act
with a boy appears even in dreams as something illicit, indecent, [pg 053]
forbidden. In the parable the wanderer goes from right to left, gets into
difficulties by doing so, but knows, as always, how to withdraw
successfully.

From the wall the wanderer comes to a rose tree, from which he breaks off
white and red roses. Notice the white and red. The victory over the lion has
yielded him white bones and red blood, the passing through the dangers on
the wall now yields him white and red roses. The similarity in the latter case
is particularly marked by his putting them in his hat.

Again in the course of the next sections (9-11) there are obstacles. There a
wall is set up against the wanderer. On account of that he has, in order to
gain entrance for the maidens into the company in the garden, to go a long
way round. Arriving at the door, he finds it locked and is afraid that the
people standing about will prevent his entrance or laugh at him. But the first
difficulty is barely removed, by the magic opening of the first gate, when
the now familiar change from the anxiety phase to the fulfillment phase
occurs. The wanderer traverses the corridor without trouble but his eyes
glance ahead of him and he sees through the still closed door, as if it were
glass, into the garden. What result has this success over the difficulties
yielded him? Where is the usual white and red reward? We do not have to
look long. In Sec. 11 it is recorded, “When I had passed beyond the little
garden [in the center of the larger garden] and was [pg 054] going to the
place where I was to help the maidens, behold, I was aware that instead of
the wall, a low hurdle stood there, and there went by the rose garden, the
most beautiful maiden arrayed in white satin with the most stately youth
who was in scarlet, each giving arm to the other, and carrying in their hands
many fragrant roses. ‘This, my dearest bridegroom,’ said she, ‘has helped
me over and we are now going out of this lovely garden into our chamber to
enjoy the pleasures of love.’ ” Here the parallel with the fairy tale is
complete, and reveals the characteristic of the prize that rewards him. The

red and the white reveal themselves as man and woman, and the last aim is,
as the just quoted passage clearly shows, and the further course of the
narrative fully indicates, the sexual union of both. Even the rest of the fairy
tale prizes are not lacking—kingdoms, riches, happiness. And if they are
not dead they are still living.... The narrative has yielded a complete
fulfillment of wishes; the longing for love and power has attained its end.
That the wanderer does not experience the acquired happiness immediately
in his own person, but that the representation of happy love is in the most
illustrative manner developed in the union of two other persons, is naturally
a peculiarity of the narration. It is found often enough in dreams. The ego of
the dreamer is in such a case replaced by a “split-off” person, through
whom the dream evokes its dramatic pageantry. It is as if the parable tried
to say the hero has won his happy love through struggle; [pg 055] two are,
however, needful for love, a man and a woman, so let us quickly create a
pair. Apart from the fact that the reward must evidently fall to the hero who
has won it, the identity of the wanderer with the king in the parable is
abundantly demonstrated, even if somewhat paraphrased. The secret of the
dramatizing craft of the narrative is most clearly exposed in the conclusion
of Sec. 11, where the elders, with the letter of the faculty in their hands,
reveal to the wanderer that he must marry the woman he has taken, which
he furthermore cheerfully promises them to do.

So far all would be regular and we might think, on superficial examination,
that the psychoanalytic solution of the parable was ended. How far from
being the case! We have interpreted only the upper stratum and will see a
problem show itself that invites us to press on into the deeper layers of the
phantasy fabric before us.

We have noticed that in the parable much, even the most important, is
communicated only by symbols and by means of allusions. Its previously
ascertained latent content [corresponding to the latent dream thoughts] will
in the manifest form be transcribed in different and gradually diminishing
disguises. Also a displacement (dream displacement) has taken place. Now
the dream or the imagination working in dreams does nothing without
purpose and even though according to its nature (out of “regard for
presentability”) it has to favor the visual in all cases, the tendency toward
the pictorial [pg 056] does not explain such a systematic series of disguises

and such a determinate tendency as that just observed by us. The
representation of the union of man and woman is strikingly paraphrased.
First as blood and bones—a type of intimate vital connection; they belong
to one body, just as two lovers are one and as later the bridal pair also melt
into one body. Then as two kinds of roses that bloom on one bush. The
wanderer breaks the rose as the boy does the wild rose maiden. And hardly
is the veil of the previous disguise lifted, hardly have we learned that the
wanderer has taken a woman (Sec. 11), when the affair is again hushed just
as it is about to be dramatized (cf. Sec. 12), so that apparently another
enjoys the pleasures of love. This consequent concealment must have a
reason. Let us not forget the striking obstacles which the wanderer
experiences again and again and which we have not yet thoroughly
examined. The symbolism of the dream tells us that such obstacles
correspond to conflicts of the will. What kind of inner resistance may it be
that checks the wanderer at every step on his way to happy love? We
suspect that the examinations have an ethical flavor. This appears to some
extent in the right-left symbolism; then in the experience at the mill, which
we have not yet studied, where the wanderer has to pass over a very narrow
plank, the ethical symbolism of which will be discussed later; and in the
striking feeling of responsibility which the wanderer has for the actions of
the bridal pair in the crystal prison, which [pg 057] gives us the impression
that he had a bad conscience. Altogether we cannot doubt that the dream—
the parable—has endeavored, because of the censor, to disguise the sexual
experiences of the wanderer. We can be quite certain that it will be said that
the sexual as such will be forbidden by the censor. That is, however, not the
case. The account is outspoken enough, and not the least prudish; the bridal
pair embrace each other naked, penetrate each other and dissolve in love,
melt in rapture and pain. Who could ask more? Therefore the sexual act
itself could not have been offensive to the censor. The whole machinery of
scrupulousness, concealment and deterrent objects, which stand like
dreadful watchmen before the doors of forbidden rooms, cannot on the
other hand be causeless. So the question arises: What is it that the dream
censor in the most varied forms [lion, dangerous paths, etc.] has so sternly
vetoed?

In the strawberry dream related in the preceding section, we have seen that
a paraphrase of the latent dream content appears at the moment when a

form of sexual intercourse, forbidden to the dreamer by the dream censor,
was to be consummated. (Homosexual intercourse.) Most probably in the
parable also there is some form of sexuality rejected by the censor. What
may it be? Nothing indicates a homosexual desire. We shall have to look for
another erotic tendency that departs from the normal. From several
indications we might settle upon exhibitionism. This is, as are almost all
abnormal [pg 058] erotic tendencies, also an element of our normal
psychosexual constitution, but it is, if occurring too prominently, a
perversity against which the censor directs his attacks. The incidents of the
parable that indicate exhibitionism are those where the wanderer sees,
through locked doors (Sec. 10) or walls (Sec. 11), objects that can be
interpreted as sexual symbols. The miraculous sight corresponds to a
transferred wish fulfillment. The supposition that exhibitionism is the
forbidden erotic impulse element that we were looking for is, however,
groundless, if we recollect that these very elements appear most openly in
the parable. In Sec. 14 the wanderer has the freest opportunity to do as he
likes. Still the question arises, what is the prohibited tendency? No very
great constructive ability is required to deduce the answer. The wording of
the parable itself furnishes the information. In Sec. 14 we read, “Now I do
not know what sin these two have committed except that although they
were brother and sister they were so united in love that they could not again
be separated and so, as it were, required to be punished for incest.” And in
another passage (Sec. 13), “After our bridegroom ... with his dearest bride
... came to the age of marriage, they both copulated at once and I wondered
not a little that this maiden, that yet was supposed to be the bridegroom's
mother, was still so young.”

The sexual propensity forbidden by the censor is incest. That it can be
mentioned in the parable in spite of the censor is accounted for by the
exceedingly [pg 059] clever and unsuspected bringing about of the
suggestion. Dreams are very adroit in this respect, and the same cleverness
(apparently unconscious on the part of the author) is found in the parable,
which is in every way analogous to the dream. Incest can be explicitly
mentioned, because it is attributed to persons that have apparently nothing
to do with the wanderer. That the king in the crystal prison is none other
than the wanderer himself, we indeed know, thanks to our critical analysis.
The dreamer of the dream does not know it. For him the king is a different

person, who is alone responsible for his actions; although in spite of the
clear disguise, some feeling of responsibility still overshadows the
wanderer, a peculiar feeling that has struck us before, and now is explained.

Later we shall see that from the beginning of the parable, incest symbols are
in evidence. Darkly hinted at first they are later somewhat more transparent,
and in the very moment when they remove the last veil and attain a
significance intolerable for the censor, exactly at that psychologic moment
the forbidden action is transferred to the other, apparently strange, person.

A similar process, of course, is the change of situation in the strawberry
dream at the exact moment when the affair begins to seem unpleasant to the
dreamer. This becoming unpleasant can be beautifully followed out in the
parable. The critical transition is found exactly in one of those places where
the representation appears most confused. [pg 060] It is in this way that the
weakest points of the dream surface are usually constituted. Those are the
places where the outer covering is threadbare and exposes a nakedness to
the view of the analyzer.

The critical phase of the parable begins in the 11th section. The elders
consult over a letter from the faculty. The wanderer notices that the contents
concern him and asks, “Gentlemen, does it have to do with me?” They
answer, “Yes, you must marry your woman that you have recently taken.”
Wanderer: “That is no trouble; for I was, so to speak, born [how subtle!]
with her and brought up from childhood with her.” Now the secret of the
incest is almost divulged. But it is at once effectually retracted. In Sec. 12
we read, “So my previous trouble and toil fell upon me and I bethought
myself that from strange causes [these strange causes are the dream censor
who, ruling in the unconscious, effects the displacements that follow], it
cannot concern me but another that is well known to me [in truth a well-
known other]. Then I see our bridegroom with his bride in the previous
attire going to that place ready and prepared for copulation and I was highly
delighted with it. For I was in great anxiety lest the affair should concern
me.” The anxiety is quite comprehensible. It is just on account of its
appearance that the displacement from the wanderer to the other person
takes place. Further in Sec. 13: “Now after ... our bridegroom ... with his
dearest bride ... came to the age of marriage [The aim with which the [pg

061] censor performs his duties and effects the dream displacement is, says
Freud (Trdtg., p. 193), ‘to prevent the development of anxiety or other form
of painful affect’.] they both copulated ... and I wondered not a little that
this maiden, that was supposed to be actually the mother of the bridegroom,
was still so young....” Now when the transfer has taken place, the thought of
its being the mother is hazarded; whereas formerly a mere suggestion of a
sister had been offered. Section 14 explicitly mentions incest and even
arranges the punishment of the guilt. In this form the matter can, of course,
be contemplated without troubling the conscience or being further
represented pictorially.

The sister, alternating in the narrative with the mother, is only a preliminary
to the latter. As we find that the Œdipus complex [Rather an attenuation,
which occurs frequently, not merely in dream psychology, but also in
modern mythology.] is revived in the parable, let us bring the latter into still
closer relation with the fairy tales and myths to which we have compared it.
The woman sought and battled for by the hero appears, in its deeper
psychological meaning, always to be the mother. The significance of the
incest motive has been discovered on the one hand by the psychoanalysts
(in particular Rank, who has worked over extensive material), on the other
by the investigators of myths. That many modern mythologists lay most
stress in this discovery upon the astral or meteorological content and do not
draw the psychological conclusions [pg 062] is another matter that will be
discussed later. But in passing it may be noted that the correspondence in
the discovered material (motives) is the more remarkable as it resulted from
working in the direction of quite different purposes.

It is now time to examine the details of the parable in conformity with the
main theme just stated and come to a definite interpretation. Henceforward
we may keep to a chronological order.

The threshold symbolism in the beginning of the parable has already been
given, also the obstacles that are indicative of a psychic conflict. We might
rest satisfied with that, yet a more complete interpretation is quite possible,
in which particular images are shown to be overdetermined. The way is
narrow, overgrown with bushes, and leads to the Pratum felicitatis. That,
according to a typical dream symbolism, is also a part of the female body.

The obstacles in the way we recognize as a recoil from or impediment to
incest; so it is evident that a definite female body, namely that of the
mother, is meant. The penetration leads to the Pratum felicitatis, to blissful
enjoyment. In fairy lore the sojourn in the forest generally signifies death or
the life in the underworld. Wilhelm Muller, for example, writes, “As
symbols of similar significance we have the transformation into swans or
other birds, into flowers, the exposure in the forest, the life in the glass
mountain, in a castle, in the woods.... All imply death and life in the
underworld.” The underworld is, when regarded mythologically, [pg 063]
not only the land where the dead go, but also whence the living have come;
thence for the individual, and in particular for our wanderer, the uterus of
the mother. It is significant that the wanderer, as he strolls along, ponders
over the fall of our first parents and laments it. The fall of the parents was a
sexual sin. That it was incest besides, will be considered later. The son who
sees in his father his rival for his mother is sorry that the parents belong to
each other. A sexual offense (incest) caused the loss of paradise. The
wanderer enters the paradise, the Pratum felicitatis. [Garden of Joy, Garden
of Peace, Mountain of Joy, etc., are names of paradise. Now it is
particularly noteworthy that the same words can signify the beloved.
(Grimm, D. Mythol., II, pp. 684 ff., Chap. XXV, 781 f.)] The path thither is
not too rough for him (Sec. 2).

In Sec. 3 the wanderer enters his paradise (incest). He finds in the father an
obstacle to his relation with the mother. The elders (splitting of the person
of the father) will not admit him, forbid his entrance into the college. He
himself, the youth is already among them. The younger man, whose name
he knows without seeing his face, is himself. He puts himself in the place of
his father. (The other young man with the black pointed beard may be an
allusion to a quite definite person, intended for a small circle of readers of
the parable, contemporaries of the author. Either the devil or death may be
meant, yet I cannot substantiate this conjecture.)

[pg 064]
In the fourth section the examinations begin. First the examination in the
narrower sense of the word. The paternal atmosphere of every examination
has already been emphasized in the passage from Freud quoted above.
Every examination, every exercise is associated with early impressions of

parental commands and punishments. Later (in the treatment of the lion) the
wanderer will turn out to be the questioner, whereas now the elders are the
questioners. In the relation between parent and child questions play a part
that is important from a psychological point of view. Amazingly early the
curiosity of the child turns toward sexual matters. His desire to know things
is centered about the question as to where babies come from. The
uncommunicativeness of the parents causes a temporary suppression of the
great question, which does not, however, cease to arouse his intense desire
for explanation. The dodging of the issue produces further a characteristic
loss of trust on the part of the child, an ironic questioning, or a feeling that
he knows better. The knowing better than the questioning father we see in
the wanderer. The tables are turned. Instead of the child desiring (sexual)
explanation from the parents, the father must learn from the child
(fulfillment of the wish to be himself the father, as above). The elders are
acquainted only with figurative language (“Similitudines,” “Figmenta,”
etc.); but the wanderer is well informed in practical life, in experience [pg
065] he is an adept. As a fact, parents in their indefiniteness about the
question, Where do babies come from? give a figurative answer (however
appropriate it may be as a figure of speech) in saying that the stork brings
them, while the child expects clear information (from experience). On the
propriety of the picturesque information that the stork brings the babies out
of the water we may note incidentally the following observations of
Kleinpaul. The fountain is the mother's womb, and the red-legged stork that
brings the babies is none other than a humorous figure for the organ
(phallus) with the long neck like a goose or a stork, that actually gets the
little babies out of the mother's body. We understand also that the stork has
bitten Mamma in the “leg.”

We have become acquainted above with the fear of impotence as one
significance of the anxiety about examinations. Psychosexual obstructions
cause impotence. The incest scruple is such an obstruction.

According to Laistner we can conceive the painful examination as a
question torture—a typical experience of the hero in countless myths.
Laistner, starting from this central motive, traces the majority of myths back
to the incubus dream. The solution of the tormenting riddle, the magic word
that banishes the ghost, is the cry of awakening, by which the sleeper is

freed from the oppressing dream, the incubus. The prototype of the
tormenting riddle propounder is, according to Laistner, the Sphinx. Sphinx,
dragon, giants, man eaters, etc., are analogous [pg 066] figures in myths.
They are what afflict the heroes, and what he has to battle with. The
corresponding figure in our parable is the lion.

Although the wanderer has brilliantly stood the test, the elders (Sec. 5) do
not admit him into their college (the motive of denial recurs later); but enter
him for the battle with the lion. This is surely a personification of the same
obstructions as the elders themselves. In them we have, so to speak, before
us the dragon (to be subdued) in a plural form. Analogous multiplying of
the dragon is found, for example, in Stucken [in the astral myth]. Typical
dragon fighters are Jason, Joshua, Samson, Indra; and their dragon enemies
are multitudes like the armed men from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by
Jason, the Amorites for Joshua, the Philistines in the case of Samson, the
Dasas in that of Indra. We know that for the wanderer the assemblage of
elders is to be conceived chiefly as the father, and the same is true now of
the lion (king of animals, royal beast, also in hermetic sense) who has as
lion been already appropriated to the father symbol. Kaiser, king, giants,
etc., are wont in dreams to represent the father. Accordingly large animals,
especially wild beasts or beasts of prey, are accustomed to appear in dreams
with this significance.

Stekel [Spr. Tr.] contributes the following dream of the patient Omicron: “I
was at home. My family had preserved a dead bear. His head was of wood
and out of his belly grew a mighty tree, [pg 067] which looked very old.
Around the animal's neck was a chain. I pulled at it, and afterwards was
afraid that I had possibly choked him, in spite of the fact that he was long
dead.”

And the following interpretation of it derived through analysis: “The bear is
a growler, i.e., his father, who has told him many a lie about the genesis of
babies. He reviles him for it. He was a blockhead, he had a wooden head.
The mighty tree is the phallus. The chain is marriage. He was a henpecked
husband, a tamed bear. Mother held him by the chain. This chain (the bond
? of marriage) Omicron desired to sunder. (Incest thoughts.) When the
father died Omicron held his hand over his father's mouth to find out

whether he was still breathing. Then he was pursued by compulsive ideas,
that he had killed his father. In dreams the same reproaches appear. We
realize how powerful his murder impulses were. His reproaches are
justified. For he had countless death wishes that were centered about that
most precious life.”

A girl not yet six years old told her mother the following dream:

“We went together, there we saw a camel on a rock, and you climbed up the
cliff. The camel wanted to keep slobbering you, but you wouldn't let him,
and said, ‘I'd like to do it, but if you are like this, I won't do it.’ ”

After the telling of the dream the mother asked the girl if she could imagine
what the camel signified [pg 068] in the dream, and she immediately
replied: “Papa, because he has to drag along and worry himself like a
camel. You know, Mamma, when he wants to slobber you it is as if he said
to you in camel talk, ‘Please play with me. I will marry you; I won't let you
go away.’ The rocks on which you are were steep, the path was quite clear,
but the railing was very dirty and there was a deep abyss, and a man slipped
over the railing into the abyss. I don't know whether it was Uncle or Papa.”

Stekel remarks on this: “The neurotic child understands the whole conflict
of the parents. The mother refused the father coitus. In this she will not
‘play’ with the camel. The camel wants to ‘marry’ her. It is quite puzzling
how the child knows that Mamma has long entertained thoughts of
separation.... Children evidently observe much more sharply and exactly
than we have yet suspected. The conclusion of the dream is a quite
transparent symbolism of coitus. But the dream thoughts go deeper yet. A
man falls into an abyss. The father goes on little mountain expeditions.
Does the child wish that the father may fall? The father treats the child
badly and occasionally strikes her unjustly. At all events it is to be noted
that the little puss says to her mother, ‘Mamma, isn't it true that when Papa
dies you will marry Dr. Stekel?’ Another time she chattered, ‘You know,
Mamma, Dr. N. is nicer than Papa; he would suit you much better.’ Also the
antithesis of clean and [pg 069] dirty, that later plays such an important part
in the psychic life of neurotics, is here indicated.”

Not only the camel but also the railing and the abyss are interesting in
relation to Sec. 7 and 8 of the parable, where occurs the perilous wall with
the railing. People fall down there. There is evidently here an intimate
primitive symbolism (for the child also). But I will not anticipate.

It is not necessary to add anything to the bear dream. It is quite clear. Only
one point must be noticed, that the subsequent concern about the dead is to
be met in the parable, though not on the wanderer's part but on that of the
elders who desire the reviving of the lion.

The wanderer describes the lion (Sec. 6) as “old, fierce and large.” (The
growling bear of the dream.) The glance of his eye is the impressively
reproachful look of the father.

The wanderer conquers the lion and “dissects” him. Red blood, white
bones, come to view, male and female; the appearance of the two elements
is, at any rate overdetermined in meaning as it signifies on the one hand the
separation of a pair, father and mother, originally united as one body; and
on the other hand the liberation of sexuality in the mind of the wanderer
(winning of the mother or of the dragon-guarded maiden).

We ought not to explain the figures of the lion and the elders as “the father.”
Such exalted figures are usually condensations or composite persons. [pg
070] The elders are not merely the father, but also the old, or the older ones
= parents in general, in so far as they are severe and unapproachable.
Apparently the mother also will prove unapproachable if the adult son
desires her as a wife. [The male child, on the other hand, frequently has
erotic experiences with the mother. The parents connive at these, because
they do not understand the significance even of their own caresses. They
generally do not know how to fix the limits between moderation and
excess.] The wanderer has no luck with blandishments in the case of the
lion. He begins indeed to fondle him (cf. Sec. 6), but the lion looks at him
formidably with his bright, shining eyes. He is not obliging; the wanderer
has to struggle with him. Offering violence to the mother often appears in
myths. We shall have an example of this later. It is characteristic that the
wanderer is amazed at his own audacity.

Dragon fighting, dismembering, incest, separation of parents, and still other
motives have an intimate connection in mythology. I refer to the
comparison of motives collected by Stucken from an imposing array of
material. [I quote an excerpt from it at the end of this volume, Note A.] The
motive of dismemberment has great significance for the subsequent
working out of my theme, so I must for that reason delay a little longer at
this point.

The parts resulting from the dismemberment have a sexual or procreative
value. That is evident from the analysis of the parable, even without the
support [pg 071] of mythological parallels. None the less let it be noticed
that many cosmogonies assign the origin of the universe or at least the
world or its life to the disintegrated parts of the body of a great animal or
giant. In the younger Edda the dismemberment of the giant Ymir is
recounted.

“From Ymir's flesh was the earth created,
From his sweat the sea,
From his skeleton the mountains, the trees from his hair,
From his skull the heavens,
From his eyebrows kindly Äses made
Mitgard, the son of man.
But from his brain were created all the ill-tempered clouds.”

The Iranian myth has an ancestor bull, Abudad. “From his left side goes
Goschorum, his soul, and rises to the starry heavens; from his right side
came forth Kajomorts (Gâyômard), the first man. Of his seed the earth took
a third, but the moon two thirds. From his horns grew the fruits, from his
nose, leeks, from his blood, grapes, from his tail, five and twenty kinds of
grain. From his purified seed two new bulls were formed, from which all
animals are descended.” Just as in the Iranian myth the original being,
Gâyômard, considered as human, and the ancestor bull belong together, so
we find in the northern myth a cow Audhumla associated with Ymir. Ymir
is to be regarded as androgynous (man and woman), the primitive cow as
only a doubling of his being. The Iranian primitive bull ancestor also occurs
as cow. Compare white and red, male and female, in the body of the lion.

[pg 072]
In the Indian Asvamedha the parts of the sacrificed steed correspond to the
elements of the visible creation. (Cf. Brhadaranyaka—Upanisad I, i.) A
primitive vedic cosmogony makes the world arise from the parts of the
body of a giant. (Rig-veda purusa-sukta.)

Just as from the dead primordial being the sacrificed bull, Mithra, sprouts
life and vegetation, so in the dream of Omicron, a tree grows out of the
belly of the dead bear. In mythology many trees grow out of graves, that in
some way reincarnate the creative or life principle of the dead. It is an
interesting fact that the world, or especially an improved new edition of the
world, comes from the body of a dying being. Some one kills this being and
so causes an improved creation. (According to Stucken, incidentally, all
myths are creation myths.) This improvement is now identical,
psychologically, with the above mentioned superior knowledge of the son
(expressed in general terms, the present new generation as opposed to the
ancestors). The son does away with the father (the children overpower the
ancestors), and creates, as it were out of the wreckage, an improved world.
So, beside the superior knowledge, a superior efficiency. The primordial
beings are destroyed but not so the creative power (phallus, tree, the red and
the white). It passes on to posterity (son) which uses it in turn.

Dismemberments in creation myths are not always multiple but sometimes
dichotomous. Thus in the Babylonian cosmogony Marduk splits the
monster [pg 073] Tiamat into two pieces, which henceforth become the
upper and lower half of heaven. Winckler concludes that Tiamat is man-
woman (primal pair). This brings us to the type of creation saga where the
producer of the (improved) world separates the primal pair, his parents. The
Chinese creation myth speaks of the archaic Chaos as an effervescing water,
in which the two powers, Yang (heaven) and Yin (earth), the two primal
ancestors, are mingled and united. Pwanku, an offshoot of these primal
powers (son of the parents), separates them and thus they become manifest.
In the Egyptian myth we read (in Maspero, Histoire des Peuples de l'Orient,
Stucken, Astral Myth, p. 203): “The earth and the heaven were in the
beginning a pair of lovers lost in the Now who held each other in close
embrace, the god below the goddess. Now on the day of creation a new god
[son type], Shou, came out of the eternal waters, glided between them and

seizing Nouit [the goddess] with his hands, lifted her at arms' length above
his head. While the starry bust of the goddess was lengthened out in space,
the head to the west, the loins to the east, and became the sky, her feet and
her hands [as the four pillars of heaven] fell here and there on our earth.”
The young god or the son pushes his way between the parents, sunders their
union, just as the dreamer Omicron would have liked to sunder the chain of
the bear (the marriage bond of the parents). This case is quite as frequent a
type in analytic psychology as in mythical cosmology. The child is actually
[pg 074] an intruder, even if it does indirectly draw the bonds of marriage
tighter. Fundamentally regarded, the child appears as the rival of the father,
who is no longer the only beloved one of his wife. He must share the love
with the new comer, to whom an even greater tenderness is shown.
Regarded from the standpoint of the growing son, the intrusion represents
the Œdipus motive (with the incest wish).

The most outspoken and also a commonly occurring form of the
mythological separation of the primal pair is the castration of the father by
the son. The motive is, according to all accounts, psychologically quite as
comprehensible as the frequently substituted castration of the son by the
father. The latter is psychologically the necessary correlate of the first form.
The rivals, father and son, menace each other's sexual life. That the
castration motive works out that way with father and son (son-in-law if the
daughter takes the place of the mother) is expressed either in so many
words in the myth or through corresponding displacement types.

A clear case is the emasculation of Uranus by his son Kronos, who thereby
prevents the further cohabitation of the primal parents. [Archetype of the
Titan motive in a narrow sense.] Important for us is the fact that castration
in myths is represented sometimes as the tearing out of a limb or by
complete dismemberment. (Stucken, Astral Myth, pp. 436, 443, 479, 638
ff.; Rank, Incest Motive, p. 311 ff.)

[pg 075]
The Adam myth also contains the motive of the separated primal parents. In
Genesis we do not, of course, see the myth in its pure form. It must first be
rehabilitated. Stucken accomplishes this in regarding Adam and Eve
(Hawwa) as the original world-parent pair, and Jahwe Elohim as the

separating son god. By a comparison of Adam and Noah he incidentally
arrives by analogical reasoning at an emasculation of Adam. In connection
with the “motive of the sleeping primal father,” he observes later (Astral
Myth, p. 224) that the emasculation (or the shameless deed, Ham with
Noah) is executed while the primal father lies asleep. Thus, Kronos
emasculates Uranus by night while he is sleeping with Gaia. Stucken now
shows that the sleep motive is contained in the 2d chapter of Genesis. “And
the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he
took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof.” (II, 21.)
According to Stucken the rib stands euphemistically for the organ of
generation, which is cut off from Adam while he sleeps.

Rank works out another kind of rearrangement. He takes the creation of Eve
from Adam as an inversion. He refers to the ever recurring world-parent
myths of savage peoples, in which the son begets upon the mother a new
generation. He cites after Frobenius a story from Joruba, Africa, where the
son and daughter of the world parents marry and have a son, who falls in
love with his mother. As she refuses to yield to his passion he follows and
[pg 076] overpowers her. She immediately jumps up and runs away crying.
The son follows her to soothe her, and when he catches her she falls
sprawling on the earth, her body begins to swell, two streams of water
spring from her breasts and her body falls in pieces. Fifteen gods spring
from her disrupted body. [Motive of the mutilation of the maternal body.
The dismembered lion also naturally contains this motive. From the
mutilated body come male and female (red and white) children.] Rank
supposes that the biblical account of the world parents serves as a mask for
incest (and naturally at the same time the symbolic accomplishment of the
incest). He continues, “It is needed only that the infantile birth theory [Birth
from anus, navel, etc. The taking of the rib = birth process.] which ignores
the sexual organs in woman and applies to both sexes, be raised in the
child's thought to the next higher grade of knowledge, which ascribes to the
woman alone the ability to bring children into the world by the opening of
her body. In opposition to the biblical account we have the truly natural
process, according to which Adam came out of the opened body of Eve. If
by analogy with other traditions, we may take this as the original one, it is
clear that Adam has sexual intercourse with his mother, and that the
disguising of this shocking incest furnished the motive for the displacement

of the saga and for the symbolic representation of its contents.” The birth
from the side of the body, from the navel, from the anus, etc., are among
children [pg 077] common theories of birth. In myths analogous to the
biblical apple episode the man almost always offers the apple to the woman.
The biblical account is probably an inversion. The apple is an apple of love
and an impregnation symbol. Impregnation by food is also an infantile
procreation theory. For Rank, therefore, it is Adam who is guilty of
separating the primal parents [Jahwe and Hawwa] and of incest with the
mother. The contrast between the two preceding conceptions of the Adam
myth should not be carried beyond limits. That they can stand side by side
is the more conceivable because Genesis itself is welded together from
heterogeneous parts and different elaborations of the primal pair motive.
Displacements, inversions, and therefore apparent contradictions must
naturally lie in such a material. Moreover, the interpretation depends not so
much on the narrative of the discovered motives as on the motives
themselves. [On the interpretation of the mythological motives cf.
Lessmann, Aufg. u. Ziele, p. 12.]

Let us return now to the motive of dismemberment. One of the best known
examples of dismemberment in mythology is that of Osiris. Osiris and Isis,
the brother and sister, already violently in love with each other in their
mother's womb, as the myth recounts, copulated with the result that Arueris
was born of the unborn. So the two gods came into the world as already
married brother and sister. Osiris traversed the earth, bestowing benefits on
mankind. But he had a bad brother, full of jealousy and envy, [pg 078]
Typhon (Set), who would gladly have taken advantage of the absence of his
brother to place himself on his throne. Isis, who ruled during the absence of
Osiris, acted so vigorously and resolutely that all his evil designs were
frustrated. Finally Osiris returned and Typhon, with a number of
confederates (the number varies) and with the Ethiopian queen Aso, formed
a conspiracy against the life of Osiris, and in feigned friendship arranged a
banquet. He had, however, caused a splendid coffin to be made, and as they
sat gayly at the feast, Typhon had it brought in, and offered to give it to the
person whose body would fit it. He had secretly taken the measure of Osiris
and had prepared the coffin accordingly. All tried it in turn. None fitted.
Finally Osiris lay in it. Then Typhon and his confederates rushed up, closed
it and threw it into the river, which carried it to the sea. (Creuzer, L., p. 259

ff.) For the killing of his brother Set, which happened according to the
original version on account of desire for power, later tradition substitutes an
unconscious incest which Osiris committed with his second sister,
Nephthys, the wife of Set, a union from which sprang Anubis (the dog-
headed god). Set and Nephthys are, according to H. Schneider, apparently
no originally married brother and sister like Osiris and Isis, but may have
been introduced by way of duplication, in order to account for the war
between Osiris and his brother. With the help of Anubis, Isis finds the
coffin, brings it back to Egypt, opens it in seclusion and gives way to her
[pg 079] tender feelings and sorrow for him. Thereupon she hides the coffin
with the body in a thicket in the forest in a lonely place. A hunt which the
wild hunter Typhon arranges, discovers the coffin. Typhon cuts the body
into fourteen pieces. Isis soon discovers the loss and searches in a papyrus
canoe for the dismembered body of Osiris, traveling through all the seven
mouths of the Nile, till she finally has found thirteen pieces. Only one is
lacking, the phallus, which had been carried out to sea and swallowed by a
fish. She put the pieces together and replaced the missing male member by
another made of sycamore wood and set up the phallus for a memento (as a
sanctuary). With the help of her son Horus, who, according to later
traditions, was begotten by Osiris after his death, Isis avenged the murder of
her spouse and brother. Between Horus and Set, who originally were
brothers themselves, there arises a bitter war, in which each tore from the
other certain parts of the body as strength-giving amulets. Set knocked an
eye out of his opponent and swallowed it, but lost at the same time his own
genitals (testicles), which in the original version were probably swallowed
by Horus. Finally Set was overcome and compelled to give up Horus' eye,
with the help of which Horus again revivified Osiris so that he could enter
the kingdom of the dead as a ruler.

The dismemberment, with final loss of the phallus, will be clearly
recognized as a castration. The tearing out of the eye is similarly to be
regarded as emasculation. [pg 080] This motive is found as self-punishment
for incest, at the close of the Œdipus drama. On the dismemberment of
Osiris as a castration, Rank writes (Inz. Mot., p. 311): “The characteristic
phallus consecration of Isis shows us that her sorrow predominantly
concerns the loss of the phallus, (and it also is expressed in the fact that
according to a later version, she is none the less in a mysterious manner

impregnated by her emasculated spouse), so on the other hand the conduct
of the cruel brother shows us that in the dismemberment he was particularly
interested in the phallus, since that indeed was the only thing not to be
found, and had evidently been hidden with special precautionary measures.
Indeed both motivations appear closely united in a version cited by
Jeremias (Babylonisches in N. T., p. 721), according to which Anubis, the
son of the adulterous union of Osiris with his sister Nephthys, found the
phallus of Osiris, dismembered by Typhon with 27 assistants, which Isis
had hidden in the coffin. Only in this manner could the phallus from which
the new age originated, escape from Typhon. If this version clearly shows
that Isis originally had preserved in the casket the actual phallus of her
husband and brother which had been made incorruptible and not merely a
wooden one, then on the other hand the probability increases that the story
originally concerns emasculation alone because of the various weakening
and motivating attempts that meet us in the motive of the dismemberment.”

In the form of the Osiris saga the dismemberment [pg 081] appears,
however, not merely as emasculation. More clearly recognizable is also the
separation of the primal parents, the dying out of the primal being resulting
in a release of the primal procreative power for a fresh world creation. It is
a very interesting point that in one of the versions a mighty tree grows out
of the corpse of Osiris. Later on we become acquainted for the first time
with the potent motive of the restoration of the dismembered one, the
revivification of the dead.

For example, in the Finnish epic, Kalevala, Nasshut throws the
Lemminkainen into the waters of the river of the dead. Lemminkainen was
dismembered, but his mother fished out the pieces, one of which was
missing, put them together and brought them to life in her womb.
According to Stucken's explanation we recognize in Nasshut a father image,
in Lemminkainen a son image. In the tradition no relationship between
them is mentioned. That is, however, a “Differentiation and attenuation of
traits, which is common in every myth-maker.” (S. A. M., p. 107.)

In the Edda it is recounted “that Thor fared forth with his chariot and his
goats and with him the Ase, called Loki. They came at evening to a peasant
and found shelter with him. At night Thor took his goats and slew them;

thereupon they were skinned and put into a kettle. And when they were
boiled Thor sat down with his fellow travelers to supper. Thor invited the
peasant and his wife and two children to eat with him. The peasant's son [pg
082] was called Thialfi and the daughter Roskwa. Then Thor laid the goats'
skins near the hearth and said that the peasant and his family should throw
the bones onto the skins. Thialfi, the peasant's son, had the thigh bone of
one goat and cut it in two with his knife to get the marrow. Thor stayed
there that night, and in the morning he got up before dawn, dressed, took
the hammer, Miolner, and lifted it to consecrate the goats' skins. Thereupon
the goats stood up; but one of them was lame in the hind leg. He noticed it
and said that the peasant or some of his household must have been careless
with the goats' bones, for he saw that a thigh bone was broken.” We are
especially to note here that the hammer is a phallic symbol.

In fairy tales the dismemberments and revivifications occur frequently. For
example, in the tale of the Juniper Tree [Machandelboom] (Grimm, K. H.
M., No. 47), a young man is beheaded, dismembered, cooked and served up
to his father to be eaten. The father finds the dish exceptionally good. On
asking for his son he is answered that the youth has gone to visit relatives.
The father throws all the bones under the table. They are collected by the
sister, wrapped in a bit of cloth and laid under the juniper tree. The soul of
the boy soared in the air as a bird and was afterward translated into a living
youth. The Grimm brothers introduce as a parallel: “The collection of the
bones occurs in the myths of Osiris and Orpheus, and in the legend of
Adelbert; the revivification in many others, e.g., [pg 083] in the tale of
Brother Lustig (K. H. M., No. 81), of Fichter's Vogel (No. 46), in the old
Danish song of the Maribo-Spring, in the German saga of the drowned
child, etc.” Moreover, W. Mannhardt (Germ. Mythen., pp. 57-75) has
collected numerous sagas and fairy tales of this kind, in which occur the
revivifications of dismembered cattle, fish, goats, rams, birds, and men.

The gruesome meal in the story of the juniper tree reminds us of the
Tantalus story and the meal of Thyestes. Demeter (or Thetes) ate a shoulder
of the dismembered Pelops, who was set before the gods by his father
Tantalus, and the shoulder, after he was brought to life again, was replaced
by an ivory one. In a story from the northeastern Caucasus, a chamois

similarly dismembered and brought to life, like Thor's goats, gets an
artificial shoulder (of wood).

For the purpose of being brought to life again the parts of the dismembered
animal are regularly put in a vessel or some container (kettle, box, cloth,
skin). In the case of the kettle, which corresponds to the belly or uterus,
they are generally cooked. Thus in the tale of the juniper tree, the magic
rejuvenations of Medea, which—except in the version mentioning the
magic potion—she practices on Jason and Æson, and also on goats (cf. Thor
and his goats). I must quote still other pertinent observations of Rank (p.
313 ff). The motive of revivification, most intimately connected with
dismemberment, appears not only in a secondary rôle [pg 084] to
compensate for the killing, but represents as well simple coming to life, i.e.,
birth. Rank believes that coming to life again applies originally to a
dissected snake (later other animals, chiefly birds), in which we easily
recognize the symbolical compensation for the phallus of the Osiris story,
excised and unfit for procreation, which can be brought to life again by
means of the water of life. “The idea that man himself at procreation or at
birth is assembled from separate parts, has found expression not only in the
typical widespread sexual theories of children, but in countless stories (e.g.,
Balzac's Contes drolatiques) and mythical traditions. Of special interest to
us is the antique expression communicated by Mannhardt (Germ. Myth., p.
305), which says of a pregnant woman that she has a belly full of bones,”
which strikingly suggests the feature emphasized in all traditions that the
bones of the dismembered person are thrown on a heap, or into a kettle
(belly) or wrapped in a cloth. [Even the dead Jesus, who is to live again, is
enveloped in a cloth. In several points he answers the requirements of the
true rejuvenation myth. The point is also made that the limbs that are being
put in the cloth must be intact, so that the resurrection may be properly
attained (as in a bird story where the dead bird's bones must be carefully
preserved). The incompleteness (stigmata) also appears after the
resurrection.

John XIX, 33. “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead
already, they brake not [pg 085] his legs.”—40 f. “Then took they the body
of Jesus and wound it in linen cloths with the spices.... Now in the place

where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new
sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.”

We shall mention later the significance of garden and grave. It supports that
of the cloths.]

Rank considers that the circumstance that the dismembered person or
animal resurrected generally lacks a member, points without exception to
castration.

What he has said about dismemberment we can now sum up with reference
to the lion in the parable in the formulae: Separation of parents; the pushing
aside of the father; castration of father; taking his place; liberation of the
power of procreation; improvement. In its bearing on the incest wish,
castration is indeed the best translation of the “anatomizing” of the lion.
The dragon fighter has to release a woman. The idea that the mother is in
need of being released, and that it is a good deed to free her from her
oppressor, father, is according to the insight of psychoanalysis a typical
element of those unconscious phantasies of mankind, which are stamped
deeply with the greatest significance in the imaginative “family romance”
of neurotics. To the typical dragon fight belongs, however (according to
Stucken's correct formulation), the motive of denial. As a matter of fact the
hero of our parable is denied the prize set before him—the admission into
the college—for several of the [pg 086] elders insist on the condition that
the wanderer must resuscitate the lion (Sec. 7). In myths where the dragon
has to fight with a number of persons this difference generally occurs: that
he produces dissension among his opponents. (Jason throws a stone among
the men of the dragon's teeth, they fight about the stone and lay each other
low.) Dissension occurs also among the old men. They turned (Sec. 7)
“fiercely on each other” if only with words.

The wanderer removes, as it were, an obstacle by the fight, tears down a
wall or a restraint. This symbol occurs frequently in dreams; flying or
jumping over walls has a similar meaning. The wanderer was carried as if in
flight to the top of the wall. Then first returns the hesitation. The symbolism
of the two paths, right and left, has already been mentioned. The man that
precedes the wanderer (Sec. 7 and 8) may be quite properly taken as the
father image; once, at any rate, because the wanderer finds himself on the

journey to the mother (that is indeed the trend of the dream) and on this
path the father is naturally the predecessor. The father is, however, the
instructor, too, held up as an example and as a model for choosing the right
path. The father follows the right path to the mother also; he is the lawful
husband. The son can reach her only on the left path. This he takes, still for
the purpose of making things better. Some one follows the wanderer on the
other side (Sec. 8), whether man or woman is not known. The father [pg
087] image in front of the wanderer is his future for he will occupy his
father's place. The Being behind him is surely the past, the careless
childhood, that has not yet learned the difference between man and woman.
It does not take the difficult right way, but quite intelligibly, the left. The
wanderer himself turns back to his childish irresponsibility; he takes the left
path. The many people that fall down may be a foil to illustrate the dangers
of the path, for the purpose of deepening the impression of improvement.
Phantasies of extraordinary abilities, special powers; contrasts to the
anxiety of examinations; all these in the case of the wanderer mark the
change from apprehension to fulfillment. We must not fail to recognize the
element of desire for honor; it will be yet described. In view of myth
motives reported by Stucken, the entire wall episode is to be conceived as a
magic flight; the people that fall off are the pursuers.

At the beginning of the ninth section of the parabola, the wanderer breaks
red and white roses from the rosebush and sticks them in his hat. Red-white
we already know as sexuality. The breaking off of flowers, etc., in dreams
generally signifies masturbation; common speech also knows this as
“pulling off” or “jerking off.” In the symbolism of dreams and of myths the
hat is usually the phallus. This fact alone would be hardly worth
mentioning, but there are also other features that have a similar
significance. The fear of impotence points to autoerotic components in the
psychosexual constitution of [pg 088] the wanderer (of course not clearly
recognized as such), which is shown as well in the anxiety about ridicule
and disgrace that awaken ambition. This is clearest in the paragraphs 6, 10,
14, of the parable. That the masturbatory symbol precedes the subsequent
garden episode, can be understood if we realize that the masturbation
phantasy (which has an enormous psychic importance) animates or
predetermines the immediately following incest.

The wall about the garden that makes the long detour necessary (Sec. 9) is
as we know the resistance. Overcoming the resistance = going round the
wall, removal of the wall. Of course, after the completion of the detour
there is no wall. The wall, however, signifies also the inaccessibility or
virginity of the woman. The wall surrounds a garden. The garden is,
however (apart from the paradise symbolism derived from it), one of the
oldest and most indubitable symbols for the female body.

“Maiden shall I go with you
In your rose garden,
There where the roses stand
The delicate and the tender;
And a tree nearby
That moves its leaves,
And a cool spring
That lies just under it.”

Without much change the same symbolism is found in stately form in the
Melker Marienlied of the 12th century. (See Jung, Jb. ps. F., IV, S. 398 ff.)

[pg 089]

Sainted Mary
Closed gate
Opened by God's word—
Sealed fountain,
Barred garden,
Gate of Paradise.

Note also the garden, roses and fountains in the Song of Solomon.

The wanderer wishes to possess his mother as an unravished bride. Also a
feature familiar to psychoanalysis. The generally accompanying antithesis
is the phantasy that the mother is a loose woman = attainable, sexually
alluring woman. Perhaps this idea will also be found in the parable.

The young people of both sexes, separated by a wall, do not come together
because they are afraid of the distant detour to the door. This can, with a
little courage, be translated: The auto-erotic satisfaction is easier.

[C G. Jung writes (Jb. ps. F., IV, p. 213 ff): “Masturbation is of inestimable
importance psychologically. One is guarded from fate, since there is no
sexual need of submitting to any one, life and its difficulties. With
masturbation one has in his hands the great magic. He needs only to
imagine and in addition to masturbate and he possesses all the pleasures of
the world and is under no compulsion to conquer the world of his desire
through hard work and struggle with reality. Aladdin rubs his lamp and the
slaves come at his bidding; this story expresses the great psychologic gain
in local sexual satisfaction [pg 090] through facile regression.” Jung applies
to masturbation the motive of the dearly won prize and that of the stealing
of fire. He even appears to derive in some way the use of fire from
masturbation. In this at any rate I cannot follow him.]

On his detour the wanderer (who desires to reach the portal of woman)
meets people who are alone in the rooms and carry on dirty work. Dirt and
masturbation are wont to be closely associated psychically. The dirty work
is “only appearance and individual fantasy,” and “has no foundation in
Nature.” The wanderer knows that “such practices vanish like smoke.” He
has done it himself before and now he will have nothing more to do with it.
He aspires to a woman, that the work done alone leads to nothing is
connected with the fact that the work of two is useful. But “dirty work” is
also to be understood as sensual enjoyment without love.

In paragraph 10 we again meet the already mentioned symbolism of the
walled garden. The wanderer is the only one that can secure admission to
the maiden. After a fear of impotence (anxiety about disgrace) he goes
resolutely to the door and opens it with his Diederich, which sticks into a
narrow, hardly visible opening (deflowering). He “knows the situation of
the place,” although he has never been there before. I mean that once,
before he was himself, he was there in the body of his mother. What follows
suggests a birth fantasy as these occur in dreams of being born. The
wanderer now actually takes part in being born in reverse direction. [pg
091] I append several dreams about being born.

“I find myself on a very narrow stairway, leading down in turns; a winding
stairway. I turn and push through laboriously. Finally I find a little door that
leads me into the open, on a green meadow, where I rest in soft luxuriant
bushes. The warm sunshine was very pleasant.”

F. S. dreams: “In the morning I went to work with my brother (as we went
the same road) in the Customs House Street. Before the customs house I
saw the head postillion standing. From it the way led to a street between
two wooden walls; the way appeared very long and seemed to get narrower
toward the end and indeed so close that I was afraid that we would not get
through. I went out first, my brother behind me; I was glad when I got out
of the passage and woke with a beating heart.” Addenda. “The way was
very dark, more like a mine. We couldn't see, except in the distance the end,
like a light in a mine shaft. I closed my eyes.” Stekel notes on the dreams of
F. S.: “The dream is a typical birth dream. The head postillion is the father.
The dreamer wants to reverse the birth relations of his brother who is ten
years older than he. ‘I went out first, my brother after me.’ ”

Another beautiful example in Stekel: “Inter faeces et urinas nascimur.” [We
are born between faeces and urine] says St. Augustine. Mr. F. Z. S.
contributes an account of his birth which strongly reminds us of the sewer-
theory.

“I went into the office and had to pass a long, [pg 092] narrow, uneven
alley. The alley was like a long court between two houses and I had the
indefinite feeling that there was no thoroughfare. Yet I hurried through.
Suddenly a window over me opened and some one, I believe a female,
spilled the wet contents of a vessel on me. My hat was quite wet and
afterwards I looked at it closer and still noticed the traces of a dirty gray
liquid. Nevertheless, I went on without stopping, and quickened my steps.
At the end of the alley I had to go through the house that was connected by
the alley with the other. Here I found an establishment (inn?) that I passed.
In this establishment were people (porters, servants, etc.) engaged in
moving heavy pieces of furniture, etc., as if these were being moved out or
rearranged. I had to be careful and force my way through. Finally I came to
the open on a street and looked for an electric. Then I saw on a path that
went off at an angle, a man whom I took for an innkeeper who was

occupied in measuring or fastening a hedge or a trellis. I did not know
exactly what he was doing. He was counting or muttering and was so drunk
that he staggered.”

Stekel: “In this dream are united birth and effects of the forbidden or
unpermissible. The dreamer goes back over the path—evidently as an adult.
The experiences represent an accusation against the mother. This accusation
was not without reason. Mr. F. Z. S. had a joyless childhood. His mother
was a heavy drinker. He witnessed her [pg 093] coitus with strangers.
(Packing up = coitus.) The packers and porters are the strange men who
visited his inn (his mother was also his nurse) in order to store heavy
objects, etc. Finally he was obstructed in his birth, for a man is occupied in
measuring. The father was a surveyor (the innkeeper). In the dream,
furthermore, he was measuring a trellis-fence. Both trellis and hedge are
typical dream symbols of obstacles to copulation.”

Comparing Sections 10 and 11 of the parable carefully with the contents of
this dream, we find astonishing correspondences. Notice the details, e.g.,
the rosebushes, the sun, the rain, the hedge. On the “well builded house” of
Section 10, I shall only remark that Scherner has noticed in this connection
that the human body represents a building. “Well built house” signifies
“beautiful body.”

If we remember that the wanderer reverses the way of birth, we shall not be
surprised that he finds a smaller garden in the larger. That is probably the
uterus. The wanderer attains the most intimate union with his ideal, the
mother, in imagining himself in her body. This phantasy is continued still
less ambiguously,—but I do not wish to anticipate. Be it only said: He
possesses his mother as a spouse and as a child; it is as if in the desire to do
everything better than his father he desires to beget himself anew. We
already know the mythological motives of new creation, that should follow
the forcible separation of the parents and that we have not yet [pg 094]
noticed in the parable. Shall the better world still be created, the
dismembered paternal power be renewed, the lion again be brought to life?

The rectangular place in the garden suggests a grave. A wall in a dream
means, among other things, a cemetery wall and the garden, a cemetery.
And widely as these ideas may be contrasted with the lifegiving mother's

womb, they yet belong psychologically in very close connection with her.
And perhaps not only psychologically.

Stekel tells a dream of Mrs. Delta in which occurs “an open square space, a
garden or court. In the corner stood a tree, that slowly sinks before our eyes
as if it were sinking in water. As the tree and the court also made swinging
motions, I cleverly remarked, ‘Thus we see how the change in the earth's
surface takes place.’ ” The topmost psychic stratum of the dream reveals
itself as an earthquake reminiscence. “Earth” leads to the idea of “Mother
Earth.” The tree sinking into it, is the tree of life, the phallus. The
rectangular space is the bedroom, the marriage bed. The swinging motions
characterize the whole picture still better. The earthquake, however,
contains, as is found in the analysis, death thoughts also. The rectangular
space becomes a grave. Even the water of the dream deserves notice.
“Babies come out of the water,” says an infantile theory of procreation. We
learn later that the fœtus floats in amniotic liquor. This “water” lies
naturally in “Mother Earth.” In contrast we have the water of the dead [pg
095] (river of the dead, islands of the dead, etc.). Both waters are analogous
in the natural symbolism. It is the mythical abode of the people not yet, or
no longer, to be found in the world.

As water will appear again at important points in the parable, I will dwell a
little longer on that topic.

Little children come out of Holla's fountain, there are in German districts a
number of Holla wells or Holla springs (Holla brunn?) with appropriate
legends. Women, we are told, who step into those springs become prolific.
Mullenhof tells of an old stone fountain in Flensburg, which is called the
Grönnerkeel. Its clear, copious water falls out of four cocks into a wide
basin and supplies a great part of the city. The Flensburgers hold this
fountain in great honor, for in this city it is not the stork which brings
babies, but they are fished out of this fountain. While fishing the women
catch cold and therefore have to stay in bed. Bechstein (Fränk. Sagensch.)
mentions a Little Linden Spring on a road in Schweinfurt near
Königshofen. The nurses dip the babies out of it with silver pails, and it
flows not with water but with milk. If the little ones come to this baby
fountain they look through the holes of the millstone (specially mentioned

on account of what follows) at its still water, that mirrors their features, and
think they have seen a little brother or sister that looks just like them.
(Nork. Myth d. Volkss., p. 501.)

From the lower Austrian peasantry Rank takes the following (Wurth. Zf. d.
Mythol., IV, 140): [pg 096] “Far, far off in the sea there stands a tree near
which the babies grow. They hang by a string on the tree and when the baby
is ripe the string breaks and the baby floats off. But in order that it should
not drown, it is in a box and in this it floats away to the sea until it comes
into a brook. Now our Lord God makes ill a woman for whom he intended
the baby. So a doctor is summoned. Our Lord God has already suggested to
him that the sick woman will have a baby. So he goes out to the brook and
watches for a long time until finally the box with the baby comes floating
in, and he takes it up and brings it to the sick woman. And this is the way all
people get their babies.”

I call attention briefly also to the legend of the fountain of youth, to the
mythical and naturalistic ideas of water as the first element and source of all
life, and to the drink of the gods (soma, etc.) Compare also the fountain in
the verses previously quoted.

The bridal pair in the parable (Sec. 11) walk through the garden and the
bride says they intend in their chamber to “enjoy the pleasures of love.”
They have picked many fragrant roses. Bear in mind the picking of
strawberries in Mr. T.'s dream. The garden becomes a bridal chamber. The
rain mentioned somewhat earlier, is a fructifying rain; it is the water of life
that drops down upon Mother Earth. It is identical with the sinking trees of
Mrs. Delta's dream, with the power of creation developed by the wanderer,
with the mythical drink of the gods, [pg 097] ambrosia, soma. We shall now
see the wanderer ascend or descend to the source of this water of life. To
gain the water of life it is generally in myths necessary to go down into the
underworld (Ishtar's Hell Journey), into the belly of a monster or the like.
Remember, too, that the wanderer puts himself back in his mother's womb.
There is indeed the origin of his life. The process is still more significantly
worked out in the parable.

The wanderer (Section 11, after the garden episode) comes to the mill. The
water of the mill stream also plays a significant part in the sequel. The

reader will surely have already recognized what kind of a mill, what kind of
water is meant. I will rest satisfied with the mere mention of several facts
from folklore and dream-life.

Nork (Myth. d. Volkss., p. 301 f.) writes that Fenja is of the female sex in
the myth (Horwendil) which we must infer from her occupation, for in
antiquity when only hand mills were as yet in use, women exclusively did
this work. In symbolic language, however, the mill signifies the female
organ (μυλλός from which comes mulier) and as the man is the miller, the
satirist Petronius uses molere mulierem = (grind a woman) for coitus, and
Theocritus (Idyll, IV, 48) uses μύλλω (I grind) in the same sense. Samson,
robbed of his strength by the harlot, has to grind in the mill (Judges XVI,
21) on which the Talmud (Sota fol. 10) comments as follows: By the
grinding is always meant the sin of fornication (Beischlaf). Therefore all the
mills [pg 098] in Rome stand still at the festival of the chaste Vesta. Like
Apollo, Zeus, too, was a miller (μυλεύς, Lykophron, 435), but hardly a
miller by profession, but only in so far as he presides over the creative
lifegiving principle of the propagation of creatures. It is now demonstrated
that every man is a miller and every woman a mill, from which alone it may
be conceived that every marriage is a milling (jede Vermählung eine
Vermehlung), etc. Milling (vermehlung) is connected with the Roman
confarreatio (a form of marriage); at engagements the Romans used to
mingle two piles of meal. In the same author (p. 303 and p. 530): Fengo is
therefore the personification of grinding, the mill (Grotti) is his wife
Gerutha, the mother of Amleth or Hamlet. Grotti means both woman and
mill. Greeth is only a paraphrase of woman. He continues, “Duke Otto,
Ludwig of Bavaria's youngest son, wasted his substance with a beautiful
miller's daughter named Margaret, and lived in Castle Wolfstein.... This mill
is still called the Gretel mill and Prince Otto the Finner” (Grimm, D. S., No.
496). Finner means, like Fengo, the miller [Fenja—old Norman? = the
milleress], for the marriage is a milling [Vermählung ist eine Vermehlung],
the child is the ground grain, the meal.

The same writer (Sitt. u. Gebr., p. 162): “In concept the seed corn has the
same value as the spermatozoon. The man is the miller, the woman the
mill.”

In Dulaure-Krauss-Rieskel (Zeugung i. Glaub [pg 099] usw. d. Völk., p.
100 ff.) I find the following charm from the writings of Burkhard, Bishop of
Worms: “Have you not done what some women are accustomed to do?
They strip themselves of clothes, they anoint their naked bodies with honey,
spread a cloth on the ground, on which they scatter grain, roll about in it
again and again, then collect carefully all the grains, which have stuck on
their bodies, and grind them on the mill stone which they turn in a contrary
direction. When the corn is ground into meal, they bake a loaf of it, and
give it to their husbands to eat, so that they become sick and die. When you
have done this you will atone for it forty days on bread and water.”

Killing is the opposite of procreating, therefore the mill is here turned in
reverse direction.

Etymologically it is here to be noted that the verb mahlen (grind), iterative
form of môhen (mow), originally had a meaning of moving oneself
forwards and backwards. Mulieren or mahlen (grind), molere, μυλλειν for
coire (cf. Anthropophyteia, VIII, p. 14).

There are numerous stories where the mill appears as the place of love
adventures. The “old woman's mill” also is familiar; old women go in and
come out young. They are, as it were, ground over in the magic mill. The
idea of recreation in the womb lies at the bottom of it, just as in the vulgar
expression, “Lassen sie sich umvögeln.”

In a legend of the Transylvanian Gypsies, “there came again an old woman
to the king and said: [pg 100] ‘Give me a piece of bread, for seven times
already has the sun gone down without my having eaten anything!’ The
King replied: ‘Good, but I will first have meal ground for you,’ and he
called his servants and had the old woman sawn into pieces. Then the old
woman's sawn up body changed into a good Urme (fairy) and she soared up
into the air....” (H. V. Wlislocki, Märchen u. Sagen d. transylv. Zigeuner.)

A dream: “I came into a mill and into ever narrower apartments till finally I
had no more space. I was terribly anxious and awoke in terror.” A birth
phantasy or uterus phantasy.

Another dream (Stekel, Spr. d. Tr., p. 398 f.): “I came through a crack
between two boards out of the ‘wheel room.’ The walls dripped with water.
Right before me is a brook in which stands a rickety, black piano. I use it to
cross over the brook, as I am running away. Behind me is a crowd of men.
In front of them all is my uncle. He encourages them to pursue me and roars
and yells. The men have mountain sticks, which they occasionally throw at
me. The road goes through the verdure up and down hill. The path is strewn
with coal cinders and therefore black. I had to struggle terribly to gain any
ground. I had to push myself to move forwards. Often I seemed as though
grown to the ground and the pursuers came ever nearer. Suddenly I am able
to fly. I fly into a mill through the window. In it is a space with board walls;
on the opposite wall is a large crank. [pg 101] I sit on the handle, hold on to
it with my hands, and fly up. When the crank is up I press it down with my
weight, and so set the mill in motion. While so engaged I am quite naked. I
look like a cupid. I beg the miller to let me stay here, promising to move the
mill in the manner indicated. He sent me away and I have to fly out of
another window again. Outside there comes along the ‘Flying Post.’ I place
myself in front near the driver. I was soon requested to pay, but I have only
three heller with me. So the conductor says to me, ‘Well, if you can't pay,
then you must put up with our sweaty feet.’ Now, as if by command, all the
passengers in the coach drew off a shoe and each held a sweaty foot in front
of my nose.”

This dream, too (beside other things), contains a womb phantasy, wheel
room, mill, space with wet walls—the womb. The dreamer is followed by a
crowd; just as our wanderer is met by a crowd; the elders. This dream,
which will still further occupy our attention, I shall call the “Flying Post.”

Let us return to the parable. The mill of Section 11 is the womb. The
wanderer strives for the most intimate union with his mother; his striving, to
do better than his father culminates in his procreating himself, the son,
again and better.

He will quite fill up his mother—be the father in full. Of course the
phantasy does not progress without psychic obstructions. The anxious
passage over the narrow plank manifests it.

We have here the familiar obstructions to movement [pg 102] and in a form
indeed that recalls the dangerous path on the wall. The passage over the
water is also a death symbol. We have not only the anxiety about death
caused by the moral conflict, but we have also to remember that the passage
into the uterus is a passage to the beyond. The water is the Water of Death
(stygian waters) and of Life. In narrower sense it is also seminal fluid and
the amniotic liquor. It is overdetermined as indeed all symbols are. The
water bears the death color = black. In the Flying Post dream a black road
appears. The dreamer has conflicts like those of the wanderer.

The old miller who will give no information is the father. Of course he will
not let him have his mother, and he gives him no information as to the mill
work or the procreative activity. The wheels are, on the one hand, the
organs that grind out the child (producing the child like meal), and on the
other hand they are the ten commandments whose mundane administration
is the duty of the father, by means of strict education and punishment. In
passing over the plank, the wanderer places himself above the ten
commandments and above the privileges of the father. The wanderer always
extricates himself successfully from the difficulties. The anxiety is soon
done away with, and the fulfillment phase supervenes. It is only a faint echo
of the paternal commandments when the elders (immediately after the
episode, Section 11) hold out before him the letter from the faculty. At
bottom, in retaining [pg 103] their authority, they do indeed go against his
own wishes (also a typical artifice of the dream technique).

I have already discussed the letter episode sufficiently (as also Sections 12
and 13), so I need say no more about the incest wish there expressed.

The bridal pair were put (Section 14) into their crystal prison. We have been
looking for the reassembling of the dismembered; it takes place before our
eyes, the white and red parts, bones and blood, are indeed bridegroom and
bride. The prison is the skin or the receptacle in which, as in myths, the
revivification takes place. Not in the sense of the revivification of the
annihilated father, but a recreation (improvement) that the son
accomplishes, although the creative force as such remains the same. The
son “marries and mills” (vermählt und vermehlt) with his mother, for the
crystal container is again the same as the mill; the uterus. Even the amniotic

fluid and the nutritive liquid for the fœtus are present, and the wanderer
remakes himself into a splendid king. He can really do it better than his
father. The dream carries the wish fulfillment to the uttermost limits.

Let us examine the process somewhat more in detail. The wanderer, by
virtue of a dissociation, has a twofold existence, once as a youth in the
inside of the glass sphere, and once outside in his former guise. Outside and
inside he is united with his mother as husband and as developing child. He
there embraces his “sister” (image of his mother [pg 104] renewed with him
as it were) as Osiris does his sister Isis. And in addition to this the infantile
sexual components of exhibitionism find satisfaction, for whose
gratification the covering of the procreation mystery is made of glass. The
sexual influence of the wanderer on the kettle (uterus) is symbolically
indicated by the fire task allotted to him. The fire is one of the most
frequent love symbols in dreams. Language also is wont to speak of the fire
of love, of the consuming flames of passion, of ardent desires, etc. Customs,
in particular marriage customs, show a similar symbolism. That the
wanderer is charged with a duty, and explicitly commanded to do what he is
willing to do without orders, is again the already mentioned cunning device
of the dream technique to bring together the incompatible. It seems almost
humorous when the prison is locked with the seal of the right honorable
faculty; I recall to you the expression “sealing” (petschieren); the sealing is
an applying of the father's penis. In the place of father we find, of course,
the officiating wanderer. The sealing means, however, the shutting up of the
seed of life that is placed in the mother. It is also said that the pair, after the
confinement in the prison, can be given no more nourishment; and that the
food with which they are provided comes exclusively from the water of the
mill. That refers to the intrauterine nourishment, to which nothing, of
course, can be supplied but the water of the mill so familiar to us.

The precious vessel that the wanderer guards is [pg 105] surrounded by
strong walls; it is inaccessible to the others; he alone may approach with his
fire. It is winter. That is not merely a rationalizing (pretext of commonplace
argument) of the firing, but a token of death entering into the uterus. The
amorous pair in the prison dissolve and perish, even rot (Section 15). I must
mention incidentally, for the understanding of this version, that at the time
of the writing of the parable the process of impregnation was associated

with the idea of the “decaying” or “rotting” of the semen. The womb is
compared to the earth in which the kernel of grain “decays.”

The decaying which precedes the arising of the new being is connected with
a great inundation. Mythically, a deluge is actually accustomed to introduce
a (improved) creation. A proper myth can hardly dispense with the idea of a
primal flood. I would, in passing, note that the present phase of the parable
corresponds mythologically to the motive of being swallowed, the later
release from the prison is the spitting forth (from the jaws of the monster),
the return from the underworld. The dismemberment motive of the
cosmogonies is usually associated with a deluge motive. In the description
of the flood in the parable there are, moreover, included some traits of the
biblical narrative, e.g., the forty days and the rainbow. This, be it remarked
in passing, had appeared before; it is a sign of a covenant. It binds heaven
and earth, man and woman. The flood originates in the falling of tears; it
arises also from the body of the woman; it [pg 106] refers to the well known
highly significant water. Stekel has arranged for dreams the so-called
symbolic parallels, according to which all secretions and excretions may
symbolically represent each other. On the presupposition that marks of
similarity are not conceived in a strict sense, the following comparisons
may be drawn: Mucus = blood = pus = urine = stools = semen = milk =
sweat = tears = spirit = air = [breath = flatus] = speech = money = poison.
That in this comparison both souls and tears appear is particularly
interesting; the living or procreating principle appears as soul in the form of
clouds. These are formed from water, the Water of Life. The dew that comes
from it impregnates the earth.

As we have now reached the excreta, I should like to remind the reader of
the foul and stinking bodies that in the parable lie in liquid (Section 15) on
which falls a warmer rain. The parable psychoanalytically regarded, is the
result of a regression leading us into infantile thinking and feeling; we have
seen it clearly enough in the comparison with the myths. And here it is to be
noticed how great an interest children take in the process of defecation. I
should not have considered this worthy of notice, did not the hermetic
symbolism, as we shall see later, actually use in parallel cases the
expressions “fimus,” “urina puerorum,” etc., in quite an unmistakable
manner. In any case it is worth remembering that out of dung and urine,

things that decompose malodorously and repulsively, fresh life arises. This
[pg 107] agrees with the infantile theory of procreation, that babies are
brought forth as the residue of assimilation; we are to observe, however,
still other interrelations that will be encountered later. A series of
mythological parallels may be cited. I shall rest satisfied with referring to
the droll story, “Der Dumme Hans.” Stupid Jack loads manure (fæces,
sewage) into a cart and goes with it to a manor; there he tells them he
comes from the Moorish land (from the country of the blacks) and carries in
his barrel the Water of Life. When any one opens the barrel without
permission, Stupid Jack represented himself as having turned the water of
life into sewage. He repeated the little trick with his dead grandmother
whom he sewed up in black cloths and gave out as a wonderfully beautiful
princess who was lying in a hundred years' sleep. Again, as he expected, the
covering was raised by an unbidden hand and John lamented, that, on
account of the interference, instead of the princess, whom he wanted to take
to the King, a disgusting corpse had been magically substituted. He
succeeded in being recompensed with a good deal of money. [Jos. Haltrich,
Deut. Volksmed. d. Siebenbürg, II, p. 224.]

Inasmuch as the wanderer of our parable finds himself not outside but
inside of the receptacle, he is as if in a bath. I note incidentally that writings
analogous to the parable expressly mention a bath in a similar place, as the
parable also does (Sec. 15). In dreams the image of bathing frequently
appears to occur as a womb or birth phantasy.

[pg 108]
At the end of the 14th section, as the inmates of the prison die, his certain
ruin stands before the wanderer's eyes—again a faint echo of his relation to
the bridegroom.

We have already for a long time thoroughly familiarized ourselves with the
thought that in the crystal prison the revivification of the dismembered
comes to pass. Whoever has the slightest doubt of it, can find it most
beautifully shown in the beginning of Section 15. The author of the parable
even mentions Medea and Æson. I need add nothing more concerning the
talents of the Colchian sorceress in the art of dissection and rejuvenation.

In Section 18, “the sun shines very bright, and the day becomes warmer
than before and the dog days are at hand.” Soon after (Sec. 19) the king is
released from prison. It was before the winter (Sec. 14), but after that
season, when the sun “shines very warm” (Sec. 11), consequently well
advanced into autumn. Let us choose for the purpose a middle point
between the departing summer and the approaching winter, about the end of
October, and bear in mind that the dog-days come in August, so that at the
end of July they are in waiting, then we find for the time spent in the
receptacle nine months—the time of human gestation.

The newborn (Sec. 20) is naturally—thirsty. What shall he be fed with if not
with the water from the mill? And the water makes him grow and thrive.

Two royal personages stand before us in splendor [pg 109] and
magnificence. The wanderer has created for himself new parents (the father-
king is, of course, also himself) corresponding to the family romance of
neurotics, a phantasy romance, that like a ghost stalks even in the mental
life of healthy persons. It is a wish phantasy that culminates in its most
outspoken form in the conviction that one really springs from royal or
distinguished stock and has merely been found by the actual parents who do
not fit. They conceal his true origin. The day will come, however, when he
will be restored to the noble station which belongs to him by right. Here
belong in brief, those unrestrained wish phantasies which, no matter in what
concrete form, diversify the naïvely outlined content. They arise from
dissatisfaction with surroundings and afford the most agreeable contrasts to
straitened circumstances or poverty. In the parable especially, the King (in
his father character) is attractively portrayed.

At first the “lofty appearance” (Sec. 19) of the severe father amazes the
wanderer, then it turns out, however, that the king (ideal father) is friendly,
gracious and meek, and we are assured that “nothing graces exalted persons
as much as these virtues.” And then he leads the wanderer into his kingdom
and allows him to enjoy all the merely earthly treasures. There takes place,
so to speak, a universal gratification of all wishes.

Mythologically we should expect that the hero thrown up from the
underworld, should have brought with him the drink of knowledge. This is
[pg 110] actually the case, as he has indeed gained the thing whose

constitution is metaphorically worked out in the whole story, that is, the
philosopher's stone. The wanderer is a true soma robber.

Let us hark back to the next to last section. Here, near the end of the dream,
the King becomes sleepy. The real sleeper already feels the approaching
awakening and would like to sleep longer (to phantasy). But he pretends
that the king is sleepy, thus throwing the burden from his own shoulders.
And to this experience is soon attached a symbol of waking: the wanderer,
the dreamer of the parable, is taken to another land, indeed into a bright
land. He wakes from his dreams with a pious echo of his wish fulfillment
on his lips ... “to which end help us, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Amen.” It is quite prosaic to conclude this melodious finale by means of the
formula “threshold symbolism.”

To sum up in a few words what the parable contains from the
psychoanalytic point of view, and to do this without becoming too general
in suggesting as its results the universal fulfillment of all wishes, I should
put it thus: the wanderer in his phantasy removes and improves the father,
wins the mother, procreates himself with her, enjoys her love even in the
womb and satisfies besides his infantile curiosity while observing
procreative process from the outside. He becomes King and attains power
and magnificence, even superhuman abilities.

Possibly one may be surprised at so much absurdity. One should reflect,
however, that those [pg 111] unconscious titanic powers of imagination
that, from the innermost recesses of the soul set in motion the blindly
creating dream phantasy, can only wish and do nothing but wish. They do
not bother about whether the wishes are sensible or absurd. Critical power
does not belong to them. This is the task of logical thinking as we
consciously exercise it, inasmuch as we observe the wishes rising from the
darkness and compare and weigh them according to teleological standards.
The unconsciously impelling affective life, however, desires blindly, and
troubles itself about nothing else.

[pg 112]

Section II.

Alchemy.

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 χημεία) has come to us from the Arabs (Syrians, Jews,
etc.) it was long believed that it had an Arabian origin. [pg 113] Yet it was
found later that the Arabs, while they added much of their own to it, still
were but the preservers of Greek-Hellenistic knowledge and we are
convinced that the alchemists were right when they indicated in their
traditions the legendary Egyptian Hermes as their ancestor. This legendary
personage is really the Egyptian god Thoth, who was identified with
Hermes in the time of the Ptolemies. He was honored as the Lord of the
highest wisdom and it was a favorite practice to assign to him the
authorship of philosophical and especially of theological works. Hermes'
congregations were formed to practice the cult, and they had their special
Hermes literature.2 In later times the divine, regal, Hermes figure was
reduced to that of a magician. When I speak, in what follows, of the
hermetic writings I mean (following the above mentioned traditions) the

alchemic writings, with, however, a qualification which will be mentioned
later.

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] other conclusion from the changes in matter which
they daily witnessed. If they prepared gold from ores or alloys, they thought
they had “made” it. By analogy with color changes (which they produced in
fabrics, glass, etc.) they could suppose that they had colored (tinctured) the
baser metals into gold.

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 more comprehensive sense, we can even say with more lofty
implications, the more the author in question leans to philosophical
speculation. The authors who indulged the loftiest flights were indeed most
treasured by the alchemists and prized as the greatest masters. With them

the concept mercury, as element concept, is actually separated from that of
common quicksilver. On this level of speculation, quicksilver (Hg.) is no
longer considered as a primal element, but as a suprasensible principle to
which only the name of quicksilver, mercury, is loaned. It is emphasized
that the mercurius philosophorum may not be substituted for common
quicksilver. Similar transmutations are effected by the concept of a primal
element specially separated from mercury. Prima materia is the cause of all
objects. Also the material from which the philosopher's stone is produced is
in later times called the prima materia, accordingly in a certain sense, the
raw material (materia cruda) for its production. But I anticipate; this
belongs properly to the occidental flourishing period of the alchemy of
scholasticism.

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 it and is to produce the fruit, gold. The gold
ingredient was also conceived as a ferment, which permeates the whole
mixture like a leaven, and, as it were, made it ferment into gold.
Furthermore, the tincturing matter was conceived as male and the matter to
be colored as female. Keeping in view the symbol of the corn and seed, we
see that the matter into which the seed was put becomes earth and mother,
in which it will germinate in order to come to fruition.

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] and sulphur. Naturally they do not refer to
the ordinary quicksilver and ordinary sulphur.

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] in a new systematic terminology what
others said before him, even if they did not follow it out so consistently. The
principles mercury, sulphur and salt—their symbols are [Symbol: Mercury],
[Symbol: Sulphur] and [Symbol: Salt]—were among the followers of the
alchemists very widely used in their technical language. They were

frequently also called spirit, soul and body. They were taken in threes but
also as before in twos, according to the exigencies of the symbolism.

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.

Planet. Symbol. Metal.
Saturn. [Symbol: Saturn] Lead.
Jupiter. [Symbol: Jupiter] Tin.
Mars. [Symbol: Mars] Iron.
Sun. [Symbol: Sun] Gold.
Venus. [Symbol: Venus] Copper.
Mercury. [Symbol: Mercury] Quicksilver.
Moon. [Symbol: Moon] Silver.

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]
authors to use interchangeably fifty or more names for a thing and on the
other hand to give one and the same name many meanings. This custom
was originally caused partly by the uncertainty of the concepts, which has
been mentioned above. But this uncertainty does not explain why, in spite
of increase of knowledge, the practice was continued and purposely
developed. We shall speak later of the causes that were active there. Let it
first be understood merely that it was the case and later be it explained how
it comes about that we can find our way in the hermetic writings in spite of
the strange freedom of terminology that confuses terms purposely and
constantly. Apart from a certain practice in the figurative language of the
alchemists, it is necessary, so to speak, to think independently of the words
used and regard them only in their context. For example, when it is written
that a body is to be washed with water, another time with soap, and a third
time with mercury, it is not water and soap and mercury that is the main
point but the relation of all to each other, that is the washing and on closer

inspection of the connection it can be deduced that all three times the same
cleansing medium is meant, only described three times with different
names.

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] exposition than in the psychoanalytic, where we
were aiming at the unconscious. Now we have the conscious aim before us
and we advance with the author, while before we worked as it were against
his understanding, and deduced from the product of his mind things that his
conscious personality would hardly admit, if we had him living before us;
in which case we should be instructing him and informing him of the
interpretation afforded by psychoanalysis.

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] our purpose if
I show in general outline only how we must arrange the leading forms and
processes of the parable to accord with the mode of thinking peculiar to
alchemy. If I should succeed in doing so clearly, we should already have
passed a difficult stage. Then for the first time I might venture further—to

the special object of this research. But patience! We have not yet gone so
far.

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] is to be united, the
denotation gold and silver ([Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver]) prevailed.
Red and white = man and woman (male and female activity), we found in
the parable also when studied psychoanalytically.

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] stone), aqua vitæ (water of life), venenum (poison), spiritus (spirit),
medicina (medicine), cœlum (sky), nubes (clouds), ros (dew), umbra
(shadow), stella signata (marked star), and Lucifer, Luna (moon), aqua
ardens (fiery water), sponsa (betrothed), coniux (wife), mater, mother (Eve),
—from her princes are born to the king,—virgo (virgin), lac virginis
(virgin's milk), menstruum, materia hermaphrodita catholica Solis et Lunae
(Catholic hermaphrodite matter of sun and moon), sputum Lunae (moon
spittle), urina puerorum (children's urine), fæces dissolutæ (loose stool),
fimus (muck), materia omnium formarum (material of all forms), Venus.

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] gold production
this mythological relationship is of importance.

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] substance is the
philosopher's stone, called also our king, red lion, grand elixir, etc. The after
work is a subsequent elaboration by which the stone is given still more
power, “multiplied” in its efficiency. Then in “projection” upon a baser
metal it is able to tincture immense amounts of it to gold. [In the stage of
projection the red tincture is symbolized as a pelican. The reason for this
will be given later.] If the main work was interrupted at the white stage,
instead of waiting for the red, then they got the white stone, the small elixir,
with which the base metals can be turned into silver alone.

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] the true doctrine,
and which, contrasted with practice, is of no value. (I mention incidentally
that the great masters of the hermetic art are accustomed to impress on the
reader that he is not to cling to their words but measure things always
according to nature and her possibilities.) The elders promise him indeed

the revelation of important doctrines but are not willing to communicate the
beginning of the work (Sec. 5, 6, preparation for the fight with the lion).
That is a rather amusing trait of hermetic literature.

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] mythological parallel. Psychoanalysis shows us
further that lion = dragon = father (= parents, etc.). It is now very
interesting that the alchemistic symbolism interchanges the same forms. We
shall see that again.

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] motive of dismemberment] of which discourses the books of the
philosophers are so full that there has not been a single philosopher, from
the true Hermes, Trismegistus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Artephias, Morienus,
and other followers up to my own time, who has not written about these
matters. These are the two serpents sent by Juno (who is the metallic nature)
that were to be strangled by the strong Hercules (that is the sage in his
cradle) [our wanderer], that is to be conquered and killed in order to cause
them in the beginning of his work to rot, be destroyed and be born. These
are the two serpents that are fastened around the herald's staff and rod of
Mercury.... Therefore when these two (which Avicenna calls the bitch of
Carascene and the dog of Armenia) are put together in the vessel of the
grave, they bite each other horribly. [See the battle of the sons of the
dragon's teeth with Jason, the elders in the parable, but also the embrace of
the bridal pair and the mythological parallels wrestling = dragon fight =
winning the king's daughter,... = incest = love embrace or separation of the
primal parents, etc....] ... A corruption [destruction] and putrefaction must
take place before the renewal in a better form. These are the two male and
female seed that are produced ... in the kidneys and intestines ... of the four
elements.”

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] of the alchemistic
operation a “grave.” Olympiodorus speaks in an alchemistic work of the
grave of Osiris. Only the face of Osiris, apparently wrapped up like a
mummy, is visible. In the parable only the head of the lion is golden. The
head as the part preserved from the killing [dismemberment] stands
probably for the organ of generation. The phallus is indeed exactly what

produces the procreating substance, semen. The phallus is the future. The
phallus was consecrated by Isis as a memorial.

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] The grave changes imperceptibly into the vessel where
the bridal pair—with Lacinius they are father and son instead of mother and
son—are united and securely locked in.] When the whole body is dissolved
the bones are thrown out of the grave. They are divided into nine
[dismemberment], the dissolved substance is cooked nine days over a gentle
fire till the black appears. Again it is cooked nine days until the water is
bright and clear. The black, with its water of life [in the parable the mill
water is black] is cooked nine days till the white earth of the philosophers
appears. An angel throws the bones on the purified and whitened earth,
which is now mixed with its seeds. They are separated from water in a
strong fire. Finally the earth of the bones becomes red like blood or ruby.
Then the king rises from his grave full of the grace of God, quite celestial,
with grand mien, to make all his servants kings. He places golden crowns
on the heads of his son and the servants.

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] the being
(Sec. 8) which the wanderer cannot distinguish, whether it be a man or a
woman. It is the original substance, Mercury, “our hermaphrodite.”

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] “Ferment is elixir,
leaven, or yeast as it is called; it makes porous the body that swells up and
the spirit finds a place in it so that it becomes fit to bake. As now the meal is
not yeast, but meal and water [mill water] and the whole dough is
thoroughly leavened and real yeast, so also the lapis [stone] is itself the
ferment, yet gold and mercury are also called ferment.”

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] work well, and marry consanguineous matter
with masses acting consanguineously....” [Incest.]

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] all natural things depends upon the blowing
in of air.”

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] has swallowed him and consumed him because of
her great love.”

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] might follow the works of
nature even to improve on her; what wonder then if many of them set
themselves to the artificial creation—generation—of man? Yet the belief in
generatio equivoca has not long been dead. Must it not have seemed
somehow possible, in view of the supposed fact that they saw insects
develop out of earth, worms out of dung, etc., that they should by special
artificial interposition, be able to make higher forms of life come out of
lifeless matter? And of all the substances not one was indeed completely
lifeless for the “animated” metals even, grew and increased. In short, if we
regard the matter somewhat more closely, it is after all not so extraordinary
that they made serious attempts to create the homunculus.

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]
work and describes it in such a way that naïve scholarship could have
thought it quite consistent. The idea as such has appeared conceivable to us.
Its form in the book mentioned appears clearly determined by alchemistic
ideas. The reader will immediately perceive it himself as I give here some

passages from the book. (Cf. the Strassb. Folio Ausg. des Paracelsus, Vol. I,
pp. 881-884.) A consideration of the production of the homunculus appears
important to me because it shows the main content of alchemistic ideas in
enlarged form and complete development, a content that gives, moreover,
the very thing that psychoanalysis would here look for.

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 σπᾶν (separate), and αγείρειν
(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] Herein lies, again, the idea of unnatural procreation.] ... Now the
generation of the homunculus is not to be forgotten. For there is something
in it, notwithstanding that it has till now been kept in mystery and
concealed, and that not a little doubt and question there was among some of
the old philosophers, whether it was possible for art and nature that a man
should be born outside a woman's body and a natural mother. To which I
give the answer that it is in no way contrary to the spagiric art and nature,
but is quite possible; but how such accomplishment and occurrence may be,
is by the following procedure: Namely that the semen of a man is putrefied
in a closed cucurbit per se, with the greatest putrefaction in a horse's belly
for 40 days or until it comes to life and moves and stirs, which is easily to
be seen. [Horse's belly by metonomy for horse's dung. Horse manure or
dung was an easily procured material that served the purpose of keeping
warm at an even mild and moist heat a vessel that was put into it. Horse
manure is then finally the gentle “moist heat” in general engendered by any
means. In the preceding case surely the narrower meaning of animal belly
or dung should not be overlooked. Here indeed this belly with its moist
warmth has to act as an equivalent for a uterus.] After such a time it will
look something like a man but transparent without a body. So after this it is

daily fed whitish (weisslich) with the Arcano sanguinis humani [the water
of life that nourishes the fœtus] and nourished about 40 weeks and kept in
the [pg 141] even warmth of a horse's belly. A real live human child will
come forth with all members like another child that is born of a woman but
much smaller. We call it homunculus and it should then be brought up just
like another child with great diligence and care till it comes to its days of
understanding. That is now the highest and greatest mystery that God has
let mortal and sinful man know. For it is a miracle and magnale Dei, and a
mystery above all mystery and should also be kept a mystery fairly till the
judgment day, as then nothing will stay hidden, but all will be revealed.

“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] are compared.” [It is characteristic that Paracelsus passes
immediately to the production of metals.]

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] naïve practice. It is quite noticeable that this practice follows the
same lines as the mythical representation. All the constituent parts of the
body that is cut into little pieces must be carefully collected and put in a
vessel and (generally) cooked.

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] Paracelsus). It
is there maintained that by sodomy as well as by pederasty (specifically

coitus in anum and also in os is meant) the generation of a monster is
possible.

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] founded. From the belief in the
healing and wonderworking power of excrement sprang moreover the
famous filth pharmacy, that was held in no little esteem.

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.

[pg 146]

Section III.

The Hermetic Art.

Any one that makes a thorough study of the alchemistic literature must be
struck with the religious seriousness that prevails in the writings of the more
important authors. Every “master” who enjoyed the highest honor among his
fellows in the hermetic art has a certain lofty manner that keeps aloof from
the detailed description of chemical laboratory work, although they do not
depart from the alchemistic technical language. They obviously have a
leaning toward some themes that are far more important than the production
of a chemical preparation can be, even if this is a tincture with which they
can tinge lead into gold. Looking forth to higher nobler things, these authors,
whose homely language frequently touches our feelings deeply, make the
reader notice that they have nothing in common with the sloppy cooks who
boil their pots in chemical kitchens, and that the gold they write about is not
the gold of the multitude; not the venal gold that they can exchange for
money. Their language seems to sound as if they said, “Our gold is not of
this world.” Indeed they use expressions that can with absolute clearness be
shown to have this sense. Authors of this type did not weary of enjoining on
the [pg 147] novices of the art, that belief, scripture and righteousness were
the most important requisites for the alchemistic process. [With the sloppers
it was indeed a prime question, how many and what kinds of stoves, retorts,
kettles, crucibles, ores, fires, etc., in short, what necessary implements they
needed, for the great work.]

He whose eyes are open needs no special hints to see, in reading, that the so-
called alchemistic prescriptions did not center upon a chemical process. A
faint notion of the circumstance that even in their beginnings, alchemistic
theories were blended with cosmogonic and religious ideas, must make it
quite evident that, for example, in the famous Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes
[Its real author is unknown.] a noble pillar of alchemy, something more must
be contained than a mere chemical recipe. The language of the Smaragdine
tablet is notoriously the most obscure that the hermetic literature has
produced; in it there are no clear recommendations to belief or

righteousness; and yet I think that an unprejudiced reader, who was not
looking specially for a chemical prescription, would perceive at least a
feeling for something of philosophy or theology.

[1.] Verum, sine mendacio, certum et [verissimum]: [2.] Quod est inferius est
sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad
perpetranda [also: penetranda, praeparanda] miracula rei unius. [3.] Et sicut
res omnes fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius: sic omnes res natae fuerunt ab
hac una re, adaptatione [adoptione.]. [pg 148] [4.] Pater ejus est Sol, mater
ejus est Luna. [5.] Portavit illud ventus in ventre suo. [6.] Nutrix ejus terra
est. [7.] Pater omnis Telesmi totius mundi est hic. [8.] Virtus ejus integra est,
si versa fuerit in terram. [9.] Separabis terram ab igne, subtile ab spisso,
suaviter, magno cum ingenio. [10.] Ascendit a terra in coelum, iterumque
descendit in terram, et recipit vim superiorum et inferiorum. [11.] Sic
habebis Gloriam totius mundi. Ideo fugiet a te omnis obscuritas. Haec est
totius fortitudinis fortitudo fortis, quia vincet omnem rem subtilem,
omnemque solidam [solidum] penetrabit. [12.] Sic mundus creatus est. [13.]
Hinc erunt adaptationes mirabiles, quarum modus est hic. [14.] Itaque
vocatus sum Hermes Trismegistus, habens tres partes philosophiae totius
mundi. [15.] Completum est quod dixi de operatione Solis.

Translation: [1.] It is true, without lies and quite certain. [2.] What is lower is
just like what is higher, and what is higher is just like what is lower, for the
accomplishment of the miracle of a thing. [3.] And just as all things come
from one and by mediation of one, thus all things have been derived from
this one thing by adoption. [4.] The father of it is the sun, the mother is the
moon. [5.] The wind has carried it in his belly. [6.] The earth has nourished
it. [7.] It is the father [cause] of all completion of the whole world. [8.] His
power is undiminished, if it has been turned towards the earth. [9.] You will
separate the earth from [pg 149] fire, the fine from the coarse, gently and
with great skill. [10.] It ascends from the earth to the sky, again descends to
the earth, and receives the powers of what is higher and what is lower. [11.]
Thus you will have the glory of the whole world, and all darkness will depart
from you. It is the strength of all strength, because it will conquer all the fine
and penetrate all the solid. [12.] Thus the world was created. [13.] From this
will be wonderful applications of which it is the pattern. [14.] And so I have
been called Hermes, thrice greatest, possessing three parts of the knowledge

of the whole world. [15.] Finished is what I have said about the work of the
sun.

Sun and gold are identical in the hieroglyphic mode of expression. Whoever
seeks only the chemical must therefore read: The work of gold, the
production of gold; and that is what thousands and millions have read. The
mere word gold was enough to make countless souls blind to everything
besides the gold recipe that might be found in the Smaragdine tablet. But
surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be blinded
by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the language of
the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded
men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the gold of the
Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation of anything
else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for modern historians.

[pg 150]
The fact that modern chemical science is sprung from the hermetic works,—
as the only branch at present clearly visible and comprehensible of this misty
tree of knowledge,—has had for result that in looking back we have received
a false impression. Chemical specialists have made researches in the
hermetic art and have been caught just as completely in the tangle of its
hieroglyphics as were the blind seekers of gold before them. The hermetic
art, or alchemy in the wider sense, is not exclusively limited to gold making
or even to primitive chemistry. It should, however, not be surprising to us
who are acquainted with the philosophical presuppositions of alchemy, that
in addition to the chemical and mechanical side of alchemy a philosophical
and religious side also received consideration and care. I think, however, that
such historical knowledge was not at all necessary to enable us to gather
their pious views from the religious language of many masters of the
hermetic art. However, this naïve childish logic was a closed book to the
chemists who made historical researches. They were hindered by their
special knowledge. It is far from my purpose to desire in the least to
minimize the services that a Chevreul or a Kopp has performed for the
history of chemistry; what I should like to draw attention to is merely that
the honored fathers of the history of chemistry saw only the lower
—“inferius”—and not the higher—“superius”—phase of alchemy, for
example, in the Smaragdine tablet; and that they used it as the type of

universal judgment in such a way that [pg 151] it needed a special faculty for
discovery to reopen a fountain that had been choked up.

I now realize that the poets have been more fortunate than the scientists.
Thus Wieland, who, for example, makes Theophron say in the Musarion
(Book II):

The beautiful alone
Can be the object of our love.
The greatest art is only to separate it from its tissue ...
For it [the soul] nothing mortal suffices,
Yea, the pleasure of the gods cannot diminish a thirst
That only the fountain quenches. So my friends
That which other mortals lures like a fly on the hook
To sweet destruction
Because of a lack of higher discriminative art
Becomes for the truly wise
A Pegasus to supramundane travel.

But the poets usually speak only in figures. I will therefore rest satisfied with
this one example.

The service of having rediscovered the intrinsic value of alchemy over and
above its chemical and physical phase, is to be ascribed probably to the
American, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who published his views on the
alchemists in the book, “Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists,” that
appeared in Boston in 1857, and to the Frenchman, N. Landur, a writer on
the scientific periodical “L'Institut,” who wrote in 1868 in similar vein [in
the organ “L'Institut,” 1st Section, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 273 ff.], though I do not
know whether he wrote with knowledge of the American work. Landur's
observations [pg 152] are reported by Kopp (Alch., II, p. 192), but he does
not rightly value their worth. It need not be a reproach to him. He undertook
as a chemical specialist a work that would have required quite as much a
psychologist, a philosopher or a theologian.

The discoveries made by the acute Hitchcock are so important for our
analysis, that a complete exposition of them cannot be dispensed with. I

should like better to refer to Hitchcock's book if it were not practically
inaccessible.

We have heard that the greatest stumbling block for the uninitiated into the
hermetic art lay in the determination of the true subject, the prima materia.
The authors mentioned it by a hundred names; and the gold seeking toilers
were therefore misled in a hundred ways. Hitchcock with a single word
furnishes us the key to the understanding of the hermetic masters, when he
says: The subject is man. We can also avail ourselves of a play on words and
say the subject or substance is the subject.

The uninitiated read with amazement in many alchemists that “our
subjectum,” that is, the material to be worked upon, is also identical with the
vessel, the still, the philosopher's egg, etc. That becomes intelligible now.
Hitchcock writes (H. A., p. 117) very pertinently: “The work of the
alchemists was one of contemplation and not a work of the hands. Their
alembic, furnace, cucurbit, retort, philosophical egg, etc., etc., in which the
work of fermentation, distillation, extraction of essences and [pg 153] spirits
and the preparation of salts is said to have taken place was Man,—yourself,
friendly reader,—and if you will take yourself into your own study and be
candid and honest, acknowledging no other guide or authority but Truth, you
may easily discover something of hermetic philosophy; and if at the
beginning there should be ‘fear and trembling’ the end may be a more than
compensating peace.”

The alchemist Alipili (H. A., p. 34) writes: “The highest wisdom consists in
this, for man to know himself, because in him God has placed his eternal
Word.... Therefore let the high inquirers and searchers into the deep
mysteries of nature learn first to know what they have in themselves, and by
the divine power within them let them first heal themselves and transmute
their own souls, ... if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee,
thou wilt never find it without thee. If thou knowest not the excellency of
thine house, why dost thou seek and search after the excellency of other
things? The universal Orb of the world contains not so great mysteries and
excellences as does a little man formed by God in his own image. And he
who desires the primacy amongst the students of nature, will nowhere find a
greater or better field of study than himself. Therefore will I here follow the

example of the Egyptians and ... from certain true experience proclaim, O
Man, know thyself; in thee is hid the treasure of treasures.”

A seminalist has concluded from this that the [pg 154] prima materia is
semen, a stercoralist, that it is dung.

George Ripley describes the subject of the philosopher's stone as follows:

“For as of one mass was made the thing,
Right must it so in our praxis be,
All our secrets of one image must spring;
In philosophers' books therefore who wishes may see,
Our stone is called the less-world, one and three.”

The stone is therefore the world in little, the microcosm, man; one, a unity,
three, [Symbol: Mercury] mercury, [Symbol: Sulphur] sulphur, [Symbol:
Salt] salt, or spirit, soul, body. Dichotomy also appears, mercury and
sulphur, which can then generally be rendered soul and body. One author
says, “We must choose such minerals as consist of a living mercury and a
living sulphur; work it gently, not with haste and hurry.” [Cf. Tabula
Smaragdina 9, “suaviter” ...]

Hitchcock (H. A., p. 42): “The ‘one’ thing of the alchemists is above all man,
according to his nature [as a nature] essentially and substantially one. But if
the authors refer to man phenomenally they speak of him under different
names, indicating different states as he is before or after ‘purification’ or
they refer to his body, his soul or his spirit under different names. Sometimes
they speak of the whole man as mercury, ... and then by the same word
perhaps they speak of something special, as our mercury which has besides,
a multitude of other names ... although men are of diverse dispositions and
temperaments, some being angelic and others satanic, [pg 155] yet the
alchemists maintain with St. Paul that ‘all the nations of men are of one
blood,’ that is, of one nature. And it is that in man by which he is of one
nature which it is the special object of alchemy to bring into life and activity;
that by whose means, if it could universally prevail, mankind would be
constituted into a brotherhood.”

The alchemist says that a great difficulty at the outset of the work is the
finding or making of their necessarily indispensable mercury, which they
also call green lion, mercurius animatus, the serpent, the dragon, acid water,
vinegar, etc.

What is this mysterious mercury, susceptible to evolution, lying in mankind,
common to all, but differently worked out? Hitchcock answers, conscience.
Conscience is not equally “pure” with all men, and not equally developed;
the difficulty of discovering it, of which the alchemists tell, is the difficulty
of arousing it in the heart of man for the heart's improvement and elevation.
The starting point in the education of man is indeed to awaken in his heart an
enduring, permanent sense of the absolutely right, and the consistent purpose
of adhering to this sense. It is above all one of the hardest things in the world
“to take a man in what is called his natural state, St. Paul's natural man, after
he has been for years in the indulgence of all his passions, having a view to
the world, to honors, pleasures, wealth, and make him sensible of the mere
abstract claims of right, and willing to relinquish one single passion in
deference to it.” Surely that is the one [pg 156] great task of the educator; if
it be accomplished, the work of improvement is easy and can properly be
called mere child's play, as the hermetics like to call the later phases of their
work. (H. A., pp. 45 ff.)

No one is so suspicious and so sensitive as those whose conscience is not
sensitive enough. Such people who wander in error themselves, are like
porcupines: it is very difficult to approach them. The alchemists have
suitable names for them as arsenic, vipers, etc., and yet they seek in all these
substances, and in antimony, lead, and many other materials, for a true
mercury that has just as many names as there are substances in which it is
found; oil, vinegar, honey, wormwood, etc. Under all its names mercury is
still, however, a single immutable thing. It was also called an incombustible
sulphur for whoever has his conscience once rightly awakened, has in his
heart an endlessly burning flame that eats up everything that is contrary to
his nature. This fire that can burn like “poison” is a powerful medicine, the
only right one for a (morally) sick soul.

Conscience in the crude state is generally called by the alchemists “common
quicksilver” in contrast to “our quicksilver.” To replace the first by the
second and, according to the demands of nature, not forcibly, is the one great

aim that the hermetics follow. This first goal is a preparation for a further
work. Whither this leads we can represent in one word—“God”—and even
here we may be struck with the “circular” character of the whole hermetic
work, since the heavenly mercury that is necessary [pg 157] to the
preliminary work, to the purification, is yet itself a gift of God; the
beginning depends on the end and presupposes it. The symbol of the prima
materia is not without purpose a snake that has its tail in its mouth. I cannot,
in anticipation, enter into the problem that arises in this connection; only let
it be understood in a word that the end can soar beyond the beginning as an
ideal.

What is to be done with the messenger of heaven, mercury, or conscience,
when it has been discovered? Several alchemists give the instruction to sow
the gold in mercury as in the earth, “philosophic gold” that is also called
Venus-love. Often the New Testament proves the best commentary on the
hermetic writings. In Corinthians III, 9, ff., we read: “Ye are God's
husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is
given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and
another buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold,
silver, precious stones, hay, stubble.... Every man's work shall be made
manifest ... because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is.” And Galatians VI, 7 ff.: “For whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of
the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit
reap life everlasting. And let him not be weary in well doing; for in due
season we shall reap if we faint not.” The [pg 158] spirit to which it is sowed
there is [Symbol: Mercury], mercury, and the gold that will come out is to be
proved in the fire.

The alchemists speak of men very often as of metals. Before I cite from the
work of Johann Isaak Hollandus on lead, I call to mind that lead, [Symbol:
Saturn], bears the name of Saturn. The writing of Hollandus could quite as
well be called a treatise on mankind as on lead. To understand this better, be
it added that man in a state of humility or resignation must specially be
associated with lead, the soft, dark metal.

The publisher of the English translation of J. I. Hollandus, which is dated
1670, addresses the reader as follows: “Kind reader, the philosophers have
written much about their lead, which as Basilus has taught, is prepared from
antimony; and I am under the impression that this saturnine work of the
present philosopher, Mr. Johann Isaak Hollandus, is not to be understood of
common lead ... but of the lead of the philosophers.”

And in Hollandus himself we read: “In the name of God, Amen.—My child,
know that the stone called the Philosopher's Stone comes from Saturn. And
know my child as a truth that in the whole vegetable work [vegetable on
account of the symbolism of the sowing and growing] there is no higher or
greater secret than in Saturn. [Cf. the previously cited passage from Alipili.]
For we find, ourselves, in [common] gold not the perfection that is to be
found in Saturn, for inwardly he is good [pg 159] gold. In this all
philosophers agree; and it is necessary only that you reject everything that is
superfluous, then that you turn the within outward, which is the red; then it
will be good gold. [H. A., p. 74, notes that Hollandus himself means the
same as Isaiah L, 16. ‘Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your
doings from before mine eyes,’ etc.] Gold cannot be made so easily of
anything as of Saturn, for Saturn is easily dissolved and congealed, and its
mercury may be more easily extracted from it.” [That means therefore that
the conscience easily develops after the destruction of superfluities or
obstacles in the plastic lead man.] “And this mercury extracted from Saturn
is purified and sublimated, as mercury is usually sublimed. I tell thee, my
child, that the same mercury is as good as the mercury extracted from gold
in all operations.” [Herein lies, according to H. A., an allusion to the fact that
all men are essentially of one nature, inasmuch as the image of God dwells
in them all.]

“All these strange parables, in which the philosophers have spoken of a
stone, a moon, a stove, a vessel, all of that is Saturn [i.e., all of that is spoken
of mankind] for you may add nothing foreign, outside of what springs from
himself. There is none so poor in this world that he cannot operate and
promote this work. For Luna may be easily made of Saturn in a short time
[here Luna, silver, stands for the affections purified]; and in a little time
longer Sol may be made from it. By Sol here I understand the intellect,
which becomes clarified in proportion [pg 160] as the affections become
purified.... In Saturn is a perfect mercury; in it are all the colors of the world,

[that is, the whole universe in some sense lies in the nature of man, whence
have proceeded all religions, all philosophies, all histories, all fables, all
poesy, all arts and sciences.]” (P. 77.)

Artephius [Hapso]: “Without the antimonial vinegar [conscience] no metal
[man] can be whitened [inwardly pure].... This water is the only apt and
natural medium, clear as fine silver, by which we ought to receive the
tinctures of Sol and Luna [briefly, if also inexactly, to be paraphrased by soul
and body], so that they may be congealed and changed into a white and
living earth.” This water desires the complete bodies in order that after their
dissolution it may be congealed, fixed and coagulated into a white earth.
[The first step is purification, releasing, that is, otherwise also conceived as
calcination, etc.; it takes place through conscience, under whose influence
the hard man is made tender and brought to fluidity.]

“But their [sc. the alchemists] solution is also their coagulation; both consist
in one operation, for the one is dissolved and the other congealed. Nor is
there any other water which can dissolve the bodies but that which abideth
with them. Gold and silver [Sol and Luna as before] are to be exalted in our
water, ... which water is called the middle of the soul and without which
nothing can be done in our art. It is a vegetable, mineral, and animal fire, [pg
161] which conserves the fixed spirits of Sol and Luna, but destroys and
conquers their bodies; for it annihilates, overturns and changes bodies and
metallic forms, making them to be no bodies, but a fixed spirit.”

“The argentum vivum [living silver] is ... the substance of Sol and Luna, or
silver and gold, changed from baseness to nobility.

“It is a living water that comes to moisten the earth that it may spring forth
and in due season bring forth much fruit.... This aqua vitæ or water of life,
whitens the body and changes it into a white color....

“How precious and how great a thing is this water. For without it the work
could never be done or perfected; it is also called vas naturae, the belly, the
womb, receptacle of the tincture, the earth, the nurse. It is the royal fountain,
in which the king and queen [[Symbol: Sun] and [Symbol: Moon]] bathe
themselves; and the mother, which must be put into and sealed up within the
belly of her infant, and that is Sol himself, who proceeded from her, and

whom she brought forth; and therefore they have loved one another as
mother and son, and are conjoined together because they sprang from one
root and are of the same substance and nature. And because this water is the
water of the vegetable life, it causes the dead body to vegetate, increase and
spring forth, and to rise from death to life, by being dissolved first and then
sublimed. And in doing this the body is converted into [pg 162] a spirit and
the spirit afterwards into a body....

“Our stone consists of a body, a soul, and a spirit.

“It appears then that this composition is not a work of the hands but a change
of natures, because nature dissolves and joins itself, sublimes and lifts itself
up, and grows white being separated from the feces [these feces are naturally
the same that Hollandus notes as the ‘superfluities’].... Our brass or latten
then is made to ascend by the degrees of fire, but of its own accord freely
and without violence. But when it ascends on high it is born in the air or
spirit and is changed into a spirit, and becomes a life with life. And by such
an operation the body becomes of a subtile nature and the spirit is
incorporated with the body, and made one with it, and by such a sublimation,
conjunction and raising up, the whole, body and spirit, is made white.” (H.
A., p. 87.)

For elucidation some passages from the Bible may be useful. Colossians II,
11: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ.” Psalm LI, 7: “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” I
Corinthians VI, 11: “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Romans VIII, 13: “For if ye live
after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds
of the body, ye shall live.” John IV, 14: “But whosoever drinketh of [pg 163]
the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall
give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
[In IV, 10, living water is mentioned.] John XII, 24 ff.: “... Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die [Putrefactio] it abideth alone; but if it die
it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that
hateth his life in the world shall keep it unto life eternal.”

Romans VI, 5 ff.: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his
death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that
our old man is crucified with him [I must mention here that the hieroglyph
for vinegar is [Symbol: Vinegar]] that the body of sin might be destroyed....”

I Corinthians XV, 42 ff.: “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.... It is sown a natural body, it is
raised a spiritual body.... The first Adam was made a living soul, the last
Adam was made a quickening spirit.... We shall all be changed.... For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on
immortality.”

I Corinthians XV, 40 ff.: “There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial....
There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon.”

Ephesians II, 14 ff.: “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in
his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments [pg 164] contained in
ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace,
and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby.”

If we note the two contraries that are to be united according to the procedure
of the hermetic philosophers with [Symbol: Sun] and [Symbol: Moon] [sun
and moon, gold and silver, etc.] and represent them united with the cross
[Symbol: +] we get [Symbol: Mercury with a sun]; i.e., [Symbol: Mercury],
the symbol of mercury. This ideogram conceals the concept, Easter. All these
ideas, as we know, did not originate with Christianity.

II Corinthians V, 1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens.”

John VII, 38: “He that believeth on me ... out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water.”

I mention right here that the hermetic philosophers do not pursue speculative
theology, but that, as is clearly evident from their writings, they made the

content of the religious doctrine a part of their life. That was their work, a
work of mysticism. Everything that the reader is inclined to conceive in the
passages above, as probably belonging merely to the other life, they as
Mystics, sought to represent to themselves on earth, though without
prejudice to the hope of a life beyond. I presume that they therefore speak of
two stones, a celestial and a terrestrial. The celestial stone is the eternal
blessedness and, as far as the Christian world of ideas is [pg 165]
considered, is Christ, who has aided mankind to attain it. The terrestrial
stone is the mystical Christ whom each may cause to be crucified and
resurrected in himself, whereby he attains a kingdom of heaven on earth
with those peculiar qualities that have been allegorically attributed to the
philosopher's stone. Therefore the terrestrial stone is called a reflection of the
celestial and so it is said that from lead, etc., the stone may be easily
produced and “in a short time,” i.e., not only after death.

At any rate in primitive symbolism there seems to be a religious idea at the
bottom of the recommendation to use the sputum lunæ (moon spittle) or
sperm astrale (star semen), star mucus, in short of an efflux from the world
of light above us, as first material for the work of our illumination. [In many
alchemistic recipes such things are recommended. Misunderstanding led to a
so-called shooting star substance being eagerly hunted for. What was found
and thought to be star mucus was a gelatinous plant.] So it is in this passage
from John IX, 5, ff.: “As long as I am in the world I am the light of the
world. When he [Jesus] had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made
clay of the spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and
said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam [which is by interpretation:
Sent]. He went his way, therefore, washed, and came seeing.” The
transference of a virtue by the receiving of a secretion is a quite common
primitive idea.

As Michael Maier (Symbola Aureae Mensae Lib. [pg 166] XI) informs us,
Melchior Cibinensis, a Hungarian priest, expressed the secrets of the
forbidden art in the holy form of the Mass. For as birth, life, exaltation,
suffering in fire and then death were, as it were, ascribed to the Philosopher's
Stone in black and gloomy colors, and finally resurrection and life in red and
other beautiful colors, so he compared his preparation with the work of the
salvation of man (and the “terrestrial” stone with the “celestial” stone),
namely, with the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.

(Höhler, Herm. Phil., p. 156.) The making of the Philosopher's Stone is, so to
speak, the Imitation of Christ.

Hitchcock (H. A., p. 143) believes that Irenaeus Philaletha has clearly
alluded in a passage of his writings to the two mental processes, analysis and
synthesis, which lead to the same end. “To seek the unity through Sol, I take
it, is to employ the intellect upon the Idea of Unity, by analysis that
terminates in the parts; whereas to study upon Mercury, here used for nature
at large, is to work synthetically, and by combining the parts, reach an idea
of the unity. The two lead to the same thing, beginning as it were from
opposite extremes; for the analysis of any one thing, completely made, must
terminate in the parts, while the parts, upon a synthetical construction, must
reproduce the unity. One of the two ways indicated by Irenaeus is spoken of
as a herculean labor, which I suppose to be the second, the reconstruction of
a unity by a recombination of the parts, which in respect to nature is
undoubtedly a [pg 167] herculean undertaking. The more hopeful method is
by meditation, etc.”

Some of the writers tell us to put “one of the bodies into the alembic,” that is
to say, take the soul into the thought or study and apply the fire (of intellect)
to it, until it “goes over” into spirit. Then, “putting this by for use,” put in
“the other body,” which is to be subjected to a similar trial until it “goes
over” also; after which the two may be united, being found essentially or
substantially the same.

The two methods of which Irenaeus speaks are also called in alchemy (with
reference to chemical procedures) the wet and the dry ways. The wet way is
that which leads to unity through mental elaboration. The philosophy of the
Indian didactic poetry Bhagavad-Gita also knows the two ways and calls
them Samkhya and Yoga.

“Thinking (Samkhya) and devotion (Yoga) separate only fools, but not the
wise.
Whoever consecrates himself only to the One, gets both fruits.
Through thinking and through devotion the same point is reached,
Thinking and devotion are only One, who knows that, knows rightly.”

Bh-G. V. 4ff.

“Samkhya” and “Yoga” have later been elaborated into whole philosophical
systems. Originally, however, they are merely “different methods of arriving
at the same end, namely the attainment of the Atman [all spirit] which on the
one hand is [pg 168] spread out as the whole infinite universe and on the
other is to be completely and wholly found in the inner life. In the first sense
Atman can be gained by meditation on the multiplex phenomena of the
universe and their essential unity, and this meditation is called Samkhya
[from sam + khya, reflection, meditation]; on the other hand, Atman is
attainable by retirement from the outer world and concentration upon one's
own inner world and this concentration is called Yoga.” (Deussen, Allg.
Gesch. d. Phil., I, 3, p. 15.)

For the practice of alchemy a moral behavior is required, which is hardly
necessary as a precondition of merely chemical work. The disciple of the art
is to free his character, according to the directions of the masters from all
bad habits, especially to abjure pride, is diligently to devote himself to
prayer, perform works of love, etc.; no one is to direct his senses to this
study if he has not previously purified his heart, renounced the love of
worldly things, and surrendered himself completely to God. (Höhler, Herm.
Phil., pp. 62 ff.)

The sloppers, who strive to make gold in a chemical laboratory often waste
in it their entire estate. The adepts, however, assure us that even a poor man
can obtain the stone; many, indeed, say the poor have a better materia than
the rich. Rom. II, 11: “For there is no respect of persons with God.” Matth.
XIX, 24: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” The alchemist [pg 169]
Khunrath says somewhere, the cost of making gold amounts to thirty dollars;
we understand this when we remember that Jesus was sold for thirty pence.

Ruland (Lex., p. 26) defines alchemy very finely: [In reference to Tab.
Smar., 9] “Alchemy is the separation of the impure from a purer substance.”
This is quite as true of the chemical as of the spiritual alchemy.

Why the hermetic philosophers write not literally but in figures may be
accounted for in several ways. We should first of all remember that because
of their free doctrine, which was indeed not at variance with true Christianity
but with the narrow-minded church, they had to fear the persecution of the

latter, and that for this reason they veiled their teachings. Hitchcock notices
also a further point. The alchemists often declare that the knowledge of their
secret is dangerous (for the generality of people). It appears that they did not
deem that the time was ripe for a religion that was based more on ideal
requirements, on moral freedom, than on fear of hell fire, expectation of
rewards and on externally visible marks and pledges. Besides we shall see
later that a really clear language is in the nature of things neither possible nor
from an educational point of view to be recommended.

Still the mystical purpose of the authors of those times when the
precautionary measures were not necessary appears clearer under the
alchemistic clothing, although no general rule applying to it can be set forth.
Other reasons, e.g., intellectual and conventional [pg 170] ones, influenced
them to retain the symbolism.

Very clearly mystical are the writings of a number of hermetic artists, who
are permeated by the spiritual doctrine of Jacob Boehme. This theosophist
makes such full use of the alchemistic symbolism, that we find it wherever
we open his writings. I will not even begin to quote him, but will only call
the reader's attention to his brief and beautifully thoughtful description of the
mystical process of moral perfection, which stands as “Processus” at the end
of the 5th chapter of his book, “De Signatura Rerum.” (Ausg., Gichtel Col.,
2218 f.)

An anonymous author who has absorbed much of the “Philosophicus
Teutonicus,” wrote the book, “Amor Proximi,” much valued by the amateurs
of the high art. It does not require great penetration to recognize this pious
manual, clothed throughout in alchemistic garments, as a mystical work. The
same is true of the formerly famous “Wasserstein der Weisen” (1st ed.
appeared 1619), and similar books. Here are some illustrative pages from
“Amor Proximi”:

“This [Symbol: water] [[Symbol: water] of life] is now the creature not
foreign or external but most intimate in every one, although hidden.... See
Christ is not outside of us, but intimately within us, although hidden.” (P.
32.)

“Whoever is to work out a thing practically must first have a fundamental
knowledge of a thing; in order that man shall macrocosmically and
magically [pg 171] work out the image of God, all God's kingdom, in
himself; he must have its right knowledge in himself....” (P. 29.)

“Christ is the great Universal; [The Grand Mastery is also called by the
alchemists the ‘universal’; it tinctures all metals to gold and heals all
diseases (universal medicine); there is a somewhat more circumscribed
‘particular,’ which tinctures only a special metal and cures only single
diseases.] who says: ‘Whoever will follow me and be my disciple (i.e., a
particular or member of my body), let him take up his [Symbol: cross] and
follow me.’ Thus one sees that all who desire to be members of the great
universal must each partake according to the measure of his suffering and
development as small specific remedies.” (Pp. 168 ff.)

“Paracelsus, the monarch of Arcana, says that the stars as well as the light of
grace, nowhere work more willingly than in a fasting, pure, and free heart.
As it is naturally true that the coarse sand and ashes cannot be illumined by
the sun, so the sun of righteousness cannot illumine the old Adam. It is then
that the sand and ashes [the old Adam] are melted in the [Symbol: fire] [of
the [Symbol: cross]] again and again, that a pure glass [a newborn man] is
made of it; so the [Symbol: gold/sol] can easily shoot its rays into and
through it and therefore illumine it and reveal the wonder of its wisdom. So
man must be recast in [Symbol: cross] [Symbol: fire] [cross-fire], so that the
rays of both lights can penetrate him; otherwise no one will become a wise
man.” (P. 96 ff.)

Beautiful expositions of alchemy that readily make [pg 172] manifest the
mystical content are found also in the English theosophists Pordage and his
followers, in particular Jane Leade (both 17th century). Their language is
clearer and more lucid than Jacob Boehme's. Many passages appropriate to
this topic might be here cited; but as I shall later take up Leade more fully, I
quote only one passage from Pordage (Sophia, p. 23):

“Accordingly and so that I should arrive at a fundamental and complete
cleansing from all tares and earthiness ... I gave over my will entirely to its
[wisdom's] fiery smelting furnace as to a fire of purification, till all my vain
and chaff-like desires and the tares of earthly lust had been burnt away as by

fire, and all my iron, tin and dross had been entirely melted in this furnace,
so that I appeared in spirit as a pure gold, and could see a new heaven and a
new earth created and formed within me.”

Out of all this, taken in conjunction with the following chapter, it will be
evident and beyond question that our Parable must also be interpreted as a
mystical introduction.

[pg 173]

Section IV.

Rosicrucianism And Freemasonry.

The previous chapter has shown that there was a higher alchemy—it was
furthermore regarded as the true alchemy—which has the same relation to
practical chemistry that freemasonry has to practical masonry. A prominent
chemist who had entered into the history of chemistry and that of
freemasonry once wrote to me: “Whoever desires to make a chemical
preparation according to a hermetic recipe seems to me like a person who
undertakes to build a house according to the ritual of Freemasonry.”

The similarity is not a chance one. Both external and internal relations
between alchemy and freemasonry are worthy of notice. The connection is
partly through rosicrucianism. Since the Parable, which shall still be the
center of our study, belongs to rosicrucian literature (and indeed is probably
a later development of it), it is fitting here to examine who and what the
Rosicrucians really were. We cannot, of course, go into a thorough
discussion of this unusually complex subject. We shall mention only what is
necessary to our purpose. I shall not, however, be partial, but treat of both
the parties which are diametrically opposed in their views of the problems of
rosicrucian history. It will be shown [pg 174] that this disagreement
fortunately has but small influence upon our problem and that therefore we
are relieved of the difficult task of reaching a conclusion and of bringing
historical proof for a decision which experienced specialists—of whom I am
not one—have so signally failed to reach.

Rosicrucians are divided into those of three periods, the old, who are
connected by the two chief writings, “Fama” and “Confessio,” that appeared
at the beginning of the 17th century; the middle, which apparently represents
a degeneration of the original idealistic league, and finally, the gold crossers
and rose crossers, who for a time during the 18th century developed greater
power. The last Rosicrucians broke into freemasonry for a while (in the
second half of the eighteenth century) in a manner almost catastrophic for
continental masonry, yet I observe in anticipation that this kind of

rosicrucian expansion is not immediately concerned with the question as to
the original relation of freemasonry and rosicrucianism. We must know how
to distinguish the excrescence from the real idea. Rosicrucianism died out at
the beginning of the 19th century. The rosicrucian degrees that still exist in
many systems of freemasonry (as Knight of the Red Cross, etc.) are
historical relics. Those who now parade as rosicrucians are imposters or
imposed on, or societies that have used rosicrucian names as a label.

Many serious scholars doubt that the old Rosicrucians ever existed as an
organized fraternity. I refer [pg 175] to the article Rosenkreuz in the
“Handbuch der Freimaurerei” (Lenning), where this skeptical view is
dominant. Other authors, on the contrary, believe in the existence of the old
order and think that the freemasons who appeared in their present form in
1717 are the rosicrucians persisting, but with changed name. Joh. Gottl.
Buhle, a contemporary of Nicolai, had already assumed that the rosicrucian
Michael Maier introduced rosicrucianism into England, and that
freemasonry began then especially with the coöperation of the Englishman
Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Ferdinand Katsch warmly defended the actual
existence of the old rosicrucian fraternity with arguments, some of which are
disputed. He names with certainty a number of people as “true rosicrucians,”
among them Julianus de Campis, Michael Maier, Robert Fludd, Frisius or
Frizius, Comenius (Katch, p. 33). Rosicrucianism turned into freemasonry
for practical reasons. As the most outstanding imposters represented
themselves as rosicrucians this name was not conserved. The wrong was
prevented, in that the true rosicrucians withdrew as such and assumed a
different dress.

Generally we imagine a different origin of freemasonry. We are accustomed
to look for its beginnings in practical masonry, whose lodges can be traced
back to the fourteenth century. The old unions of house builders were joined
by persons who were not actual workers but lay members, through whom
spiritual power was added to the lodges. At the beginning of the eighteenth
century the old working [pg 176] masonry was transformed into the spiritual
symbolical freemasonry, but with a continuance of its forms. At that time in
London the building lodges had diminished to four. These were united on
June 24 (St. John's Day), 1717, and chose Anton Sayer for their grand
master. That is the origin of Freemasonry as it exists to-day.

This derivation is and will be considered unsatisfactory by many, however
much it may satisfy the merely documentary claims. The attempt to make it
better required an inventive phantasy and this was not always fortunate in its
attempts. The rosicrucian theory cannot be dismissed off hand, especially if
we conceive it in a somewhat broader sense. In agreement with Katsch,
Höhler (Herm. Phil., p. 6) recalls how generally people were occupied in the
16th and 17th centuries in the whole of western Europe with cabala,
theosophy, magic (physics), astrology and alchemy, and indeed this held true
of higher and lower social strata, scholars and laymen, ecclesiastic and
secular. “The entire learned theology turned on cabala. Medicine was based
on theosophy and alchemy and the latter was supposed to be derived from
theosophy and astrology.” Höhler, in one respect, goes further than Katsch
and conjectures: “Freemasonry had its roots in the chemical societies of the
16th and 17th centuries, in which all those things were fostered that
constituted the science of that day.” This theory is incomparably more open
to discussion than if one attempts to confine the origin to the insecure base
of rosicrucianism. [pg 177] We shall learn to appreciate more fully the
significance of the chemical societies.

In connection with the question, important for us, as to the position of the
alchemy of the rosicrucians (whether they lived only in books or as an actual
brotherhood), it is worth while to glance at the literature.

Joachin Frizius, whom some think identical with Fludd, writes in the
“Summum Bonum, quod est verum Magiae, Cabalae, Alchymiae, verae
Fratrum Roseae Crucis verorum subjectum” (first published in Frankfort,
1629):

“Aben (‫ )אבן‬means a stone. In this one cabbalistic stone we have the Father,
Son and Holy Ghost ... for in Hebrew Ab (‫ )אב‬means Father and Ben (‫)בן‬
Son. But where the Father and Son are present there the Holy Ghost must be
also.... Let us now examine this Stone as the foundation of the macrocosm....
Therefore the patriarch Jacob spake, ‘How dreadful is this place. This is
none other but the house of God,’ and rose up and took the stone that he had
put for his pillow and poured oil upon the top of it, and said, ‘This stone that
I have set for a pillar shall be God's house, etc.’ If therefore a God's house,
then God is in that place or else his earthly substance. Here it was that the
patriarch, as he slept on this stone, conserved something divine and

miraculous, through the power of that spirit-filled stone which in its
corporeality is similar to the relation of the body to the soul. But the spiritual
stone was Christ; but Christ [pg 178] is the eternal wisdom, in which as the
scripture says are many mansions, which are undoubtedly distinguished on
account of the different grades of grace and blessedness. For blessedness
follows wisdom or knowledge, the higher and more we know the farther we
go towards the Godhead.” (Summ. Bon., pp. 17 ff.)

“Thereupon it clearly appears who this macrocosmic Stone Aben ... really is,
and that his fiery spirit is the foundation stone of all and given for all (sit
lapis seu petra catholica atque universalis) ... which was laid in Zion as the
true foundation, on which the prophets and the apostles as well have built,
but which was also to the ignorant and wicked builders a stumbling block
and bone of contention. This stone therefore is Christ who has become our
Cornerstone....” (Summ. Bon., p. 19.) “If we consider now the stone Aben in
its significance for the microcosmos ... we shall soon be sure that as a stone
temple of God it can have no less value for every outer man in so far as the
Holy Ghost also reserves a dwelling in him forever.” (Summ. Bon., p. 20.)

“That is also the reason why the stone Aben appears in double form (quod
ambae petrae), that is, in the macrocosmic and in the microcosmic.... For the
spiritual stone is Christ that fulfills all. So we also are parts of the spiritual
stone and such are also living stones, taken out of that universal stone (a
petra illa catholica excisi)....” (Summ. Bon., p. 20.) Here again we have the
alchemistic distinction [pg 179] between the universal and the particular, and
the like distinction is also expressed by the opposition of the celestial and the
terrestrial stones. The second chapter of I Peter speaks of the living stone. I
Corinthians X, 4, says likewise: “And did all drink of that spiritual Rock that
followed them and that Rock was Christ.” Alchemistically expressed it is
called aurum potabile (drinkable gold).

“But,” now you ask, “where then is all the gold with which those alchemists
[Fama] glitter so famously?” So we answer you.... “Our gold is indeed not in
any way the gold of the multitude, but it is the living gold, the gold of
God.... It is wisdom, which the psalmist means, Ps. XII, 6, ‘The words of the
Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times.’ If you now wish ... to put before yourself the true and actual animal

stone, then seek the cornerstone, which is the means of all change and
transformation, in yourself.” (Summ. Bon., pp. 34 ff.)

“Finally the brother works towards the consummation of his labors in the
form of a master builder (denique sub architecti figura operatur frater ad
huius operis perfectionem).... Only for the better carrying out of our building
and thereby to attain the rose-red bloom of our cross concealed in the center
of our foundation ... we must not take the work superficially, but must dig to
the center of the earth, knock and seek.” (Summ. Bon., p. 48; Trans. Katsch,
pp. 413 ff.) Just after that he speaks of the three dimensions, height, depth,
and [pg 180] breadth. The masonic symbolism is accompanied clearly
enough in the “Summum Bonum” by the alchemistic. Notice the knocking
and seeking, and what is mentioned in the doctrines about the form of the
Lodge. Immediately thereafter is a prolix discussion of the geometric cube.

Frizius and Fludd contribute also a letter supposed to have been sent by
rosicrucians to a German candidate. It says, “Since you are such a stone as
you desire, and such a work ... cleanse yourself with tears, sublimate
yourself with manners and virtues, decorate and color yourself with the
sacramental grace, make your soul sublime toward the subtile meditation of
heavenly things, and conform yourself to angelic spirits so that you may
vivify your moldering body, your vile ashes, and whiten them, and
incorruptibly and painlessly gain resurrection through J[esus] C[hrist] O[ur]
L[ord].” In another passage: “Be ye transformed, therefore, be ye transmuted
from mortal to living philosophic stones.”

In the “Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae Fluddanae” (published in Latin in
1633), are passages like the following: “Indeed every pious and righteous
man is a spiritual alchemist.... We understand by that a man who understands
not only how to distinguish but with the fire of the divine spirit to separate
[spagiric art] the false from the true, vice from virtue, dark from light, the
uncleanness of vice from the purity of the spirit emulating God. For only in
this way is unclean lead turned into gold.” (P. 75.) “If one now ventures to
say that the [pg 181] Word of Christ or the Holy Ghost of wisdom dwells in
the microcosmic heaven [i.e., in the soul of man] we should not decry the
blind children of the world as godless and abandoned. [But certainly the
divine spirit is, as is later averred, the rectangular stone in us, on which we
are to build.] This divine spark is, however, continuous and eternal; it is our

gold purchasable of Christ.... So it happens in accordance with the teachings
of Christ, or the Word become flesh, that if the true alchemists keep on
seeking and knocking, they attain to the knowledge of the living fire.” (P.
81.) So again the important knocking and seeking of masonic symbolism,
and this indeed, for the purpose of learning to know a fire.

In reference to the really elevating thoughts of the “Summum Bonum,”
Katsch, enthusiastic about these ideas, exclaims: “What language, what an
unflinching courage, what a dignified humility. Even the most reluctant will
not be able to avoid the admission that here quite unexpectedly he has ... met
the original and ideal form of freemasonry.”

The comparison of masonry and alchemy remains true even if we work more
critically than Katsch, who is accused of many inaccuracies. I recall for
instance the later researches of the thorough and far-seeing Dr. Ludwig
Keller.

For the illumination of the darkness that has spread over the past of
freemasonry, Keller shows us (B. W. and Z., pp. 1, 2) the rich material of
symbolism that is offered the diligent student, first of all in the very copious
literature, printed matter, [pg 182] and especially in the manuscripts, that is
known by the name of Chemistry or Alchemy.

In the symbols of the alchemists, the rosicrucians, the Lodges, etc., “we meet
a language that has found acceptance among all occidental peoples in
analogous form, not indeed a letter or word language, but a language
nevertheless, a token or a symbol language of developed form, which is
evident even in the rock temples of the so-called catacombs, once called
latomies and loggie. The single images and symbols have something to say
only to the person who understands this language. To the man who does not
understand it, they say nothing and are not expected to say anything.”

In reference to the symbol and image language, which was comprehensible
only to the initiated, we think naturally of the ancient mysteries. The
religious societies of the oldest Christians, in the centuries when Christianity
belonged in the Roman Empire to the forbidden cults, found a possibility of
existence before the law in the form of licensed societies, i.e., as guilds,
burial unions, and corporations of all sorts. The primitive Christians were

not the only forbidden sects that sought and found this recourse. Under the
disguise of schools, trade unions, literary societies, and academies, there
existed in the jurisdiction of the Roman Empire, and later inside of the world
church, organizations that before the law were secular societies, but in the
minds of the initiated were associations of a religious character. Within these
associations there appeared very early [pg 183] a well developed system of
symbols, which were adopted for the purpose of actually maintaining,
through the concealment necessitated by circumstances, their unions and
their implements and customs—symbols that they chose as cloaks and that
in the circle of the initiated were explained and interpreted according to the
teachings of their cult.

Valuable monuments of this symbolism are preserved in the vast rock
temples that are found in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Sicily, and the Apennine
peninsula, in Greece, France, and on the Rhine, and these vaults, which in
part also served the early Christians as places of worship, show in their
images and records and in their architectural form so close a resemblance
that they must be acknowledged as the characteristic of a great religious cult
extending over many lands, which has had consistent traditions for the use of
such symbols and for the production of these structures.

Many of these symbols, it should be noted in passing, are borrowed from
those tokens and implements of the building corporations, which were
necessary to the completion of their buildings (Keller, l. c., p. 4). An
important part was played even in the early Christian symbolism by the
sacred numbers and the figures corresponding to them, a group of
educational symbols which we find likewise in the pythagorean and platonic
schools. It is known that the symbolical language of the subterranean rock
temples, some of which were used by the earliest Christians for their
religious worship, are closely [pg 184] connected with the pythagorean and
platonic doctrines. From the year 325 A. D. on, every departure from the
beliefs of the state church was considered a state offense. So those Christians
who retained connection with the ancient philosophic schools were
persecuted. In the religious symbol language of the church, the sacred
numbers naturally began to disappear from that time. In the writings of
Augustine begins the war on the symbolic language, whose use he declared a
characteristic of the gnostics. In spite of the suppression the doctrines of the
sacred numbers continued through all the centuries in religious use, in quiet

but strong currents which flowed beside the state church. The sect names,
which were invented by polemic theology for the purpose of characterizing
methods that were regarded as imitations of the gnostics, are of the most
varied kinds; it may be enough to remember that in all those spiritual
currents, that like the old German mysticism, the earlier humanism, the so-
called natural philosophy, etc., show a strong influence of platonic thinking,
the doctrines of the sacred numbers recur, in a more or less disguised form,
but yet clearly recognizable. (Keller, Heil. Zahl., p. 2.)

As the old number symbolism constitutes a part of the hieroglyphics of
alchemy, I shall pause a moment to consider them. The use of mathematical
and geometrical symbols proceeds from the use of the simplest forms, points
and lines, but in all cases where the object is not a representation in the flat
but in space, both the points and lines are replaced by [pg 185] plastic forms,
i.e., forms of cylinders, spheres, bars, rings, cubes, etc. From this point it
was but a short step to the use of trees, leaves, flowers, implements, and
other things that showed similarities in form. Pillars are specially noticeable
for the symbolism of the ceremonial chamber. In all cases where points and
lines occur in images and drawings, pillars are found in the plastic
representation of thoughts and symbols. They form the chief element of the
organization of cults in academies and museums, and justify the names of
colonnade, stoa, portico, and loggia, which occur everywhere; besides the
special designation like Οἰκυς αἰονὶος, etc.

For symbolism, too, which served as the characterization of the forms of
organization and the building up of the fraternity into degrees, lines were
useless, but in place of lines and points are found plastic forms which were
at their disposal in carpenters' squares, crossed bars, etc. (Keller, l. c., p. 10.)

As the circle symbolized the all and the eternal or the celestial unity of the
all, and the divinity, so the number one, the single line, the staff or the
scepter, represented the terrestrial copy of the power, the ruling, guiding,
sustaining and protecting force of the personality that had attained freedom
on earth.

The sun or gold symbol [Symbol: Sun] corresponds in alchemy to the divine
circle and the same circle occurs in other symbols of the art, as in [Symbol:
Copper] [Symbol: Mercury], etc.

Duality, the Dyas, represents in contrast to the celestial being the divided
terrestrial being that is [pg 186] dominated by the antagonism of things and
is only a transitory, imperfect existence; the opposites, fluid and solid,
sulphur and mercury, dry and wet, etc.

In the symbol of the trinity, which frequently occurs in the form of a triangle
(three points united by three straight lines), is shown how the divided and
sensuous nature is led by the higher power of the number 3 to a harmony of
powers and to a new unity. The symbol of reason attaining victory over
matter becomes visible. A representation of trinity is possible by means of
the conventional cross. We can see in it two elements of lines which by their
unification or penetration give the third as the point of intersection. More
generally the cross is conceived as quinity (fiveness)—i.e., 4+1ness (in
alchemy four elements which are collected about the quinta esentia). A cross
in which unity splits into duality so that trinity results, is Y, which is called
the forked cross. From unity grows duality, that is, nature divides into spirit
and matter, into active and passive, necessity and freedom. The divided
returns through trinity to unity. In alchemy we have the symbol REBIS, the
hermaphrodite with the two heads. The ancient symbol was later conceived,
by purposive concealment or by more accidental interpretation, as the letter
Y, just as the symbol of the three lines [Symbol: fire] or [Symbol: fire with a
line coming out top pointing left] and the like gradually appears to have
become an A, as it is found frequently in the catacombs. Keller refers (l. c.,
p. 14) also especially to the reduplication of the carpenter's square, which is
found likewise in the old Latomies (Gk. = [pg 187] quarries) and has the
appearance of two intersecting opened circles. I do not need to call attention
to the masonic analogue; in alchemy we have here the interpenetration of
[Symbol: fire] and [Symbol: Water], i.e., [Symbol: Star of David], which is
among others the symbol for the material of the stone. [[Symbol: Fire] and
[Symbol: Water] are the symbols for the elements fire and water. Fire and
water, however, mean also the famous two opposites, that are symbolized
quite as well by warm and cold, red and white, soul and body, sun and moon,
man and woman.] With regard to the six points, in alchemy [Symbol: Star of
David] is also called chaos in contrast to [Symbol: Star of David], which
denotes cosmos, just as alum [Symbol: circle] on account of its lack of a
center (God, belief, union), is incomplete beside [Symbol: sol]. In the
catacombs the triangle is found also in multiple [five fold] combination,
[Symbol: Star of David].

Four lines, somewhat in the form of a rectangle, define the limited space of
the terrestrial world with the accessory meaning of the holy precinct, house,
temple. In masonry, [Symbol: square] is well known as the lodge. The
rectangle is related to the cube. I mention therefore in this place the cubic
stone, the mighty masonic symbol, whose equivalent in alchemy will be
discussed.

By a commonly used change of significance the number 5 is symbolized by
5-leaved plants (rose, lily, vine). “The flowers, however, and the garden in
which they grow, early served as symbols of the Fields of the Blessed or the
‘better country’ in which dwell the souls passing through death to life; in
antithesis to the terrestrial house of God, the [pg 188] temple built with
hands, which was represented by the rectangle [Symbol: rectangle], the holy
number 5 denoted the celestial abodes of the souls that had attained
perfection, and therefore represented both the House of Eternity or the City
of God and the Heavenly Jerusalem. The holy pentagram in the form of the
rose, not only in the ancient but in the early Christian world, decorated the
graves of the dead, that in their turn symbolized the gardens of the blessed.
And the significance that the academies and loggia attributed to the
pentagram placed in the rose is explained by the fact that their religious
festival was closely connected with this emblem. Already in the ancient
world at the festival of St. John, the rose feast or rhodismus or Rosalia was
celebrated, at which the participants adorned themselves with roses and held
religious feasts.” (Keller, 1. c., p. 21.)

As already mentioned, the cross, i.e., the Greek cross with its four equal
arms, expresses the number five. It is interesting that already in the ancient
number symbolism, rose and cross appear united, a fact which I mention
here in view of the later connection of these two objects.

The semicircle or moon is an emblem of borrowed light. Besides the circles
or spheres, the symbols of eons (divine beings, powers) that are enthroned in
the ether as eternal beings, the human soul—the psyche or anima, which
does not coincide with reason or the purified soul—appears as a broken
circle. As the sun and its symbol, the ragged circle, symbolize the eternal
light, the half circle is, as it were, [pg 189] the symbol of that spark of light
that slumbers in the soul of man, or, as the alchemists often say, the hidden
fire that is to be awakened by the process. If we reflect that in this

symbolism the cross expresses a penetration, the alchemic symbol [Symbol:
mercury] is explained. It is now quite interesting that the like connection
appears in the subterranean places of worship in this form [Symbol: female
with concave arc underneath it], (l. c., p. 27). Keller calls it a symbol of the
all and the soul of man.

The number 7 (seven planets, etc.) also is of some importance in the old
latomies. It is noteworthy besides that sun and moon usually appear as
human forms; the sun wears on its head a crown or garland or beaming star,
while the moon image is wont to carry the symbol [Symbol: Silver].
Alchemy, too, likes to represent [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver] as
human, and indeed frequently as crowned figures, sometimes as a royal
bridal couple.

The ancient lore of the sacred numbers breathes a spirit that may be
embodied in the following words: The soul of man, which through
resignation or meekness, as they used to say then, is impelled onward to
purity and union with the Eternal, has in itself a higher life, which cannot be
annihilated by death. The doctrine of the infinite value of the soul ... and of
God's entering into the pure soul of man forms the central point of the
thought of religious fellowship. Neither for sacrifice, which the state
religions practice, nor for the beliefs in demons, by which the masses are
controlled, nor for the idea of priesthood as means of salvation, was there a
place in this system, and not a trace of such a belief [pg 190] is demonstrable
in this religion of wisdom and virtue. (l. c., p. 33.)

Besides the early Christian ideal, which recognized and encouraged the
connection between the teachings of Christ and the ancient wisdom of
platonism, there was in early times another which emphasized and
endeavored to develop the antithesis more than the connection. From the
time when the new Christian state church came to life, and sacrificial
religion and the belief in devils and the priesthood were restored, a struggle
of life and death developed between the church and the so-called philosophic
schools. “The fraternity saw that it had to draw down the mask still further
over its face than formerly, and the ‘House of the Eternal,’ the ‘Basilika,’ the
‘Academies,’ and the ‘Museums’ became workshops of stone cutters,
latomies, and loggia or innocent guilds, unions, and companies of every
variety. But all later greater religious movements and tendencies which

maintained the old beliefs, whether they appeared under the names of
mysticism, alchemy, natural philosophy, humanism, or special names and
disguises, as workshops or societies, have preserved more or less truly the
doctrine of the ‘sacred numbers’ and the number symbolism, and found the
keys of wisdom and knowledge in the rightly understood doctrine of the
eternal harmony of the spheres.” (Keller, l. c., p. 38.)

Keller derives modern freemasonry from the academies of the renaissance,
which, as we have just heard, continued the spirit of the ancient academies.
[pg 191] Now it is interesting that the later branches of these religious
societies (after the renaissance) took among others the form of alchemy
companies and further that such fraternities or companies [as are not called
alchemical], still employed symbols that we recognize as derived from
alchemy. The hieroglyphics of alchemy appear to be peculiarly appropriate
to the religious and philosophic ideas to be treated of. Rosicrucianism was,
however, one of the forms into which alchemy was organized. It is further
important that in just those societies of the beginning of the seventeenth
century which outsiders called “alchymists” or “rosicrucians,” the
characteristic emblems of the old lodge appeared, as, for instance, the circle,
the cubic stone, the level, the man facing the right, the sphere, the oblong
rectangle (symbol of the Lodge), etc. (Keller, Zur Gesch. d. Bauh., p. 17.)
These “alchymists” honored St. John in the same way as can be shown for
the companies of the fifteenth century. I need not mention that modern
masonry, in its most important form, bears the name of Masons of St. John.

From the beginning of the 17th century attempts were made inside the
fraternity, as the company societies working in the same spirit may be called,
to bring to more general recognition a suitable name for this company, which
could also form a uniting bond for the scattered single organizations. The
leaders knew and occasionally said that a respected name for the common
interest would be advantageous. This view appears especially in the letters of
[pg 192] Comenius. It was then indeed an undecided question what nation
should place itself at the head of the great undertaking. (Keller, in the M. H.
der C. G., 1895, p. 156.) “As a matter of fact precisely in the years when in
Germany the brothers had won the support of powerful princes and the
movement received a great impetus, very decided efforts were made both to
create larger unions and to adopt a unifying name. The founding of the
Society of the Palmtree [1617] was the result of the earlier effort and the

writings of Andreaes on the alleged origin and aims of the rosicrucians are
connected with the other need. The battle of the White Mountain and the
unfortunate consequences that followed killed both attempts, as it were, in
the germ.” (Z. Gesch, d. Bauh., p. 20.) Note by the way that the name of the
“Fraternity of the Red Cross” was taken from symbols which were already
employed in the societies. In regard to this it is quite mistaken accuracy to
maintain that it was correctly called “Bruderschaft des Rosenkreutz” and not
“des Rosenkreutzes,” as the “Handbuch d. Freimaurerei,” p. 259, emends it.
Vatter Christian Rosenkreutz is indeed evidently only a composite legendary
personage as the bearer of a definite symbolism (Christ, rose, cross), (and
may have been devised merely in jest). The name does not come from the
personality of the founder but the personality of the founder comes from the
name. The symbols and expressions that lie at the foundations are the earlier.

[pg 193]
The attempt mentioned, to find a common name, did not permanently
succeed. The visionaries and “heretics” decried as “Rosicrucians” and
“alchymists” were considered as enemies and persecuted. It is irrelevant
whether there was an organized fraternity of rosicrucians; it was enough to
be known as a rosicrucian. (Keller, Z. Gesch. d. B., p. 21.) The great
organization did not take place until a great European power spread over it
its protecting hand, i.e., in 1717, when in England the new English system of
“Grand Lodges of Free and Accepted Masons” arose. (Keller, D. Soc. d.
Hum., p. 18.) We see that Keller arrives by another and surer way than
Katsch at the same result, and shows the continuity of the alchemists or
rosicrucians and the later freemasons, if not in exactly the same way that
Katsch has outlined it. In particular Keller gets along without the unproved
statement that there were organized rosicrucians (outside of the later gold-
and rose-crosses). He shows what is much more important, namely that there
were societies that might have borne the name of rosicrucians (or any similar
name).

Figure 1.

Several interesting peculiarities should not be omitted, as for instance, that
Leibniz, about 1667, was secretary of an alchemist's society (of so-called
rosicrucians) in Nuremberg. Leibniz describes alchemy as an “introduction
to mystic theology” and identifies the concepts of “Arcana Naturae” and
“Chymica.” (M. H. der C. G., 1903, p. 149; 1909, p. 169 ff.) In the laws of
the grand lodge [pg 194] “Indissolubilis” (17th and 18th centuries) there are

found as doctrinal symbols of the three grades, the alchemistic symbols of
salt (rectification, clarification), of quicksilver (illumination), and of sulphur
(unification, tincture), used in a way that corresponds to the stages of
realization of the “Great Work.” The M. H. d. C. G., 1909, p. 173 ff. remarks
that we should probably regard it only as an accident, if there are not found,
in the famous hermetic chemical writings, similar signs with additions as
would for experts, exclude all doubt as to their purport. In 1660 appeared at
Paris an edition of a writing very celebrated among the followers of the art,
“Twelve Keys of Philosophy,” which was ostensibly written by one Brother
Basilius Valentinus. In this edition we see at the beginning a remarkable
plate, whose relation to masonic symbolism is unmistakable (Figure 1). In
addition to the lowest symbol of salt (represented as cubic stone) there is a
significant reference to the earth and the earthly. [I should note that besides
[Symbol: circle with diameter line] alchemy used [Symbol: square] for salt,
in which there is a special reference to the earthly nature of salt. In Plato the
smallest particles of the earth are cubical. Salt and earth alternate in the
terminology, just as mercury [Symbol: female] and air [Symbol: air] or water
[Symbol: water] do; as sulphur [Symbol: sulfur and fire [Symbol: fire]; only,
however, where it is permitted by the context.] The Rectification of the
subject (man) taken up by the Art, is achieved through the purification of the
earthly elements according to the indication of the alchemists who call the
beginning of the work “Vitriol,” [pg 195] and form an acrostic from the
initial letters of this word: “Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies
Occultum Lapidem” [= Visit the interior of the earth; by purifying you will
find the hidden stone]. Half way up there floats the [Symbol: mercury] that
has the value of a “union symbol” in the brotherhoods (as such, a symbol of
fellowship) and left and right of it is found the moon and sun or the flaming
star. Above is placed a triangle, in which is a phoenix rising from the flames;
and on the triangle stands the crowned Saturn or Hermes (in masonry
Hiram). On the left and right of this kingly form, on whose breast and
stomach are placed planet symbols, we notice water in the shape of drops
(tears) and flames that signify suffering and resurrection. “When we notice
that not only the principles of the old ‘amateurs of the art’ correspond with
those of the ‘royal art’ [freemasonry], but that the symbolism also is the
same in all parts, we recognize that the later masonic societies are only a
modern reshaping of the societies which dropped the depreciated names of
the alchemists in order to appear in a new dress” (l. c., p. 175). That the
assertion of the complete similarity of the symbolism is not mere fancy, the

following considerations (and not those only in this section), will
satisfactorily demonstrate. In the following examples the words showing it
most clearly are italicized.

Alchemy was regarded by its disciples as a royal art. Old sources show that
the art of making gold was revealed in Egypt only to the crown princes. [pg
196] Generally only the kings' sons were informed by the priests concerning
the magic sciences. The hermetics derived their art expressly from kings,
Hermes, Geber, and the patriarchs of alchemy were represented as kings.

According to Khunrath (Amphitheatrum) prayer, work and perseverance
lead to eternal wisdom by the mystical ladder of the seven theosophical
steps. Perfect wisdom consists in the knowledge of God and his Son, in the
understanding of the holy scriptures, in self knowledge and in knowledge of
the great world and its Son, the Magnesia of the philosophers or the
Philosopher's Stone. The mystical steps in general contain three activities,
hearing (audire), persevering (perseverare), knowing (nosse et scire), that
applies to five objects, so that we can distinguish seven steps in all. Only the
pure may enter the temple of wisdom, only the worthy are intrusted with the
secrets, the profane, however, must stay away.

In the fifth table of Khunrath's Amphitheatrum is pictured the seven pillared
citadel of Pallas (Prov. IX, 1). At the entrance is a table with the legend
Opera bona (= good works). Behind sits a man with the staff of Mercury. On
each side is a four sided pyramid, on the top of the left one is the sun, on the
right the moon. On the former stands the word Fides (= faith), on the latter
Taciturnitas (= silence). Behind the man we read the word Mysterion, over
the inner entrance Non omnibus (= not for all).

[pg 197]
Alchemy frequently mentions two or three lights. By these it understood
[Symbol: Sol] and [Symbol: Luna], [Symbol: Venus], [Symbol: Mercury],
[Symbol: Jupiter], light of grace and light of nature, etc. The juxtaposition of
[Symbol: Sol] [Symbol: Luna] and [Symbol: Hexagram] is interesting; no
one can attain the desired end before, through the circular wheel of the
elements, the fatness or the blood of the sun, and the dew of the moon are by
the action of art and nature, united in one body in the image of the
hexagram; and this can take place only by the will of the Most High, who

alone imparts the unique boon of the Holy Ghost and priceless treasure
according to his especial mercy. The above mentioned circular wheel is
identical with the serpent that bites its own tail; it is a power that always
consumes and always renews itself. This circle appears not to be lacking in
the flaming star; it is the round eye or the likewise round fashioned “G,”
which latter looks quite similar to the snake hieroglyph. The reference to
Genesis has a good reason. Moreover, the hexagram represents in cabbalistic
sense the mystical union of the male with the female potence [Symbol: Fire]
with [Symbol: Water]. According to a rabbinical belief a picture is supposed
to be placed in the ark of the covenant alongside of the tables of the laws,
which shows a man and a woman in intimate embrace, in the form of a
hexagram. In cabbalistic writings, as for instance, in those of H. C. Agrippa,
we find the human form in a star, generally inscribed in the pentagram. The
genitals fall exactly in the middle part and are often made prominent by an
added [Symbol: Mercury] as male-female or androgyne procreative power.
One of the snake [pg 198] shaped Egyptian hieroglyphs frequently turns into
an Arabic [Symbol: gimel], i.e., gimel. I do not know whether this fact has
any significance here. With respect to the above passages that mention the
“will of the Most High,” I refer to the dialogue which concerns the “G”; e.g.,
“Does it mean nothing else?” “Something that is greater than you.” “Who is
greater than I?” etc. “It is Gott, whom the English call God. Consider this
mysterious star; it is the symbol of the Spirit.... The image of the holy fire,
etc.”

Figure 2.

REBIS is represented as an hermetic hermaphrodite. The already mentioned
figure with the two heads (figure 2) is found (as Höhler relates) in a book
that appeared in Frankfort in 1618, called “Joannes Danielis Mylii Tractatus

III, seu Basilica Philosophica,” though it is to be seen also in other books on
alchemy. The hermaphrodite stands on a dragon that lies on a globe. In the
right hand he holds a pair of compasses, in the left a square. On the globe
we see a square and a triangle. Around the figure are the signs of the seven
planets, with [Symbol: Mercury] at the top. In a cut in the Discursus Nobilis
of John of Munster we see sun and moon, at the middle of the top the star
[Symbol: Hexagram], also denoted by Y = γλζ (= matter) surrounded by
rays. (Höhler, Herm. Phil., p. 105.)

In the cabala, which has found admission into the idea of the alchemists and
rosicrucians, no small part is played by three pillars and two pillars.

Tubal Cain was renowned as a great alchemist. [pg 199] He was the
patriarch of wisdom, a master of all kinds of brass and iron work. (Genesis
IV, 22.) He had the knowledge not only of ordinary chemistry and of the fire
required for it, but also of the higher chemistry and of the hidden elemental
fire. After the flood there was no other man who knew the art but the
righteous Noah, whom some call Hermogenes or Hermes, who possessed the
knowledge of celestial and terrestrial things.

One devoted to art must be a free man (Höhler, l. c., p. 66). The ordinale of
Norton establishes it more or less as follows: “The kings in the olden time
have ordained that no one should learn the liberal sciences except the free
and those of noble spirit, and any one who is devoted to them should devote
his life most freely. Accordingly the ancients have called them the seven
liberal arts, for whoever desires to learn thoroughly and well must enjoy a
certain freedom.”

Figure 3.

Very frequently one finds in the alchemists images of death: grave, coffin,
skeleton, etc. Thus in Michael Maier's, Atalanta Fugiens, the Emblema
XLIV shows how the king lies with his crown in the coffin which is just
opened. On the right stands a man with a turban, on the left two who open
the coffin and let his joyful countenance be seen. In the Practica of Basilius
Valentinus the illustration of the fourth key shows a coffin, on which stands
a skeleton, the illustration of the eighth key (see Fig. 3), a grave from which
half emerges a man with upright body and raised hands. [This reproduction
[pg 200] and figure I owe to the kindness of Dr. Ludwig Keller and the
publications of the Comenius Society.] Two men are shooting at the well
known mark, [Symbol: Sol], here represented as a target (a symbol much
used in the old lodges), while a third is sowing. (Parable of the sower and the
seeds.) The sign is a clever adaptation of the sulphur hieroglyph and is

identical with the registry mark of the third degree of the Grand Lodge
Indissolubilis. The mark [Symbol: Half circle] on the wall is also a symbol
of the academy; it is the half circle, man, to whom the light is imparted and
means, when occurring collectively, the fraternity. The evident idea is of
representing the exclusive society as enclosing wall. The angel with the
trumpet is the angel of the judgment day who awakes the dead. With respect
to the birds I refer to Matthew XIII, 4: “And when he sowed, some seeds fell
by the wayside and the fowls came and devoured them up.” In the text of
Basilius Valentinus, the fourth key, there is mention of the rotting and falling
to pieces with which we are familiar. The idea of dismemberment is not
infrequently clearly expressed, more clearly than in our parable. Already in
the oldest alchemistic manuals one operation is called the grave of Osiris.
One of the manuscripts cited by Berthelot (Orig., p. 60) says: “The dragon is
the guardian of the temple, sacrifice him, flay him, cut his flesh from his
bones and thou wilt find what thou seekest.” The dragon is also called
Osiris, with whose son Horus-Harpocrates, the skillful Hermes, is also
identified. (Do we need [pg 201] reference to requirements in the 3d degree?
J ... left his skin; ... B ... left his flesh...; M ... B..., he lives in the Son.)

Here more clearly than anywhere else we see the masonic symbolism
combined with the myth of the first parents or creation myth. No matter
where it acts, the myth-making power never seems willing to belie its laws.
Also the tree growing out of the grave or the body of the dead ancestor is not
wanting. (“... at the graves of our fathers.” “I was accused of a terrible
crime.”) It is the acacia whose presence is rationalized apparently for the
purpose of forming a sign by which to find again the place of the hastily
buried.

An Egyptian fable tells of two brothers. The younger, Bata, was falsely
accused by his sister-in-law (as was Joseph by Potiphar's wife). His brother
Inpw (Anepu) consequently pursued him. The sun god made a mighty flood
that separated the pursuer from the pursued. Bata castrated himself and
threw his organ of generation into the water, where it was swallowed by a
fish. Bata's heart later in the story is changed into a blossom of an acacia or a
cedar. [I naturally lay no stress on the accident that the acacia occurs here.
The point is that the tree is a symbol of life.] Bata is reconciled with Inpw
and at parting relates to him that a mug of beer is to serve as a symbol of
how the brother fares, who is dwelling afar off. If the beer foams he is in

danger. Bata's wife has the acacia tree, on which Bata's heart is a blossom,
felled, and as a [pg 202] result Bata dies. By means of the mug Inpw learns
of Bata's peril and departs to look for his younger brother. Inpw finds the
fallen acacia and on it a berry that is the heart of his brother transformed.
Bata comes to life again and transforms himself into an ox. His wife has the
ox butchered on the pretext of wishing to eat its liver. Two drops of blood
fall from the cut throat of the ox upon the ground and are changed into two
peach trees. Bata's wife has the two peach trees felled. A chip flies into her
mouth. She swallows it and becomes pregnant by it. The child that she bears
is the reincarnated Bata. He therefore lives again in his son as the child of a
widow.

The second fragment of the Physica et Mystica of Pseudo Democritus, that
Berthelot cites (Orig., p. 151) relates that the master died without having
initiated Democritus into the secrets of knowledge. Democritus conjured him
up out of the underworld. The spirit cried: “So that is the reward I get for
what I have done for thee.” To the questions of Democritus he answered,
“The books are in the temple.” They were not found. Some time thereafter,
on the occasion of a festival, they saw a column crack open, and in the
opening they found the books of the master, which contained three mystic
axioms: “Nature pleases herself in Nature; Nature triumphs over Nature;
Nature governs Nature.”

The quotations show, to be sure, only superficially the interrelation of
alchemy and freemasonry. The [pg 203] actual affinity lying behind the
symbolism, which, moreover, our examination of the hermetic art has
already foreshadowed, will be treated later.

We could also posit a psychological interrelation in the form of an
“etiological assumption” according to the terminology of psychoanalysis. It
would explain the temporary fusion of alchemistic rosicrucianism with
freemasonry. The rosicrucian frenzy would never have occurred—so much I
will say—in masonry, if there had been no trend that way. Some emotional
cause must have existed for the phenomenon, and as the specter of
rosicrucianism stalked especially on the masonic stage, and indeed was
dangerous to it alone, this etiological assumption must be such as to furnish
an effective factor in masonry itself, only in more discreet and wholesome
form. In masonry psychological elements have played a part which if

improperly managed might degenerate, as indeed they did when gold- and
rose-crossism was grafted on masonry. It appears to me too superficial to
explain the movement merely from the external connection of
rosicrucianism and the masonic system. Although the observation is quite
just, it does not touch the kernel of the matter, the impulse, which only
psychology can lay bare. Freemasonry must have felt some affinity with
rosicrucianism, something related at the psychical basis of the mode of
expression (symbolism, ritual) of both. Only the modes of expression of
rosicrucianism are evidently more far reaching or more dangerous in the
sense that they (the leadership of loose companions [pg 204] always
presupposed) could sooner incite weaker characters to a perverted idea and
practice of it.

That rosicrucianism in its better aspect is identical with the higher alchemy,
can no longer be doubted by any one after the material here offered. The
common psychological element is shown when, as will be done in later parts
of this book, we go into the deeper common basis of alchemy and
freemasonry. Then first will the sought-for “etiological assumption” attain to
its desired clearness. But already this much may be clear: that we have in
both domains, structures with a religious content, even though from time to
time names are used which will veil these facts. I add now in anticipation a
statement whose clear summing up has been reserved for psychoanalysis,
namely that the object of religious worship is regularly to be regarded as a
symbol of the libido, that psychologic goddess who rules the desires of
mankind—and whose prime minister is Eros. [Libido is desire or the
tendency toward desire, as it controls our impulsive life. In medical language
used mainly for sexual desire, the concept of libido is extended in
psychoanalysis (namely by C. G. Jung) to the impelling power of psychic
phenomena in general. Libido would therefore be the inner view of what
must in objective description be called “psychic energy.” How it could be
given this extension of meaning is seen when we know the possibilities of its
transformation and sublimation, a matter which will be treated later.] Now if
the libido symbol raised up for an ideal is placed too [pg 205] nakedly before
the seeker, the danger of misunderstanding and perversion is always present.
For he is misled by his instincts to take the symbol verbally, that is, in its
original, baser sense and to act accordingly. So all religions are degenerate in
which one chooses as a libido symbol the unconcealed sexual act, and

therefore also a religion must degenerate, in which gold, this object of
inordinate desire, is used as a symbol.

What impels the seeker, that is, the man who actually deserves the name, in
masonry and in alchemy, is clearly manifested as a certain dissatisfaction.
The seeker is not satisfied with what he actually learns in the degrees, he
expects more, wants to have more exhaustive information, wants to know
when the “real” will be finally shown. Complaint is made, for example, of
the narrowness of the meaning of the degrees of fellowship. Much more
important than the objective meaning of any degree is the subjective wealth
of the thing to be promoted. The less this is, the less will he “find” even in
the degrees, and the less satisfied will he be, in case he succeeds in attaining
anything at all. To act here in a compensating way is naturally the task of the
persons that induce him. But it is the before mentioned dissatisfaction, too,
which causes one to expect wonderful arts from the superiors of the higher
degrees; an expectation that gives a fine opportunity for exploitation by
swindlers who, of course, have not been lacking in the province of alchemy,
exactly as later at a more critical time, in the high degree [pg 206] masonry.
Who can exactly determine how great a part may have been played by
avarice, ambition, vanity, curiosity, and finally by a not unpraiseworthy
emotional hunger?

The speculators who fished in the muddy waters of late rosicrucianism put
many desirable things as bait on the hook; as power over the world of spirits,
penetration into the most recondite parts of nature's teachings, honor, riches,
health, longevity. In one was aroused the hope of one of these aims, in
another of another. The belief in gold making was, as already mentioned,
still alive at that period. But it was not only the continuance of this
conviction that caused belief in the alchemistic secrets of the high degrees,
but, as for instance, B. Kopp shows (Alch. II, p. 13) it was a certain
metaphysical need of the time.

It will have been noticed that with all recognition of its abuses I grant to
rosicrucianism, as it deserves, even its later forms, an ideal side. To deny it
were to falsify its true likeness. Only the important difference must be noted
between an idea and its advocates alchemy and the alchemists,
rosicrucianism and the rosicrucians. There are worthy and unworthy
advocates; among the alchemists they are called the adepts or masters and

the sloppers and sloppy workers. Since in our research we are concerned
with the hermetic science itself, not merely with the misdirections
undertaken in its name, we should not let ourselves be involved in these.
And as for us the [pg 207] spiritual result (alchemy, rosicrucian thoughts,
masonic symbolism, etc.) is primarily to be regarded and not the single
persons advocating it, the question is idle as to whether the earliest
rosicrucians had an organized union or not. It is enough that the rosicrucians
are created in the imagination, that this imagination is fostered and that
people live it out and make it real. It amounts to the same thing for us,
whether there were “so-called” or “real” rosicrucians; the substance of their
teaching lives and this substance, which is evident in literature, was what I
referred to when I said that rosicrucianism is identical with higher alchemy
or the hermetic or the royal art. But I think the comparison holds true for the
gold and rose-cross societies also, for the spiritual scope of this new edition
is the same as that of the old order, except that, as in the fate of all subtile
things, it was misunderstood by the majority. There were not lacking
attempts to dissuade people from their errors. In the rosicrucian notes to the
“Kompass der Weisen” (edition of 1782), e.g., “Moreover the object of our
guiltless guild is not the making of gold.... Rather we remove the erroneous
opinion from them [the disciples] in so far as they are infected with it, even
on the first step of the temple of wisdom. They are earnestly enjoined against
these errors and that they must seek the kingdom of God and his
righteousness.” Also through all kinds of reforms we seek to set the wayfarer
on the right path that leads to the original [pg 208] ideal. It appears that the
alchemistic preparation of the “work” is available only for the smallest
circles. The multitude is blinded.

“Where do the Scottish masters stay?”

“Quite near the sun.”

“Why?”

“Because they can stand it.”

[pg 209]

Section V.

The Problem Of Multiple Interpretation.

After what has been said it is clear that the Parable contains instruction in the
sense of the higher alchemy. Whoever has attentively read this 4th chapter
will certainly be in a position to understand the parable, in large part, in a
hermetic sense. I do not wish to develop this interpretation now, for to a
certain extent it develops itself without further effort, and what goes beyond
that can be treated only in the second part of this volume. I shall limit myself
now to a few suggestions.

In regard to the external setting of the parable as a piece of rosicrucian
literature, we must remember that it was published in 1788, the time of the
later gold- and rose-cross societies, and in a book whose theosophic and
religious character is seen in all the figures contained in it as well as in the
greater part of the text. It is continually reiterated that gold is not common
gold but our gold, that the stone is a spiritual stone (Jesus Christ), etc. The
creation of the world, the religious duty of mankind, the mystic path to the
experiencing of divinity—all is represented in detailed pictures with
predominantly chemical symbolism. This higher conception of alchemy, [pg
210] that corresponds throughout to the ideal of the so-called old or true
rosicrucian, does not prevent the editor from believing in the possibility of
miraculous gifts which are to be gained through the hermetic art. Many parts
of the book make us suspect a certain naïveté that may go several degrees
beyond the simplicity required for religious development.

As for the origin of the parable there are two possibilities. Either the editor is
himself the author and as such retires into the background, while he acts as
collector of old rosicrucian manuscripts, that he now in publishing, discloses
to amateurs in the art, or the editor is merely editor. In either case the
obligation remains to interpret the parable hermetically. The educational
purpose of the editor is established. If he is himself the author, he himself
has clothed his teachings in the images of the parable. If, on the contrary, the
author is some one else (either a contemporary and so [Symbol: sun] R. C.

[Symbol: cross], or an old hermetic philosopher, Fr. R. C.), the editor has
found in the piece edited by him a subject suitable to his purpose, a material
that voices his doctrines. We can evidently also rest satisfied, in order to
evade the question of authorship, that the writing itself gets its own character
from the hermetic interpretations, and shows in detail its correspondingly
theosophic material. Nevertheless I desire to show the directing hand of the
collector and editor.

Several controlling elements pointing toward a hermetic theosophic
interpretation, which the reader [pg 211] probably looks for in the parable,
may be shown if I mention the ethical purposes that here and there emerge in
our psychoanalytic interpretation of the parable. I might remind the reader
that the wanderer is a killer of dragons like St. George; the holy Mary is
represented standing over a dragon; also under the Buddha enthroned upon a
lotus flower, there curls not infrequently a vanquished dragon; etc. I might
mention the religious symbolism of the narrow path that leads to the true
life. Many occurrences in the parable are to be conceived as trials, and we
can see the wanderer overcome the elemental world (Nature triumphs over
Nature), wherein he is proved by all four elements and comes off victorious
from all tests. The fight with the lion in the den can be regarded as a world
test, the walk on the cloud capped wall (like the flying up in the vessel) as an
air test, the mill episode (and the flood in the vessel) as a water ordeal, and
the stay in the heated vessel as a fire ordeal. The old miller is God, the ten
mill wheels are the ten commandments, and likewise the ten Sephiroth that
create the whole world. We are also reminded of the Ophanim (wheels, a
class of angels).

Several particulars suggest the admission of the seeker into a hermetic
fraternity, which, as far as I am concerned, might be called rosicrucian.
There was also among the cabbalists, as apparently is shown by Reuchlin
(De Vero Mirifico), an initiation into a mystery. Fludd (in his Tractatus
theologo-philosophicus [pg 212] de vita, morte et resurrectione, Chap. XVI)
apostrophizes the rosicrucians: “With open eyes I saw from your brief
answer to two men whom you intended, at the exhortation of the Holy
Ghost, to choose to your cloister or house, that you possessed the same
knowledge of the true mystery and the same keys of knowledge that unlock
the Paradise of Joy, as the patriarchs and prophets of holy scripture possess.”
And in another place, “Believe that your (the R. C. [Symbol: cross]) palace

or abode is situated at the confines of the earthly paradise [locus voluptatis
terrestris]....” In our parable it is a paradise of joy [pratum felicitatis] where
the wanderer meets the company into which he desires admission. He must
undergo examinations like every neophyte. The collegium sapientiae of the
parable refers to the rosicrucian Collegium Sancti Spiritus, which is actually
named in another passage of the book that contains the parable.

The blood of the lion, which the wanderer gets by cutting him up, refers to
the rose-colored blood of the cross that we gain through deep digging and
hammering. The wanderer picks roses and puts them in his hat, a mark of
honor. The master is generally seen provided with a hat in the old pictures.
“Rose garden” (the garden of the parable is quadrangular) was a name
applied apparently to alchemistic lodges. The philosophical work itself is
compared to the rose; the white rose is the white tincture, the red rose is the
red tincture (different degrees of completion that follow the degrees of [pg
213] black). They are plucked in the “alchemistic paradise,” but one must set
about it in obedience to nature. Basilius Valentinus in the third of his twelve
keys writes of the great magisterium: “So whoever wishes to compare our
incombustible sulphur of all the wise men, must first take heed for himself,
that he look for our sulphur in one who is inwardly incombustible; which
cannot occur unless the salt sea has swallowed the corpse and completely
cast it up again. Then raise it in its degree, so that it surpass in brilliance all
the stars of heaven, and become in its nature as rich in blood, as the pelican
when he wounds himself in his breast, so that his young may be well
nourished without malady to his body, and can eat of his blood. [The pelican
possesses under its bill a great pouch in which he can preserve food,
principally fish. If he regurgitates the food out of his crop to feed his young
he rests his bill against his breast. That gave rise to the belief that it tore
open its breast in order to feed its young with its blood. From early times the
pelican is therefore used as a symbol of Christ, who shed his blood for
mankind. The alchemists represented the philosopher's stone, the red
tincture, as a pelican; for by its projection on the baser metals it sacrificed
itself and, as it were, gave its blood to tincture them. The Christian and the
hermetic symbolism are concurrent as in higher sense the stone Christ, i.e.,
the Messiah, is on our hearts.] That is the rose of our master with color of
scarlet and red dragon's blood, written of by many, also the purple mantle of
the [pg 214] highest commanders in our art, with which the Queen of

Salvation is clothed, and by which all the poor metals can be warmed. Keep
well this mantle of honor.”

It is interesting that dream parallels can support us in both directions on the
path of hermetic interpretation. I have in the second section of this volume
reported the “dream of the Flying Post.” I must now complete its
interpretation. Stekel writes (l. c, p. 399): “If we examine the birth and
uterus phantasies, Mr. X. Z., the dreamer, turns out to be a base criminal. He
struggles with conscious murder ideas. He is afraid he may kill his uncle or
his mother. He is very pious. But his soul is black as the coal-dust-strewn
street. His evil thoughts (the homosexual) pursue him. He enters the mill. It
is God's mill that grinds slowly but surely. His weight (his burden of sin)
drives the mill. He is expelled. He enters the Flying Post. It is the post that
unites heaven and earth. He is to pay, i.e., do penance for his sins. His sins
are erotic (three heller = the genitals). His sins and misdeeds stink before
heaven (dirty feet). The conductor is death.... The wheel room refers to the
wheel of criminals. The water is blood.” The perilous situation in the dream,
God's mill, the blackness, the water or blood, which are their analogues, are
found in the parable without further reference being necessary. Especially
would I select the unusual detail of the stinking, dirty feet, for which
probably no one would see any association in the [pg 215] parable. It is
found in the episode of the rotting of the bridal pair in the receptacle. It is
expressly stated that the putrefying corpses (i.e., the disintegrating sinful
bodies of men in the theosophic work) stink. The opposite is the odor of
sanctity. Actually this opposition recurs frequently in hermetic manuals. The
conductor in the dream is described hermetically as a messenger of heaven
[Symbol: mercury], Hermes, conveyor of souls. His first appearance in the
life of man is conscience. This causes our sins, which would be otherwise
indifferent, to stink. In alchemy the substances stink on their dissolution in
mercurious purifying liquid. Only later does the agreeable fragrance appear.

If we find on the one hand that the parable appears as a hermetic writing,
which allows us to develop theosophical principles from its chemical
analogues, on the other hand the psychoanalytic interpretation is not thereby
shaken. Consequently the question arises for us how it is possible to give
several interpretations of a long series of symbols that stand in complete
opposition. [If we were concerned with individual symbols merely, the
matter would not be at all extraordinary.] Our research has shown that they

are possible. The psychoanalytic interpretation brings to view elements of a
purposeless and irrational life of impulse, which works out its fury in the
phantasies of the parable; and now the analysis of hermetic writings shows
us that the parable, like all deep alchemistic books, is an introduction to a
mystic religious life,—according [pg 216] to the degree of clearness with
which the ideas hovered before the author. For just as the psychoanalytically
derived meaning of the phantasies does not occur to him, so possibly even
the mystical way on which he must travel must have appeared only hazily
before him. So no matter what degree of clearness the subjective experience
may have had from the author's point of view, we have for the solution of
our own problem, to stick to the given object and to the possibilities of
interpretation that are so extraordinarily coherent.

The interpretations are really three; the psychoanalytic, which leads us to the
depths of the impulsive life; then the vividly contrasting hermetic religious
one, which, as it were, leads us up to high ideals and which I shall call
shortly the anagogic; and third, the chemical (natural philosophical), which,
so to speak, lies midway and, in contrast to the two others, appears ethically
indifferent. The third meaning of this work of imagination lies in different
relations half way between the psychoanalytic and the anagogic, and can, as
alchemistic literature shows, be conceived as the bearer of the anagogic.

The parable may serve as an academic illustration for the entire hermetic
(philosophy). The problem of multiple interpretation is quite universal, in the
sense namely that one encounters it everywhere where the imagination is
creatively active. So our study opens wide fields and art and mythology
especially appear to invite us. I will depart as little as [pg 217] possible,
however, from the province chosen as an example, i.e., alchemy. But in two
fables I shall work out the problem of multiple interpretation. In the choice
of the fables I am influenced by the fact that a psychoanalytic elaboration
(Rank's) lies ready to hand, and that both are subjected to an anagogic
interpretation by Hitchcock, who wrote the book on alchemy. This enables
me to take the matter up briefly because I can simply refer to the detailed
treatment in the above mentioned books. The two stories belong to Grimm's
collection and are called the Six Swans, and the Three Feathers. (K. H. M.,
Nos. 49 and 63.)

Rank (Lohenginsage) connects the story of the six swans and numerous
similar stories with the knight of the swan saga. It is shown that the mythical
contents of all these narratives have at bottom those elemental forces of the
impulse life that we have found in the parable, and that they are specially
founded on family conflicts, i.e., on those uncontrolled love and hate
motives that come out in their crassest form in the neurotic as his
(phantasied) “family romance.” To this family romance belongs, among
others, incest in different forms, the illicit love for the mother, the rescuing
of the mother from peril, the rescuing of the father, the wish to be the father,
etc., phantasies whose meaning is explained in the writings of Freud and
Rank (Myth of the Birth of the Hero3). According to Hitchcock, [pg 218] on
the contrary, the same story tells of a man who in the decline of life falls into
error, takes the sin to his heart, but then, counseled by his conscience, seeks
his better self and completes the (alchemic-creative) work of the six days.
(Hitchcock, Red Book.)

It is incontestable that there is, besides the psychoanalytic and anagogic
interpretation of this tale (and almost all others), a nature mythological and
in the special sense, an astronomical interpretation. Significant indications of
this are the seven children and the seven years, the sewing of clothes made
of star flowers, the lack of an arm as in the case of Marduk, and the
corresponding heroes of astral myths, and many others. One of the seven is
particularly distinguished like the sun among the so-called planets. The
ethically indifferent meaning of the tale alongside of the psychoanalytic and
the anagogic corresponds to the chemical contents of the hermetic writings.
As object of the indifferent meaning there always stands the natural science
content of the spirit's creation. There is generally a certain relationship
between the astronomical and the alchemistic meanings. It is now well
known that alchemy was influenced by astrology, that the seven metals
correspond to the seven planets, that, as the sun is distinguished among the
planets, so is gold among the metals; and as in astrology combustion takes
place in heaven, so it occurs also in the alembic of the alchemists. And the
fact that the sun maiden at the end of the story releases her six planet
brothers, [pg 219] sounds exactly as when the tincturing power of gold at the
end of six days perfects the six imperfect metals and makes the ill, well.

In the second story I will emphasize to a somewhat greater degree the
opposition of the two contrasting interpretations (psychoanalytic and

anagogic), as I must return to it again. The story is suited to a detailed
treatment on account of its brevity. I will first present it.

There was once a king who had three sons, two of whom were clever and
shrewd, but the third did not talk much, was simple and was merely called
the Simpleton. When the king grew old and feeble and expected his end, he
did not know which one of his sons should inherit the kingdom after him. So
he said to them, “Go forth, and whoever brings me the finest carpet shall be
king after my death.” And lest there be any disagreement among them, he
led them before his castle, blew three feathers into the air, and said: “As they
fly, so shall you go.” One flew towards the east, the other towards the west,
the third, however, flew straight ahead, but flying only a short distance soon
fell to earth. Now one brother went to the right, the other went to the left,
and they laughed at Simpleton, who had to stay with the third feather where
it had fallen.

Simpleton sat down and was sad. Suddenly he noticed that near the feather
lay a trap door. He raised it, found a stairway, and went down. Then he came
before another door, knocked and listened, while inside a voice called:

[pg 220]

“Maiden green and small,
Shrunken old crone,
Old crone's little dog,
Crone here and there,
Let us see quickly who is out there.”

The door opened and he saw a big fat toad and round about her a crowd of
little toads. The fat toad asked what his wish was. He answered, “I should
have liked the most beautiful and finest carpet.” Then she called a young one
and said:

“Maiden green and small,
Shrunken old crone,
Crone's little dog,

Crone here and there,
Fetch here the big box.”

The young toad brought the box and the fat toad opened it and gave
Simpleton a carpet from it, so beautiful and so fine as up above on the earth
could not have been woven. Then he thanked her and climbed up again.

The two others had, however, considered their youngest brother so weak-
minded that they believed that he would not find and bring anything back.
“Why should we take so much trouble,” said they, and took from the back of
the first shepherd's wife that met them her coarse shawl and carried it home
to the king. At the same time Simpleton returned and brought his beautiful
carpet, and when the king saw it he was astonished and said: “If justice must
be done, the kingdom belongs to the youngest.”

[pg 221]
But the two others gave their father no peace, and said that it was impossible
that Simpleton, who lacked understanding in all things, could be a king, and
begged him to make a new condition. Then the father said, “The one that
brings me the most beautiful ring shall be king,” led the three brothers out
and blew three feathers into the air for them to follow. The two oldest again
went east and west, and Simpleton's feather flew straight ahead and fell
down near the door in the earth. So he went down again to the fat toad and
told her that he needed the most beautiful ring. She immediately had her big
box fetched and from it gave him a ring that glittered with jewels and was
more beautiful than any goldsmith upon the earth could have made. The two
eldest laughed about Simpleton, who was going to look for a gold ring, but
they took no trouble, and knocked the pin out of an old wagon ring and
brought the ring to the king. But when Simpleton showed his gold ring the
father again said, “The kingdom belongs to him.” The two eldest did not
cease importuning the king till he made a third condition and declared that
the kingdom should go to the one that brought home the fairest woman.
Again he blew the three feathers into the air and they flew as before.

So Simpleton without more ado went down to the fat toad and said, “I have
to take home the fairest woman.” “The fairest woman, hey? She is not right
here, but none the less you shall have her.” She gave him a hollowed out

carrot to which were [pg 222] harnessed six little mice. Then Simpleton
sadly said, “What shall I do with it?” The toad replied, “Just put one of my
little toads in it.” So he took one by chance from the circle and put it in the
yellow carriage, but hardly had she taken her seat when she became a
surpassingly beautiful maiden, the carrot a coach, and the six little mice,
horses. So he kissed the maiden, drove away with the horses and took them
to the king. His brothers came afterwards. They had not taken any trouble to
find a fair lady but had brought the first good looking peasant woman. As the
king looked at them he said, “The youngest gets the kingdom after my
death.” But the two oldest deafened the king's ears with their outcry: “We
cannot allow the Simpleton to be king,” and gained his consent that the one
whose woman should jump through a ring that hung in the middle of the
room should have the preference. They thought, “The peasant women can do
it easily, they are strong enough, but the delicate miss will jump herself to
death.” The old king consented to this also. So the two peasant women
jumped, even jumped through the ring, but were so clumsy that they fell and
broke their awkward arms and legs. Then the beautiful woman whom
Simpleton had brought leaped through as easily as a roe, and all opposition
had to cease. So he received the crown and ruled long and wisely.

I offer first a neat psychoanalytic interpretation of this narrative. Like the
dream, the fairy tale is regularly a phantastic fulfillment of wishes, and, of
[pg 223] such indeed, as we realize, but which life does not satisfy, as well
as of such as we are hardly aware of in consciousness, and would not
entertain if we knew them clearly. Reality denies much, especially to the
weak, or to those who feel themselves weak, or who have a smaller capacity
for work in the struggle for existence in relation to their fellow men. The
efficient person accomplishes in his life what he wishes, the wishes of the
weak remain unfulfilled, and for this reason the weak, or whoever in
comparison with the magnitude of his desires, thinks himself weak, avails
himself of the phantastic wish fulfillment. He desires to attain the
unattainable at least in imagination. This is the psychological reason why so
many fairy stories are composed from the standpoint of the weak, so that the
experiencing Ego of the fairy tale, the hero, is a simpleton, the smallest or
the weakest or the youngest one who is oppressed, etc. The hero of the
foregoing tale is a simpleton and the youngest. In his phantasy, that is, in the
story, he stamps his brothers, who are in real life more efficient, and whom
he envies, as malicious, disagreeable characters. (In real life we can

generally observe how suspicious are, for instance, physically deformed
people. Their sensitiveness is well known.) Like the fox to whom the grapes
are sour, he declares that what his stronger fellows accomplish is bad, their
performance of their duty defective, and their aims contemptible, especially
in the sexual sphere, where he feels himself openly most injured. The tale
treats specifically [pg 224] from the outset the conquest of a woman. The
carpet, the ring, are female symbols, the first is the body of the woman, the
ring is the vagina (Greek kteis = comb = pudenda muliebria). (The carpet is
still more specifically marked as a female symbol in that the brothers take it
from the body of a shepherdess. Shepherdess—a coarse “rag”—coarse
“cloth”—in contrast to the fine carpet of the hero.)

The simpleton is one who does not like much work. When he also ascribes
negligence to his brothers he betrays to us his own nature, in that his
“feather,” i.e., himself, does not go far, while his brothers' feathers go some
distance. In order to invalidate this view of himself the distribution of the
feathers is put off on chance, as if to a higher determining power. This has
always been a favorite excuse with lazy and inefficient people.

One of the means of consoling himself for the unattainableness of his wishes
is the belief in miracles. (Cf. my work on Phantasy and Mythos.) The
simpleton gains his advantage in a miraculous manner; roasted pigeons fly
into his mouth.

In his erotic enterprises he sticks to his own immediate neighborhood. He
clearly bears within himself an Imago that holds him fast. [This is an image,
withdrawn from consciousness and consequently indestructible, of the object
of one's earliest passion, which continues to operate as a strongly affective
complex, and takes hold upon life with a formative effect. The most
powerful Imagos are those of the parents. Here naturally the mother imago
[pg 225] comes to view, which later takes a position in the center of the love
life (namely the choice of object).] Whither does he turn for his journey of
conquest? Into the earth. The earth is the mother as a familiar symbol
language teaches us. Trap door, box, subterranean holes, suggest a womb
phantasy. The toad frequently appears with the significance of the uterus,
harmonizing with the situation that the tale presents. (On the contrary frog is
usually penis.) The toad's big box (= mother) is also the womb. From it
indeed the female symbols, in this connection, sisters, are produced for the

simpleton. The box is, however, also the domestic cupboard,—food closet,
parcel, bandbox, chamber, bowl, etc.,—from which the good mother hands
out tasty gifts, toys, etc. Just as the father in childish phantasy can do
anything, so the mother has a box out of which she takes all kinds of good
gifts for the children. Down among the toads an ideal family episode is
enacted. The mother's inexhaustible box (with the double meaning) even
delivers the desired woman for the simpleton.

The woman—for whom? Doubtless for the simpleton, psychologically. The
tale says for the king, because the female symbols, carpet, ring, the king
desires for himself, in so many words, and the inference is that the woman
also belongs to him. The conclusion of the tale, however, turns out true to
the psychological situation, as it does away with the king and lets the
simpleton live on, apparently with the same woman. It is clear as day that the
[pg 226] simpleton identifies himself with his father, places himself in his
place. The image, which possesses him from the first is the father's woman,
the mother. And the father's death—that is considerately ignored—which
brings queen and crown, is a wish of the simpleton. So again we find
ourselves at the center of the Œdipus complex. As mother-substitute figures
the sister, one of the little toads.

We have regarded the story first from the point of view of the inefficiency of
the hero, and have thereupon stumbled upon erotic relations, finally upon the
Œdipus complex. The psychological connection results from the fact that
those images on which the Œdipus complex is constructed appear calculated
to produce an inefficiency in the erotic life.

The anagogic interpretation of Hitchcock (l. c., pp. 175 ff.) is as follows,
though somewhat abridged:

The king plainly means man. He has three sons; he is an image of the
Trinity, which in the sense of our presentation we shall think of as body, soul
and spirit. Two of the sons were wise in the worldly sense, but the third, who
represents spirit and in the primitive form, is called conscience, is simple in
order to typify the straight and narrow path of truth. The spirit leads in
sacred silence those who meekly follow it and dies in a mystical sense if it is
denied, or else appears in other forms in order to pursue the soul with the
ghosts of murdered virtues. Man is, as it were, in doubt concerning the

principle to which the highest leadership in life is due. “Go [pg 227] forth
and whoever brings me the finest carpet shall be king after my death.” The
carpet is something on which one walks or stands, here representing the best
way of life according to Isaiah XXX, 21. “This is the way, walk ye in it,
when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left.”

The three feathers are, of course, the three principles. Two of them move at
once in opposite directions [towards the east and towards the west, as many
writers on alchemy represent the two principles or breaths, anima and corpus
or [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver]] and so come even at the outset
away from the right path. The third, symbol of the spirit, flies straight
forward and has not far to its end, for simple is the way to the inner life. And
so the spirit will speak to us if we follow its voice, at first quite a faint voice:
“But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou
mayst do it.” (Deuteronomy XXX, 14.) Yet the soul is not free from sadness,
as the man stands still on the lower steps of the ladder that leads up into
eternal life. Simpleton is troubled in his heart and in the humility of this
affliction he discovers “all at once” a secret door, which shows him the
entrance into the mystical life. The door is on the surface of the earth, in
abasement, as the third feather determined it in advance. As Simpleton
discreetly obeyed it, he strolled along the path that the door opened for him.
Three steps, three fundamental forces. So Christ had to descend before he
could rise. The hero of the story knocks as Christ knocks in the gospel (i.e.,
[pg 228] on the inner door, contrasted with the law of Moses, the outer
door). The big toad with her little ones in a circle about her signifies the
great mother nature and her creatures, which surround her in a circle; in a
circle, for nature always returns upon herself in a cycle. Simpleton gets the
most beautiful carpet.

The other two beings that we call understanding and feelings (sun and moon
of the hermetic writings) look without, instead of seeking the way within; so
it comes to pass that they take the first best coarse cloths.

To bring the most beautiful ring is to bring truth, which like a ring has
neither beginning nor end. Understanding and feeling go in different
directions, the simpleton waits meekly by the door that leads to the interior
of the great mother. [The appearance of this conception in the anagogic
interpretation is also important.]

In the third test, the search for “the fairest woman,” the crown of life,
conceived exoterically as well as esoterically, the carrot represents the
vegetative life (body, the natural man), and the six mice that draw it are our
old friends the six swans or virtues, and the highest of these compassion—or
love—goes as the enthroned queen in the carriage. The uninitiated man is
almost in doubt and asks, “What shall I do with a carrot?” Yet the great
mother replies, as it were, “Take one of my fundamental forces.” And what
do we see then? The toad becomes a beautiful maiden, etc. The man [pg
229] now all at once realizes how fearfully and wonderfully he is made.
Filled with reverence of himself he is ready to cry, “Not my will but thine be
done.”

Still another test remains. We must all go through a sort of mystical ring,
which hangs in the hall (of learning). Only one in the whole universe is in a
condition to accomplish it, to endure it without injury. The beautiful delicate
maid with the miraculous gift is the spirit [spiritus or [Symbol: Mercury] of
alchemy].

We shall add that the two interpretations externally contradict each other,
although each exhibits a faultless finality. I should note that I have limited
myself to the briefest exposition; in a further working out of the analysis the
two expositions can be much more closely identified with the motives of the
story.

First, then, the question arises, how one and the same series of images can
harmonize several mutually exclusive interpretations (problem of multiple
interpretation); yet we have discovered in the parable three practically
equivalent schemes of interpretation, the psychoanalytic, the chemical
(scientific), and the anagogic. Secondly, the question presents itself more
particularly how can two so antithetic meanings as the psychoanalytic and
the anagogic exist side by side.

[pg 233]

Part III.

Synthetic Part.

Section I.

Introversion And Regeneration.

A. Introversion And Intro-Determination.

The multiple interpretation of works of fantasy has become our problem,
and the diametrical opposition of the psychoanalytic and the anagogic
interpretation has particularly struck us. The question now apparently
becomes more complicated if I show that the psychoanalytic interpretation
contains an analogue that we must take into consideration. The analogue is
presented by the remarkable coexistence of symbolism of material and
functional categories in the same work of imagination. In order to make
myself intelligible, I must first of all explain what these categories are.

In division 2 of the introductory part we have seen that the imagination
shows a predilection for symbolic forms of expression, proportionately
greater indeed, the more dreamlike it is. Now by this symbolism as we
observe most clearly in hypnagogic (half dreaming) hallucinations and in
dreams, three different groups of objects are represented.

I. Thought contents, imagination contents, in brief, the contents or objects
of thinking and imagining, the material of thought whether it be conscious
or unconscious.

[pg 234]
II. The condition, activity, structure of the psyche, the way and manner that
it functions and feels, the method of functioning of the psyche, whether it
be conscious or unconscious.

III. Somatic processes (bodily stimulations). This third sort of objects is
closely coördinated with the other two. It is not capable of interesting us in
the present connection so we pass it by.

Therefore we arrive at two categories in which we can enroll all
symbolizing works of the imagination, the material and the functional.

I. The material category is characterized by its representation of thought
contents, i.e., of contents that are worked out in a train of thoughts
(arranged thought, imagined), whether they are mere images or groups of
images, concepts that are somewhat drawn out into comparisons and
definition processes, or indeed judgments, trains of reasoning, which serve
as analytic or synthetic operations, etc. Since, as we know, the phantasies
(dreams, reveries, even poems) are mostly inspired by wishes, it will prove
frequently the case that the contents symbolically contained in them are
wish images, i.e., the imagined experiencing of gratification.

II. The functional category is characterized by the fact that the condition,
structure or capacity for work of the individual consciousness (or the
psychic apparatus) is itself portrayed. It is termed functional because it has
nothing to do with the material or the contents of the act of thinking, but
applies merely to manner and method in which consciousness [pg 235]
functions (rapid, slow, easy, hard, obstructed, careless, joyful, forced;
fruitless, successful; disunited, split into complexes, united,
interchangeable, troubled, etc.). [It is immaterial whether these are
conscious or unconscious. Thinking must be taken here in the widest
possible sense. It means here all psychic processes that can have anything
as an “object.”]

Two typical examples will enable us at once clearly to understand the two
categories and keep them separate.

A. Material Symbolism.—Conditions. In a drowsy state I reflect upon the
nature of the judgments that are transsubjectively (= for all men) valid. All
at once the thread of the abstract thought is broken and autosymbolically in
the place of it is presented the following hypnagogic hallucination:

Symbol. An enormous circle, or transparent sphere, floats in the air and men
are putting their heads into this circle.

Interpretation. In this symbol everything that I was thinking of is expressed.
The validity of the transsubjective concerns all men without exception; the

circle goes through all the heads. This validity must have its cause in
something common to all. The heads all belong to the same apparently
homogeneous sphere. Not all judgments are transsubjective; with their
bodies and limbs men are outside of and under the sphere and stand on the
earth as separate individuals.

[pg 236]
B. Functional Symbolism.—Conditions. Dreamy state as above. I reflect
upon something or other, and yet in allowing myself to stray into bypaths of
thought, I am diverted from my peculiar theme. When I want to get back the
autosymbolic phenomenon appears.

Symbol. I am climbing mountains. The nearer mountains shut out my view
of the more distant ones, from which I have come and to which I should
like to return.

Meaning. I have got off the track. I have ventured too high and the ideas
that I have entertained shut out my starting point like the mountains.

To the material category belongs, for example, the meaning of the
strawberry dream explained in the second part of the introductory chapter.
Strawberry picking is a symbol for an imaged wish gratification (sexual
intercourse), and so for an image content. The symbolism is therefore a
material one. The greatly preponderating part of psychoanalytic dream
literature is occupied with interpretation according to material categories.

To the functional categories belong, for example, the symbolism of falling
asleep and waking up, which I have mentioned in the second part in
connection with the interpretation of the parable.

The two categories of symbolism, if they never did anything but parallel
each other, would afford us no analogues for our problem of double
meaning. Now the cases, however, are extremely rare where [pg 237] there
is only functional or only material symbolism; the rule is an intimate
interweaving of both. To be sure, one is frequently more emphasized than
the other or more easily accessible, but we can generally find cases where
long contexts of images are susceptible of material as well as functional
interpretation, alike in detail and continuity of connection.

The following may serve as a very simple case in point. Lying one evening
in bed and exhausted and about to fall asleep, I devoted my thoughts to the
laborious progress of the human spirit in the dim transcendant province of
the mothers-problem. (Faust, Part II.) More and more sleepy and ever less
able to retain my thoughts, I saw suddenly with the vividness of an illusion
a dream image. I stood on a lonely stone pier extending far into a dark sea.
The waters of the sea blended at the horizon with an equally dark-toned
mysterious, heavy air. The overpowering force of this tangible picture
aroused me from my half sleeping state, and I at once recognized that the
image, so nearly an hallucination, was but a visibly symbolic embodiment
of my thought content that had been allowed to lapse as a result of my
fatigue. The symbol is easily recognized as such. The extension into the
dark sea corresponds to the pushing on into a dark problem. The blending of
atmosphere and water, the imperceptible gradation from one to the other
means that with the “mothers” (as Mephistopheles pictures it) all times and
places are fused, that there we have no [pg 238] boundaries between a
“here” and a “there,” an “above” and a “below,” and for this reason
Mephistopheles can say to Faust on his departure,

“Plunge then.—I could as well say soar.”

We see therefore between the visualized image and the thought content,
which is, as it were, represented by it, a number of relations. The whole
image resolves itself insofar as it has characteristic features, almost entirely
into such elements as are most closely related to the thought content. Apart
from these connections of the material category, the image represents also
my momentary psychic condition (transition to sleep). Whoever is going to
sleep is, as it were, in the mental state of sinking into a dark sea. (The
sinking into water or darkness, entrance into a forest, etc., are frequently-
occurring threshold symbols.) The clearness of ideas vanishes there and
everything melts together just as did the water and the atmosphere in the
image.

This example is but to illustrate; it is in itself much too slight and simple to
make any striking revelation of the remarkable interlacing of the two kinds
of symbolism. I refer to my studies on symbolism and on dreams in the

bibliography. Exhaustive treatment at this point would lead us too far afield.
Let us rest satisfied then with the facts that the psychoanalysts
simultaneously deal with two fundamentally different lines of interpretation
in a product of the phantasy (dream, etc.), quite apart from the multiple
determinants which they can find [pg 239] within the material as well as in
the functional categories; both lines of interpretation are supplied by the
same fabric of images, indeed often by the same elements of this image
fabric. This context therefore must have been sought out artfully enough by
the creative unconscious to answer the double requirement.

The coexistence of the material meaning with the functional is not entirely
puzzling to the student of psychoanalysis. Two facts must be kept in mind
throughout.

In the first place, we are acquainted with the principle of multiple
determination or condensation. The multiplicity of the dimly moving latent
dream thoughts condenses into a few clear dream forms or symbols, so that
one symbol continually, as it were, appears as the representative of several
ideas, and is therefore interpretable in several ways. That it should be
susceptible of more than one interpretation can cause no surprise because
the fundamental significance (the latent thoughts) were the very ones that,
by association, caused the selection of the symbols from an infinite series of
possibilities. In the shaping of the dream, and therefore in the unconscious
dream work, only such pictorial elements could penetrate into
consciousness as satisfied the requirements of the multiple determination.
The principle of multiple determination is valid not only within the material
and the functional categories, but makes the fusion of both in the symbol in
question to some extent intelligible. Elements of both [pg 240] categories
take an active part in the choice of the symbol. On the one hand, a number
of affects press on towards the symbolic representation of objects to which
they direct themselves (objects of love, hate, etc.). On the other hand, the
psyche takes cognizance of its own impulses, play of affects, etc., and this
perception will gain representation. Both impulses take part in the choice of
those symbols which thrust themselves into the nascent consciousness of
phantasy, and so the dream, like the poem, etc., besides the symbolism of
the wish tendencies (material categories) that animate them, bears the stamp
of the psychic authorship (functional category) of the dreamer or the author.

[Ferenczi defends the view for the myth also that the material symbolism
must coincide with the functional (Imago I, p. 283).]

Secondly, it has been shown in recent times in psychoanalytic studies that
symbols which were originally material pass over to functional use. If we
thoroughly analyze for a sufficient time the dreams of a person we shall
find that certain symbols which at first probably appeared only incidentally
to signify some idea content, wish content, etc., return and become a
persistent or typical form. And the more such a typical form is established
and is impressed, the farther it is removed from its first ephemeral meaning,
and the more it becomes a symbolic representative of a whole group of
similar experiences, a spiritual capital, so to speak, till finally we can regard
it simply as the representative of a spiritual current (love, hate, tendency to
frivolity, to cruelty, [pg 241] to anxiety, etc.). What has been accomplished
there is a transition from the material to the functional on the path of a
determination inward or intro-determination (verinnerlichung) as I shall call
it. Later I shall have more to say about intro-determination. For the present
this may suffice for the understanding, that the material and the functional
symbolism, in spite of their at first apparently fundamental difference, are
essentially related in some way, which is illuminated by the process of
intro-determination.

The analogue of the problem of multiple interpretation unfolded in the
preceding section is shown to be a question that can be easily answered.
And we would bring our problem to a generally satisfactory position if we
succeeded in showing that the anagogic interpretation, whose alignment
with the psychoanalytic seemed so impracticable, is a form of functional
interpretation, or at least related to it. In this case it would be at once
comprehensible how a product of the imagination harmonizes with several
expositions (problem of multiple interpretation); because this variety of
sense had already operated in the selection of the symbol and indeed, in
those cases as well where we did not at first sight suspect the coöperation of
the anagogic thoughts; secondly, the anagogic and the psychoanalytic
interpretations are somehow reconciled to each other, whereby possibly also
the position of the natural science interpretation can be made somewhat
clearer.

The possibility that the anagogic has some part [pg 242] in the creation of
the functional, will be brought nearer by the fact that our previously offered
anagogic expositions (fairy tales, parabola) markedly resemble functional
interpretations. In the tale of the six swans Hitchcock explains the reception
of the maiden into the castle as the reception of sin into the heart; the seven
children are the seven virtues (consequently spiritual tendencies). The small
maiden is conscience, the tissues are processes of thought. In the story of
the three feathers, again, one son is conscience; the secret door is the
entrance to the inner life, to spiritual absorption, the three feathers are
spiritual tendencies, etc. In the dream of the “flying post” conscience
appears as the conductor. The “Mills of God,” which psychologically also
represents conscience, the more strikingly because the burden of sin, guilty
feeling, drives them, also appear in the parable. The lion or the dragon
which must be overcome on the mystic path is again a spiritual force. The
approximation to the functional category is not to be denied. Processes that
show an interplay of spiritual powers are symbolically represented there.
But we are at once struck with a difference. The true functional
phenomenon, as I have so far described it, pictures the actual psychic state
or process; the anagogic image appears on the contrary to point to a state or
process that is to be experienced in the future. We shall pass over for a time
the last topic, which will not, however, be forgotten, and turn to the
question as to the point on which the anagogic and the functional [pg 243]
interpretations can best be brought together. This point appears to me to be
introversion, first because it is related to the previously mentioned intro-
determination, and second, because it is familiar to psychoanalysis and is of
great importance in anagogic method.

The term “introversion” comes from C. G. Jung. It means sinking into one's
own soul; the withdrawal of interest from the outer world; the seeking for
joys that can be afforded by the inner world. The psychology of the
neuroses has led to the concept of introversion, a province, therefore, which
principally treats of morbid forms and functions of introversion. The
sinking of oneself into one's own soul also appears exactly as a morbid
losing of oneself in it. We can speak of introversion neuroses. Jung regards
dementia precox as an introversion neurosis. Freud, who has adopted the
concept of introversion [with some restrictions] regards the introversion of
the libido as a regular and necessary precondition of every psychoneurosis.

Jung (Jb. ps. F., III, p. 159) speaks of “certain mental disturbances [he
means dementia precox] which are induced by the fact that the patients
retire more and more from reality, sink into their phantasy, whereby in
proportion as reality loses its force, the inner world takes on a reality and
determining power.” We may also define introversion as a resignation of the
joys of the outer world (probably unattainable or become troubled) and a
seeking for the libido sources in one's own ego. So we see how generally
[pg 244] self-chastisement, introversion and autoerotism are connected.

The turning away from the outer world and turning in to the inner, is
required by all those methods which lead to intensive exercise of religion
and a mystic life. The experts in mysteries provide for opportunities that
should encourage introversion. Cloisters and churches are institutions of
introversion. The symbolism of religious doctrine and rite is full of images
of introversion, which is, in short, one of the most important
presuppositions of mysticism.

Religious and mythical symbolism has countless images for introversion;
e.g., dying, going down, subterranean crypts, vaults, dark temples, into the
underworld, hell, the sea, etc.; being swallowed by a monster or a fish (as
Jonah), stay in the wilderness, etc. The symbols for introversion correspond
in large part with those that I have described for going to sleep and waking
(threshold symbolism), a fact that can be readily appreciated from their
actual similarity. The descent of Faust to the mothers is an introversion
symbol. Introversion fulfills here clearly the aim of bringing to reality, i.e.,
to psychological reality, something that is attainable only by phantasy
(world of the past, Helen).

In Jacob Boehme (De Vita Mentali) the disciple says to the master, “How
may I attain suprasensuous life, so that I may see God and hear him speak?”
The master says, “When you can lift yourself for one moment into that
realm where no creature dwelleth, [pg 245] you will hear what God
speaks.” The disciple says, “Is that near or far?” The master says, “It is in
yourself.”

The hermetics often urge retirement, prayer and meditation, as prerequisites
for the work; it is treated of still more in the hieroglyphic pictures
themselves. The picture of death is already familiar to us from the hermetic

writings, but in the technical language there are still other expressions for
introversion, e.g., the shutting up in the receptacle, the solution in the
mercury of the sages, the return of the substance to its radical condition (by
means of the "radical" or root dampness).

Similar features in our parable are the wandering in the dense forest, the
stay in the lion's den, the going through the dark passage into the garden,
the being shut up in the prison or, in the language of alchemy, the
receptacle.

Introversion is continually connected with regression. Regression, as may
be recalled from the 2d section of Part I, is a harking back to more primitive
psychic activities, from thinking to gazing, from doing to hallucinating; a
striving back towards childhood and the pleasures of childhood.
Introversion accordingly is accompanied by a desire for symbolic form of
expression (the mystical education is carried on in symbols), and causes the
infantile imagos to revive—chiefly the mother image. It was pre-eminently
father and mother who appeared as objects of childish love, as well as of
defiance. They are unique and imperishable, and in the life of adults [pg
246] there is no difficulty in reawakening and making active those
memories and those imagos. We easily comprehend the fact that the
symbolic aim of the previously mentioned katabasis always has a maternal
character; earth, hole, sea, belly of fish, etc., that all are symbols for mother
and womb. Regression revives the Œdipus complex with its thoughts of
incest, etc. Regression leads back to all these relics now done away with in
life and repressed. It actually leads into a sort of underworld, into the world
of titanic wishes, as I have called them. How far this was the case in the
alchemistic parable, I have fully shown in the psychoanalytic treatment of
it. Here I need merely to refer to the maternal nature of the symbols cited:
receptacle, mercury of the sages (“mother of metals”) and radical moisture,
also called “milk” and the like.

Fairy tales have frequently a very pretty functional symbolism for the way
in which introversion leads to the mother imago. Thus the simpleton in the
fairy tale of the feathers comes through the gate of introversion exactly into
the family circle, to the mother that cares for him. There his love finds its

satisfaction. There he even gets a daughter, replica of the mother imago, for
a wife.

In the parable the wandering in the forest (introversion) is followed by the
battle (suggestive of incest) with the lion (father or mother in their awe
inspiring form); the inclusion in the receptacle (introversion) by the
accomplishment of the incest.

If it is now clear also that in introversion, as a [pg 247] result of the
regression that is connected with it, visions of “titanic” emotions (incest,
separating of parents, etc.) are encountered, yet it has not become in the
slightest degree comprehensible how these visions are related to the
treatment of anagogic ideas. And that is indeed the question.

We can really understand these striking facts better if we recall what I have
said above about the type formation and the intro-determination of the
symbols, namely, that symbols can depart from their original narrower
meaning and become types for an entire class of experiences whereby an
advance is made from the material to the functional meaning. Some
examples will elucidate this.

I have observed particularly fine cases of intro-determination in a series of
experiments in basin divination (lecanomancy) which I have carried on for
several years. Lecanomancy resembles crystal gazing, except that the gazer
looks into a basin of water. In the visions of my subject, Lea, typical forms
were pictured, which always recurred. Regarded as symbols they were, as
subsequent analysis showed, almost all subjected to inward accentuation or
intro-determination. Thus, for instance, a black cat appeared. At first it
appeared as representative of Lea's grandmother, who was cat-like,
malicious and fawning. Later the cat stood for the corresponding traits that
she perceived in herself. Above all the cat is the symbol of her grandmother,
so the grandmother (or cat) is a mental current of Lea. Frequently there
appears in the image a Dyas, sometimes [pg 248] in the shape of a two-
headed snake, of two hands, of two feet, or of a woman with two faces, etc.
Above all, every antithesis appears to have some external meaning, two
men who love each other, etc. So it becomes clear that the common element
which finds its most pregnant expression in the double faced woman is the
Dyas in itself and that it means bisexuality, psychic hermaphroditism. More

than that it is definitely certain that the deepest sense of the symbol means a
complete dissociation of Lea's character into two different personalities, one
of which may be called the savage and the other the mild. (Lea herself uses
the expressions cynical and ideal personality.) In one of the later
experiments Lea saw her cynic double vividly personified and spoke in this
character, which is closely related to the “black cat.” The Dyas in the
symbols has the value first of a representation of externals (two lovers,
etc.), then as symbols of bisexuality. The sexual Dyas can again be
conceived as a symbol or characteristic of a still more general and
comprehensive dissociation of the ego. A further symbol and one still more
tending towards intro-determination was death. Starting from connections
with definite external experiences and ideas of actual death, the meaning of
the symbol became more and more spiritual, till it reached the meaning of
the fading away of psychic impulses. What died symbolically or had to die
was represented by an old man who sacrificed himself after suffering all
kinds of fortune. The dying of this old man signified, as [pg 249] analysis
showed, the same thing that we call the “putting off the old Adam” (turning
over a new leaf). The figure of the old man, originally Lea's grandfather,
then her father, came to have this meaning only after a long process of
intro-determination.

A few more examples for typical figures.

In many dreams of a woman analyzed by me (Pauline, in my treatise Zur
Symbolbildung), a cow appears as a typical image. The alternation of this
cow with more or less definite mother symbols leads to identification of the
cow with the mother. Two circumstantial dreams that were fully analyzed
showed, however, that the cow and other forms with which she alternated
cannot be translated so correctly by the concept of mother as by that of the
maternal authority and finally still more correctly by self-criticism or
conscience, of which maternal authority is but a type. Children figure in
Pauline's case as a result of various experiences, as typical of obstacles.

In the case of another dreamer the father stands in similar relation as the
determinant that paralyzes his resolutions.

The climbing of an ascent, usually a symbol of coitus (hurrying upward
which makes us out of breath), turns out often in a deeper relation as the

effort to get from the disagreeable things of life to a place of retreat (lonely
attics, etc.), inaccessible to other persons (= thoughts); and now we see that
this deeper meaning appears without prejudice to the first, for even coitus,
like all transport, is only [pg 250] a special case of flight from the outer life,
one of the forms of spiritual oblivion. Hence in part the mythologically and
psychopathologically important comparison of intoxication, intoxicating
drink and sperm, soma and semen. Ascent = coitus is in this case a type for
a quite comprehensive class of experience.

Marcinowski found in his analyses that the father in dream life often was a
“symbol of an outlived, obsolete attitude.” (Z. Bl. f. Ps., II, 9.)

Other examples of types are the phallus, the sun and other religiously
revered objects, if we regard them as does Jung (Wandl. u. Sym., Jb. ps. F.,
III-IV) as a symbol of the libido. [The concept of which is extended by Jung
almost to Schopenhauer's Will.] The typical character of divine
personalities is moreover quite clearly emphasized by Jung himself.

The snake, about whose significance as a “negative phallus,” etc.
[developed in detail by Jung], we shall have more to say, can also be
regarded as a typical image. Bull, cow and other animal forms are in
mythology as in dreams typical transmutations, with unlimited possibility
of intro-determination. Dogs are often in dreams the representations of
animal propensities. The beast is often “la bête humaine” in the dreamer's
own inner life. We have become acquainted with the terrible lions, the
bears, etc., as father types; here we get a new perspective which makes
clear the one-sidedness of our first conception.

[pg 251]
Since psychoanalysis has found acceptation, many of its followers believe
they are able to solve, with their work of analysis alone, all the
psychological, esthetic and mythological problems that come up. We
understand only half of the psychic impulses, as indeed we do all spiritual
development, if we look merely at the root. We have to regard not merely
whence we come but also whither we go. Then only can the course of the
psyche be comprehended, ontogenetically as well as phylogenetically,
according to a dynamic scheme as it were.

If we apply this fundamental principle to symbolism there develops
therefrom the obligation to keep both visible poles in view, between which
the advance of significance, the process of intro-determination is
completed. (An externalization is also possible, yet the internalization or
intro-determination must be regarded as the normal process.) [It
corresponds namely to the process of education and progress of culture.
This will soon be cleared up.] To the most general type belong then, without
doubt, those symbols or frequently disguised images, concerning which we
wondered before, that besides representing “titanic” tendencies, they are
fitted to represent the anagogic. The solution of the riddle is found the
instant we regard these images as types with a certain degree of intro-
determination, as types for a few fundamental forces of the soul, with which
we are all endowed, and whose typical symbols are for that reason of
general applicability. [I will therefore call these types the human elementary
[pg 252] types.] For example, if by psychoanalysis we deduce father and
mother, etc., from some of the symbols appearing in dreams, we have in
these representations of the psychic images, as the psychoanalyst calls
them, in reality derived mere types whose meaning will change according
to the ways of viewing them, somewhat as the color of many minerals
changes according to the angle at which we hold them to the light. The
actual father or mother, the experiences that surrounded them, were the
material used in the formation of the types; they were external things even
if important, while later the father, etc., emerging as symbol, may have
significance as a type of the spiritual power of the very person in question;
a spiritual power to be sure, which the person in question feels to be like a
father for otherwise the father figure would not be suited for the symbol.
And we can go so far as to call this spiritual power a father image. That
should not however, mislead us into taking that real person, who in the
individual case generally (though not always) has furnished the type, for the
real or the most essential. The innermost lies in ourselves and is only
fashioned and exercised upon persons of the external world.

So then we get for the typical symbol a double perspective. The types are
given, we can look through them forward and backward. In both cases there
will be distortions of the image; we shall frequently see projected upon each
other, things that do not belong together, we shall perceive convergences
[pg 253] at vanishing points which are to be ascribed only to perspective. I

might for brevity's sake call the errors so resulting errors of superposition.
The significance of this concept will, I hope, come to have still greater
validity in psychoanalysis. [This error of superposition C. G. Jung attempts
to unmask, when he writes: “As libido has a forward tendency, so in a way,
incest is that which tends backward into childhood. It is not incest for the
child, and only for the adult, who possesses a well constituted sexuality,
does this regressive tendency become incest in that he is no longer a child,
but has a sexuality that really no longer can suffer a regressive application.”
(Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious.) It may moreover be remarked that
Freud also is careful not to take the incest disclosed by psychoanalysis in
too physical a sense.] This error of superposition is found not only in the
view backward but in the forward view. So what I, as interpreter of mystical
symbolism, may say about the possible development of the soul will be
affected by this error of superposition. It is not in my power to correct it. In
spite of everything, the treatment of symbolism from the two points of view
must be superior to the onesided treatment; in order to approximate a
fundamental comprehension, which to be sure remains an ideal, the
different aspects must be combined and in order to make this clear I have
added a synthetic treatment to the analytic part of my work.

Looking back through the elementary types, we [pg 254] see the infantile
images together with those non-moral origins that psychoanalysis discovers
in us; looking forward we notice thoughts directed to certain goals that will
be mentioned later. The elementary types themselves thanks to intro-
determination represent however a collection of our spiritual powers, which
we have first formed and exercised at the time that the images arose, and
which are in their nature closely related to these images, indeed completely
united with them as a result of the errors of superposition—this collection
of powers, I say, accompanies us through our entire life and is that from
which are taken the powers that will be required for future development.
The objects or applications change, the powers remain almost the same. The
symbolism of the material categories which depends on external things
changes with them; but the symbolism of the functional categories, which
reflects these powers remains constant. The types with their intro-
determination belong to the functional categories; and so they picture the
constant characters.

That experience to which the suggestions of symbolism (brought to verbal
expression by means of introversion) point as to a possible spiritual
development, corresponds to a religious ideal; when intensively lived out
this development is called mysticism. [We can define mysticism as that
religious state which struggles by the shortest way towards the
accomplishment of the end of religion, the union with the divinity; or as an
intensive cultivation of [pg 255] oneself in order to experience this union.]
It presents itself if instead of looking backward we gaze forward from our
elementary types to the beyond. But let us not forget that we can regard
mysticism only as the most extreme, and therefore psychically the most
internal, unfolding of the religious life, as the ideal which is hardly to be
attained, although I consider that much is possible in this direction. If my
later examination carries us right into the heart of mysticism, without
making the standpoint clear every time, we now know what restrictions we
must be prepared for.

If I take the view that those powers, whose images (generally veiled in
symbolism) are the elementary types, do not change, I do not intend to
imply that it is not possible to sublimate them. With the increasing
education of man they support a sublimation of the human race which yet
shows in recognizable form the fundamental nature of the powers. One of
the most important types, in which this transformation process is
consummated and which refines the impulse and yet allows some of its
character to remain, is the type mother, i.e., incest. Among religious
symbols we find countless incest images but that the narrow concept of
incest is no longer suited to their psychological basis (revealed through
analysis) has been, among psychoanalysts, quite clearly recognized by
Jung. Therefore in the case of every symbolism tending to ethical
development, the anagogic point of view must be considered, and most of
all in religious symbolism. The impulse corresponding [pg 256] to the
religious incest symbols is preeminently to be conceived in the trend toward
introversion and rebirth which will be treated of later. [Vid. note C, at the
end of the volume.]

I have just used the expression “sublimation.” This Freudian term and
concept is found in an exactly similar significance in the hermetic writers.
In the receptacle where the mystical work of education is performed, i.e., in

man, substances are sublimated; in psychological terms this means that
impulses are to be refined and brought from their baseness to a higher level.
Freud makes it clear that the libido, particularly the unsocial sexual libido,
is in favorable circumstances sublimated, i.e., changed into a socially
available impelling power. This happens in the evolution of the human race
and is recapitulated in the education of the individual.

I take it for granted that the fundamental character of the elementary
psychic powers in which the sublimation is consummated is the more
recognizable the less the process of sublimation is extended in time. In
mysticism, e.g., the fundamental character penetrates the primal motive
because the latter wishes to lead the relatively slightly sublimated impulses
by a shortened process to the farthest goal of sublimation. Mysticism
undertakes to accomplish in individuals a work that otherwise would take
many generations. What I said therefore about the unchangeability of the
fundamental powers or their primal motive, is wholly true of its fate in
mystical development.

[pg 257]
The Mohammedan mystic Arabi (1165-1240) writes, “Love as such, in its
individual life, is the same for sensuous and spiritual, therefore equally for
every Arab (of an allegory) and for me, but the objects of love are different.
They loved sensible phenomena while I, the mystic, love the most intimate
existence.” (Horten, Myst. Texte, p. 12.)

The religious-mystical applications of the fundamental powers represented
by the types, in the sense of a sublimation, does not manifest therefore in
contrast to their retrospective form (titanic, purposeless form) an essentially
foreign nature; the important novelty in them is that they no longer are used
egotistically but have acquired a content that is ethically valuable, to which
the intro-determination was an aid. This determination, whose external
aspects we have noticed in the types or symbols, is only the visible
expression of a far more important actual intro-determination whose
accomplishment lies in an amplification of personality, and will later be
considered in detail.

In the psychoanalytic consideration of the alchemistic parable it would
appear that only the titanic impulses were realized there, e.g., to have the

mother as a lover and to kill the father. Now it corresponds to a really
significant intro-determination when we hear that in the alchemistic work
the father is the same as the son, and when we understand that the father is a
state, or psychic potentiality, of the “son,” whom the latter in himself, has to
conquer, [pg 258] exactly in the same manner as Lea in the lecomantic
study strove to put off the old man.

The alchemist Rulandus (Lex., p. 24) quotes the “Turba”: “Take the white
tree, build him a round, dark, dew-encircled house, and set in it a hundred
year-old man and close it so that no wind or dust can get to him
(introversion); then leave him there eight days. I tell you that that man will
not cease to eat of the fruit of that tree till he becomes a youth. O what a
wonderful nature, for here is the father become son and born again.” Ibid:
“The stone [that is in the anagogic sense, man] is at first the senex,
afterwards young, so it is said filius interficit patrem; the father must die,
the son be born, die with each other and be renewed with each other.”

We must proceed similarly if we wish to interpret the parable anagogically.

What I have already taken from the anagogic fairy tale interpretation as a
symbol of introversion shows, of course, also the character of intro-
determination.

As for the nature of the relatively unchangeable spiritual tendencies
represented by the elementary types [That can also be called in
mythological study primal motives] a simple examination of the essentials
without any psychological hair splitting, brings us at once to an elementary
scheme that will help us to understand the changes (intro-determination)
that take place in accordance with the elementary types. We need here only
to examine the simplest [pg 259] reactions of the individual, necessarily
produced by rubbing up again the external world; reactions which become
persistent forms of experience that are approximately as self-evident as the
libido itself. The degree of egoism which is active in the elementary
tendencies must, according to the experience of psychoanalysis, be
considered very great. For this purpose I have selected in what follows an
excessively egotistical expression for the “titanic” aspect, the retrospective
form, of the tendencies; and this same excessive expression which would
seem to be rather objectionable when applied to the basis of a religious

development, enables us, thanks to the principle of intro-determination, to
understand this development.

Starting from the libido in the most general sense we arrive first of all at the
two phenomena, the agreeableness and the disagreeableness, from which
results at once, acceptance and aversion. Obstacles may aggravate both
activities, so that acceptance becomes robbery and aversion becomes
annihilation. These possibilities can to be sure only become acts in so far as
they prove practically feasible. In all cases they are present in the psyche,
and in this crude primal form play no small part in the soul of the child. It is
indeed only a blind sentimentality that can raise the child to an angelic
status, from which it is as far removed as from its opposite. We should be
careful not to regard the crude form of the impulse as crude in the sense of
an educated humanity, which must see in the crudeness something morally
inferior. In robbery and annihilation there [pg 260] exists on the primitive or
childish level hardly the slightest germ of badness. There is much to be said
about the psychology and morality of the child. I cannot, however, enter
very deeply into this broad topic, interesting though it is.

The primal tendencies, when directed toward the persons in the
environment, produce certain typical phenomena. I can unfortunately
describe them only with expressions which, if the cultured man uses them,
evoke the idea of crime. An ethically colorless language should be made
available for these things. [The dream and the myth have found for them the
language of symbolism.] The opposition of a fellow man against the
working out of an impulse arouses a tendency to overcome this man, to get
him out of the way, to kill him. The type of the obstructing man is always
the instructor (father, eventually mother). That he is at the same time a doer
of good is less appreciated because the psychical apparatus takes the
satisfaction of desires as the natural thing, which does not excite its energy
nearly as much as does a hindrance to its satisfaction. [Recognition of a
good deed, thankfulness, etc., regularly presuppose sublimation; they do not
belong to the titanic aspect. A form of appreciation of this kindness however
comes to mind. Towards the mother there occurs on the part of the child,
though it has been completely overlooked for a long time, very early and
gradually increasing, a sexually-toned feeling, although the manifestations
of this feeling are very dim and at times may completely [pg 261]

disappear. In this “love” is contained a germ of desire, of erotic
appropriation-to-self. Any woman in the environment and especially the
mother must needs supply the ideal of the desired woman. In so far as the
father is perceived as an obstacle to the love towards the mother he must, in
the elementary tendency, be killed to remove the obstacle, and there arises
the murder impulse belonging to the Œdipus Complex. [The child has no
clear idea of death. It is only a matter of wishing to have some one out of
the way. If this primal motive appears to us subsequently as a “killing,” it is
again only because of the error of superposition, just as in the later
mentioned “rape.”] In so far as the mother herself does not meet the desired
tenderness or in refusing, acts as a corrective agent, while carrying on the
education, she, too, becomes an obstacle, a personality contrasting with the
“dear” mother, a contrast which plunges the psyche in anxiety and
bitterness. Anxiety comes principally from the conflict of psychical
tendencies, which result from the same person being both loved and hated.
The correlative to the denying action of the mother is to commit rape on
her. Another cause of the attraction towards the mother besides the
erotically toned one, is the desire for her care, called forth by the hardships
encountered elsewhere in the world. It is an indolence opposed to the duties
of life. The propensity towards ease is psychologically a very important
factor. The home is in general the place of protection; the characteristic
embodiment [pg 262] of this is preëminently the mother. We speak of
maternal solicitude but less of paternal solicitude. I have noted the
solicitous mother type in the story of the three feathers, where the mother
toad bestows the gifts from the big box. In so far as the solicitous person
refuses the requests made of her and for reasons of necessity thrusts the
child out into the world, or in so far as any other obstacles (demands of life)
stand in the way of the gratification of the lazy, “feed me” state of mind,
like the angel with the flaming sword before the entrance to paradise, so far
the obstructing power appears as the type of the “terrible” mother, a picture
whose terribleness is yet intensified by the working of the incest conflict. In
this aspect therefore the otherwise beloved mother is a hostile personality.

To the process of education on the part of the parents, felt as pedantry by
the child, or to otherwise misunderstood action, he opposes a well known
defiance, and there results, as also from the attempt to change in general the
rough path of life, the hopeful attempt to get a creative “improvement,”

which I have already discussed. The wish to die sometimes occurs. Further
the obstacles that stand in the way of the full erotic life in the external
world, in so far as they are insuperable or are not overcome on account of
laziness, lead to autoerotism. (That this is found even in early childhood is
for the mechanism of the impulses, a side-issue. The scheme just given is
not to be regarded as a historical or chronological development, but [pg
263] the tendencies are quite as intimately connected with each other as
with the acquisition of the psychical restraints that are not generally brought
to view; in separating them we commit something like an error.)

We have considered the following main forces: 1. Removal of obstacles. 2.
Desire for the solicitude of the parents. 3. Desire for the pleasurable
[especially of the woman]. 4. Auto-erotism. 5-6. Improvement and re-
creation. 7. Death wish. The following scheme shows the retrograde
(titanic) as well as the anagogic aspect of these powers, which later
corresponds to an intro-determination of the types, and a species of
sublimation of impulses.

Retrograde Aspect. Anagogic Aspect.
1. Killing of the father. Killing of the old Adam.
2. Desire for the mother (laziness). Introversion.
3. Incest. Love towards an Ideal.
4. Auto-erotism. Siddhi.4
5. Copulation with the mother. Spiritual regeneration.
6. Improvement. Re-creation.5
7. Death wish. Attainment of the ideal.

We need not scent anything extraordinary behind these intro-
determinations, as the scheme is here indeed only roughly sketched; they
take place in each and every one of us, otherwise we should be mere beasts.
Only they do not in every one of us rise to the intensity of the mystical life.

[pg 264]
A more careful inquiry into the mechanism of the psychic powers in the
development of mysticism, would show in greater detail how everything
that happens is utilized toward intro-determination in the process of
education. It would be interesting as an example to discover the application
of the special senses to introversion and ascertain the fate of the sense

qualities. It is quite remarkable what a prominent rôle tastes and smells
often play in descriptions given by persons who have followed the path of
mysticism. I mention the odor of sanctity and its opposite in the devilish,
evil odor. The experimenter in magic Staudenmaier, who will be mentioned
later, has established in his own case the coördination of his partial souls
(personifications, autonomous complexes) to definite bodily functions and
to definite organs. Certain evil, partial souls, which appear to him in
hallucinations as diabolical goat faces, were connected with the function of
certain parts of the lower intestine.

Mysticism stimulates a much more powerful sublimation of impulses than
the conventional education of men. So it is not strange if intro-
determination does not accomplish its desires quickly but remains
fragmentary. In such unfortunate or fragmentary cases, the inward-
determined powers show more than mere traces of their less refined past.
The heroes of such miscarried mysticism appear as rather extraordinary
saints. So, for instance, Count von Zinzendorf's warm love of the Savior has
so much of the sensual flavor, with furthermore such [pg 265] decided
perversities, that the outpourings of his rapture are positively laughable.
Thus the pious man indulges his phantasy with a marked predilection for
voluptuousness in the “Seitenhölchen” (Wound in the Side) in Jesus' body
and with an unmistakable identification of this “cleft” with the vulva.

Examples of the poetical creations of Zinzendorf and his faithful followers
are given:

So ever-sideways-squinting
So side-homesickness-feeling;
So lambs-hearts-grave-through crawling,
So lambs-sweat-trace-smelling.

So Jesus sweat-drop-yielding,
With love's fever trembling
Like the child full of spirit.
So corpse-air-imbibing,
So wound-wet-emitting,
So grave-fume-sniffing.

So martyr-lamb's heart-like,
So Jesus-boy-like,
So Mary Magdalene-like being,
Childlike, virgin-like, conjugal
Will the lamb keep us
Close to the kiss of his clefts.

With us Cross people
The closet of the side often is worth
The whole little lamb.
Ye poor sinners.
[pg 266]
But deep, but deep within,
Yes deep, right deep within,
And whoever will be blessed
He wishes himself within
Into the dear rendezvous
Of all the darlings.
Ravishing little lamb.
I, poor little thing, I kiss the ring
On thy little ringer,
Thou wound of the spear
Hold thy little mouth near,
It must be kissed.
Lamb, say nothing to me in there
For this precious minute
Thou art mine only.

On this curiosity compare the psychological explanations of Pfister.
(Frommigkeit G. Ludw. v. Zinzendorf.)

Returning to the previously mentioned “spiritual powers” I should mention
that alchemy also attempts to include in a short schema the inventory of
powers available for the Great Work. It uses different symbols for this
purpose; one of the most frequent is the seven metals or planets. Whether I
say with the astrologers that the soul (not the celestial spirit, which is
derived from God) flowing in from the seven planets upon man, is therefore

composed of their seven influences, or if with the alchemists I speak of the
seven metals, which come together in the microcosm, it is of course quite
the same, but expressed in another closely related symbol. The metals are,
as we know, incomplete and have to be [pg 267] “improved” or “made
complete.” That means we must sublimate our impulses.

“From the highest to the lowest everything rises by intermediate steps on
the infinite ladder, in such manner that those pictures and images, as
outgrowths of the divine mind, through subordinate divinities and demigods
impart their gifts and emanations to men. The highest of these are: Spirit of
inquiry, power of ruling and mastering self, a brave heart, clearness of
perception, ardent affection, acuteness in the art of exposition, and fruitful
creative power. The efficient forces of all these God has above all and
originally in himself. From him they have received the seven spirits and
divinities, which move and rule the seven planets, and are called angels, so
that each has received his own, distinct from the rest. They share them
again among the seven orders of demons subordinated to them, one under
each. And these finally transmit them to men.” (Adamah Booz. Sieb.
Grunds., p. 9 ff.)

In this enumeration the fundamental powers, whose partition varies
exceedingly, already show a certain measure of intro-determination. If we
wish to contrast their titanic with their anagogic aspect, we get
approximately the following scheme, to which I add the familiar
astrological characters of the seven planets.

Destroying (castration). [Symbol: Saturn] Introversion.
Mastery. [Symbol: Jupiter] Mastery of oneself.
[Symbol: Mars] Warring against
Love of combat.
oneself.
Libido. [Symbol: Sol] Sublimated libido.
Sexual life, incest. [Symbol: Venus] Regeneration.
Hypercriticism, fussing. [Symbol: Mercury] Knowledge.
Joy in change;
[Symbol: Luna] Changing oneself.
Improvement.

[Freud is of the opinion that the original inquisitiveness about the sexual
secret is abnormally transformed into morbid over subtlety; and yet can still

furnish an impulsive power for legitimate thirst for knowledge.]

Beside the partition of the fundamental powers according to the favorite
number seven, there are to be sure in alchemy still other schemata with
other symbols. We must furthermore continually keep in mind that the
symbols in alchemy are used in many senses.

In so far as the Constellations, as is often to be understood in the hermetic
art, are fundamental psychic powers, it sounds just like psychoanalysis
when Paracelsus expresses the view that in sleep the “sidereal” body is in
unobstructed operation, soars up to its fathers and has converse with the
stars.

With regard to intro-determination I must refer to my observations in the
following sections on the extension of personality. It is an important fact
that those external obstructions which oppose the unrestrained unfolding of
the titanic impulses are gradually taken up as constraints into the psyche,
which adopts those external laws, that would make life practicable. In so far
as deep conflicts do not hinder it, there arises by the operation of these laws
a corresponding influence upon the propensities. [pg 269] Habit, however,
can learn to carry a heavy yoke with love, even to make it the condition of
life. I have just made the restriction: if conflicts do not hinder it; now
usually these exist, even for the mystics; and the “Work” is above all
directed toward their overcoming. For the annihilation of the opposition, the
weapons aimed outward in the “titanic” phase must be turned inward; there
and not outside of us is the conflict. [Here we see the actual intro-
determination briefly mentioned above.]

B. Effects Of Introversion.

Introversion is no child's play. It leads to abysses, by which we may be
swallowed up past recall. Whoever submits to introversion arrives at a point
where two ways part; and there he must come to a decision, than which a
more difficult one cannot be conceived. The symbol of the abyss, of the
parting of the ways, both were clearly contained in our parable. The

occurrence of the similar motive in myths and fairy tales is familiar. The
danger is obvious in that the hero generally makes an apparently quite
trivial mistake and then must make extraordinary efforts to save himself
from the effects of these few trivial errors. One more wrong step and all
would have been lost.

Introversion accordingly presents two possibilities, either to gain what the
mystic work seeks, or to lose oneself.

In introversion the libido sinks into “its own depths” (a figure that
Nietzsche likes to use), and [pg 270] finds there below in the shadows of
the unconscious, the equivalent for the world above which it has left,
namely the world of phantasy and memories, of which the strongest and
most influential are the early infantile memory images. It is the child's
world, the paradise of early childhood, from which a rigorous law has
separated us. In this subterranean realm slumber sweet domestic feelings
and the infinite hopes of all “becoming.” Yet as Mephistopheles says, “The
peril is great.” This depth is seducing: it is the “mother” and—death. If the
libido remains suspended in the wonder realm of the inner world the man
has become but a shadow for the world above. He is as good as dead or
mortally ill; if the libido succeeds however in tearing itself loose again and
of pressing on to the world above, then a miracle is revealed; this
subterranean journey has become a fountain of youth for it, and from its
apparent death there arises a new productiveness. This train of thought is
very beautifully contained in an Indian myth: Once on a time Vishnu
absorbed in rapture (introversion) bore in this sleep Brahma, who enthroned
on a lotus flower, arose from Vishnu's navel and was carrying the Vedas,
eagerly reading them. (Birth of creative thought from introversion.)
Because of Vishnu's rapture, however, a monstrous flood overcame the
world (swallowing up through introversion, symbolizing the danger of
entering into the mother of death). A demon profiting by the danger, stole
the vedas from Brahma and hid them in the deep. (Swallowing [pg 271] of
the libido.) Brahma wakes Vishnu and he, changing into a fish, dived into
the flood, battled with the demon (dragon fight), conquered him and
brought the vedas up again. (Prize attained with difficulty.) (Cf. Jung,
Psychology of the Unconscious.)

The marvel of the invigoration that can be attained in the successful issue of
introversion is comparable to the effect that Antæus felt on touching his
mother, the earth. The mother of men, to whom introversion carries us, is
the spirit of the race, and from it flows gigantic strength. “This occasional
retiring into oneself, which means a return to an infantile relation to the
parent images, appears within certain limits to have a favorable effect upon
the condition of the individual.” Of this mine of power Stekel (Nerv. Angst.,
p. 375) writes: “When mankind desires to create something big, it must
reach down deep into the reservoir of its past.”

I wish now to quote a mystic philosopher. J. B. von Helmont (1577-1644)
writes: “That magic power of man which is operative outside of him lies, as
it were, hidden in the inner life of mankind. It sleeps and rules absolutely
without being wakened, yet daily as if in a drunken stupor within us....
Therefore we should pray to God, who can be honored only in the spirit,
that is, in the inmost soul of man. Hence I say the art of the Cabala requires
of the soul that magic yet natural power shall, as it were, after sleep has
been driven away, be placed in the keeping of the soul. This magic power
has [pg 272] gone, to sleep in us through sin and has to be awakened again.
This happens either through the illumination of the Holy Ghost or a man
himself can by the art of the Cabala produce this power of awakening
himself at will. Such are called makers of gold [nota bene!] whose leader
(rector) is, however, the spirit of God.... When God created the soul of man
he imparted to it fundamental and primal knowledge. The soul is the mirror
of the universe and is related to all Being. It is illumined by an inner light,
but the storm of the passions, the multiplicity of sensuous impressions, and
other distractions darken this light, whose beams are spread abroad only, if
it burns alone and if all in us is in harmony and peace. If we know how to
separate ourselves from all external influences and are willing to be led by
this inner light, we shall find pure and true knowledge in us. In this state of
concentration the soul distinguishes all objects to which it directs its
attention. It can unite with them, penetrate their nature, and can itself reach
God and in him know the most important truths.” (Ennemoser, Gesch. d.
Mag., pp. 906, 914.)

Staudenmaier, who has experimented on himself magically to a great extent
and has set down his experiences recently in the interesting book, “Die

Magie als experimentelle Naturwissenschaft,” thinks he has observed that
through the exercise that he carries on, and which produces an intense
introversion, psychophysical energies are set free that make him capable of
greater efficiency. Specifically, [pg 273] an actual drawing upon the nerve
centers unused in the conscious function of the normal man of to-day would
be available for intellectual work, etc. So, as it were, a treasure can be
gained (by practices having a significant introversion character), a treasure
which permits an increased thinking and feeling activity. If Staudenmaier,
even in the critical examination of his anomalous functions, can be
influenced by them, it would be a great mistake to put them aside simply as
“pathological.”

Ennemoser says of the danger of introversion (l. c., p. 175): “Now where in
men of impure heart, through the destructive natural powers and evil
spiritual relations, the deepest transcendental powers are aroused, dark
powers may very easily seize the roots of feeling and reveal moral abysses,
which the man fixed in the limits of time hardly suspects and from which
human nature recoils. Such an illicit ecstasy and evil inspiration is at least
recognized in the religious teachings of the Jews and Christians, and the
seers of God describe it as an agreement with hell (Isaiah XXVIII, 15).”

Whence comes the danger? It comes from the powerful attraction for us of
that world which is opened to us through introversion. We descend there to
whet our arms for fresh battles, but we lay them down; for we feel ourselves
embraced by soft caressing arms that invite us to linger, to dream
enchanting dreams. This fact coincides in large part with the previously
mentioned tendency toward comfort, which is unwilling to forego
childhood and [pg 274] a mother's careful hands. Introversion is an
excellent road to lazy phantasying in the regressive direction.

Among psychopathologists Jung especially has of late strongly insisted
upon the dangerous rôle of indolence. According to him the libido possesses
a monstrous laziness which is unwilling to let go of any object of the past,
but would prefer to retain it forever. Laziness is actually a passion, as La
Rochefoucauld brilliantly remarks: “Of all the passions the least understood
by us is laziness; it is the most indefatigable and the most malign of them
all, although its outrages are imperceptible.” “It is the perilous passion

affecting the primitive man more than all others, which appears behind the
suspicious mask of the incest symbols, from which the fear of incest has
driven us away, and which above all is to be vanquished under the guise of
the ‘dreaded mother.’ [Vide, Note D. To avoid a wrong conception of this
quotation it must be noted that laziness is, of course, not to be regarded as
the only foundation of incest symbolism.] She is the mother of infinite
evils, not the least of them being the neurotic maladies. For especially from
the vapor of remaining libido residues, those damaging evils of phantasy
develop, which so enshroud reality that adaptation becomes well nigh
impossible.” (Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious.)

That the indolent shrinking back from the difficulties of life is indicated so
frequently in psychology and in mythology by the symbol of the mother [pg
275] is not surprising, but I should yet like to offer for a forceful illustration
an episode from the war of Cyrus against Astyages which I find recorded in
Dulaure-Krauss-Reiskel (Zeugg., p. 85.) After Astyages had aroused his
troops, he hurled himself with fiery zeal at the army of the Persians, which
was taken unawares and retreated. Their mothers and their wives came to
them and begged them to attack again. On seeing them irresolute the
women unclothed themselves before them, pointed to their bosoms and
asked them whether they would flee to the bosoms of their mothers or their
wives. This reproachful sight decided them to turn about and they remained
victorious.

On the origin of the mythological and psychological symbol of the dreaded
mother: “Still there appears to reside in man a deep resentment, because a
brutal law once separated him from an impulsive indulgence and from the
great beauty of the animal nature so harmonious with itself. This separation
is clearly shown in the prohibition of incest and its corollaries (marriage
laws). Hence pain and indignation are directed toward the mother as if she
were to blame for the domestication of the sons of men. In order not to be
conscious of his desire for incest (his regressive impulse toward animal
nature) the son lays the entire blame on the mother, whence results the
image of the ‘dreaded mother.’ ‘Mother’ becomes a specter of anxiety to
him, a nightmare.” (Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious.)

[pg 276]

The snake is to be regarded as a mythological symbol (frequent also in
dream life) for the libido that introverts itself and enters the perilous
interdicted precinct of the incest wish (or even only the life shirking
tendency); and especially (though not always valid) is this conception in
place, if the snake appears as a terrifying animal (representative of the
dreaded mother). So also the dragon is equivalent to the snake, and it can,
of course, be replaced by other monsters. The phallic significance of the
snake is, of course, familiar enough; the snake as a poisonous terrible
animal indicates, however, a special phallus, a libido burdened with anxiety.
Jung, who has copious material with which to treat this symbolism, calls the
snake really a “negative phallus,” the phallus forbidden with respect to the
mother, etc. I would recall that alchemy, too, has the symbol of the snake or
the dragon, and used in a way that reënforces the preceding conception. It is
there connected with the symbols of introversion and appears as
“poisonous.” The anxiety serpent is the “guardian of the threshold” of the
occultists; it is the treasure guarding dragon of the myth. In mystic work the
serpent must be overcome; we must settle with the conflict which is the
serpent's soul.

Also the mystic yoga manuals of the Hindus know the symbol of the
serpent, which the introverting individual has to waken and to overcome,
whereupon he comes into possession of valuable powers. These serpents
[kundalini] are considered by the Yogi [pg 277] mystics as an obstacle
existing in the human body that obstructs certain veins or nerves (the
anatomy of the Hindu philosophers is rather loose here), and by this means,
if they are freed, the breath of life (prāna) sends wondrous powers through
the body. The main path in the body which must be freed for the increased
life-energies is generally described as the susumna (as far as I know, it is
not yet cleared up whether the aorta abdominalis or the spine has furnished
the anatomical basis for the idea of the central canal), and is the middle way
between two other opposed canals of the breath, which are called pingala,
the right, and ida, the left. (Here, too, note by the way, appears the
comparison of opposites.) I quote now several passages on the kundalini
and its significance at the beginning of the mystical work.

“As Ananta, the Lord of Serpents, supports this whole universe with its
mountains and its forests, so kundalini is the main support of all the yoga

practices. When kundalini is sleeping it is aroused by the favor of the guru
[spiritual teacher], then all of the lotuses [lotus here stands for nerve center]
and granthis [swallowings, nerve plexus?] are pierced. Then prana goes
through the royal road, susumna. Then the mind remains suspended and the
yogi cheats death.... So the yogi should carefully practice the various
mudras [exercises] to rouse the great goddess [kundalini] who sleeps
closing the mouth of susumna.” (Hatha Yoga Prad., Ill, 1-5.) “As one forces
open a door [pg 278] [door symbolism] with a key [the ‘Diederich’ of the
wanderer in the parable] so the yogi should force open the door of moksa
[deliverance] by the kundalini. The Paramesoari [great goddess] sleeps,
closing with her mouth the hole through which one should go to the
brahmarandhra [the opening or place in the head through which the divine
spirit, the Brahma or the Atman, gets into the body; the anatomical basis for
this naïve idea may have been furnished by one of the sutures of the skull,
possibly the sutura frontalis; the brahmarandhra is probably the goal of the
breath that passes through the susumna that is becoming free.] where there
is no pain or misery. The kundalini sleeps above the kanda. [The kanda, for
which we can hardly find a corresponding organ, is to be found between the
penis and the navel.] It gives mukti to the yogis and bondage to the fools.
[See later the results of introspection.] He who knows her, knows yoga. The
kundalini is described as being coiled like a serpent. He who causes that
sakti [probably, power] to move ... is freed without doubt. Between the
Ganges and the Yamuna [two rivers of India, which are frequently used
symbolically, probably for the right and the left stream of the breath of life,
ingala and ida, cf. what follows] there sits the young widow [an interesting
characterization of the kundalini] inspiring pity. He should despoil her
forcibly, for it leads one to the supreme seat of Vishnu. Ida is the sacred
Ganges and pingala the Yamuna. Between ida and [pg 279] pingala sits the
young widow kundalini. You should awake the sleeping serpent [kundalini]
by taking hold of its tail. That sakti, leaving off sleep, goes up forcibly.”
(Hatha-Yoga, Prad., III, 105-111.) Ram Prasad (“Nature's Finer Forces,” p.
189) writes about the kundalini: “This power sleeps in the developed
organism. It is that power which draws in gross matter from the mother
organism through the umbilical cord and distributes it to the different
places, where the seminal prana gives it form. When the child separates
from the mother the power goes to sleep.” Here the kundalini sakti appears

clearly in connection with the mother. Siva is the god [father image] most
peculiar to the yogis. The wife of Siva, however, is called Kundalini.

Mythologically expressed, introversion proceeds well if the hero defeats the
dragon. If this does not happen, an unsuccessful issue is the result; the man
loses himself. In my opinion this losing of self is possible in two ways, one
active, the other passive. In all there would then be three terminations of
introversion. The good conclusion is the entrance into the true mystical
work, briefly, mysticism. The bad conclusions are the active way of magic
and the passive one of schizophrenia (introversion psychosis). In the first
case there is consummated an inner reunion, in the other two cases a losing
of self; in magic one loses oneself in passions, for which one wishes to
create satisfaction magically, absolving oneself from the laws of nature; in
the case of mental malady the sinking develops into laziness, a spiritual [pg
280] death. The three paths followed by the introverting individual
correspond roughly to these three other possibilities of life, work (morality),
crime, suicide. These three possibilities are, of course, recognized by the
hermetic art; it recognizes three fundamental powers, which can give no
other result psychically. Two of these principles are mutually opposed (in
the unpurified condition of the material). We know them quite well as
[Symbol: Fire] and [Symbol: Water], etc. The third principle lies evenly
between the other two, like the staff of Hermes between the two serpents.
So the symbol [Symbol: Mercurius], as Hermes' staff with the serpents,
precisely unites all three. In this aspect the three qualities or constituents of
matter (prakrti) may at once be substituted for the three fundamental powers
of alchemy according to the Hindu samkhya doctrine. Sattva, Rajas, Tamas,
are translated (by Schroeder) by “purity, passion, darkness.”

In the Bhagavad-Gita it is said of the happiness that these three grant:

“Where one rests after earnest work and arrives at the end of toil,
Fortune, which appears poison at first, finally is like nectar.
Such a fate is truly good, procured through cheerfulness of spirit. [Sattva.]
Fortune that first shows like nectar, and finally appears as poison,
Chaining the senses to the world, belongs to the realm of passion. [Rajas.]
[pg 281]
Fortune that immediately and thereafter strikes the soul with delusion,

In sleep, indolence, laziness, such Fortune belongs to darkness.” [Tamas.]

“Passion” and “darkness,” Rajas and Tamas, (in alchemy indicated by
[Symbol: Fire] and [Symbol: Water], also often by [Symbol: Mars] and
[Symbol: Venus]) indicate the wrong way, the peril in introversion. They
lead to what Gorres (Christl. Myst.) describes as the “demoniac” mysticism
as opposed to the divine mysticism. All mystic manuals warn us of the
wrong way and emphasize often that we can easily lose the way even where
there is good intention. The evil one knows how, by illusions, to make the
false way deceptively like the right one, so that the righteous man, who is
not on his guard, may get unsuspectingly into the worst entanglements.
Careful examination of himself, exact observation of the effect of the
spiritual exercises, is to be laid to heart by every one. Yet powers come into
play that have their roots in the deepest darkness of the soul (in the
unconscious) and which are withdrawn from superficial view. [After this
had been written I read a short paper of Dr. Karl Furtmüller, entitled
“Psychoanalyse und Ethik,” and find there, p. 5, a passage which I
reproduce here on account of its agreement with my position. I must state at
the outset that according to Furtmüller, psychoanalysis is peculiarly
qualified to arouse suspicion against the banal conscience, which leads self-
examination into the realm of the conscious [pg 282] only, with neglect of
the unconscious impulses, which are quite as important for the performance
of actions. The passage of interest to us here reads: “There is no lack of
intimation that these fundamental facts which place the whole of life in a
new perspective, were recognized or suspected even in earlier times. If
early Christianity believed that demons could overpower the heart of man in
the sense that they assumed the voice of God, and the man believed that,
while really doing the devil's work he was doing the work of God, then that
sounds like a symbolic representation of the play of the forces that are
described above.” The play of these forces was indeed known to cultivated
religious peoples of all times. As for Christianity, what the author asserts of
its beginnings can be accepted as true for a much earlier time. We already
know that one of the first works of mysticism consists in the education of
the conscience, in a most subtle purification of this judicial inner eye. The
claims of the psychoanalyst are there fulfilled to the uttermost.] Instead of
many examples I gladly quote a single one, but an instructive exposition by
Walter Hitton, a great master of the contemplative life, from his “Scala

Perfectionis” as Beaumont (Tract. v. Gust. pub. 1721, pp. 188 ff.) renders it.
Thus he writes: “From what I said we can to some extent perceive that
visions and revelations, or any kind of spirit in bodily appearance, or in the
imagination in sleep or waking, or any other sensation in the bodily senses
that are, as it were, spiritually performed, either [pg 283] through a sound in
the ears or taste in the mouth or smell in the nose, or any other perceptible
heat of fiery quality that warms the breast or any other part of the body, or
any other thing that can be felt by a bodily sense, even if it is not so
refreshing and agreeable, all this is not contemplation or observation; but in
respect of the spiritual virtues, and those of celestial perception and love
towards God, which accompany true contemplation, only evil secondary
matters, even if they appear to be laudable and good. All such kinds of
sensation may be good if produced by a good angel, but may, however,
proceed in a deceptive manner, from the impositions of a bad angel, if he
disguises himself as an angel of light. For the devil can imitate in bodily
sensations exactly the same things that a good angel can accomplish.
Indeed, just as the good angels come with light, so can the devil do also.
And just as he can fabricate this in things that appear to the eyes, so he can
bring it to pass in the other senses. The man who has perceived both can
best say which is good and which is evil. But whoever knows neither or
only one, can very easily be deceived.”

Externally, in the sense quality, they are all similar, but internally they are
very different. And therefore we should not too strongly desire them, nor
lightly maintain that the soul can distinguish between the good and evil by
the spirit of difference, so that it may not be deceived. As St. John says:
“Believe not every spirit, but prove it first whether it be of God or not.” And
to know whether the [pg 284] perception of the bodily sense is good or evil,
Hitton gives the following rule:

“If ye see an unusual light or brilliance with your bodily eye, or in
imagination, or if ye hear any wonderful supernatural sound with your ears,
or if ye perceive a sudden sweet taste in your mouths or feel any warmth in
your breasts, like fire, or any form of pleasure in any part of your body, or if
ye see a spirit in a bodily form, as if he were an angel to fortify or instruct
you, or if any such feeling that you know comes not from you or from a
physical creature, then observe yourselves with great care at such a time

and consider the emotions of your heart prudently. For if ye become aware
by occasion of pleasure or satisfaction derived from such perception, that
your hearts are drawn away from the contemplation of Jesus Christ and
from spiritual exercises: as from prayer, and knowledge of yourselves and
your failings, and from the turning in towards virtue and spiritual
knowledge and perception of God, with result that your heart and your
inclinations, your desire and your repose depend chiefly on the above
mentioned feeling or sight, in that ye therefore retain them, as if that were a
part of the celestial joy or angelic bliss, and therefore your thoughts become
such that ye neither pray nor can think of anything else, but must entirely
give way to that, in order to keep it and satisfy yourself with it, then this
sensation is very much to be suspected of coming from the Enemy; and
therefore were it [pg 285] ever so wonderful and striking, still renounce it
and do not consent to accept it. For this is a snare of the Enemy, to lead the
soul astray by such bodily sensation or agreeableness of the senses, and to
trap it in order to hurl it into spiritual arrogance and false security, which
happens if it flatters itself as if it enjoyed celestial bliss and on account of
the pleasure it feels were already half in paradise, while it is still in fact at
the gate of hell, and therefore through pride and presumptuousness may
have fallen into error, heresy, fanaticism and other bodily or spiritual
disaster.

“In case, however, that these things do not result in leading away your heart
from spiritual exercises, but cause ye to become ever more devout and more
ardent in prayer and more wise to cultivate spiritual thoughts; if ye are at
first astonished but nevertheless your heart turns back and is awakened to
greater longing for virtue and your love toward God and your neighbor
increases more and more, and makes you ever meeker in your own eyes;
then you may infer from this sign that it is of God and comes from the
presence and action of a good angel, and comes from the goodness of God,
either for comfort to simple pious souls to increase their trust in and longing
for God, and because of such a strengthening to seek more thoroughly for
the knowledge and love of God. Or if they are perfect that perceive such a
pleasure, it appears to them somewhat like a foretaste and shadow of the
transfiguration of the body [pg 286] which it may expect in the celestial
bliss.” However, I do not know whether such a man can be found on earth.

“He continues: Of this method of distinguishing between the works of the
spirits, Saint John (I John IV, 3) speaks in his epistle: ‘Every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God’ (or as it
is translated by Luther: ‘Who does not recognize that Jesus Christ is come
into the flesh’). This union and connection of Jesus with the human soul is
caused by a good will and a zealous striving toward him, which alone
desires to possess him and to view him spiritually in his blessedness. The
greater this longing the more closely is Jesus united with the soul, and the
less the longing, the more loosely is he bound to him. So every spirit or
every sensation that diminishes this longing, and draws it away from the
steadfast contemplation of Jesus Christ and from sighing and longing like a
child for him, this spirit will release Jesus from the soul, and therefore it is
not from God but the activity of the Enemy. But if a spirit or a sensation
increases this desire, fastens the bonds of love and devotion closer to Jesus,
raises the eyes of the soul to spiritual knowledge more and more, and makes
the heart ever meeker, this spirit is from God.”

In many of the modern theosophic introversion methods, borrowed from the
Hindu yoga doctrines, we find the exhortation to attach no importance to
the marvels appearing beside the real prize, indeed [pg 287] to regard them
as a pernicious by-product. The Hindu doctrine calls them Siddhi. Walter
Hitton speaks of them as “inferior subordinate matters.” From the
description of them it appears that they are phantastic appearances, which
partly flatter the wish for power, partly other wishes. [See Note E at the end
of this volume.] The Siddhi are qualified to captivate weak minds with their
jugglery. Erotic experiences are connected very easily with them because,
going over into the regressive phase, they show their “titanic”
countenances. I have with some daring, but not without right, just cited the
Siddhi as the anagogic equivalent of autoerotism. The regressive phase,
however, appears as soon as one indulges in the gratification of the Siddhi.
It is not the Siddhi themselves that are the evil (I regard them indeed as
anagogic), but the losing of oneself in them. They can be both divine and
diabolic. That depends on one's attitude towards them.

In the result of introversion, the diabolic mysticism is opposed, as we saw,
to the divine. The true mysticism is characterized by the extension of
personality and the false by the shrinking of personality. We can also say, by

an extension or shrinking of the sphere of interest that determines the
socially valuable attitude. I say advisedly “sphere of interest,” for
mysticism in the end will not merely fulfill the social law without love, but
it labors for the bringing out of this very love. It is not satisfied with
superficially tincturing the substance into gold (i.e., [pg 288] among other
meanings, to get man to do good externally); but it would change the
substance completely, make it gold through and through (i.e., to orient the
entire impulse power of man for good, so that he desires this good with the
warmth of love and therefore finds his good fortune in virtue). Only the
good and not the good fortune is chosen as the leading star, as I must note
in order to avoid a misconception about the hermetic procedure. Happiness
arises only at a certain point, and seems to me like a fruit ripened in the
meantime. The most subtle representatives of this doctrine among the
alchemists are not so far, after all, from the Kantian ethics.

Alchemistic ethics presupposes that there is an education, an ennobling of
the will. The person that wills can learn to encompass infinitely much in his
ego. [Cf. Furtmüller (Psychoanalyse und Ethik, p. 15): “The individual can
... make the commands of others his own.” He quotes Goethe (Die
Geheimnisse):

From the law which binds all being
The man is freed who masters himself.

The poles of shrinking and extension are the following: The magician and
the pathological introversionist contract the sphere of their interest upon the
narrowest egoism. The mystic expands it immensely, in that he comprises
the whole world in himself. The person egotistically entering into
introversion can preserve his happiness only by a firm [pg 289] self-
enclosure before the ever threatening destruction; the mystic is free. The
mystic's fortune consists in the union of his will with the world will or as
another formula expresses it, in the union with God. [On the freeing effect
of the merging of one's own will into a stronger cf. my essays Jb. ps. F., III,
pp. 637 ff., and IV, p. 629.] This fortune is therefore also imperishable
(gold). The reader must always bear in mind that the mystic never works on
anything but on the problem of mankind in general; only he does so in a

form of intensive life, and it may indeed be the case that the powers which
introversion furnish him, actually make possible a more dynamic activity
and a greater result. For my part I am strongly inclined to believe it.

On the extension of personality, some passages from the Discourses on
Divinity in the Bhagavad-Gita:

“Who sees himself in all being and all being in himself,
Whoever exercises himself in devotion and looks at all impartially,
Whoever sees me everywhere, and also sees everything in me,
From him I can never vanish nor he from me.” VI, 29f.
“Whoever discovers in all the modes of life the very exalted lord,
Who does not fail when they fail—he who recognizes that, has learned well,
For whosoever recognizes the same lord as the one who dwells in all,
Wounds not the self through the self, and travels so the highest road.” XIII
27f.

[pg 290]
These passages elucidate the progressive function of the idea of God in the
“work.” Incidentally, I believe that the devotional doctrines (Yoga) which
are theoretically based on the Samkhya philosophy that originated without a
God, has for good practical reasons taken the idea of isvara (God) into its
system. Concentration requires an elevated impalpable object as an aim.
And this object must have the property of being above every reach of the
power to grasp and yet apparently to seem attainable. God has furthermore
the functions of the bearer of conflicts and hopes. At the beginning of the
work indeed the obstructing conflicts still exist. A certain unburdening is
accomplished by leaving the conflict to the divinity, and frees the powers
that were at first crippled under the pressure of the conflicts. [Cf. Jung's
Psychology of the Unconscious, Freud Kl. Schr., II, p. 131.]

“Then throw on me all thy doings, thinking only on the highest spirit,
Hoping and desiring nothing, so fight, free from all pain.” Bh. G. III 30.
“Whose acts without any bias and dedicates all his activity to God
Will not be stained with evil [is therefore free from conflicts] as the lotus leaf
is not stained by the water.” V 10.

The idea of the education of the will has, of course, been familiar for a long
time to ethical writers, even if it has at times been lost sight of.

Aristotle is convinced that morality arises from [pg 291] custom and
convention. “As we learn swimming only in water, and music by practice
on an instrument, so we become righteous by righteous action and moderate
and courageous by appropriate acts. From uniform actions enduring habits
are formed, and without a rational activity no one becomes good ... being
good is an act. Good is never by nature; we become good by a behavior
corresponding to a norm. We possess morality not by nature but against
nature. We have the disposition to attain it ... we must completely win it by
habit. As Plato says, in agreement with this, the proper education consists in
being so led from youth upward, as to be glad and sorry about the things
over which we should be glad and sorry. But if by a course of action in
accordance with custom, a definite direction of the will has been secured,
then pleasure and pain are added to the actions that result from the will and,
as it were, as signs, that here a new nature is established in man.” (Jodl.
Gesch. d. Eth., I, pp. 44 ff.) “The energy and the proud confidence in
human power with which Aristotle offers to man his will and character
formation as his own work, the emphasis with which he has opposed to the
quietistic ‘velle non discitur’ (we cannot educate volition nor learn to will,
as later pessimistic opinions have expressed it axiomatically) with the real
indispensability and at the same time the possibility of the formation of the
will; this contention is admirable and quite characteristic of the methods of
thought of ancient philosophy at its height.” (Jodl., l. c., [pg 292] p. 49.)
[Velle non discitur has been popularized by Schopenhauer.]

In Philo and the related philosophers there appears quite clearly the thought
that gained such wide acceptance later among the Christian ascetics, that
the highest development of moral strength was attainable only through a
long continued and gradually increasing exercise, an ethical gymnastics.
Philo, moreover, uses the word Askesis to describe what elsewhere had
been described as bodily exercise. The occidental spiritual exercise
corresponds to the Hindu yoga.

In the domestication of man through countless generations, social instincts
must have been established, which appear as moral dispositions. I recall the

moral feeling in Shaftesbury. The social life of man, for instance, plays with
Adam Smith a significant rôle, and yet even with him the moral law is not
something ready from the very beginning, not an innate imperative, but the
peculiar product of each individual. The development of conscience
receives an interesting treatment by Smith. There takes place in us a natural
transposition of feelings, mediated through sympathy, which arouse in each
of us the qualities of the other, and we can say “that morality in Smith's
sense, just as Feuerbach taught later, is only reflected self-interest, although
Smith himself was quite unwilling to look at sympathy as an egotistic
principle. By means of a process that we can almost call a kind of self-
deception of the imagination, we must look at ourselves with the eyes [pg
293] of others, a very sensible precaution of nature, which thus has created
a balance for impulses that otherwise must have operated detrimentally.
[Bear in mind what I have said above about intro-determination.] This
transposition which sympathy effects we cannot escape; it itself appears
when we know that we are protected from the criticism of another by the
complete privacy of our own doings. It alone can keep us upright when all
about us misunderstand us and judge us falsely. For the actual judgments of
another about us form, so to speak, a first court whose findings are
continually being corrected by that completely unpartisan and well
informed witness who grows up with us and reacts on all our doings.”
(Jodl., l. c., I, pp. 372 ff.)

The derivation of the moral from selfish impulses by transposition does not
resolve ethics into egoism, as Helvetius would have us believe. It is “a
caricature of the true state of things to speak of self-interest, when we have
in mind magnanimity and beneficence, and to maintain that beneficence is
nothing but disguised selfishness, because it produces joy or brings honor to
the person that practices it.” (L. c., p. 444.)

The ethical evolution which takes place as an extension of personality
demands, the more actively it is practiced, the removal of resistances which
operate against the expansion of the ego. It cannot be denied that hostile
tendencies, which are linked with pusillanimous views, are always on hand
and create conflicts. If they were not, the moral task would [pg 294] be an
easy one. Now as man cannot serve two masters, so in the personal
psychical household, the points of view which have been dethroned, as far

as they will not unite with the newly acquired ones, must be killed, and
ousted from their power. Most of all must this process be made effective if
the development is taken up intensively in the shape of introversion. It must
appear also in the symbolism.

Already in the lecanomantic experiments we are struck by the dying of the
figure (old man) that represents the old form of conscience that has been
overcome. It is that part of Lea's psyche that resists the new, after the
manner of old people (father type). In order that the new may be
suppressed, it must be immolated; at every step in his evolution man must
give up something; not without sacrifice, not without renunciation, is the
better attained. The sacrifice must come, of course, before the new reformed
life begins. The hermetic representations do not indeed always follow
chronological order, yet the sacrifice is usually placed at the beginning, as
introversion. In the parable the wanderer kills the lion, well at the
beginning. He sacrifices something in so doing. He kills himself, i.e., a part
of himself, in order to be able to rise renewed (regenerated). This process is
the first mystical death, also called by the alchemists, putrefaction or the
blacks. This death is often fused with the symbol of introversion, because
both can appear under the symbol of the entrance into the mother or earth.
Only by closer [pg 295] examination can it sometimes be seen which
process is chiefly intended.

“And that shalt thou know my son, whoso does not know how to kill, and to
bring about a rebirth, to make the spirits revive, to purify, to make bright
and clear ... he as yet knows nothing and will accomplish nothing.”
(Siebengestirn, p. 21.)

“These are the two serpents sent by Juno (which is the metallic nature)
which the strong Hercules (i.e., the wise man in his cradle) has to strangle,
i.e., to overpower and kill, in order in the beginning of his work to have
them rot, be destroyed and to bear.” (Flamel, p. 54.)

Again and again the masters declare that one cannot attain to true progress
except by means of the blacks, death and putrefaction.

In the “Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae,” of the year 1633, we
read: “Know then that it is the duty of spiritual alchemy to mortify and to

refine all obscuring prejudice as corruptible and vain, and so break down
the tents of darkness and ignorance, so that that imperishable but still
beclouded spirit may be free and grow and multiply in us through the help
of the fiery spirit, full of grace, which God so kindly moistened, so as to
increase it from a grain to a mountain. That is the true alchemy of which I
am speaking, that which can multiply in me that rectangular stone, which is
the cornerstone of my life and my soul, so that the dead in me shall be
awakened anew, and arise from the old [pg 296] nature that had become
corrupted in Adam, as a new man who is new and living in Christ, and
therefore in that rectangular stone....”

To the “sacrifice” of the person introverting, Jung devotes an entire chapter
in his Psychology of the Unconscious, Chapt. IV. A brief résumé of it would
show that by the sacrifice is meant the giving up of the mother, i.e., the
disclaiming of all bonds and limitations that the soul has carried over from
childhood into adulthood. The victory over the dragon is equivalent to the
sacrificing of the regressive (incestuous) tendency. After we have sought the
mother through introversion we must escape from her, enriched by the
treasure which we have gotten.

The sacrifice of a part of ourself (killing of the dragon, the father, etc.) is, as
Jung points out, represented also in mythology by the shooting with sharp
arrows at the symbol of the libido. The symbol of the libido is generally a
sun symbol. Now it is particularly noteworthy that the VIII key of the
alchemist Basilius Valentinus (see figure 3, p. 199) shows arrows being
shot, which are aimed at the [Symbol: sun] (this libido symbol par
excellence) that is aptly used as a “target.” Death is clearly enough
accentuated and correlated with the sinking of the corns of wheat into the
earth. [John XII, 24, 25, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth
forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his
[pg 297] life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.] As this rises, so
also will the dying mystic rise. The grave crosses have the form [Symbol:
Fire] ([Symbol: Sulphur]); they show that the interred one is a certain
sulphur, the impure sulphur, willfulness. The birds, from which we are to
protect the grain, may in the end be the Siddhi; they are, in the introversion

form of the religious work, what would otherwise be merely “diversions” or
“dissipations.”

The mystical death is the death of egoism (in Hindu terminology
ahamkāra). Jacob Boehme writes in his book of the true atonement, I, 19:
“... Although I am not worthy, [Jesus] take me yet in thy death and let me
only in thy death die my death; still strike thou me in my acknowledged
selfishness to the ground and kill my selfishness by thy death....” In the
Mysterium Magnum, XXXVI, 74, 75: “... We exalt not the outspoken word
of the wisdom of God, but only the animal will to selfishness and egoism
which is departed from God, which honors itself as a false God of its own
and may not believe or trust God (as the Antichrist who has placed himself
in God's stead); and we teach on the contrary that the man of the Antichrist's
image shall wholly die so that he may be born in Christ of a new life and
will, which new will has power in the perfect word of nature with divine
eyes to see all the miracles of God, both in nature and creature, in the
perfect wisdom. For as dies the Antichrist in the soul, so rises Christ from
the dead.”

In the hermetic book, “Gloria Mundi,” it is related [pg 298] of Adam that he
would have been able, if he had not acted contrary to God, to live 2000
years in paradise and would then have been taken up into heaven; but he
had drawn on himself death, sickness and calamity. Only through the grace
of God was he given a partial knowledge of the powers of things, of herbs
and remedies against manifold infirmities. “When, however, he could no
longer maintain himself by the medicinal art [in paradise] he sent his son
Seth forth to paradise for the tree of life, which he received, not physically,
but spiritually. Finally he desired the oil of compassion, whereupon by the
angels, at God's command to give the oil, the promise was given and
thereupon the seed of the oil tree sent, which seed Seth planted on his
return, after his father's death and on his father's grave, from which grew
the wood of the holy cross, on which our Lord Jesus Christ, through his
passion and death, freed us from death and all sins; which Lord Christ in his
holiest humanity has become the tree and the wood of life and has brought
to us the fruit of the oil of compassion....” Adam is the undomesticated man;
this ideal must die to the moral aspirant.

The painful duty of killing a part of self is beautifully expressed in the
Bhagavad-Gita, where the hero, Aryuna, hesitates to fight against his
“kindred,” to shoot at them—the bow falls from his hand.

Dying relates to the old realms. The old laws expire to make room for the
new. The new life [pg 299] cancels the old deeds. (Cf. Paul, Rom. VII-VII.)

Vedanta doctrine: But as to the duty of the scripture canon and perception,
both last as long as Samsāra, i.e., until the awakening. If this is attained,
perception is annulled, and if you derive thence the objection that thereby
the veda is annulled, it must be noted that according to our own doctrine
father is not father and the Veda is not the veda. (Deussen, Syst. d. Ved., p.
449.)

Bhagavad-Gita, IV, 37:

“Like fire when it flames and turns all the firewood to ashes.”
So the fire of knowledge burns for you all deeds to ashes.

For several reasons the father image is peculiarly suited to represent what
has to be resolved. By the father, the old Adam (totality of inherited
instincts) and the strongest imperatives are implanted in the child. The
father is also the type of tenacious adherence to the ancestors. Again we
meet the antithesis, old generation, new generation, in ourselves after the
intro-determination.

The mystical death (sacrifice) is not to be accomplished by mere asceticism,
as it were, mechanically; the alchemists warn us carefully against severe
remedies. The work is to take a natural course; the work is also, although
indeed a consummation of nature, yet not above nature.

“Nature rejoices in nature
Nature overcomes nature
Nature rules nature.”

[pg 300]
Thus the magician Osthanes is said to have taught. And the Bhagavad-Gita
(VI, 5-7) says:

“Let one raise himself by means of self, and not abase self,
Self is his own friend, is also his own enemy.
To him is his self his own friend, who through self conquers self,
Yet if it battle with the external world, then self becomes enemy to self.”

In the “Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae Fluddanae” (p. 57) we read: “So it
is impossible to rise to the supramundane life, in so far as it does not
happen by means of nature. From the steps of nature Jacob's ladder is
reached and the chain to Jupiter's throne begins on earth.”

The idea of self-sacrifice (with dismemberment) appears very prettily in an
allegorical vision of the old hermetic philosopher Zosimos, who seems to
have copied it, as Reitzenstein notes, from an Egyptian Nekyia. I quote
from Hoefer (Hist. Chim., I, pp. 256-259):

“I slept and saw a priest standing before an altar shaped like a cup and with
several steps by which to climb to it. [First 15, later 7 steps are mentioned.]
And I heard a voice crying aloud, ‘I have finished climbing and descending
these 15 steps, resplendent with light.’ After listening to the priest
officiating at the altar I asked him what this resounding voice was whose
sound had struck my ear. The priest answered me, saying: ‘I am he who is
(εἰμὶ ὁ ὤν), [pg 301] the priest of the sanctuary, and I am under the weight
of the power that overwhelms me. For at the break of day came a deputy
who seized me, killed me with a sword, cut me in pieces; and after flaying
the skin from my head, he mixed the bones with the flesh and burned me in
the fire to teach me that the spirit is born with the body. That is the power
that overwhelms me.’ While the priest was saying that, his eyes became as
blood, and he vomited all his flesh. I saw him mutilate himself, rend
himself with his teeth and fall on the ground. Seized with terror I awoke,
and I began to ponder and ask myself if this indeed was the nature and the
composition of the water. And I congratulated myself upon having reasoned
well [namely in a train of thought preceding the vision]. Soon I slept again

and perceived the same altar, and on this altar I saw water boiling with a
noise and many men in it. Not finding any one in the neighborhood to
explain this phenomenon, I advanced to enjoy the spectacle at the altar.
Then I noticed a man with gray hair and thin, who said to me, ‘What are
you looking at?’ ‘I am looking,’ I answered with surprise, ‘at the boiling of
the water and the men who are boiling there still alive.’ ‘The sight you see,’
replied he, ‘is the beginning, the end and the transmutation (μεταβολή).’ I
asked him what the transmutation was. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘the place of the
operation which is called purification [in the original, topos askeseos], for
the people who wish to become virtuous come there and become spirits
shunning the body.’ And I asked him, ‘Are [pg 302] you also a spirit
[pneuma]?’ ‘I am,’ said he, ‘a spirit and the guardian of spirits.’ During this
conversation and amid the noise of the boiling water and the cries of the
people, I perceived a man of brass, holding in his hand a book of lead, and I
heard him tell me in a loud voice: ‘See, I command all those who are
subjected to punishments to learn from this book. I command every one to
take the book of lead and to write in it with his hand until his pharynx is
developed, the mouth is opened, and the eyes have taken their place again.’
The act followed the word, and the master of the house, present at this
ceremony, said to me, ‘Stretch your neck and see what is done.’ ‘I see,’ said
I. ‘The brazen man that you see,’ said he, ‘and who has left his own flesh, is
the priest before the altar. It is he who has been given the privilege of
disposing of this water.’ In going over all this in my imagination I awoke
and said to myself, ‘What is the cause of this occurrence? What indeed is it?
Is it not the water white, yellow, boiling, divine?’ I found that I had
reasoned well.... Finally, to be brief, build, my friend a temple of a single
stone [monolith] ... a temple that has neither beginning nor end, and in the
interior of which there is found a spring of purest water, and bright as the
sun. It is with the sword in hand that one must search and penetrate into it,
for the entrance is narrow. It is guarded by a dragon, which has to be killed
and flayed. By putting the flesh and the bones together you make a pedestal
up which you will [pg 303] climb to reach the temple, where you will find
what you are looking for. For the priest, who is the brazen man whom you
saw sitting near the spring, changes his nature and is transformed into a
man of silver, who can, if you wish, change himself into a man of gold....
Do not reveal anything of this to any one else and keep these things for
yourself, for silence teaches virtue. It is very fine to understand the

transmutation of the four metals, lead, copper, tin, silver, and to know how
they change into perfect gold....”

Psychoanalysis, like comparative mythology, makes it probable that the
killing or dismemberment of the father figure is equivalent to castration.
That has, according to intro-determination, an anagogic, a wider sense, if
we compare the organ of generation to the creative power, and a narrower,
if we compare it to sexuality. The wider conception does not require
immediate interpretation. With regard to the narrower, I observe that the
mystical manuals show that the most active power for spiritual education is
the sexual libido, which for that reason is partially or entirely withdrawn
from its original use. (Rules of chastity.) “Vigor is obtained on the
confirmation of continence.” (Patanjali, Yoga-Sutra, II, 38.) These
instruction books have recognized the great transmutability of the sexual
libido. (Cf. ability of sublimation in the alchemistic, as well as in the
Freudian terminology.) Naturally the reduction of sexuality had to occur at
the beginning of the work in order to furnish that power; hence the [pg 304]
castration at the commencement of the process. The killing of the phallic
snake amounts, of course, to the same thing. The snake with its tail in its
mouth is the cycle of the libido, the always rolling wheel of life, of
procreation, which always procreates itself, and of the creation of the world.
The same cycle is represented by a god who holds his phallus in his mouth,
and so (in accordance with infantile and primitive theory) constantly
impregnates himself. The serpent is good and also evil. Whoever breaks
through the ring frees himself from the wheel of compulsion, raises himself
above good and evil, in order to put in its place later a mystical union
[Hieros Gamos].

Regarded from the point of view of knowledge, the formation of types
reveals itself as a symbolic presentiment of an anagogic idea, not at first
clearly conceivable. For the spirit, what cannot yet be clearly seen
(mythological level of knowledge) or can no longer be seen (going to sleep,
etc.) is pictured in symbolic form. [More details will be found in my essays,
“Phantasie und Mythos,” “Ueber die Symbolbildung,” and “Zur
Symbolbildung” (Jb. ps. F., II, III, IV).] This symbol form is the form of
knowledge adapted to the spirit's capacity as it then existed. Not that any
mysterious presentiment or prophetic gift of vision must be assumed. The

circumstance that man can get ever deeper meaning from his symbols gives
them the appearance of being celestial harbingers sent forth by the latest
ideas that they express. In a certain [pg 305] sense, however, the last
meaning is implicated in the first appearance of the typical symbol. It has
already been explained by intro-determination how that was possible. The
psyche, whose inventory of powers is copied symbolically in the
elementary types, knows, even if only darkly at first, the possible unfolding
of the powers. These unfoldings are originally not actual but potential. [See
Note F.]

The more then that the psyche is so developed, that what was originally
only a possible presentiment of actuality and that hence tends to come
nearer the merely potential, begins to become actual, the more symbolism
has the value of a “program.” According to Jung, Riklin, etc., the phantasy
(dream, myth-making) can be conceived not only as with Freud, “as a wish
fulfillment, wherein older and infantile material expresses the wish for
something unsettled, unattained or suppressed, but also as a mythological
first step in the direction of conscious and adapted thinking and acting, as a
program.... Maeder has discussed the teleological functions of the dream
and the unconscious. In the course of an analytic treatment we discover the
continuous transformations of the libido symbol in the dream current, till a
form is reached which serves as an attempt to adapt oneself to actuality.
There are epochs in the history of civilization which are particularly
characterized by a storing of the libido in the sense that from the reservoir
of mythological and religious thought forms, new adaptations to the real
processes and data are made. A significant [pg 306] example is the
Renaissance, which a study of renaissance literature and a visit to the
renaissance cities, e.g., Florence, make evident in a high degree. The
analysis of romanticism ... confirms these processes of development.”
(Zentralblatt f. Psa., III, p. 114.)

We have here the thought that the “program” is expressed in art, which
therefore has prescience in a certain degree of the coming event. Jung (Jb.
ps. F., III, pp. 171 ff.) writes: “It is a daily experience in my professional
work (an experience whose certainty I must express with all the caution that
is required by the complexity of the material) that in certain cases of
chronic neuroses, a dream occurs at the time of the onset of the malady or a

long time before, frequently of visionary significance, which is indelibly
imprinted on the memory and holds a meaning, concealed from the patient,
which anticipates the succeeding experiences, i.e., the psychological
significance. Dreams appear to stay spontaneously in memory so long as
they suitably outline the psychological situation of the individual.”

The more the program is worked out the more the value of the symbolism
(whose types can always remain the same in spite of changes in their
appearance) changes into that of the functional symbolism in the narrower
sense; for the functional symbolism in the restricted sense is that which
copies the actual play of forces in the psyche.

To the functional symbolism of actual forces belong, e.g., in large part the
faces in my lecanomantic [pg 307] experiments, although they also contain
program material; further, in purest form, the previously related
autosymbolic vision of the mountains. The progress of a psychoanalytic
treatment is, apart from the program connections, generally copied in the
dream in correspondence to the momentary psychic status, and therefore
actually and functionally. It is quite probable that the progress of the
mystical work is represented to the mystic in his phantasying (dreams,
visions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. But when one happens upon written
phantasy products of the mystics, of course only he who has mystical
experiences of his own can venture to say whether a program symbolism or
an actually functional symbolism is exhibited. For example, I make no
judgment on the degree of actuality in the anagogic symbolism of the
parable.

C. Regeneration.

In the favorable issue of introversion, i.e., when we conquer the dragon, we
liberate a valuable treasure, namely, an enormous psychic energy, or,
according to the psychoanalytic view, libido, which is applicable to the
much desired new creation (as the titanic aspect of which we recognize the
“reforming”). The symbolic type, either openly or hiddenly expressed, of
the setting free of an active libido, is birth. A libido symbol with the

characteristic of active life comes out of a mother symbol. (The former is
either explicitly a child or even a food, or it is phallic or animal. Zbl. Psa.,
III, p. 115.) As [pg 308] the mystic is author of this, his birth, he has
become his own father.

Introversion (seeking for the uterus or the grave) is a necessary
presupposition of regeneration or resurrection, and this is a necessary
presupposition of the mystical creation of the new man. (John III, 1-6):
“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night [introversion] and said unto him, ‘Rabbi,
we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest except God be with him.’ Jesus answered and said
unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man
be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's
womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a
man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit
is spirit.”

Water is one of the most general religious mother symbols (baptism). With
the earliest alchemists the brazen man becomes silver, the silver man, gold,
by being dipped in the holy fountain.

A mythological representation of introversion with its danger and with
regeneration was given previously [see Vishnu's adventure]. Detailed
examples follow; first the Celtic myth of the birth of Taliesin.

[pg 309]
In olden times there was a man of noble parentage in Peelyn named Tegid
Voel. His ancestral country was in the center of the lake of Tegid. His wife
was called Ceridwen. Of her he had a son, Morvram ap Tegid, and a
daughter, Creirwy, the fairest maiden in the world. These two had another
brother, the ugliest of all beings, named Avagddu. Ceridwen, the mother of
this ill favored son, well knew that he would have little success in society,
although he was endowed with many fine qualities. She determined to
prepare a kettle [introversion] for her son, so that on account of his skill in
looking into the future [Siddhi] he should find entrance into society. The

kettle of water began to boil [cooking of the child in the uterus vessel] and
the cooking had to be continued without interruption till one could get three
blessed drops from the gifts of the Spirit [treasure]. She set Gwyon, the son
of Gwreang of Llanveir, to watch the preparation of the kettle, and
appointed a blind man [mutilation or castration] named Morda to keep
alight the fire under the kettle, with the command that he should not permit
the interruption of the boiling for a year and a day. [Cf. the activity of the
wanderer in the parable, Sec. 14 ff.] Meanwhile Ceridwen occupied herself
with the stars, watched daily the movement of the planets, and gathered
herbs of all varieties that possessed peculiar powers [Siddhis]. Towards the
end of the year, while she was still looking for herbs, it happened that three
drops of the powerful water flew [pg 310] out of the kettle and fell on
Gwyon's finger. They scalded him and he stuck his finger in his mouth. As
the precious drops touched his lips all the events of the future were opened
to his eyes, and he saw that he must be on his guard against Ceridwen
[dreaded mother]. He rushed home. The kettle split into two parts [motive
of the tearing apart of the uterus], for all the water in it except the three
powerful drops were poisonous [danger of introversion], so that it poisoned
the chargers of Gwyddno Garantur, which were drinking out of the gutter
into which the kettle had emptied itself [the flood]. Now Ceridwen came in
and saw that her whole year's work was lost. She took a pestle and struck
the blind man so hard on the head that one of his eyes fell out on his cheeks.
“You have unjustly deformed me,” cried Morda; “you see that I am
guiltless. Your loss is not caused by my blunder.” “Verily,” said Ceridwen,
“Gwyon the Small it was that robbed me.” Immediately she pursued him,
but Gwyon saw her from a distance and turned into a hare and redoubled
his speed, but she at once became a hound, forced him to turn around and
chased him towards a river. He jumped in and became a fish, but his enemy
pursued him quickly in the shape of an otter, so that he had to assume the
form of a bird and fly up into the air. But the element gave him no place of
refuge, for the woman became a falcon, came after him and would have
caught him [forms of anxiety]. Trembling for fear of death, he saw a heap
of smooth wheat on a threshing floor, [pg 311] fell into the middle of it and
turned into a grain of wheat. But Ceridwen took the shape of a black hen,
flew to the wheat, scratched it asunder, recognized the grain and swallowed
it [impregnation, incest]. She became pregnant from it and after being
confined for nine months [regeneration] she found so lovely a child

[improvement] that she could no longer think of its death [immortality]. She
put it in a boat, covered it with a skin [skin = lanugo of the fœtus, belongs
to the birth motive], and at the instigation of her husband cast the skiff into
the sea on the 29th of April. At this time the fish weir of Gwyddno stood
between Dyvi and Aberystwyth, near his own stronghold. It was usual in
this weir every year on the 1st of May to catch fish worth 100 pounds.
Gwyddno had an only son, Elphin. He was very unfortunate in his
undertakings, and so his father thought him born in an evil hour. His
counselors persuaded the father, however, to let his son draw the weir
basket this time, to try whether good luck would ever be his, and so that he
might yet gain something with which to go forth into the world. On the next
day, the 1st of May, Elphin examined the weir basket and found nothing, yet
as he went away, he saw the boat covered with the skin rest on the post of
the weir. One of the fishermen said to him, “You have never been so
unlucky as you were to-night, but now you have destroyed the virtue of the
weir basket,” in which they always found a hundred pounds' worth on the
first of May. “How so?” asked Elphin. “The boat may easily [pg 312]
contain the worth of the hundred.” The skin was lifted and he that opened it
saw the forehead of a child and said to Elphin, “See the beaming forehead.”
“Beaming forehead, Taliesin, be his name,” replied the prince, who took the
child in his arms and because of his own misfortune, pitied it. He put it
behind him on his charger. Immediately the child composed a song for the
consolation and praise of Elphin, and at the same time prophesied to him
his future fame. Elphin took the child into the stronghold and showed him
to his father, who asked the child whether he was a human being or a spirit.
Whereupon he answered in the following song: “I am Elphin's first bard;
my native country is the land of the cherubim. The heavenly John called me
Merddin [Merlin] and finally, every one, King: Taliesin. I was nine months
in the womb of my mother Ceridwen, before which I was the little Gwyon,
now I am Taliesin. With my Lord I was in the world above, and fell as
Lucifer into the depths of hell. I carried the banner before Alexander. I
know the names of the stars from north to south. I was in the circle of
Gwdion [Gwydi on] in the Tetragrammaton. I accompanied the Hean into
the valley of Hebron. I was in Canaan when Abraham was killed. I was in
the court of Dve before Gwdion was born, a companion of Eli and Enoch. I
was at the judgment that condemned the Son of God to the cross. I was an
overseer at Nimrod's tower building. I was in the ark with Noah. I saw the

destruction of Sodom. I was in Africa [pg 313] before Rome was built. I
came hither to the remains of Troy (i.e., to Britain, for the mystical
progenitor of the Britons boasted a Trojan parentage). I was with my Lord
in the asses' manger. I comforted Moses in the Jordan. I was in the
firmament with Mary Magdalene. I was endowed with spirit by the kettle of
Ceridwen. I was a harper at Lleon in Lochlyn. I suffered hunger for the son
of the maiden. I was in the white mountains in the court of Cynvelyn in
chains and bondage, a year and a day. I dwelt in the kingdom of the Trinity
[Tri-unity]. It is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. I was a teacher
of the whole world and remain till the day of judgment on the face of the
earth. [Briefly, Taliesin has the ubiquity of [Symbol: Mercury].] I sat on the
shaken chair at Caer Seden [Caer Seden is probably the unceasingly
recurrent cycle of animal life in the center of the universe.], which
continually rotates between the three elements. Is it not a marvel that it does
reflect a single beam?” Gwyddnaw, astonished at the evolution of the boy,
requested another song and received the answer: “Water has the property of
bringing grace; it is profitable to devote one's thoughts aright to God; it is
good warmly to pray to God, because the grace which goes out from him
cannot be thwarted. Thrice have I been born; I know how one has to
meditate. It is sad that men do not come to seek all the knowledge of the
world, which is collected in my breast, for I know everything that has been
and everything that will be.” (Nork. Myth. d. Volkss., pp. 662 ff.)

[pg 314]
The story of Taliesin closely harmonizes with that of Hermes in the
Smaragdine tablet. Nork makes some interesting observations, which
besides the nature myth interpretation, contains also an allusion to the idea
of spiritual regeneration.

I have already mentioned that the uterus symbol is frequently the body
cavity of a monster. Just as in the previous myth the hero by introversion
gets three marvelous drops, so in the Finnish epic Kalevala, Wäinämöinen
learns three magic words in the belly of a monster, his dead ancestor Antero
Wipunen. The gigantic size of the body of the being that here and in other
myths represents the mother, has an infantile root. The introverting person,
as we know, becomes a child. To the child the adults, and of course, the

mother, are very large. For the adult, who becomes a child and revives the
corresponding images, the mother image may easily become a giant.

Stekel tells (Spr. d. Tr., p. 429) of a patient whose dreams show uterus and
regeneration phantasies in concealed form, that he, advised of it by Stekel,
mused upon it some minutes and then said, “I must openly confess to you
these conscious phantasies. I was 13 years old when I wished to become
acquainted with an enormously large giantess, in whose body I might take a
walk, and where I could inspect everything. I would then make myself quite
comfortable and easy in the red cavern. I also phantasied a swing that was
hung 10 m. high in the body of this giantess. There I wanted to swing up
[pg 315] and down joyfully.” This patient had carried over the original
proportion of fœtus and mother to his present size. Now that he was grown
up, the body in which he could move had to be the body of a giantess.

We shall now not be surprised at the flesh mountain Krun of the mandæan
Hibil-Ziwâ saga or similar giant personalities. Hibil-Ziwâ descended into
the world of darkness in order to get the answer to a question (i.e., once
more the treasure in the form of a marvelous word). He applied in vain to
different persons, but always had to go deeper and finally came to Krûn,
from whom he forced the magic word.

The treasure or wonder working name comes from the depths according to
the hermetic cabbalistic conception also. David is supposed to have found
at the digging of the foundation of the temple, the Eben stijjah, Stone of the
Deeps, that unlocked the fountain of the great deep (I Mos., VII, 11, and
VIII, 12) and on which the Sêm ha-mephorás, the outspoken name (of God)
was inscribed. This stone he brought into the holy of holies, and on it the
ark of the covenant was set. Fearless disciples of wisdom entered at times
into the sanctuary and had learned from the stone the name with its
combinations of letters in order to work wonders therewith.

In cases where the uterus is represented by the body cavity of a monster the
rebirth occurs most frequently by a spitting forth. Also the breaking forth by
means of tearing apart the uterus occurs, [pg 316] and in every case it has
the significance of a “powerfully tearing of oneself away,” the burning of
bridges behind one, the final victory over the mother. To the descent into
the underworld (introversion) corresponds, as characteristic of the

subsequent rebirth, the rising to the light with the released treasure (magic
word as above, water of life, as in Ishtar's hell journey, etc.).

A frequently used symbol for the released libido is the light, the sun.
Reborn sun figures, in connection with a daily and yearly up and down, are
also quite general. That the released libido appears thus may have several
reasons. External ones, like the life-imparting properties of the sun, invite
comparison. Then the parallel light = consciousness. [Also that higher or
other consciousness that is mediated by the mystic religious work; for
which expressions like illuminate, etc., are sufficiently significant. On this
topic see my essay, Phant. u. Myth. (Jb., II, p. 597).] and also inner reasons,
i.e., such as rest upon the actual light and warmth sensations, which occur,
as literature and observations show, in persons who are devoted to spiritual
training. Here the occasion may be offered to the mystic to utilize for
conscious life and action, functions that hitherto had been unconscious. Of
the appearance of light in the state of introversion, the histories of saints
and ecstatics, and the autobiographies of this kind of men are full. An
enormous number of instances might be given. I shall rest content with
recalling that Mechthildis von Magdeburg has entitled her [pg 317]
revelations: “A flowing Light of my Godhead” (“Ein vliessend Lieht miner
Gotheit”), and with adding Jane Leade's words: “If any one asks what is the
magic power [sought by the reborn] I answer, ‘It is to be compared to a
wonderfully powerful inspiration to the soul, to a blood, coloring and
penetrating and transmuting the inner life, a concentrating and essentially
creative light and fire flame.’ ”

The Omphalopsychites or Hesychiasts, those monks who dwelt in the
Middle Ages on Mount Athos, were given the following instructions by
their Abbot Simeon: “Sitting alone in private, note and do what I say. Close
thy doors and raise thy spirit from vain and temporal things. Then rest thy
beard on the breast and direct the gaze with all thy soul on the middle of the
body at the navel. [See Note G.] Contract the air passages so as not to
breathe too easily. Endeavor inwardly to find the location of the heart,
where all psychic powers reside. At first thou wilt find darkness and
inflexible density. When, however, thou perseverest day and night, thou
wilt, wonderful to relate, enjoy inexpressible rapture. For then the spirit
sees what it never has recognized; it sees the air between the heart and itself

radiantly beaming.” This light, the hermits declare, is the light of God that
was visible to the young men on Tabor.

Yoga-Sutra (Patanyali, I, 36) says: “Or that sorrowless condition of mind,
full of light (would conduce to samadhi).” And the commentator Manilal
Nabubhai Dvivedi remarks upon this: [pg 318] “The light here referred to is
the light of pure sattva. When the mind is deeply absorbed in that quality,
then, indeed, does this condition of light which is free from all pain follow.
Vachaspatimisra remarks that in the heart there is a lotus-like form having
eight petals and with its face turned downward. One should raise this up by
rechaka (exhalation of the breath) and then meditate upon it, locating
therein the four parts of the pranava, viz., a, u, m, and the point in their
several meanings. When the mind thus meditating falls in the way of the
susumna, it sees a perfect calm light like that of the moor of the sun,
resembling the calm ocean of milk. This is the jyotis, light, which is the
sure sign of complete sattva. Some such practice is here meant....” The
similarity to the instruction of the Abbot Simeon is evident.

The light and sun symbolism in alchemistic writings is everywhere used;
yet gold also = sun, indeed the same sign [Symbol: Gold] serves for both. I
should like to call attention incidentally to a beautiful use of the sun symbol
in “Amor Proximi,” which differs slightly from the more restricted gold
symbolism. On p. 32 ff. we read: “See Christ is not outside of us, but he is
intimately within us all, but locked up, and in order that he may unlock that
which is locked up in us, did he once become outwardly visible, as a man
such as we are, the hard sin enclosure excepted, and of this the [Symbol:
Gold] in this world is the true copy, which quickly convinced the heathens
from the beginning of the world that God must become man [pg 319] even
as the light of nature has become a body in the [Symbol: Gold]. Now the
[Symbol: Gold] is not alone in the firmament outside of all other creatures,
but it is much more in the center of all creatures but shut up, but the
external [Symbol: Gold] is as a figure of Christ, in that it unlocks in us the
enclosed [Symbol: Gold], as its image and substance, just as Christ does,
through his becoming man, also unlock in us the image of God. For were
this not so, then the sphere of the earth would approach in vain to the
[Symbol: Gold] in order to derive its power from it, and nothing at all
would grow from the accursed [Symbol: earth]. [The symbol [Symbol:

earth] means earth.] So the [Symbol: earth] shows us that inasmuch as it
approaches near to the [Symbol: Gold] it is unlocked, so we, too,
approaching Christ, shall attain again the image of God; then at the end of
time this [Symbol: earth] will be translated into the point of the sun [in
Solis punctum] [Cf. what has been said about the point in the [Symbol:
Gold].];” and still farther on: “Ye see that the [Symbol: earth] turns to the
sun, but the reason ye know not; if the earth had not in the creation gone out
of the Solis punctum, it could not have turned and yearned according to its
magnetic manner, so this turning around shows us that the world was once
renewed, and in its beginning, as [Symbol: Gold] is punctum; it desires to
return, and its rest will be alone in that; therefore the soul of man is also
similarly gone out of the eternally divine sun, towards which it also
yearns....”

Our parable, to which I should like now to revert, appears in a new light. It
would be a waste of time to lead the reader once more through all the
adventures [pg 320] of the wanderer. He again, without difficulty, will find
all the aforesaid elements in the parable, and will readily recognize the
introversion and rebirth. I therefore pick out for further consideration only a
few particular motives of the parable or alchemy which seem to me to
require special elucidation.

We should not forget the singular fact that after the introversion, at the
beginning of the work of rebirth, a deluge occurs. This flood takes place not
merely in the alchemistic process (when the bodies undergo putrefaction in
the vessel and become black), but we see the mythic deluges coming with
unmistakable regularity at the same time, i.e., after the killing of the
original being (separation of the primal parents, etc.), and before the new
creation of the world by the son of God. Stucken (SAM., p. 123): “We see
corroborated ... what I have already emphasized, that on the appearance of
the flood catastrophe the creation of the world is not yet finished. Even
before the catastrophe there was indeed an earth and life on it, but only after
the flood, begins the forming of the present Cosmos. Thus it is in the
germanic Ymir-saga, and in the Babylonian Tiamat-saga, in the Egyptian
and likewise in the Iranian.” What may the flood be in the psychological
sense. Dreams and poetry tell us, in that they figure the passions in the
image of a storm-tossed sea. After the introversion, whose perils have

already been mentioned, there is always an outbreak of the passions. Not
without consequences is the [pg 321] Stone of the Deeps elevated, which
locks the prison of the subterranean powers. (Cf. Book of Enoch, X, 5, and
passim.) The point is to seize the wildly rushing spirits and to get
possession of their powers without injury. The entire inundation must, in the
philosophical vessel, be absorbed by the bodies that have turned black, and
then it works on them for the purpose of new creation, fructifying them like
the floods of water upon the earth. It does no damage to the materia only
then, when it is actually black (stage of victory). If this happens, it (the
materia) is in contrast to the waters raging over it, like an ocean which
suffers no alteration by the influx of waters. “Like an ocean that continually
fills itself and yet does not overflow its boundaries, even with the inflowing
waters, so the man acquires calm, into whom all desires flow in similar
wise, and not he who wantonly indulges his desire.” (Bhag. Gita, II, 70.
Latin: translated by Schlegel: German [Schroeder].)

“Wer wie das Meer in das die Wasser strömen
Das sich anfüllet und doch ruhig dasteht
Wer so in sich die Wünsche lässt verschwinden,
Der findet Ruhe—nicht wer ihnen nachgibt.”

Above I have compared the lion of the parable to the Sphinx of Œdipus, and
on the other hand, it appears from later deliberation that it (the lion) must be
the retrogressive element in men, which is to be sacrificed in the work of
purification. Now I find several remarks of Jung (Psychology of the
Unconscious) [pg 322] that mediate very well between both ideas. Even if I
do not care to go so far as to see in the animal only the sexual impelling
powers, but prefer to regard it rather as the titanic part of our impulses, I
find the conception of the author very fortunate. The Sphinx, that double
being, symbolizes the double natured man, to whom his bestiality still
clings. Indeed it is to be taken exactly as a functional representation of the
development of reason out of the impulses (human head and shoulders
growing out of an animal body).

The homunculus motive would likewise have to be regarded in a new light.
I have said that the mystic was his own father; he creates a new man

(himself) out of himself with a merely symbolic mother, therefore with
peculiar self-mastery, without the coöperation of any parents. That means
the same thing as the artificial creation of a man. We recognize therefore the
anagogic significance of the homunculus, the idea of which we found
closely interwoven with alchemy in general. This connection also has not
escaped Jung, though he takes it one-sidedly and draws a too far-reaching
conclusion. He points to the vision of Zosimos, where, in the hollow of the
altar he finds boiling water and men in it, and remarks that this vision
reveals the original sense of alchemy, an original impregnation magic, i.e., a
way in which children could be made without a mother. I must observe that
the hermetic attempt to get back to Adam's condition has some of the
homunculus phantasy in it. Adam was regarded [pg 323] as androgyne, a
being at once man and woman, but sufficient in himself alone for
impregnation and procreation. Welling says in his Opus mago-
cabbalisticum, “This man Adam was created, as the scripture says, i.e., of
the male and female sex, not two different bodies but one in its essence and
two in its potentiality, for he was the earth Adamah, the red and white
[Symbol: Sulfur] the spiritual [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver], the
male and female seed, the dust of the Adamah from Schamajim, and
therefore had the power to multiply himself magically (just as he was
celestial) which could not indeed have been otherwise, unless the essential
masculinity and femininity were dissociated.” I am reminded in this
connection that Mercury is also bisexual; the “materia” must be brought
into the androgynic state “rebis.” The idea of hermaphroditism plays a well
known, important part in mythology also.

*****

We have explained why phantasy creations carry two meanings, the
psychoanalytic and the anagogic, apparently fundamentally different, even
contradictory, and yet, on account of their completeness, undeniable. We
have found that the two meanings correspond to two aspects or two
evolutionary phases of a psychic inventory of powers, which are attached as
a unity to symbolic types, because an intro-determination can take place in
connection with the sublimation of the impulses. When we formulated the
problem of the multiple interpretation, we were struck with the fact that

besides the two meanings [pg 324] that were nominally antipodal in ethical
relations, there was a third ethically indifferent, namely, the natural
scientific. Apart from the fact that I have not yet exhausted the anagogic
contents of our material and so must add a number of things in the
following sections, I am confronted with the task of elucidating the position
of the nature myth portion. That will necessarily be done briefly.

In the case of alchemy the natural scientific content is chemistry (in some
degree connected with physics and cosmology), a fact hardly requiring
proof. The alchemistic chemistry was not, to be sure, scientific in the strict
modern sense. In comparison with our modern attitudes it had so much
mythical blood in it that I could call it a mythologically apperceiving
science, wherein I go a little beyond the very clearly developed conception
of Wilhelm Wundt (Volkerps. Myth. u. Rel.) regarding mythological
apperception, from a desire for a more rigid formulation, but without losing
the peculiar concept of the mythical or giving it the extension it has
acquired with G. F. Lipps. Alchemy's myth-like point of view and manner
of thinking is paralleled by the fact that it was dominated by symbolic
representation and the peculiarities that go with it. [The concept of the
symbol is here to be taken, of course, in the wider sense, as in my papers on
Symbolbildung (Jb. ps. F., II-IV).]

The choice of a symbol is strongly influenced by what strongly impresses
the mind, what moves the soul, whether joyful or painful, what is of vital
interest, [pg 325] in short, whatever touches us nearly, whether consciously
or unconsciously. This influence is shown even in the commonplace
instances, where the professional or the amateur is betrayed by the manner
of apperceiving one and the same object. Thus the landscape painter sees in
a lake a fine subject, the angler an opportunity to fish, the business man a
chance to establish a sanitarium or a steamboat line, the yachtsman a place
for his pleasure trips, the heat tormented person a chance for a bath, and the
suicide, death. In the symbolic conception of an object, moreover (which is
much more dependent on the unconscious or uncontrolled stimulation of the
phantasy that shapes the symbol), the choice from among the many
possibilities can surely not fall upon such images as are unsympathetic or
uninteresting to the mind. Even if we consciously make comparisons we
think of an example mostly from a favorite and familiar sphere; when