2. THE SACRIFICIAL ACT91 The central image in our dream-vision shows us a kind of sacrificial act undertaken for the purpose of alchemical transformation. It is characteristic of this rite that the priest is at once the sacrificer and the sacrificed. This important idea reached Zosimos in the form of the teachings of the "Hebrews" (i.e., Christians). [1] Christ was a god who sacrificed himself. An essential part of the sacrificial act is dismemberment. Zosimos must have been familiar with this motif from the Dionysian mystery-tradition. There, too, the god is the victim, who was torn to pieces by the Titans and thrown into a cooking pot, [2] but whose heart was saved at the last moment by Hera. Our text shows that the bowl-shaped altar was a cooking vessel in which a multitude of people were boiled and burned. As we know from the legend and from a fragment of Euripides, [3] an outburst of bestial greed and the tearing of living animals with the teeth were part of the Dionysian orgy. [4] Dionysius was actually called [x] (the undivided and divided spirit). [5]
92 Zosimos must also have been familiar with the flaying motif. A well-known parallel of the dying and resurgent god Attis [6] is the flayed and hanged Marsyas. Also, legend attributes death by flaying to the religious teacher Mani, who was a near-contemporary of Zosimos. [7] The subsequent stuffing of the skin with straw is a reminder of the Attic fertility and rebirth ceremonies. Every year in Athens an ox was slaughtered and skinned, and its pelt stuffed with straw. The stuffed dummy was then fastened to a plough, obviously for the purpose of restoring the fertility of the land. [8] Similar flaying ceremonies are reported of the Aztecs, Scythians, Chinese, and Patagonians. [9]
93 In the vision, the skinning is confined to the head. It is a scalping as distinct from the total [x] (skinning) described in III, i, 5. It is one of the actions which distinguish the original vision from the description of the process given in this resume. Just as cutting out and eating the heart or brain of an enemy is supposed to endow one with his vital powers or virtues, so scalping is a pars pro toto incorporation of the life principle or soul. [10] Flaying is a transformation symbol which I have discussed at greater length in my essay "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass." Here I need only mention the special motif of torture or punishment ([x]), which is particularly evident in the description of the dismemberment and scalping. For this there is a remarkable parallel in the Akhmim manuscript of the Apocalypse of Elijah, published by Georg Steindorff. [11] In the vision it is said of the leaden homunculus that "his eyes filled with blood" as a result of the torture. The Apocalypse of Elijah says of those who are cast "into eternal punishment": "their eyes are mixed with blood"; [12] and of the saints who were persecuted by the Anti-Messiah: "he will draw off their skins from their heads." [13]
94 These parallels suggest that the [x] is not just a punishment but the torment of hell. Although [x] would have to be translated as poena, this word nowhere occurs in the Vulgate, for in all the places where the torments of hell are mentioned the word used is cruciare or cruciatus) as in Revelation 14 : 10, "tormented with fire and brimstone," or Revelation 9 : 5, "the torment of a scorpion." The corresponding Greek word is [x] or [x], 'torture'. For the alchemists it had a double meaning: [x] also meant 'testing on the touchstone' ([x]). The lapis Lydius (touchstone) was used as a synonym for the lapis philosophorum. The genuineness or incorruptibility of the stone is proved by the torment of fire and cannot be attained without it. This leitmotiv runs all through alchemy.
95 In our text the skinning refers especially to the head, as though signifying an extraction of the soul (if the primitive equation skin = soul is still valid here). The head plays a considerable role in alchemy, and has done so since ancient times. Thus Zosimos names his philosophers the "sons of the Golden Head." I have dealt with this theme elsewhere, [14] and need not go into it again now. For Zosimos and the later alchemists the head had the meaning of the "omega element" or "round element" ([x]), a synonym for the arcane or transformative substance. [15] The decapitation in section III, Vbis therefore signifies the obtaining of the arcane substance. According to the text, the figure following behind the sacrificer is named the "Meridian of the Sun," and his head is to be cut off. This striking off of the golden head is also found in the manuscripts of Splendor solis as well as in the Rorschach printing of 1598. The sacrifice in the vision is of an initiate who has undergone the experience of the solificatio. In alchemy; sun is synonymous with gold. Gold, as Michael Maier says, is the "circulatory work of the sun," "shining clay moulded into the most beauteous substance, wherein the solar rays are gathered together and shine forth." [16] Mylius says that the "water comes from the rays of the sun and moon." [17] According to the "Aurelia occulta," the sun's rays are gathered together in the quicksilver. [18] Dorn derives all metals from the "invisible rays" of heaven, [19] whose spherical shape is a prototype of the Hermetic vessel. In view of all this, we shall hardly go wrong in supposing that the initiate named the "Meridian of the Sun" himself represents the arcane substance. We shall come back to this idea later.
96 Let us turn now to other details of the vision. The most striking feature is the "bowl-shaped altar." It is unquestionably related to the krater of Poimandres. This was the vessel which the demiurge sent down to earth filled with Nous, so that those who were striving for higher consciousness could baptize themselves in it. It is mentioned in that important passage where Zosimos tells his friend and soror mystica) Theosebeia: "Hasten down to the shepherd and bathe yourself in the krater) and hasten up to your own kind ([x])." [20] She had to go down to the place of death and rebirth, and then up to her "own kind," i.e., the twice-born, or, in the language of the gospels, the kingdom of heaven.
97 The krater is obviously a wonder-working vessel, a font or piscina, in which the immersion takes place and transformation into a spiritual being is effected. It is the vas Hermetis of later alchemy. I do not think there can be any doubt that the krater of Zosimos is closely related to the vessel of Poimandres in the Corpus Hermeticum. [21] The Hermetic vessel, too, is a uterus of spiritual renewal or rebirth. This idea corresponds exactly to the text of the benedictio fontis, which I quoted earlier in a footnote. [22] In "Isis to Horus," [23] the angel brings Isis a small vessel filled with translucent or "shining" water. Considering the alchemical nature of the treatise, we could take this water as the divine water of the art, [24] since after the prima materia this is the real arcanum. The water, or water of the Nile, had a special significance in ancient Egypt: it was Osiris, the dismembered god par excellence. [25] A text from Edfu says: "I bring you the vessels with the god's limbs [i.e., the Nile] that you may drink of them; I refresh your heart that you may be satisfied." [26] The god's limbs were the fourteen parts into which Osiris was divided. There are numerous references to the hidden, divine nature of the arcane substance in the alchemical texts. [27] According to this ancient tradition, the water possessed the power of resuscitation; for it was Osiris, who rose from the dead. In the "Dictionary of Goldmaking," [28] Osiris is the name for lead and sulphur, both of which are synonyms for the arcane substance. Thus lead, which was the principal name for the arcane substance for a long time, is called "the sealed tomb of Osiris, containing all the limbs of the god." [29] According to legend, Set (Typhon) covered the coffin of Osiris with lead. Petasios tells us that the "sphere of the fire is restrained and enclosed by lead." Olympiodorus, who quotes this saying, remarks that Petasios added by way of explanation: "The lead is the water which issues from the masculine element." [30] But the masculine element, he said, is the "sphere of fire."
98 This train of thought indicates that the spirit which is a water, or the water which is a spirit, is essentially a paradox, a pair of opposites like water and fire. In the aqua nostra of the alchemists, the concepts of water, fire, and spirit coalesce as they do in religious usage. [31]
99 Besides the motif of water, the story that forms the setting of the Isis treatise also contains the motif of violation. The text says: [32]
Isis the Prophetess to her son Horus: My child, you should go forth to battle against the faithless Typhon for the sake of your father's kingdom, while I retire to Hormanuthi, Egypt's [city] of the sacred art, where I sojourned for a while. According to the circumstances of the time and the necessary consequences of the movement of the spheres, [33] it came to pass that a certain one among the angels, dwelling in the first firmament, watched me from above and wished to have intercourse with me. Quickly he determined to bring this about. I did not yield, as I wished to inquire into the preparation of the gold and silver. But when I demanded it of him, he told me he was not permitted to speak of it, on account of the supreme importance of the mysteries; but on the following day an angel, Amnael, greater than he, would come, and he could give me the solution of the problem. He also spoke of the sign of this angel -- he bore it on his head and would show me a small, unpitched vessel filled with a translucent water. He would tell me the truth. On the following day, as the sun was crossing the midpoint of its course, Amnael appeared, who was greater than the first angel, and, seized with the same desire, he did not hesitate, but hastened to where I was. But I was no less determined to inquire into the matter. [34]
100 She did not yield to him, and the angel revealed the secret, which she might pass only to her son Horus. Then follow a number of recipes which are of no interest here.
101 The angel, as a winged or spiritual being, represents, like Mercurius, the volatile substance, the pneuma, the [x] (disembodied). Spirit in alchemy almost invariably has a relation to water or to the radical moisture, a fact that may be explained simply by the empirical nature of the oldest form of "chemistry," namely the art of cooking. The steam arising from boiling water conveys the first vivid impression of "metasomatosis," the transformation of the corporeal into the incorporeal, into spirit or pneuma. The relation of spirit to water resides in the fact that the spirit is hidden in the water, like a fish. In the "Allegoriae super librum Turbae" [35] this fish is described as "round" and endowed with "a wonder-working virtue." As is evident from the text, [36] it represents the arcane substance. From the alchemical transformation, the text says, is produced a collyrium (eyewash) which will enable the philosopher to see the secrets better. [37] The "round fish" seems to be a relative of the "round white stone" mentioned in the Turba. [38] Of this it is said: "It has within itself the three colours and the four natures and is born of a living thing." The "round" thing or element is a well-known concept in alchemy. In the Turba we encounter the rotundum: "For the sake of posterity I call attention to the rotundum, which changes the metal into four." [39] As is clear from the context, the rotundum is identical with the aqua permanens. We meet the same train of thought in Zosimos. He says of the round or omega element: "It consists of two parts. It belongs to the seventh zone, that of Kronos, [40] in the language of the corporeal ([x]); but in the language of the incorporeal it is something different, that may not be revealed. Only Nikotheos knows it, and he is not to be found. [41] In the language of the corporeal it is named Okeanos, the origin and seed, so they say, of all the gods." [42] Hence the rotundum is outwardly water, but inwardly the arcanum. For the Peratics, Kronos was a "power having the colour of water," [43] "for the water, they say, is destruction."
102 Water and spirit are often identical. Thus Hermolaus Barbarus [44] says: "There is also a heavenly or divine water of the alchemists, which was known both to Democritus and to Hermes Trismegistus. Sometimes they call it the divine water, and sometimes the Scythian juice, sometimes pneuma, that is spirit, of the nature of aether, and the quintessence of things." [45] Ruland calls the water the "spiritual power, a spirit of heavenly nature." [46] Christopher Steeb gives an interesting explanation of the origin of this idea: "The brooding of the Holy Spirit upon the waters above the firmament brought forth a power which permeates all things in the most subtle way, warms them, and, in conjunction with the light, generates in the mineral kingdom of the lower world the mercurial serpent, in the plant kingdom the blessed greenness, and in the animal kingdom the formative power; so that the supracelestial spirit of the waters, united with the light, may fitly be called the soul of the world." [47] Steeb goes on to say that when the celestial waters were animated by the spirit, they immediately fell into a circular motion, from which arose the perfect spherical form of the anima mundi. The rotundum is therefore a bit of the world soul, and this may well have been the secret that was guarded by Zosimos. All these ideas refer expressly to Plato's Timaeus. In the Turba, Parmenides praises the water as follows: "O ye celestial natures, who at a sign from God multiply the natures of the truth! O mighty nature, who conquers the natures and causes the natures to rejoice and be glad! [48] For she it is in particular, whom God has endowed with a power which the fire does not possess .... She is herself the truth, all ye seekers of wisdom, for, liquefied with her substances, she brings about the highest of works." [49]
103 Socrates in the Turba says much the same: "O how this nature changes body into spirit! ... She is the sharpest vineg-ar, which causes gold to become pure spirit." [50] "Vinegar" is synonymous with "water," as the text shows, and also with the "red spirit." [51] The Turba says of the latter: "From the compound that is transformed into red spirit arises the principle of the world," which again means the world soul. [52] Aurora consurgens says: "Send forth thy Spirit, that is water ... and thou wilt renew the face of the earth." And again: "The rain of the Holy Spirit melteth. He shall send out his word ... his wind shall blow and the waters shall run." [53] Arnaldus de Villanova (1235-1313) says in his "Flos Florum": "They have called water spirit, and it is in truth spirit." [54] The Rosarium philosophorum says categorically: "Water is spirit." [55] In the treatise of Komarios (1st cent. A.D.), the water is described as an elixir of life which wakens the dead sleeping in Hades to a new springtime. 56 Apollonius says in the Turba: [57] "But then, ye sons of the doctrine, that thing needs the fire, until the spirit of that body is transformed and left to stand through the nights, and turns to dust like a man in his grave. After this has happened, God will give it back its soul and its spirit, and, the infirmity being removed, that thing will be stronger and better after its destruction, even as a man becomes stronger and younger after the resurrection than he was in the world." The water acts upon the substances as God acts upon the body. It is coequal with God and is itself of divine nature.
104 As we have seen, the spiritual nature of the water comes from the "brooding" of the Holy Spirit upon the chaos (Genesis 1 : 3). There is a similar view in the Corpus Hermeticum: "There was darkness in the deep and water without form; and there was a subtle breath, intelligent, which permeated the things in Chaos with divine power." [58] This view is supported in the first place by the New Testament motif of baptism by "water and spirit," and in the second place by the rite of the benedictio fontis, which is performed on Easter Eve. [59] But the idea of the wonder-working water derived originally from Hellenistic nature philosophy, probably with an admixture of Egyptian influences, and not from Christian or biblical sources. Because of its mystical power, the water animates and fertilizes but also kills.
105 In the divine water, whose dyophysite nature ([x]) [60] is constantly emphasized, two principles balance one another, active and passive, masculine and feminine, which constitute the essence of creative power in the eternal cycle of birth and death. [61] This cycle was represented in ancient alchemy by the symbol of the uroboros, the dragon that bites its own tail. [62] Self-devouring is the same as self-destruction, [63] but the union of the dragon's tail and mouth was also thought of as self-fertilization. Hence the texts say: "The dragon slays itself, weds itself, impregnates itself." [64]
106 This ancient alchemical idea reappears dramatically in the vision of Zosimos, much as it might in a real dream. In III, 1, 2 the priest Ion submits himself to an "unendurable torment." The "sacrificer" performs the act of sacrifice by piercing Ion through with a sword. Ion thus foreshadows that dazzling whiteclad figure named the "Meridian of the Sun" (III, Vbis), who is decapitated, and whom we have connected with the solificatio of the initiate in the Isis mysteries. This figure corresponds to the kingly mystagogue or psychopomp who appears in a vision reported in a late medieval alchemical text, the "Declaratio et Explicatio Adolphi," which forms part of the "Aurelia occulta." [65] So far as one can judge, the vision has no connection whatever with the Zosimos text, and I also doubt very much whether one should attribute to it the character of a mere parable. It contains certain features that are not traditional but are entirely original, and for this reason it seems likely that it was a genuine dream-experience. At all events, I know from my professional experience that similar dream-visions occur today among people who have no knowledge of alchemical symbolism. The vision is concerned with a shining male figure wearing a crown of stars. His robe is of white linen, dotted with many-coloured flowers, those of green predominating. He assuages the anxious doubts of the adept, saying: "Adolphus, follow me. I shall show thee what is prepared for thee, so that thou canst pass out of the darkness into the light." This figure, therefore, is a true Hermes Psychopompos and initiator, who directs the spiritual transitus of the adept. This is confirmed in the course of the latter's adventures, when he receives a book showing a "parabolic figure" of the Old Adam. We may take this as indicating that the psychopomp is the second Adam, a parallel figure to Christ. There is no talk of sacrifice, but, if our conjecture is right, this thought would be warranted by the appearance of the second Adam. Generally speaking, the figure of the king is associated with the motif of the mortificatio.
107 Thus in our text the personification of the sun or gold is to be sacrificed, [66] and his head, which was crowned with the aureole of the sun, struck off, for this contains, or is, the arcanum. [67] Here we have an indication of the psychic nature of the arcanum, for the head of a man signifies above all the seat of consciousness. [68] Again, in the vision of Isis, the angel who bears the secret is connected with the meridian of the sun, for the text says that he appeared as "the sun was crossing the midpoint of its course." The angel bears the mysterious elixir on his head and, by his relationship to the meridian, makes it clear that he is a kind of solar genius or messenger of the sun who brings "illumination," that is, an enhancement and expansion of consciousness. His indecorous behaviour may be explained by the fact that angels have always enjoyed a dubious reputation as far as their morals are concerned. It is still the rule for women to cover their hair in church. Until well into the nineteenth century, especially in Protestant regions, they had to wear a special hood [69] when they went to church on Sundays. This was not because of the men in the congregation, but because of the possible presence of angels, who might be thrown into raptures at the sight of a feminine coiffure. Their susceptibility in these matters goes back to Genesis 6 : 2, where the "sons of God" displayed a particular penchant for the "daughters of men," and bridled their enthusiasm as little as did the two angels in the Isis treatise. This treatise is assigned to the first century A.D. Its views reflect the Judaeo-Hellenistic angelology [70] of Egypt, and it might easily have been known to Zosimos the Egyptian.
108 Such opinions about angels fit in admirably with masculine as well as with feminine psychology. If angels are anything at all, they are personified transmitters of unconscious contents that are seeking expression. But if the conscious mind is not ready to assimilate these contents, their energy flows off into the affective and instinctual sphere. This produces outbursts of affect, irritation, bad moods, and sexual excitement, as a result of which consciousness gets thoroughly disoriented. If this condition becomes chronic, a dissociation develops, described by Freud as repression, with all its well-known consequences. It is, therefore, of the greatest therapeutic importance to acquaint oneself with the contents that underlie the dissociation.
109 Just as the angel Amnael brings the arcane substance with him, so the "Meridian of the Sun" is himself a representation of it. In alchemical literature, the procedure of transfixing or cutting up with the sword takes the special form of dividing the philosophical egg. It, too, is divided with the sword, i.e., broken down into the four natures or elements. As an arcanum, the egg is a synonym for the water. [71] It is also a synonym for the dragon (mercurial serpent) [72] and hence for the water in the special sense of the microcosm or monad. Since water and egg are synonymous, the division of the egg with the sword is also applied to the water. "Take the vessel, cut it through with the sword, take its soul ... thus is this water of ours our vessel." [73] The vessel likewise is a synonym for the egg, hence the recipe: "Pour into a round glass vessel, shaped like a phial or egg." [74] The egg is a copy of the World-Egg, the egg-white corresponding to the "waters above the firmament," the "shining liquor," and the yolk to the physical world. [75] The egg contains the four elements. [76]
110 The dividing sword seems to have a special significance in addition to those we have noted. The "Consilium coniugii" says that the marriage pair, sun and moon, "must both be slain by their own sword, imbibing immortal souls until the most hidden interior [i.e., the previous] soul is extinguished." [77] In a poem of 1620, Mercurius complains that he is "sore tormented with a fiery sword." [78] According to the alchemists, Mercurius is the old serpent who already in paradise possessed "knowledge," since he was closely related to the devil. It is the fiery sword brandished by the angel at the gates of paradise that torments him, [79] and yet he himself is this sword. There is a picture in the "Speculum veritatis" [80] of Mercurius killing the king and the snake with the sword-"gladio proprio se ipsum interficiens." Saturn, too, is shown pierced by a sword. [81] The sword is well suited to Mercurius as a variant of the telum passionis, Cupid's arrow. [82] Dorn, in his "Speculativa philosophia," [83] gives a long and interesting interpretation of the sword: it is the "sword of God's wrath," which, in the form of Christ the Logos, was hung upon the tree of life. Thus the wrath of God was changed to love, and "the water of Grace now bathes the whole world." Here again, as in Zosimos, the water is connected with the sacrificial act. Since the Logos, the 'Word of God, is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4: 12), the words of the Consecration in the Mass were interpreted as the sacrificial knife with which the offering is slain. [84] One finds in Christian symbolism the same "circular" Gnostic thinking as in alchemy. In both the sacrificer is the sacrificed, and the sword that kills is the same as that which is killed.
111 In Zosimos this circular thinking appears in the sacrificial priest's identity with his victim and in the remarkable idea that the homunculus into whom Ion is changed devours himself. [85] He spews forth his own flesh and rends himself with his own teeth. The homunculus therefore stands for the uroboros, which devours itself and gives birth to itself (as though spewing itself forth). Since the homunculus represents the transformation of Ion, it follows that Ion, the uroboros, and the sacrificer are essentially the same. They are three different aspects of the same principle. This equation is confirmed by the symbolism of that part of the text which I have called the "resume" and have placed at the end of the visions. The sacrificed is indeed the uroboros serpent, whose circular form is suggested by the shape of the temple, which has "neither beginning nor end in its construction." Dismembering the victim corresponds to the idea of dividing the chaos into four elements or the baptismal water into four parts. The purpose of the operation is to create the beginnings of order in the massa confusa, as is suggested in III, i, 2: "in accordance with the rule of harmony." The psychological parallel to this is the reduction to order, through reflection, of apparently chaotic fragments of the unconscious which have broken through into consciousness. Without knowing anything of alchemy or its operations, I worked out many years ago a psychological typology based all the four functions of consciousness as the ordering principles of psychic processes in general. Unconsciously, I was making use of the same archetype which had led Schopenhauer to give his "principle of sufficient reason" a fourfold root. [86]
112 The temple built of a "single stone" is an obvious paraphrase of the lapis. The "spring of purest water" in the temple is a fountain of life, and this is a hint that the production of the round wholeness, the stone, is a guarantee of vitality. Similarly, the light that shines within it can be understood as the illumination which wholeness brings.87 Enlightenment is an increase of consciousness. The temple of Zosimos appears in later alchemy as the domus thesaurorum or gazophylacium (treasurehouse). [88]
113 Although the shining white "monolith" undoubtedly stands for the stone, it clearly signifies at the same time the Hermetic vessel. The Rosarium says: "One is the stone, one the medicine, one the vessel, one the procedure, and one the disposition." [89] The scholia to the "Tractatus aureus Hermetis" put it even more plainly: "Let all be one in one circle or vessel." [90] Michael Maier ascribes to Maria the jewess ("sister of Moses") the view that the whole secret of the art lay in knowledge of the Hermetic vessel. It was divine, and had been hidden from man by the wisdom of the Lord. [91] Aurora consurgens II [92] says that the natural vessel is the aqua permanens and the "vinegar of the philosophers," which obviously means that it is the arcane substance itself. We should understand the "Practica Mariae" [93] in this sense when it says that the Hermetic vessel is "the measure of your fire" and that it had been "hidden by the Stoics"; [94] it is the "toxic body" which transforms Mercurius and is therefore the water of the philosophers. [95] As the arcane substance the vessel is not only water but also fire, as the "Allegoriae sapientum" makes clear: "Thus our stone, that is the flask of fire, is created from fire." [96] We can therefore understand why Mylius [97] calls the vessel the "root and principle of our art." Laurentius Ventura [98] calls it "Luna," the foemina alba and mother of the stone. The vessel that is "not dissolved by water and not melted by fire" is, according to the "Liber quartorum," [99] "like the work of God in the vessel of the divine seed (germinis divi), for it has received the clay, moulded it, and mixed it with water and fire." This is an allusion to the creation of man, but on the other hand it seems to refer to the creation of souls, since immediately afterwards the text speaks of the production of souls from the "seeds of heaven." In order to catch the soul God created the vas cerebri) the cranium. Here the symbolism of the vessel coincides with that of the head, which I have discussed in my "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass." [100]
114 The prima materia, as the radical moisture, has to do with the soul because the latter is also moist by nature [101] and is sometimes symbolized by dew. [102] In this way the symbol of the vessel gets transferred to the soul. There is an excellent example of this in Caesarius of Heisterbach: [103] the soul is a spiritual substance of spherical nature, like the globe of the moon, or like a glass vessel that is "furnished before and behind with eyes" and "sees the whole universe." This recalls the many-eyed dragon of alchemy and the snake vision of Ignatius Loyola. [104] In this connection the remark of Mylius [105] that the vessel causes "the whole firmament to rotate in its course" is of special interest because, as I have shown, the symbolism of the starry heaven coincides with the motif of polyophthalmia. [106]
115 After all this we should be able to understand Dorn's view that the vessel must be made "by a kind of squaring of the circle." [107] It is essentially a psychic operation, the creation of an inner readiness to accept the archetype of the self in whatever subjective form it appears. Dorn calls the vessel the vas pellicanicum, and says that with its help the quinta essentia can be extracted from the prima materia. [108] The anonymous author of the scholia to the "Tractatus aureus Hermetis" says: "This vessel is the true philosophical Pelican, and there is none other to be sought for in all the world." [109] It is the lapis itself and at the same time contains it; that is to say, the self is its own container. This formulation is borne out by the frequent comparison of the lapis to the egg or to the dragon which devours itself and gives birth to itself.
116 The thought and language of alchemy lean heavily on mysticism: in the Epistle of Barnabas [110] Christ's body is called the "vessel of the spirit." Christ himself is the pelican who plucks out his breast feathers for his young. [111] According to the teachings of Herakleon, the dying man should address the demiurgic powers thus: "I am a vessel more precious than the feminine being who made you. Whereas your mother knew not her own roots, I know of myself, and I know whence I have come, and I call upon the imperishable wisdom which is in the Father [112] and is the Mother of your mother, which has no mother, but also has no male companion." [113]
117 In the abstruse symbolism of alchemy we hear a distant echo of this kind of thinking, which, without hope of further development, was doomed to destruction under the censorship of the Church. But we also find in it a groping towards the future, a premonition of the time when the projection would be taken back into man, from whom it had arisen in the first place. It is interesting to see the strangely clumsy ways in which this tendency seeks to express itself in the phantasmagoria of alchemical symbolism. The following instructions are given in Johannes de Rupescissa: "Cause a vessel to be made in the fashion of a Cherub, which is the face of God, and let it have six wings, like to six arms folding back upon themselves; and above, a round head .... " [114] From this it appears that although the ideal distilling vessel should resemble some monstrous kind of deity, it nevertheless had an approximately human shape. Rupescissa calls the quintessence the "ciel humain" and says it is "comme le ciel et les etoiles." The Book of EI-Habib [115] says: "Man's head likewise resembles a condensing apparatus." Speaking of the four keys for unlocking the treasure-house, the "Consilium coniugii" [116] explains that one of them is "the ascent of the water through the neck to the head of the vessel, that is like a living man." There is a similar idea in the "Liber quartorum": "The vessel . . . must be round in shape, that the artifex may be the transformer of the firmament and the brain-pan, just as the thing which we need is a simple thing." [117] These ideas go back to the head symbolism in Zosimos, but at the same time they are an intimation that the transformation takes place in the head and is a psychic process. This realization was not something that was clumsily disguised afterwards; the laborious way in which it was formulated proves how obstinately it was projected into matter. Psychological knowledge through withdrawal of projections seems to have been an extremely difficult affair from the very beginning.
118 The dragon, or serpent, represents the initial state of unconsciousness, for this animal loves, as the alchemists say, to dwell "in caverns and dark places." Unconsciousness has to be sacrificed; only then can one find the entrance into the head, and the way to conscious knowledge and understanding. Once again the universal struggle of the hero with the dragon is enacted, arid each time at its victorious conclusion the sun rises: consciousness dawns, and it is perceived that the transformation process is taking place inside the temple, that is, in the head. It is in truth the inner man, presented here as a homunculus, who passes through the stages that transform the copper into silver and the silver into gold, and who thus undergoes a gradual enhancement of value.
119 It sounds very strange to modern ears that the inner man and his spiritual growth should be symbolized by metals. But the historical facts cannot be doubted, nor is the idea peculiar to alchemy. It is said, for instance, that after Zarathustra had received the drink of omniscience from Ahuramazda, he beheld in a dream a tree with four branches of gold, silver, steel, and mixed iron. [118] This tree corresponds to the metallic tree of alchemy, the arbor philosophica, which, if it has any meaning at all, symbolizes spiritual growth and the highest illumination. Cold, inert metal certainly seems to be the direct opposite of spirit-but what if the spirit is as dead and as heavy as lead? A dream might then easily tell us to look for it in lead or quicksilver! It seems that nature is out to prod man's consciousness towards greater expansion and greater clarity, and for this reason continually exploits his greed for metals, especially the precious ones, and makes him seek them out and investigate their properties. While so engaged it may perhaps dawn on him that not only veins of ore are to be found in the mines, but also kobolds and little metal men, and that there may be hidden in lead either a deadly demon or the dove of the Holy Ghost. [119]
120 It is evident that some alchemists passed through this process of realization to the point where only a thin wall separated them from psychological self-awareness. Christian Rosencreutz is still this side of the dividing line, but with Faust Goethe came out on the other side and was able to describe the psychological problem which arises when the inner man, or greater personality that before had lain hidden in the homunculus, emerges into the light of consciousness and confronts the erstwhile ego, the animal man. More than once Faust had inklings of the metallic coldness of Mephistopheles, who had first circled round him in the shape of a dog (uroboros motif). Faust used him as a familiar spirit and finally got rid of him by means of the motif of the cheated devil; but all the same he claimed the credit for the fame Mephistopheles brought him as well as for the power to work magic. Goethe's solution of the problem was still medieval, but it nevertheless reflected a psychic attitude that could get on without the protection of the Church. That was not the case with Rosencreutz: he was wise enough to stay outside the magic circle, living as he did within the confines of tradition. Goethe was more modern and therefore more incautious. He never really understood how dreadful was the Walpurgisnacht of the mind against which Christian dogma offered protection, even though his own masterpiece spread out this underworld before his eyes in two versions. But then, an extraordinary number of things can happen to a poet without having serious consequences. These appeared with a vengeance only a hundred years later. The psychology of the unconscious has to reckon with long periods of time like this, for it is concerned less with the ephemeral personality than with age-old processes, compared with which the individual is no more than the passing blossom and fruit of the rhizome underground.
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Notes:1 Provided, of course, that the passages in question are not interpolations by copyists, who were mostly monks.
2 Preller, Griechische Mythologie, I, p. 437.
3 Fragment 472 N2, "The Cretans." Cited in Dieterich, Mithraslitirgie, p. 105.
4 Cf. "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," pp. 231f. For dismemberment, transformation, and recomposition in a case of schizophrenia, see Spielrein, "Ueber den psychologischen InhaIt eines Falles von Schizophrenie," pp. 358ff. Dismemberment is a practically universal motif of primitive shamanistic psychology. It forms the main experience in the initiation of a shaman. Cf. Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 53ff.
5 Firmicus Maternus, Liber de errore protanarum religionum (ed. Halm), ch. 7, p.89.
6 Attis has close affinities with Christ. According to tradition, the birthplace at Bethlehem was once an Attis sanctuary. This tradition has been confirmed by recent excavations.
7 Frazer, The Golden Bough, Part IV: Adonis, Attis, Osiris, pp. 242ff.
8 Ibid., p. 249.
9 Ibid., p. 246.
10 Among the Thompson and Shuswap Indians in British Columbia the scalp signifies a helpful guardian spirit. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, III, pp. 417, 427.
11 Die Apokalypse des Elias.
12 Ibid., p. 43, 5, line 1.
13 p. 95, 36, line 8.
14 "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," pp. 240ff.
15 Ibid.
16 De circulo physico quadrato, pp. 15f.
17 Philosophia reformata, p. 313.
18 Theatrum chemicum, IV (1659). p. 496.
19 "Speculativa philosophia," ibid., I (1659), p. 247.
20 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, III, Ii, 8.
21 Scott, Hermetica, I, Book IV, and Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 8ff.
22 See supra, par. 89, n. 8.
23 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, I, xiii, 1f.
24 The arcanum is here symbolized by the sowing of the grain and the begetting of man, lion, and dog. In chemical usage it refers to the fixation of quicksilver (ibid., I, xiii, 6-9). Quicksilver was one of the older symbols for the divine water on account of its silvery-white sheen. In Rosarium it is called "aqua clarissima" (Art. aurif., II, p. 213).
25 Budge, The Gods at the Egyptians, II, pp. 122ff.
26 Jacobsohn, Die dogmatische Stellung des Konigs in der Theolagie der alten Aegypter, p. 50.
27 Cf. the identification of the Agathodaimon with the transformative substance, supra, III, v, 3.
28 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, I, ii.
29 [x]: Treatise of Olympiodorus of Alexandria (ibid., II, iv, 42). Here Osiris is the "principle of all moisture" in agreement with Plutarch. This refers to the relatively low melting point of lead.
30 Ibid., II, iv, 43.
31 Cf. the hymn of 51. Romanus on the theophany: " ... him who was seen of old in the midst of three children as dew in the fire, now a fire flickering and shining in the Jordan, himself the light inaccessible" (Pitra, Analecta sacra, I, 21).
32 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, I, xiii, 1-4.
33 Instead of [x] in the text.
34 The secrets of the art.
35 Art. aurif., I. pp. 141f.
36 "There is in the sea a round fish, lacking bones and scales [?], and it has in itself a fatness, a wonder-working virtue, which if it be cooked on a slow fire until its fatness and moisture have wholly disappeared, and then be thoroughly cleansed, is steeped in sea water until it begins to shine .... " This is a description of the transformation process. [Cf. Aion, pars. 195ff.]
37 " ... whose anointed eyes could easily look upon the secrets of the philosophers."
38 Codex Vadiensis 390 (St. Gall), 15th cent. (mentioned by Ruska, Turbo., p. 93). Concerning the fish, see Aion, ch. X.
39 Sermo XLI.
40 That is, Saturn, who was regarded as the dark "counter-sun." Mercurius is the child of Saturn, and also of the sun and moon.
41 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 456, §6.
42 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, III, xix, I.
43 [x]. Hippolytus, Elenchos, V, 16, 2 (trans. Legge, Philosophumena, I, p. 154).
44 1454-1493. Cardinal archbishop of Aquileia, and a great humanist.
45 Corollarium in Dioscoridem. Cited in Maier, Symb. aur. mens., p. 174.
46 Lexicon alchemiae, pp. 46f.
47 Coelum Sephiroticum, p. 33.
48 An allusion to the axiom of pseudo-Democritus.
49 Ruska, p. 190.
50 P. 197.
51 Pp. 200f. Aqua nostra is "fire, because it burns all things and reduces them to powder; quicksilver is vinegar" (Quotation from Calid in Rosarium, p. 218). "Our water is mightier than fire .... And fire in respect thereto is like water in respect to common fire. Therefore the philosophers say: Burn our metal in the mightiest fire" (ibid., p. 250). Hence the "water" is a kind of superfire, an ignis coelestis.
52 Contrary to Ruska (Turba, p. 201, n. 3), 1I adhere to the reading in the MSS. because it is simply a synonym for the moist soul of the prima materia, the radical moisture. Another synonym for the water is "spiritual blood" (ibid., p. 129), which Ruska rightly collates with [x] (fire-coloured blood) in the Greek sources. The equation fire = spirit is common in alchemy. Thus, as Ruska himself remarks (p. 271), Mercurius (a frequent synonym for the aqua permanens, cf. Ruland's Lexicon) is called [x] (fiery medicine).
53 Cf. Aurora Consurgens (ed. von Franz), pp. 85, 91.
54 Art. aurif., II, p. 482.
55 Ibid., II, p. 239.
56 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, IV, xx, 8: "Make known to us how the blessed waters come down from above to awaken the dead, who lie round about in the midst of Hades, chained in the darkness; how the elixir of life comes to them and awakens them, rousing them out of their sleep .... "
57 P. 139.
58 Scott, Hermetica, I, p. 147.
59 Praefatio: "May the power of the Holy Ghost descend into this brimming font, and may it make the whole substance of the water fruitful in regenerative power" (Missal, p. 431).
60 It shares this quality with Mercurius duplex.
61 "In the floods of life, in the storm of work,
In ebb and flow,
In warp and weft,
Cradle and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing patchwork,
A glowing life,
At the whirring loom of Time I weave
The living clothes of the Deity."
Thus the Earth Spirit, the spiritus mercurialis, to Faust. (Trans. by MacNeice, p.23.)
62 In Egypt the darkness of the soul was represented as a crocodile (Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, I, p. 286).
63 In the Book of Ostanes (Berthelot, Chimie au moyen age, III, p. 120) there is a description of a monster with wings of a vulture, an elephant's head, and a dragon's tail. These parts mutually devour one another.
64 Of the quicksilver (aqua vitae, perennis) it is said: "This is the serpent which rejoices in itself, impregnates itself, and brings itself forth in a single day; it slays all things with its venom, and will become fire from the fire (et ab igne ignis fuerit)." ("Tractatulus Avicennae," Art. aurif., I, p. 406.) "The dragon is born in the nigredo and feeds upon its Mercurius and slays itself" (Rosarium, ibid., II, p. 230). "The living Mercurius is called the scorpion, that is, venom; for it slays itself and brings itself back to life" (ibid., pp. 271f.). The oft-cited saying, "The dragon dieth not save with its brother and sister," is explained by Maier (Symb. aur. mens., p. 466) as follows: "For whenever the heavenly sun and moon meet in conjunction, this must take place in the head and tail of the dragon; in this comes about the conjunction and uniting of sun and moon, when an eclipse takes place."
65 Theatr. chem., IV (1659), pp. 509ff.
66 The killing (mortificatio) of the king occurs in later alchemy (cf. Psychology and Alchemy, Fig. 173). The king's crown makes him a kind of sun. The motif belongs to the wider context of the sacrifice of the god, which developed not only in the West but also in the East, and particularly in ancient Mexico. There the personifier of Tezcatlipoca ("fiery mirror") was sacrificed at the festival of Toxcatl (Spence, The Gods of Mexico, pp. 97ff.). The same thing happened in the cult of Uitzilopochtli, the sun-god (ibid., p. 73), who also figured in the eucharistic rite of the teoqualo, "god-eating" (cf. "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," pp. 223f.).
67 The solar nature of the victim is confirmed by the tradition that the man destined to be beheaded by the priests of Harran had to have fair hair and blue eyes (ibid., p. 240).
68 Cf. my remarks on the Harranite head mystery and the legendary head oracle of Pope Sylvester II (ibid., pp. 240f.).
69 Its form can still be seen in the deacon's hood.
70 According to Rabbinic tradition the angels (including Satan) were created on the second day of Creation (the day of the moon). They were immediately divided on the question of creating man. Therefore God created Adam in secret, to avoid incurring the displeasure of the angels.
71 "They compared the water to an egg, because it surrounds everything that is within it, and has in itself all that is necessary" ("Consilium coniugii," Ars chemica, p. 140). "Having all that is necessary" is one of the attributes of God.
72 Maier, Symb. aur. mens., p. 466. Cf. Senior, De chemia, p. 108: "The dragon is the divine water."
73 Mus. herm., p. 785.
74 Ibid., p. 90.
75 Steeb, Coelum Sephiroticum, p. 33.
76 Turba, Sermo IV, p. 112. Cf. also the "nomenclature of the egg" in Berthelot, Alch. grecs, I, iv, and Olympiodorus on the egg, the tetrasomia, and the spherical phial (II, iv, 44). Concerning the identity of uroboros and egg, and the division into four, see the Book of El-Habib (Berthelot, Moyen age, III, pp. 92, 104). There is a picture of the egg being divided with the sword in Emblem VIII of Maier's Scrutinium chymicum (p. 22), with the inscription: "Take the egg and pierce it with a fiery sword." Emblem XXV shows the killing of the dragon. Killing with the sword is also shown in Lambspringk's Symbol II (Musaeum hermeticum, p. 345), titled "Putrefactio." Killing and division into four go together. "Mortificatio (scl. Lapidis) separatio elementorum" ("Exercit. in Turb. IX"). Cf. the dramatic fights with the dragon in the visions of Krates (Berthelot, Moyen age, III, pp. 73ff.).
77 Ars chemica, p. 259.
78 Verus Hermes, p. 16. [Cf. infra, par. 276.]
79 This motif also occurs in the Adam parable in "Aurelia occulta" (Theatr. chem., IV, ,659, pp. 511f.), which describes how the angel had to deal Adam several bloody wounds with his sword because he refused to move out of Paradise. Adam is the arcane substance, whose "extraction from the garden" of Eve is finally accomplished by means of blood magic.
80 Codex Vat. Lat. 7286 (17th cent.). Fig. 150 in Psychology and Alchemy.
81 Codex Vossianus 29 (Leiden), fol. 73.
82 Ripley's "Cantilena," verse 17. [Cf. Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 285.-EDITORS.]
83 Theatr. chem., I (1659), p. 254. Cf. "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," pp. 234f. [Also cf. infra, pars. 447f.]
84 Ibid., p. 215.
85 The parallel to this is the old view that Christ drank his own blood (ibid., p. 21.).
86 Cf. my "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," p. 167.
87 The shining of the vessel is often mentioned, as in "Allegoriae super librum Turbae" (Art. aurif., I, p. 143): " ... until you see the vessel gleam and shine like a jacinth."
88 Ars chemica, p. 9.
89 1550 edn., fol. A III.
90 Bibl. chem., I, p. 442.
91 Symb. aur. mens., p. 63.
92 Art. aurif., I, p. 203.
93 Ibid., p. 323.
94 The "Stoics" are also mentioned in "Liber quartorum," Theatr. chem., V (1660), p. 128.
95 Hoghelande, "De difficult. alch.," Theatr. chem., I (1659), p. 177.
96 Theatr. chem., V (1660), p. 60.
97 Phil. ref., p. 32.
98 Theatr. chem., II (1659), p. 246.
99 Ibid., V (1660), p. 132.
100 Pp. 239ff.
101 The moisture is "retentive of souls" ("Lib. quart.," Theatr. chem., V, 1660, p. 132).
102 Cf. the descent of the soul in my "Psychology of the Transference," pars. 483 and 497.
103 Dialogus miraculorum, Dist. IV, ch. xxxix (Eng. edn., p. 42).
104 Cf. my "On the Nature of the Psyche," p. 198.
105 Phil. ref., p. 33.
106 "On the Nature of the Psyche," pp. 198f.
107 Theatr. chem., I (1659), pp. 506f.: "Our vessel ... should be made according to true geometrical proportion and measure, and by a kind of squaring of the circle."
108 Ibid., p. 442.
109 Ibid., IV (1659), p. 698. [Cf. infra., Fig. B7.]
110 Lake, Apostolic Fathers, I, p. 383.
111 Honorius of Autun, Speculum de myst. eccl. (Migne, PL., vol. 172, col. 936). Christ's tearing of the breast, the wound in his side, and his martyr's death are parallels of the alchemical mortificatio, dismemberment, flaying, etc., and pertain like these to the birth and revelation of the inner man. Cf. the report in Hippolytus (Elenchos, V, 9, 1-6) of the Phrygian system. The Phrygians taught that the Father of all things was called Amygdalos (almond-tree), was pre-existent, and bore in himself the "perfect fruit pulsating and stirring in the depths." He "tore his breast and gave birth to his invisible, nameless and unnameable child." That was the "Invisible One, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made" (an allusion to John I: 3). He was "Syriktes, the piper," i.e., the wind (pneuma). He was "thousand-eyed, not to be comprehended," the Word ([x] of God, the Word of annunciation and great power." He was "hidden in the dwelling where the roots of all things are established." He was the "Kingdom of Heaven, the grain of mustard-seed, the indivisible point ... which none know save the spiritual alone." (Cf. Legge trans., Philosophumena, I, pp. 140f.)
112 Herakleon taught that the Ground of the world was a Primordial Man named Bythos (depths of the sea), who was neither male nor female. From this being was produced the inner man, his counterpart, who "came down from the Pleroma on high."
113 Epiphanius, Panarium (ed. Holl), II, pp. 46f.
114 La Vertu et propiete de Laquinte essence, p. 26.
115 Berthelot, Moyen age, III, p. 80.
116 Ars chemica, p. 110.
117 Theatr. chem., V (1660), p. 134. The res simplex refers, ultimately, to God. It is "insensible." The soul is simple, and the "opus is not perfected unless the matter is turned into the simple" (p. 116). "The understanding is the simple soul," and "knows also what is higher than it, and the One God surrounds it, whose nature it cannot comprehend" (p. 129). "That from which things have their being is the invisible and immoveable God, by whose will the understanding is created" (p. 129).
118 Reitzenstein and Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, p. 45. 119 [Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 443.]