Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts - Herbert Silberer (great reads .TXT) 📗
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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][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
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