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)
question feels to be like a father for otherwise the father figure would
not be suited for the symbol. And we can go so far as to call this
spiritual power a father image. That should not however, mislead us into
taking that real person, who in the individual case generally (though not
always) has furnished the type, for the real or the most essential. The
innermost lies in ourselves and is only fashioned and exercised upon
persons of the external world.
So then we get for the typical symbol a double perspective. The types are
given, we can look through them forward and backward. In both cases there
will be distortions of the image; we shall frequently see projected upon
each other, things that do not belong together, we shall perceive
convergences at vanishing points which are to be ascribed only to
perspective. I might for brevity’s sake call the errors so resulting
errors of superposition. The significance of this concept will, I hope,
come to have still greater validity in psychoanalysis. [This error of
superposition C. G. Jung attempts to unmask, when he writes: “As libido
has a forward tendency, so in a way, incest is that which tends backward
into childhood. It is not incest for the child, and only for the adult,
who possesses a well constituted sexuality, does this regressive tendency
become incest in that he is no longer a child, but has a sexuality that
really no longer can suffer a regressive application.” (Jung, Psychology
of the Unconscious.) It may moreover be remarked that Freud also is
careful not to take the incest disclosed by psychoanalysis in too physical
a sense.] This error of superposition is found not only in the view
backward but in the forward view. So what I, as interpreter of mystical
symbolism, may say about the possible development of the soul will be
affected by this error of superposition. It is not in my power to correct
it. In spite of everything, the treatment of symbolism from the two points
of view must be superior to the onesided treatment; in order to
approximate a fundamental comprehension, which to be sure remains an
ideal, the different aspects must be combined and in order to make this
clear I have added a synthetic treatment to the analytic part of my work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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