Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult ArtsSilberer, Herbert
Religion
Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts
Silberer, Herbert
Alchemy; Society of Rosicrucians; Symbolism (Psychology)
Rank (Lohenginsage) connects the story of the six swans and numerous
similar stories with the knight of the swan saga. It is shown that the
mythical contents of all these narratives have at bottom those elemental
forces of the impulse life that we have found in the parable, and that
they are specially founded on family conflicts, i.e., on those
uncontrolled love and hate motives that come out in their crassest form in
the neurotic as his (phantasied) “family romance.” To this family romance
belongs, among others, incest in different forms, the illicit love for the
mother, the rescuing of the mother from peril, the rescuing of the father,
the wish to be the father, etc., phantasies whose meaning is explained in
the writings of Freud and Rank (Myth of the Birth of the Hero(3)).
According to Hitchcock, on the contrary, the same story tells of a man who
in the decline of life falls into error, takes the sin to his heart, but
then, counseled by his conscience, seeks his better self and completes the
(alchemic-creative) work of the six days. (Hitchcock, Red Book.)
It is incontestable that there is, besides the psychoanalytic and anagogic
interpretation of this tale (and almost all others), a nature mythological
and in the special sense, an astronomical interpretation. Significant
indications of this are the seven children and the seven years, the sewing
of clothes made of star flowers, the lack of an arm as in the case of
Marduk, and the corresponding heroes of astral myths, and many others. One
of the seven is particularly distinguished like the sun among the
so-called planets. The ethically indifferent meaning of the tale alongside
of the psychoanalytic and the anagogic corresponds to the chemical
contents of the hermetic writings. As object of the indifferent meaning
there always stands the natural science content of the spirit’s creation.
There is generally a certain relationship between the astronomical and the
alchemistic meanings. It is now well known that alchemy was influenced by
astrology, that the seven metals correspond to the seven planets, that, as
the sun is distinguished among the planets, so is gold among the metals;
and as in astrology combustion takes place in heaven, so it occurs also in
the alembic of the alchemists. And the fact that the sun maiden at the end
of the story releases her six planet brothers, sounds exactly as when the
tincturing power of gold at the end of six days perfects the six imperfect
metals and makes the ill, well.
In the second story I will emphasize to a somewhat greater degree the
opposition of the two contrasting interpretations (psychoanalytic and
anagogic), as I must return to it again. The story is suited to a detailed
treatment on account of its brevity. I will first present it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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