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)
The snake, about whose significance as a “negative phallus,” etc.
[developed in detail by Jung], we shall have more to say, can also be
regarded as a typical image. Bull, cow and other animal forms are in
mythology as in dreams typical transmutations, with unlimited possibility
of intro-determination. Dogs are often in dreams the representations of
animal propensities. The beast is often “la bête humaine” in the dreamer’s
own inner life. We have become acquainted with the terrible lions, the
bears, etc., as father types; here we get a new perspective which makes
clear the one-sidedness of our first conception.
Since psychoanalysis has found acceptation, many of its followers believe
they are able to solve, with their work of analysis alone, all the
psychological, esthetic and mythological problems that come up. We
understand only half of the psychic impulses, as indeed we do all
spiritual development, if we look merely at the root. We have to regard
not merely whence we come but also whither we go. Then only can the course
of the psyche be comprehended, ontogenetically as well as
phylogenetically, according to a dynamic scheme as it were.
If we apply this fundamental principle to symbolism there develops
therefrom the obligation to keep both visible poles in view, between which
the advance of significance, the process of intro-determination is
completed. (An externalization is also possible, yet the internalization
or intro-determination must be regarded as the normal process.) [It
corresponds namely to the process of education and progress of culture.
This will soon be cleared up.] To the most general type belong then,
without doubt, those symbols or frequently disguised images, concerning
which we wondered before, that besides representing “titanic” tendencies,
they are fitted to represent the anagogic. The solution of the riddle is
found the instant we regard these images as types with a certain degree of
intro-determination, as types for a few fundamental forces of the soul,
with which we are all endowed, and whose typical symbols are for that
reason of general applicability. [I will therefore call these types the
human elementary types.] For example, if by psychoanalysis we deduce
father and mother, etc., from some of the symbols appearing in dreams, we
have in these representations of the psychic images, as the psychoanalyst
calls them, in reality derived mere types whose meaning will change
according to the ways of viewing them, somewhat as the color of many
minerals changes according to the angle at which we hold them to the
light. The actual father or mother, the experiences that surrounded them,
were the material used in the formation of the types; they were external
things even if important, while later the father, etc., emerging as
symbol, may have significance as a type of the spiritual power of the very
person in question; a spiritual power to be sure, which the person in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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