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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts," Herbert Silberer delves deep into the esoteric traditions of alchemy and its intertwining with occult practices. Silberer employs a psychoanalytic approach, revealing layers of symbolic meaning behind alchemical texts and illustrations, which he argues serve as not only practical manuals for transformation but also as profound explorations of the psyche. The literary style is intellectually rigorous, interspersed with philosophical reflections that affirm the significance of symbolism in the understanding of both alchemical processes and the human condition. Placing alchemy within its historical context, Silberer illustrates its relevance in the broader pursuits of enlightenment and self-knowledge during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Herbert Silberer, an Austrian psychiatrist and a pupil of Sigmund Freud, brings a unique psychological lens to the study of alchemy. His fascination with metaphysical concepts and their psychological implications stemmed from his belief that the inner workings of human thought could be explored through these ancient practices. Silberer's synthesis of psychology and alchemical theory not only reflects his academic background but also his commitment to uncovering the conscious and unconscious forces that propel humanity's search for meaning. This text is an essential read for anyone intrigued by the intersections of psychology, mysticism, and historical philosophy. Silberer's meticulous analysis invites readers to engage deeply with the transformative power of symbols, making it a valuable resource for scholars, practitioners of psychology, and seekers of spiritual enlightenment alike.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts
Table of Contents
Introduction
Symbols can hide their deepest meanings in plain sight, demanding both disciplined study and inward reflection to be understood.
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts, by Herbert Silberer, is a work of interpretive scholarship situated at the intersection of occult studies and early psychology. Originally published in the early twentieth century, it addresses European traditions of alchemy, hermeticism, and related esoteric currents through a lens that is analytical rather than devotional. The setting is less a single historical moment than a library of emblems, diagrams, and allegorical images drawn from older sources, approached with the methods and intellectual concerns of Silberer’s era.
The book’s premise is that occult and alchemical imagery can be read as structured expressions of mental and spiritual processes, not merely as quaint relics or codes for primitive chemistry. Silberer guides the reader through the ways symbols operate, how images cluster into recurring motifs, and how allegory can function as a disciplined language for transformation. The experience is that of a sustained commentary: patient, associative, and often demanding, inviting readers to slow down and test interpretations against context and internal coherence rather than treating symbolism as free-form fantasy.
Silberer’s voice is systematic and interpretive, aiming to clarify how meaning is generated rather than to dazzle with mystery. The tone is serious and comparative, moving between descriptive accounts of symbols and reflective analysis of what they may represent in psychological terms. Readers can expect a text that rewards attention to nuance and a willingness to hold multiple levels of meaning in mind at once. It is not a narrative in the conventional sense, but it creates momentum through accumulating examples and the gradual sharpening of an interpretive method.
A central theme is the relationship between outward images and inner states, and how traditions of secrecy can function as both protection and pedagogy. The book treats symbolism as a craft with conventions, constraints, and intended effects on the interpreter, emphasizing that images are not only decoded but also contemplated. Another key concern is transformation: the idea that alchemical and occult motifs portray staged processes of refinement, integration, and reorientation. Throughout, Silberer presses the reader to distinguish careful interpretation from projection, without denying the subjective dimension of symbol work.
For contemporary readers, the book remains relevant because symbolic literacy is still contested and frequently trivialized. Modern culture is saturated with images that claim depth or authority, from branding to ideology, and Silberer offers a way to ask what an image is doing, how it structures attention, and what inner posture it seeks to elicit. His approach also speaks to ongoing conversations about the psychology of belief, the function of ritual language, and the persistence of esoteric motifs in art and popular culture, without requiring acceptance of any particular doctrine.
Read today, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts can serve as a bridge between historical esotericism and the study of interpretation itself. It encourages a mode of reading that is neither credulous nor dismissive, treating occult art as a serious cultural artifact and a map of recurring human concerns. The book asks for patience and intellectual humility, but it offers a durable payoff: a clearer sense of how symbols organize experience, how traditions encode practices of self-transformation, and why the most enduring mysteries are often those of meaning-making.
Synopsis
Herbert Silberer’s Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts is a non-fiction study that asks how esoteric images and doctrines can be read as expressions of inner, psychological processes rather than merely as cryptic recipes or supernatural claims. Moving between intellectual history and interpretive analysis, Silberer frames alchemy, Hermeticism, Rosicrucian literature, and related “occult arts” as symbol-systems shaped by the human mind. The book’s guiding problem is how to interpret these systems without reducing them to fraud or literalism, while still accounting for the specificity and recurrence of their motifs.
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Early sections establish a method for reading symbols that emphasizes multiple levels of meaning and the conditions under which meanings shift. Silberer is especially concerned with how the same emblem can function as technical allegory, moral instruction, and psychological dramatization. He treats symbolism as a structured language with its own conventions, and he argues that apparently bizarre scenes often become intelligible when approached as portrayals of transformation, conflict, and integration within the self. This interpretive groundwork sets the stage for examining particular alchemical and occult images in detail.
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The discussion then turns to alchemical imagery and the literature surrounding the “work,” focusing on how sequences of operations can be understood as staged transitions rather than only chemical manipulations. Silberer traces patterns of death-and-rebirth, purification, and union that appear across texts and pictures, treating them as narrative devices that convey a disciplined process of change. He highlights the role of paradox, secrecy, and coded speech, not simply as deliberate obfuscation but as a consequence of trying to express experiences thought to be difficult to represent directly.
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As he broadens the scope to related traditions, Silberer situates alchemy among a wider network of emblem books, mystical treatises, and initiatory narratives. He considers how symbolic repertoires migrate across groups and periods, acquiring new emphases while retaining recognizable forms. The book’s flow alternates between close readings of specific motifs and larger reflections on why certain images—such as hieros gamos themes, vessels, kings and queens, or strange composite beings—persist. The conflict here is interpretive: whether these continuities point to shared doctrine, shared psychology, or both.
Historical Context
Herbert Silberer’s Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts emerged in the intellectual climate of late Habsburg Central Europe, where Vienna and other German-speaking centers supported dense networks of universities, medical clinics, publishers, and private study circles. By the early twentieth century, psychology and psychiatry were rapidly professionalizing, while older interests in Hermeticism, alchemy, and Rosicrucian literature were being re-edited, translated, and discussed in scholarly and popular venues. Silberer wrote in German, addressing readers formed by the era’s debates about science, religion, and the interpretation of symbolic traditions within modern culture.
Alchemy’s historical record, long before Silberer, ran from medieval and early modern laboratories and workshops to learned treatises and emblem books circulated across Europe. By the seventeenth century, alchemical inquiry had intersected with medicine, metallurgy, and natural philosophy, even as “chymistry” gradually differentiated into modern chemistry. During the Enlightenment, alchemy was often condemned as superstition, but its texts and images remained accessible through libraries, antiquarian collecting, and reprints. Nineteenth-century historicism and philology encouraged renewed interest in esoteric sources as cultural artifacts, creating a base of materials that Silberer could cite and interpret.
The nineteenth century also witnessed organized occult revivals that supplied a modern social setting for older symbolic systems. In France and Britain, figures such as Éliphas Lévi helped reframe ceremonial magic for contemporary readers; in England, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888) popularized ritual and symbolic curricula. The Theosophical Society (founded 1875) spread comparative esoteric themes internationally, including in German-speaking lands. These movements stimulated publishing, translation, and debate about symbolism and initiation. Silberer’s work belongs to this wider European moment when occult traditions were systematized and discussed alongside emerging psychological theories.
At the same time, psychology was redefining the study of the mind in ways directly relevant to Silberer’s approach. Wilhelm Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig (from 1879) symbolized a new experimental psychology, while clinical psychiatry expanded through university hospitals. In Vienna, Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis in the 1890s and 1900s, foregrounding dreams, repression, and symbolic meaning in mental life. Psychoanalytic interpretation made symbolic reading methods culturally prominent and controversial. Silberer, trained in this milieu, drew on contemporary psychological discourse to address why esoteric imagery persisted and how it could be read within a modern framework.
Silberer is closely associated with early psychoanalytic discussions of dreams and symbols, and he published studies on dream-related phenomena before turning his attention to alchemical and occult materials. His writings appeared when psychoanalysis was consolidating through societies, journals, and international congresses, yet also facing internal disagreements and external criticism. The period saw active exchanges between clinicians and intellectuals on topics like suggestion, hypnosis, and the boundaries between scientific inquiry and spiritual or mystical claims. Against that backdrop, a psychologically informed treatment of esoteric symbolism could appeal both to readers interested in occultism and to those seeking to reinterpret it through modern theories of mind.
The years around the First World War further shaped the context in which Silberer’s book circulated. The war (1914–1918) disrupted Central European institutions, intensified political and social strain, and altered intellectual life through censorship, mobilization, and material hardship. In its aftermath, the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the creation of the Austrian Republic in 1918 changed cultural patronage and academic circumstances. Across Europe, the interwar years saw heightened interest in spiritual movements, alternative religions, and psychological explanations of collective and personal experience. The reception of works on occult traditions often reflected this unsettled environment, where older symbols were revisited amid modern disorientation.
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts is also rooted in a longer scholarly trend of interpreting religious and esoteric motifs as products of history, culture, and mental life. Nineteenth-century comparative mythology and the study of religions, alongside the collecting of alchemical emblems and manuscripts, encouraged systematic catalogs of symbols and themes. By the early twentieth century, analysts and scholars increasingly treated symbols as evidence for broader psychological or cultural patterns rather than as literal instructions for practice. Silberer’s synthesis fit this tendency: it treated alchemical and occult iconography as structured systems that could be discussed with the tools of modern interpretation and historical reference.
In reflecting its era, the work exemplifies the early twentieth-century attempt to mediate between rationalist scholarship and the continuing appeal of esoteric traditions. It draws on the availability of printed alchemical sources and on contemporary psychological models that made symbolism a central topic in public intellectual life. Without requiring readers to accept occult claims as factual, it treats the imagery and narratives of alchemy and related arts as meaningful cultural documents. In doing so, it mirrors a period in which European thinkers reassessed tradition under modern pressures, and it implicitly critiques simplistic dismissals of esotericism by insisting on careful, historically grounded interpretation of its symbolic language.
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts
Translator's Preface
Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that inhabited northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons of time that have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks that live to-day. Down through the countless centuries the living stream has carved its structural habitations in much the same form. The science of Paleontology has collected this history and has attempted a reconstruction of life from its beginnings.
The same principle here illustrated is true for the thought-life of mankind. The forms in which it has been preserved however are not so evident. The structuralizations are not so definite. If they were, evolution would not have been possible for the living stream of energy which is utilized by mind-stuff cannot be confined if it would advance to more complex integrations. Hence the products of mind in evolution are more plastic—more subtle [pg iv] and more changing. They are to be found in the myths and the folk-lore of ancient peoples, the poetry, dramatic art, and the language of later races. From age to age however the strivings continue the same. The living vessels must continue and the products express the most fundamental strivings, in varying though related forms.
We thus arrive at a science which may be called paleo-psychology[1q]. Its fossils are the thought-forms throughout the ages, and such a science seeks to show fundamental likenesses behind the more superficial dissimilarities.
The present work is a contribution to such a science in that it shows the essential relationships of what is found in the unconscious of present day mankind to many forms of thinking of the middle ages. These same trends are present to-day in all of us though hidden behind a different set of structural terms, utilizing different mechanisms for energy expression.
The unceasing complexity of life's accumulations has created a great principle for energy expression—it is termed sublimation—and in popular parlance represents the spiritual striving of mankind towards the perfecting of a relation with the world of reality—the environment—which shall mean human happiness in its truest sense. One of the [pg v] products of this sublimation tendency is called Mysticism. This work would seek to aid us to an understanding of this manifestation of human conduct as expressed in concrete or contemplated action through thought. It does so by the comparative method, and it is for this reason I have been led to present it to an English reading public.
Much of the strange and outre, as well as the commonplace, in human activity conceals energy transformations of inestimable value in the work of sublimation. The race would go mad without it. It sometimes does even with it, a sign that sublimation is still imperfect and that the race is far from being spiritually well. A comprehension of the principles here involved would further the spread of sympathy for all forms of thinking and tend to further spiritual health in such mutual comprehension of the needs of others and of the forms taken by sublimation processes.
For the actual work of translation, I wish to express my obligations to friends Wilfred Lay, and Leo Stein. Without their generous and gifted assistance I would not have been able to accomplish the task.
Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D.New York, Oct. 27, 1917.
[pg 001]
Part I.
The Parable.
Section I.
The Parable.
In an old book I discovered an extraordinary narrative entitled Parabola[2q]. I take it as the starting point of my observations because it affords a welcome guide. In the endeavor to understand the parable and get a psychological insight into it, we are led on to journey through these very realms of fancy, into which I should like to conduct the reader. At the end of our journey we shall have acquired, with the understanding of the first example, the knowledge of certain psychical laws.
I shall, then, without further prelude introduce the example, and purposely avoid at the outset mentioning the title of the old book so that the reader may be in a position to allow the narrative to affect him without any preconceived ideas. Explanatory interpolations in the text, which come from me, I distinguish with square brackets.
[1]. As once I strolled in a fair forest, young and green, and contemplated the painfulness of this life, and lamented how through the dire fall of our first parents we inherited [pg 002] such misery and distress, I chanced, while thinking these thoughts, to depart from the usual path, and found myself, I know not how, on a narrow foot path that was rough, untrodden and impassable, and overgrown with so much underbrush and bushes that it was easy to see it was very little used. Therefore I was dismayed and would gladly have gone back, but it was not in my power to do so, since a strong wind so powerfully blew me on, that I could rather take ten steps in advance than one backward.
[2]. Therefore I had to go on and not mind the rough walking.
[3]. After I had advanced a good while I came finally to a lovely meadow hedged about with a round circle of fruit bearing trees, and called by the dwellers Pratum felicitatis[1] [the meadow of felicity], I was in the midst of a company of old men with beards as gray as ice, except for one who was quite a young man with a pointed black beard. Also there was among them one whose name was well known to me, but his visage I could not yet see, who was still younger, and they debated on all kinds of subjects, particularly about a great and lofty mystery, hidden in Nature, which God kept concealed from the great world, and revealed to only a few who loved him.
[4]. I listened long and their discourse pleased me well, only some would break forth from restraint, not touching upon the matter or work, but what touched upon the parables, similitudes and other parerga, in which they followed the poetic fancies of Aristotle, Pliny and others which the one had copied from the other. So I could contain myself no longer and mixed in my own mustard, [put in my own word], refuted such trivial things from experience, and the majority sided with me, examined me in their faculty and made it quite hot for me. However the foundation of my knowledge was so good, that I passed with all honors, whereupon [pg 003] they all were amazed, unanimously included and admitted me in their collegium, of which I was heartily glad.
[5]. But they said I could not be a real colleague till I learned to know their lion, and became thoroughly acquainted with his powers and abilities. For that purpose I should use diligence so as to subdue him. I was quite confident in myself and promised them I would do my best. For their company pleased me so well that I would not have parted from them for a great deal.
[6]. They led me to the lion and described him very carefully, but what I should undertake with him none could tell me. Some of them indeed hinted, but very darkly, so that the (Der Tausende) Thousandth one could not have understood him. But when I should first succeed in subduing him and should have assured myself against his sharp claws, and keen teeth, then they would conceal nothing from me. Now the lion was very old, ferocious and large, his yellow hair hung over his neck, he appeared quite unconquerable, so that I was almost afraid of my temerity and would gladly have turned back if my promise and also the circumstance that the elders stood about me and were waiting to see what I would do, had allowed me to give up. In great confidence I approached the lion in his den and began to caress him, but he looked at me so fiercely with his brightly shining eyes that I could hardly restrain my tears. Just then I remembered that I had learned from one of the elders, while we were going to the lion's den, that very many people had undertaken to overcome the lion and very few could accomplish it. I was unwilling to be disgraced, and I recalled several grips that I had learned with great diligence in athletics, besides which I was well versed in natural magic [magia[2]] so I gave up the caresses and seized the lion so dextrously, artfully and subtlely, that before he was well aware of it I forced the blood out of his body, [pg 004] yea, even out of his heart. It was beautifully red but very choleric. I dissected him further and found, a fact which caused me much wonder, that his bones were white as snow and there was much more bone than there was blood.
[7]. Now when my dear elders, who stood above around the den and looked at me, were aware of it, they disputed earnestly with each other, for so much I could infer from their motions but what they said I could not hear since I was deep down in the den. Yet as they came close in dispute I heard that one said, “He must bring him to life again, else he can not be our colleague.” I was unwilling to undertake further difficulties, and betook myself out of the den to a great place, and came, I know not how, on a very high wall, whose height rose over 100 ells towards the clouds, but on top was not one foot wide. And there went up from the beginning, where I ascended, to the end an iron hand rail right along the center of the wall, with many leaded supports. On this wall I came, I say, and meseems there went on the right side of the railing a man several paces before me.
[8]. But as I followed him awhile I saw another following me on the other side, yet it was doubtful whether man or woman, that called to me and said that it was better walking on his side than where I went, as I readily believed, because the railing that stood near the middle made the path so narrow that the going at such a height was very bad. Then I saw also some that wished to go on that path, fall: down below behind me, therefore I swung under the railing; holding tight with my hands and went forward on the other [left] side, till I finally came to a place on the wall which was very precipitous and dangerous to descend. Then first I repented that I had not stayed on the other [right] side and I could not go under to the other side as it was also impossible to turn round and get on the other path. So I [pg 005] risked it, trusted to my good feet, held myself tight and came down without harm, and as I walked a little further, looked and knew of no other danger, but also knew not what had become of wall and railing.
[9]. After I came down, there stood in that place a beautiful rose bush, on which beautiful red and white roses were growing, the red more numerous, however, than the white. I broke off some roses from the bush and put them on my hat. But there seemed to be in the same place a wall, surrounding a great garden. In the garden were lads, and their lasses who would gladly be in the garden, but would not wander widely, or take the trouble to come to the gates. So I pitied them. I went further along the path by which I had come, still on the level, and went so fast that I soon came to some houses, where I supposed I should find the gardener's house. But I found there many people, each having his own room. They were slow. Two together they worked diligently, yet each had his own work. [The meaning may be either that working alone they were slow, but in twos they worked diligently; or two of them worked together and were diligent. Both amount to the same thing as we shall later realize.] But what they did, it seems, I had myself done before and all their work was familiar to me. Especially, thought I, see, if so many other people do so much dirty and sloppy work, that is only an appearance according to each one's conceit, but has no reason in Nature, so it may also be pardoned in you. I wished, therefore, because I knew such tricks vanished like smoke, to remain here no longer in vain and proceeded on my former way.
[10]. After I had arrived at the gate of the garden, some on one side looked sourly at me, so that I was afraid they might hinder me in my project; but others said, “See, he will into the garden, and we have done garden service here [pg 006] so long, and have never gotten in; we will laugh him down if he fails.” But I did not regard all that, as I knew the conditions of this garden better than they, even if I had never been in it, but went right to a gate that was tight shut so that one could neither see nor find a keyhole. I noticed, however, that a little round hole that with ordinary eyes could not be seen, was in the door, and thought immediately, that must be the way the door is opened, was ready with my specially prepared Diederich[3], unlocked and went in. When I was inside the door, I found several other bolted doors, which I yet opened without trouble. Here, however, was a passage way, just as if it was in a well built house, some six feet wide and twenty long, with a roof above. And though the other doors were still locked, I could easily see through them into the garden as the first door was open.
[11]. I wandered into the garden in God's name, and found in the midst of it a small garden, that was square and six roods long, hedged in with rose thorns, and the roses bloomed beautifully. But as it was raining gently, and the sun shone in it, it caused a very lovely rainbow. When I had passed beyond the little garden and would go to the place where I was to help the maids, behold I was aware that instead of the walls a low hurdle stood there, and there went along by the rose garden the most beautiful maiden arrayed in white satin, with the most stately youth, who was in scarlet each giving arm to the other, and carrying in their hands many fragrant roses. I spoke to them and asked them how they had come over the hurdle. “This, my beloved bridegroom,” said she, “has helped me over, and we are going now out of this beautiful garden into our apartment to enjoy the pleasures of love.”“I am glad,” said I, “that without any further trouble on my part your desires are satisfied; yet see how I have hurried, and have run so long a way in so short a time to serve you.” After that [pg 007] I came into a great mill built inside of stones, in which were no flour bins or other things that pertained to grinding but one saw through the walls several water wheels going in water. I asked why it had equipment for grinding. An old miller answered that the mill was shut down on the other side. Just then I also saw a miller's boy go in from the sluice plank [Schutzensteg[4]], and I followed after him. When I had come over the plank [Steg], which had the water wheels on the left, I stood still and was amazed at what I saw there. For the wheels were now higher than the plank, the water coal black, but its drops were yet white, and the sluice planks were not over three fingers wide. Still I ventured back and held onto the sticks that were over the sluice planks and so came safely and dry over the water. Then I asked the old miller how many water wheels he had. “Ten,” answered he. The adventure stuck in my mind. I should have gladly known what the meaning was. But as I noticed that the miller would not leave I went away, and there was in front of the mill a lofty paved hill, on which were some of the previously mentioned elders who walked in the sun, which then shone very warm, and they had a letter from the whole faculty written to them, on which they were consulting. [In our modern mode of expression, the elders had directed a letter to the sun, and so I find the passage in an English version of the parable. This generally bungling translation is nevertheless not in the least authoritative. And although an acceptable meaning is derived from it, if one regards the sun as the just mentioned “prince,” yet I believe a freer translation should be given ... the elders walked in the warm sunshine; they consulted about a letter written to them by the faculty.] I soon noticed what the contents must be, and that it concerned me. I went therefore to them and said, “Gentlemen, does it concern me?”“Yes,” said they, “you must [pg 008] keep in marriage the woman that you have recently taken or we must notify our prince.” I said, “that is no trouble as I was born at the same time as she and brought up as a child with her, and as I have taken her once I will keep her forever, and death itself shall not part us, for I have an ardent affection for her.”“What have we then to complain of?” replied they. “The bride is content, and we have your will; you must copulate.”“Contented,” said I. “Well,” said one, “the lion will then regain his life and become more powerful and mighty than before.”
[12]. Then occurred to me my previous trouble and labor and I thought to myself that for particular reasons it must not concern me but some other that is well known to me; then I saw our bridegroom and his bride go by in their previous attire, ready and prepared for copulation, which gave me great joy, for I was in great distress lest the thing might concern me.
[13]. When, then, as mentioned, our bridegroom in his brilliant scarlet clothes with his dearest bride, whose white satin coat shot forth bright rays, came to the proper marriage age, they joined the two so quickly that I wondered not a little that this maid, that was supposed to be the mother of the bridegroom, was still so young that she appeared to be just born.
[14]. Now I do not know what sin these two must have committed except that although they were brother and sister, they were in such wise bound by ties of love, that they could not be separated, and so, as it were, wished to be punished for incest. These two were, instead of a bride bed and magnificent marriage, condemned and shut up in an enduring and everlasting prison, which, because of their high birth and goodly state, and also so that in future they should not be guilty in secret, but all their conduct should be known to the guard placed over them and in his sight, was made [pg 009] quite transparent, bright and clear like a crystal, and round like a sphere of heaven, and there they were with continual tears and true contrition to atone and make reparation for their past misdeeds. [Instead of to a bride bed the two were brought to a prison, so that their actions could be watched. The prison was transparent; it was a bright crystal clear chamber, like a sphere of heaven, corresponding to the high position of the two persons.] Previously, however, all their rare clothing and finery that they had put on for ornament was taken away, so that in such a chamber they must be quite naked and merely dwell with each other. [It is not directly understood by these words that a cohabitation in modern sense (coition) is meant. According to modern language the passage must be rendered, “had to dwell near each other naked and bare.” One is reminded, moreover, of the nuptial customs that are observed particularly in the marriage of persons of high birth. In any case and, in spite of my reservation, what occurs is conducive or designed to lead to the sexual union.] Besides they gave them no one that had to go into the chamber to wait on them, but after they put in all the necessities in the way of meat and drink, which were created from the afore mentioned water, the door of the chamber was fast bolted and locked, the faculty seal impressed on it and I was enjoined that I should guard them here, and spend the winter before the door; the chamber should be duly warmed so that they be neither too hot nor too cold, and they could neither come out nor escape. But should they, on account of any hope of breaking this mandate, escape, I would thereupon be justly subjected to heavy punishment. I was not pleased by the thing, my fear and solicitude made me faint hearted, for I communed with myself that it was no small thing that had befallen me, as I knew also that the college of wisdom was accustomed not to lie but to put into action what it [pg 010] said. Yet because I could not change it, beside which this locked chamber stood in the center of a strong tower and surrounded with strong bulwarks and high walls, in which one could with a small but continuous fire warm the whole chamber, I undertook this office, and began in God's name to warm the chamber, and protect the imprisoned pair from the cold. But what happened? As soon as they perceived the slightest warmth they embraced each other so tenderly that the like will not soon be seen, and stayed so hot that the young bridegroom's heart in his body dissolved for ardent love, also his whole body almost melted in his beloved's arms and fell apart. When she who loved him no less than he did her, saw this, she wept over him passionately and, as it were buried him with her tears so that one could not see, for her gushing tears that overflowed everything, where he went. Her weeping and sorrowing had driven her to this in a short time, and she would not for deep anguish of heart live longer, but voluntarily gave herself to death. Ah woe is me. In what pain and need and trouble was I that my two charges had quite disappeared in water, and death alone was left for me. My certain destruction stood before my eyes, and what was the greatest hardship to me, I feared the threatened shame and disgrace that would happen to me, more than the injury that would overtake me.
[15]. As I now passed several days in such solitude and pondered over the question how I could remedy my affairs, it occurred to me how Medea had revived the dead body of Aeson, and I thought to myself, “If Medea could do such a thing, why should such a thing fail me?” I began at once to bethink me how I would do it, found however no better way than that I should persist with continual warmth until the waters disappeared, and I might see again the corpses of our lovers. As I hoped to come off without danger and with great advantage and praise I went on with my warmth [pg 011] that I had begun and continued it forty whole days, as I was aware that the water kept on diminishing the longer I kept it up, and the corpses that were yet as black as coal, began again to be visible. And truly this would have occurred before if the chamber had not been all too securely locked and bolted. Which I yet did not avail to open. For I noted particularly that the water that rose and hastened to the clouds, collected above in the chamber and fell down like rain, so that nothing could come of it, until our bridegroom with his dearest bride, dead and rotten, and therefore hideously stinking, lay before my eyes.
All the while the sunshine in the moist weather caused an exceedingly beautiful rainbow to be seen, in the chamber, with surprisingly beautiful colors, which overjoyed not a little my overpowering affliction. Much more was I delighted that I saw my two lovers lying before me again. But as no joy is so great but is mixed with much sadness, so I was troubled in my joy thinking that my charges lay still dead before me, and one could trace no life in them. But because I knew that their chamber was made of such pure and thick material, also so tight-locked that their soul and spirit could not get out, but was still closely guarded within, I continued with my steady warmth day and night, to perform my delegated office, quite impressed with the fact that the two would not return to their bodies, as long as the moisture continued. For in the moist state nature keeps itself the same, as I then also found in fact and in truth. For I was aware upon careful examination that from the earth at evening through the power of the sun, many vapors arose and drew themselves up just as the sun draws water. They were condensed in the night in a lovely and very fruitful dew, which very early in the morning fell and moistened the earth and washed our dead corpses, so that from day to day, the longer such bathing and washing continued, [pg 012] the more beautiful and whiter they became. But the fairer and whiter they became, the more they lost moisture, till finally the air being bright and beautiful, and all the mist and moist weather, having passed, the spirit and soul of the bride could hold itself no longer in the bright air, but went back into the clarified and still more transfigured body of the queen, who soon experienced it [i.e. her soul and spirit] and at once lived again. This, then, as I could easily observe, not a little pleased me, especially as I saw her arise in surpassingly costly garments whose like was never seen on earth, and with a precious crown decked with bright diamonds; and also heard her speak. “Hear ye children of men and perceive ye that are born of women, that the most high power can set up kings and can remove kings. He makes rich and poor, according to his will. He kills and makes again to live.”
[16]. See in me a true and living example of all that. I was great and became small, but now after having been humbled, I am a queen elevated over many kingdoms. I have been killed and made to live. To poor me have been trusted and given over the great treasures of the sages and the mighty.
[17]. “Therefore power is also given me to make the poor rich, show kindness to the lowly, and bring health to the sick. But I am not yet like my well-beloved brother, the great and powerful king, who is still to be awakened from the dead. When he comes he will prove that my words are true.”
[18]. And when she said that the sun shone very bright, and the day was warmer than before, and the dog days were at hand. But because, a long time before, there were prepared for the lordly and great wedding of our new queen many costly robes, as of black velvet, ashen damask, gray silk, silver taffeta, snow white satin, even one studded with [pg 013] surpassingly beautiful silver pieces and with precious pearls and lordly bright-gleaming diamonds, so likewise different garments were arranged and prepared for the young king, namely of carnation, yellow Auranian colors, precious gear, and finally a red velvet garment with precious rubies and thickly incrusted with carbuncles. But the tailors that made their clothes were quite invisible, so that I also wondered as I saw one coat prepared after another and one garment after another, how these things came to pass, since I well knew that no one came into the chamber except the bridegroom with his bride. So that what I wondered at most of all was that as soon as another coat or garment was ready, the first immediately vanished before my eyes, so that I knew not whence they came or who had taken them away.
[19]. When now this precious clothing was ready, the great and mighty king appeared in great splendor and magnificence, to which nothing might be compared. And when he found himself shut in, he begged me with friendly and very gracious words, to open the door for him and permit him to go out; it would prove of great advantage to me. Although I was strictly forbidden to open the chamber, yet the grand appearance and the winning persuasiveness of the king disconcerted me so that I cheerfully let him go. And when he went out he was so friendly and so gracious and yet so meek that he proved indeed that nothing did so grace high persons as did these virtues.
[20]. But because he had passed the dog days in great heat, he was very thirsty, also faint and tired and directed me to dip up some of the swift running water under the mill wheels, and bring it, and when I did, he drank a large part with great eagerness, went back into his chamber, and bade me close the door fast behind him, so that no one might disturb him or wake him from sleep.
[21]. Here he rested for a few days and called to me to [pg 014] open the door. Methought, however, that he was much more beautiful, more ruddy and lordly, which he then also remarked and deemed it a lordly and wholesome water, drank much of it, more than before so that I was resolved to build the chamber much larger. [Evidently because the inmate increased in size.] When now the king had drunk to his satisfaction of this precious drink, which yet the unknowing regard as nothing he became so beautiful and lordly, that in my whole life I never saw a more lordly person nor more lordly demeanor. Then he led me into his kingdom, and showed me all the treasures and riches of the world, so that I must confess, that not only had the queen announced the truth, but also had omitted to describe the greater part of it as it seemed to those that know it. For there was no end of gold and noble carbuncle there; rejuvenation and restoration of natural forces, and also recovery of lost health, and removal of all diseases were a common thing in that place. The most precious of all was that the people of that land knew their creator, feared and honored him, and asked of him wisdom and understanding, and finally after this transitory glory an everlasting blessedness. To that end help us God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
The author of the preceding narrative calls it a parable. Its significance may have indeed appeared quite transparent to him, and he presupposes that the readers of his day knew what form of learning he masked in it. The story impresses us as rather a fairy story or a picturesque dream. If we compare parables that come nearer to our modern point of view and are easily understood on account of their simplicity, like those of Ruckert or those of the New Testament, the difference can be [pg 015] clearly seen. The unnamed author evidently pursues a definite aim; one does find some unity in the bizarre confusion of his ideas; but what he is aiming at and what he wishes to tell us with his images we cannot immediately conceive. The main fact for us is that the anonymous writer speaks in a language that shows decided affinity with that of dreams and myths. Therefore, however we may explain in what follows the peculiarly visionary character of the parable, we feel compelled to examine it with the help of a psychological method, which, endeavoring to get from the surface to the depths, will be able to trace analytically the formative powers of the dream life and allied phenomena, and explain their mysterious symbols.
I have still to reveal in what book and in what circumstances the parable appears. It is in the second volume of a book “Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer aus dem 16ten und 17ten Jahrhundert[6],” 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[5]. 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.
Section II.
Dream And Myth Interpretation.
[Readers versed in Freud's psychoanalysis are requested to pass over this chapter as they will find only familiar matter.]
In the narrative which we have just examined its dream-like character is quite noticeable. On what does it depend? Evidently the Parable must bear marks that are peculiar to the dream. In looking for correspondences we discover them even upon superficial examination.
Most noticeable is the complete and sudden change of place. The wanderer, as I will hereafter call the narrator of the parable, sees himself immediately transported from the place near the lion's den to the top of a wall, and does not know how he has come there. Later he comes down just as suddenly. And in still other parts of the story there occurs just as rapid changes of scene as one is accustomed to in dreams. Characteristic also is the fact that objects change or vanish; the shift of scene resembles also, as often in a dream, a complete transformation. Thus, for instance, as soon as the wanderer has left the wall, it vanishes without leaving a trace, as if it had never been. A similar change is also required in the garden scene where, instead of [pg 020] the previously observed enclosing-wall, a low hedge appears in a surprising manner.
Further, we are surprised by instances of knowledge without perception. Often in a dream one knows something without having experienced it in person. We simply know, without knowing how, that in such a house something definite and full of mystery has happened; or we know that this man, whom we see now for the first time, is called so and so; we are in some place for the first time but know quite surely that there must be a fountain behind that wall to which for any reason we have to go, etc. Such unmediated knowledge occurs several times in the parable. In the beginning of the narrative the wanderer, although a stranger, knows that the lovely meadow is called by its inhabitants Pratum felicitatis. He knows intuitively the name of one of the men unknown to him. In the garden scene he knows, although he has noticed only the young men, that some young women (whom on account of the nature of the place he cannot then see) are desirous of going into the garden to these young men. One might say that all this is merely a peculiarity of the representation inasmuch as the author has for convenience, or on account of lack of skill, or for brevity, left out some connecting link which would have afforded us the means of acquiring this unexplained knowledge. The likeness to the dream therefore would in that case be inadmissible. To this objection it may be replied, that the dream does exactly like the author of the parable. Our study is chiefly concerned [pg 021] with the product of the fancy and forces us to the observation (whatever may be the cause of it) that the parable and the dream life have certain “peculiarities of representation” in common.
In contrast to the miraculous knowledge we find in the dream a peculiar unsureness in many things, particularly in those which concern the personality of the wanderer. When the elders inform the wanderer that he must marry the woman that he has taken, he does not know clearly whether the matter at all concerns him or not; a remarkable fluctuation in his attitude takes place. We wonder whether he has taken on the rôle of the bridegroom or, quite the reverse, the bridegroom has taken the wanderer's. We are likewise struck by similar uncertainties, like those during the walk on top of the wall where the wanderer is followed by some one, of whom he does not know whether it is a man or a woman. Here belong also those passages of the narrative introduced by the wanderer with “as if,” etc. In the search for the gardener's house he chances upon many people and “it seems” that he has himself done what these people are there doing.
Quite characteristic also are the different obstructions and other difficulties placed in the path of the wanderer. Even in the first paragraph of the narrative we hear that he is startled, would gladly turn back, but cannot because a strong wind prevents him. On top of the wall the railing makes his progress difficult; on other occasions a wall, or a door. The first experience, especially, recalls those frequent occurrences [pg 022] in dreams where, anxiously turning in flight or oppressed by tormenting haste, we cannot move. In connection with what is distressing and threatening, as described in the precipitous slope of the wall and the narrow plank by the mill, belong also the desperate tasks and demands—quite usual in dreams and myths—that meet the wanderer. Among such tasks or dangers I will only mention the severe examination by the elders, the struggle with the lion, the obligation to marry, and the burden of responsibility for the nuptial pair, all of which cause the wanderer so much anxiety.
Among the evident dream analogies belongs finally (without, however, completing my list of them) the peculiar logic that appears quite conventional to the wanderer or the dreamer, but seldom satisfies the reader or the careful reasoner. As examples, I mention that the dead lion will be called to life again if the wanderer marries the woman that he recently took; and that they put the two lovers that they want to punish for incest, after they have carefully removed all the clothes from their bodies, into a prison where these lovingly embrace.
So much for the external resemblances of the parable with the dream life. The deeper affinity which can be shown in its innermost structure will first appear in the psychoanalytic treatment. And now it will be advisable for me to give readers not intimately acquainted with dream psychology some information concerning modern investigations in dream life and in particular concerning psychoanalytic [pg 023] doctrines and discoveries. Naturally I can do this only in the briefest manner. For a more thorough study I must refer the reader to the work of Freud and his school. The most important books are mentioned in the bibliography at the end.
Modern scientific investigation of dreams, in which Freud has been a pioneer, has come to the conclusion, but in a different sense from the popular belief, that dreams have a significance. While the popular belief says that they foretell something of the future, science shows that they have a meaning that is present in the psyche and determined by the past. Dreams are then, as Freud's results show, always wish phantasies. [I give here only exposition, not criticism. My later application of psychoanalysis will show what reservations I make concerning Freud's doctrines.] In them wishes, strivings, impulses work themselves out, rising to the surface from the depths of the soul. When they come in waking life, wish phantasies are sometimes called castles in the air. In dreams we have the fulfillment of wishes that are not or cannot be fulfilled.
But the impulses that the dreams call up are principally such wishes and impulses as we cannot ourselves acknowledge and such as in a waking state we reject as soon as they attempt to announce themselves, as for instance, animal tendencies or such sexual desires as we are unwilling to admit, and also suppressed or “repressed” impulses. As a result of being repressed they have the peculiarity of being in general inaccessible to consciousness. [Freud [pg 024] speaks particularly of crassly egoistic actuations. The criminal element in them is emphasized by Stekel.]
One not initiated into dream analysis may object that the obvious evidence is against this theory. For the majority of dreams picture quite inoffensive processes that have nothing to do with impulses and passions which are worthy of rejection on either moral or other grounds. The objection appears at first sight to be well founded, but collapses as soon as we learn that the critical power of morality, which does not desert us by day, retains by night a part of its power; and that therefore the fugitive impulses and tendencies that seek the darkness and dare not come forth by day, dare not even at night unveil their true aspect but have to approach, as it were, in costumes, or disguised as symbols or allegories, in order to pass unchallenged. The superintending power, that I just now called the power of morality, is compared very pertinently to a censor. What our psyche produces is, so to speak, subjected to a censor before it is allowed to emerge into the light of consciousness. And if the fugitive elements want to venture forth they must be correspondingly disguised, in order to pass the censor. Freud calls this disguising or paraphrasing process the dream disfigurement. The literal is thereby displaced by the figurative, an allusion intimated through a nebulous atmosphere. Thus, in the following example, an unconscious death wish is exhibited. In the examination of a lady's dream it struck me that the motive [pg 025] of a dead child occurred repeatedly, generally in connection with picnics. During an analysis the lady observed that when she was a girl the children, her younger brothers and sisters, were often the obstacles when it was proposed to have a party or celebration or the like. The association Kinder (= children) Hinderniss (= obstacle) furnished the key to a solution of the stereotyped dream motive. As further indications showed, it concerned the children of a married man whom she loved. The children prevented the man separating from his wife in order to marry the lady. In waking life she would not, of course, admit a wish for the death of the embarrassing children, but in dreams the wish broke through and represented the secretly wished situation. The children are dead and nothing now stands in the way of the “party” or the celebration (wedding). The double sense of the word “party” is noticeable. (In German “eine Partie machen” means both to go on an excursion and to make a matrimonial match.) Such puns are readily made use of by dreams, in order to make the objectionable appear unobjectionable and so to get by the censor.
Psychoanalytic procedure, employed in the interpretation of dreams of any person can be called a scientifically organized confession that traces out with infinite patience even to the smallest ramifications, the spiritual inventory of what was tucked away in the mind of the person undergoing it. Psychoanalysis is used in medical practice to discover [pg 026] and relieve the spiritual causes of neurotic phenomena. The patient is induced to tell more and more, starting from a given point, thereby going into the most intimate details, and yet we are aware, in the network of outcropping thoughts and memories, of certain points of connection, which have dominating significance for the affective life of the person being studied. Here the path begins to be hard because it leads into the intimately personal. The secret places of the soul set up a powerful opposition to the intruder, even without the purposive action of the patient. Right there are, however, so to speak, the sore spots (pathogenic “complexes”) of the psyche, towards which the research is directed. Firmly advancing in spite of the limitations, we lay bare these roots of the soul that strive to cling to the unconscious. Those are the disfigured elements just mentioned; all of the items of the spiritual inventory from which the person in question has toilsomely “worked himself out” and from which he supposes himself free. They must be silent because they stand in some contradictory relation to the character in which the person has clothed himself; and if they, the subterranean elements still try to announce themselves, he hurls them back immediately into their underworld; he allows himself to think of nothing that offends too much his attitudes, his morality and his feelings. He does not give verbal expression to the disturbers of the peace that dwell in his heart of hearts.
The mischief makers are, however, merely repressed, [pg 027] not dead. They are like the Titans [On this similarity rests the psychologic term “titanic,” used frequently by me in what follows.] which were not crushed by the gods of Olympus, but only shut up in the depths of Tartarus. There they wait for the time when they can again arise and show their faces in daylight. The earth trembles at their attempts to free themselves. Thus the titanic forces of the soul strive powerfully upward. And as they may not live in the light of consciousness they rave in darkness. They take the main part in the procreation of dreams, produce in some cases hysterical symptoms, compulsion ideas and acts, anxiety neuroses, etc. The examination of these psychic disturbances is not without importance for our later researches.
Psychoanalysis, which has not at any time been limited to medical practice, but soon began with its torch to illumine the activity of the human spirit in all its forms (poetry, myth-making, etc.), was decried as pernicious in many quarters. [The question as to how widely psychoanalysis may be employed would at this time lead us too far, yet it will be considered in Sect. 1, of the synthetic part of this volume.] Now it is indeed true that it leads us toward all kinds of spiritual refuse. It does so, however, in the service of truth, and it would be unfortunate to deny to truth its right to justify itself. Any one determined to do so could in that case defend a theory that sexual maladies are acquired by catching a cold.
[pg 028]The spiritual refuse that psychoanalysis uncovers is like the manure on which our cultivated fruits thrive. The dark titanic impulses are the raw material from which in every man, the work of civilization forms an ethical character. Where there is a strong light there are deep shadows. Should we be so insincere as to deny, because of supposed danger, the shadows in our inmost selves? Do we not diminish the light by so doing? Morality, in whose name we are so scrupulous, demands above everything else, truth and sincerity. But the beginning of all truth is that we do not impose upon ourselves. “Know thyself” is written over the entrance of the Pythian sanctuary. And it is this inspiring summons of the radiant god of Delphi that psychoanalysis seeks to meet.
After this introductory notice, it will be possible properly to understand the following instructive example, which contains exquisite sexual symbolism.
Dream of Mr. T. “I dreamed I was riding on the railroad. Near me sat a delicate, effeminate young man or boy; his presence caused erotic feelings in me to a certain extent. (It appeared as if I put my arm about him.) The train came to a standstill; we had arrived at a station and got out. I went with the boy into a valley through which ran a small brook, on whose bank were strawberries. We picked a great many. After I had gathered a large number I returned to the railway and awoke.”
[pg 029]Supplementary communication. “I think I remember that an uncomfortable feeling came over me in the boy's company. The valley branched off to the left from the railway.”
From a discussion of the dream it next appeared that T., who, as far as I knew, entertained a pronounced aversion to homosexuality, had read a short time before a detailed account of a notorious trial then going on in Germany, that was concerned with real homosexual actions. [In consciousness, of course. In the suppressed depths of unconsciousness the infantile homosexual component also will surely be found.] An incident from it, probably supported by some unconscious impulse, crowded its way into the dream as an erotic wish, hence the affectionate scene in the railway train. So far the matter would be intelligible even if in an erotic day dream the image of a boy, considering the existing sexual tendency of T., had been resolutely rejected by him. How are the other processes in the dream related to it? Do they not at first sight appear unconnected or meaningless?
