Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts Part 11

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 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 pa.s.sages 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 G.o.d.

Consider this mysterious star; it is the symbol of the Spirit.... The image of the holy fire, etc."

[Occult image.]

Figure 2.

REBIS is represented as an hermetic hermaphrodite. The already mentioned figure with the two heads (figure 2) is found (as Hohler 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 compa.s.ses_, 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 n.o.bilis of John of Munster we see _sun_ and _moon_, at the middle of the top the _star_ [Symbol: Hexagram], also denoted by Y = ??? (= matter) surrounded by _rays_. (Hohler, 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. He was the patriarch of wisdom, a master of all kinds of bra.s.s 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_ (Hohler, 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 n.o.ble 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."

[Occult image.]

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 ill.u.s.tration of the fourth key shows a coffin, on which stands a skeleton, the ill.u.s.tration of the eighth key (see Fig. 3), a grave from which half emerges a man with upright body and raised hands. [This reproduction 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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 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 G.o.d 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 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 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 a.s.sumption" according to the terminology of psychoa.n.a.lysis.

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 a.s.sumption 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 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 a.s.sumption"

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 antic.i.p.ation a statement whose clear summing up has been reserved for psychoa.n.a.lysis, namely that the object of religious worship is regularly to be regarded as a symbol of the libido, that psychologic G.o.ddess 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 s.e.xual desire, the concept of libido is extended in psychoa.n.a.lysis (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 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 s.e.xual 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 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 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 "Kompa.s.s 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 G.o.d and his righteousness." Also through all kinds of reforms we seek to set the wayfarer on the right path that leads to the original ideal. It appears that the alchemistic preparation of the "work" is available only for the smallest circles. The mult.i.tude is blinded.

"Where do the Scottish masters stay?"

"Quite near the sun."

"Why?"

"Because they can stand it."

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, 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 navete 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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 probably looks for in the parable, may be shown if I mention the ethical purposes that here and there emerge in our psychoa.n.a.lytic 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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.s 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 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 pa.s.sage 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 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 surpa.s.s 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, princ.i.p.ally 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 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 h.o.m.os.e.xual) pursue him. He enters the mill. It is G.o.d'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 h.e.l.ler = 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, G.o.d's mill, the blackness, the water or blood, which are their a.n.a.logues, 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 a.s.sociation in the 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 sanct.i.ty. 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 a.n.a.logues, on the other hand the psychoa.n.a.lytic 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 psychoa.n.a.lytic 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 a.n.a.lysis of hermetic writings shows us that the parable, like all deep alchemistic books, is an introduction to a mystic religious life,-according to the degree of clearness with which the ideas hovered before the author. For just as the psychoa.n.a.lytically 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 psychoa.n.a.lytic, 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 psychoa.n.a.lytic and the anagogic, and can, as alchemistic literature shows, be conceived as the bearer of the anagogic.

The parable may serve as an academic ill.u.s.tration 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 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 psychoa.n.a.lytic elaboration (Rank's) lies ready to hand, and that both are subjected to an anagogic interpretation by Hitchc.o.c.k, 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.)