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)
A more careful inquiry into the mechanism of the psychic powers in the
development of mysticism, would show in greater detail how everything that
happens is utilized toward intro-determination in the process of
education. It would be interesting as an example to discover the
application of the special senses to introversion and ascertain the fate
of the sense qualities. It is quite remarkable what a prominent rôle
tastes and smells often play in descriptions given by persons who have
followed the path of mysticism. I mention the odor of sanctity and its
opposite in the devilish, evil odor. The experimenter in magic
Staudenmaier, who will be mentioned later, has established in his own case
the coördination of his partial souls (personifications, autonomous
complexes) to definite bodily functions and to definite organs. Certain
evil, partial souls, which appear to him in hallucinations as diabolical
goat faces, were connected with the function of certain parts of the lower
intestine.
Mysticism stimulates a much more powerful sublimation of impulses than the
conventional education of men. So it is not strange if intro-determination
does not accomplish its desires quickly but remains fragmentary. In such
unfortunate or fragmentary cases, the inward-determined powers show more
than mere traces of their less refined past. The heroes of such miscarried
mysticism appear as rather extraordinary saints. So, for instance, Count
von Zinzendorf’s warm love of the Savior has so much of the sensual
flavor, with furthermore such decided perversities, that the outpourings
of his rapture are positively laughable. Thus the pious man indulges his
phantasy with a marked predilection for voluptuousness in the
“Seitenhölchen” (Wound in the Side) in Jesus’ body and with an
unmistakable identification of this “cleft” with the vulva.
Examples of the poetical creations of Zinzendorf and his faithful
followers are given:
So ever-sideways-squinting
So side-homesickness-feeling;
So lambs-hearts-grave-through crawling,
So lambs-sweat-trace-smelling.
So Jesus sweat-drop-yielding,
With love’s fever trembling
Like the child full of spirit.
So corpse-air-imbibing,
So wound-wet-emitting,
So grave-fume-sniffing.
So martyr-lamb’s heart-like,
So Jesus-boy-like,
So Mary Magdalene-like being,
Childlike, virgin-like, conjugal
Will the lamb keep us
Close to the kiss of his clefts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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