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)
Secondly, it has been shown in recent times in psychoanalytic studies that
symbols which were originally material pass over to functional use. If we
thoroughly analyze for a sufficient time the dreams of a person we shall
find that certain symbols which at first probably appeared only
incidentally to signify some idea content, wish content, etc., return and
become a persistent or typical form. And the more such a typical form is
established and is impressed, the farther it is removed from its first
ephemeral meaning, and the more it becomes a symbolic representative of a
whole group of similar experiences, a spiritual capital, so to speak, till
finally we can regard it simply as the representative of a spiritual
current (love, hate, tendency to frivolity, to cruelty, to anxiety, etc.).
What has been accomplished there is a transition from the material to the
functional on the path of a determination inward or intro-determination
(verinnerlichung) as I shall call it. Later I shall have more to say about
intro-determination. For the present this may suffice for the
understanding, that the material and the functional symbolism, in spite of
their at first apparently fundamental difference, are essentially related
in some way, which is illuminated by the process of intro-determination.
The analogue of the problem of multiple interpretation unfolded in the
preceding section is shown to be a question that can be easily answered.
And we would bring our problem to a generally satisfactory position if we
succeeded in showing that the anagogic interpretation, whose alignment
with the psychoanalytic seemed so impracticable, is a form of functional
interpretation, or at least related to it. In this case it would be at
once comprehensible how a product of the imagination harmonizes with
several expositions (problem of multiple interpretation); because this
variety of sense had already operated in the selection of the symbol and
indeed, in those cases as well where we did not at first sight suspect the
coöperation of the anagogic thoughts; secondly, the anagogic and the
psychoanalytic interpretations are somehow reconciled to each other,
whereby possibly also the position of the natural science interpretation
can be made somewhat clearer.
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