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 young people of both sexes, separated by a wall, do not come together
because they are afraid of the distant detour to the door. This can, with
a little courage, be translated: The auto-erotic satisfaction is easier.
[C G. Jung writes (Jb. ps. F., IV, p. 213 ff): “Masturbation is of
inestimable importance psychologically. One is guarded from fate, since
there is no sexual need of submitting to any one, life and its
difficulties. With masturbation one has in his hands the great magic. He
needs only to imagine and in addition to masturbate and he possesses all
the pleasures of the world and is under no compulsion to conquer the world
of his desire through hard work and struggle with reality. Aladdin rubs
his lamp and the slaves come at his bidding; this story expresses the
great psychologic gain in local sexual satisfaction through facile
regression.” Jung applies to masturbation the motive of the dearly won
prize and that of the stealing of fire. He even appears to derive in some
way the use of fire from masturbation. In this at any rate I cannot follow
him.]
On his detour the wanderer (who desires to reach the portal of woman)
meets people who are alone in the rooms and carry on dirty work. Dirt and
masturbation are wont to be closely associated psychically. The dirty work
is “only appearance and individual fantasy,” and “has no foundation in
Nature.” The wanderer knows that “such practices vanish like smoke.” He
has done it himself before and now he will have nothing more to do with
it. He aspires to a woman, that the work done alone leads to nothing is
connected with the fact that the work of two is useful. But “dirty work”
is also to be understood as sensual enjoyment without love.
In paragraph 10 we again meet the already mentioned symbolism of the
walled garden. The wanderer is the only one that can secure admission to
the maiden. After a fear of impotence (anxiety about disgrace) he goes
resolutely to the door and opens it with his Diederich, which sticks into
a narrow, hardly visible opening (deflowering). He “knows the situation of
the place,” although he has never been there before. I mean that once,
before he was himself, he was there in the body of his mother. What
follows suggests a birth fantasy as these occur in dreams of being born.
The wanderer now actually takes part in being born in reverse direction. I
append several dreams about being born.
“I find myself on a very narrow stairway, leading down in turns; a winding
stairway. I turn and push through laboriously. Finally I find a little
door that leads me into the open, on a green meadow, where I rest in soft
luxuriant bushes. The warm sunshine was very pleasant.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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