Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts Part 14

Looking back through the elementary types, we see the infantile images together with those non-moral origins that psychoa.n.a.lysis discovers in us; looking forward we notice thoughts directed to certain goals that will be mentioned later. The elementary types themselves thanks to intro-determination represent however a collection of our spiritual powers, which we have first formed and exercised at the time that the images arose, and which are in their nature closely related to these images, indeed completely united with them as a result of the errors of superposition-this collection of powers, I say, accompanies us through our entire life and is that from which are taken the powers that will be required for future development. The objects or applications change, the powers remain almost the same. The symbolism of the material categories which depends on external things changes with them; but the symbolism of the functional categories, which reflects these powers remains constant.

The types with their intro-determination belong to the functional categories; and so they picture the constant characters.

That experience to which the suggestions of symbolism (brought to verbal expression by means of introversion) point as to a possible spiritual development, corresponds to a religious ideal; when intensively lived out this development is called mysticism. [We can define mysticism as that religious state which struggles by the shortest way towards the accomplishment of the end of religion, the union with the divinity; or as an intensive cultivation of oneself in order to experience this union.] It presents itself if instead of looking backward we gaze forward from our elementary types to the beyond. But let us not forget that we can regard mysticism only as the most extreme, and therefore psychically the most internal, unfolding of the religious life, as the ideal which is hardly to be attained, although I consider that much is possible in this direction.

If my later examination carries us right into the heart of mysticism, without making the standpoint clear every time, we now know what restrictions we must be prepared for.

If I take the view that those powers, whose images (generally veiled in symbolism) are the elementary types, do not change, I do not intend to imply that it is not possible to sublimate them. With the increasing education of man they support a sublimation of the human race which yet shows in recognizable form the fundamental nature of the powers. One of the most important types, in which this transformation process is consummated and which refines the impulse and yet allows some of its character to remain, is the type mother, i.e., incest. Among religious symbols we find countless incest images but that the narrow concept of incest is no longer suited to their psychological basis (revealed through a.n.a.lysis) has been, among psychoa.n.a.lysts, quite clearly recognized by Jung. Therefore in the case of every symbolism tending to ethical development, the anagogic point of view must be considered, and most of all in religious symbolism. The impulse corresponding to the religious incest symbols is preeminently to be conceived in the trend toward introversion and rebirth which will be treated of later. [Vid. note C, at the end of the volume.]

I have just used the expression "sublimation." This Freudian term and concept is found in an exactly similar significance in the hermetic writers. In the receptacle where the mystical work of education is performed, i.e., in man, substances are sublimated; in psychological terms this means that impulses are to be refined and brought from their baseness to a higher level. Freud makes it clear that the libido, particularly the unsocial s.e.xual libido, is in favorable circ.u.mstances sublimated, i.e., changed into a socially available impelling power. This happens in the evolution of the human race and is recapitulated in the education of the individual.

I take it for granted that the fundamental character of the elementary psychic powers in which the sublimation is consummated is the more recognizable the less the process of sublimation is extended in time. In mysticism, e.g., the fundamental character penetrates the primal motive because the latter wishes to lead the relatively slightly sublimated impulses by a shortened process to the farthest goal of sublimation.

Mysticism undertakes to accomplish in individuals a work that otherwise would take many generations. What I said therefore about the unchangeability of the fundamental powers or their primal motive, is wholly true of its fate in mystical development.

The Mohammedan mystic Arabi (1165-1240) writes, "Love as such, in its individual life, is the same for sensuous and spiritual, therefore equally for every Arab (of an allegory) and for me, but the objects of love are different. They loved sensible phenomena while I, the mystic, love the most intimate existence." (Horten, Myst. Texte, p. 12.)

The religious-mystical applications of the fundamental powers represented by the types, in the sense of a sublimation, does not manifest therefore in contrast to their retrospective form (t.i.tanic, purposeless form) an essentially foreign nature; the important novelty in them is that they no longer are used egotistically but have acquired a content that is ethically valuable, to which the intro-determination was an aid. This determination, whose external aspects we have noticed in the types or symbols, is only the visible expression of a far more important actual intro-determination whose accomplishment lies in an amplification of personality, and will later be considered in detail.

In the psychoa.n.a.lytic consideration of the alchemistic parable it would appear that only the t.i.tanic impulses were realized there, e.g., to have the mother as a lover and to kill the father. Now it corresponds to a really significant intro-determination when we hear that in the alchemistic work the father is the same as the son, and when we understand that the father is a state, or psychic potentiality, of the "son," whom the latter in himself, has to conquer, exactly in the same manner as Lea in the lecomantic study strove to put off the old man.

The alchemist Rulandus (Lex., p. 24) quotes the "Turba": "Take the white tree, build him a round, dark, dew-encircled house, and set in it a hundred year-old man and close it so that no wind or dust can get to him (introversion); then leave him there eight days. I tell you that that man will not cease to eat of the fruit of that tree till he becomes a youth. O what a wonderful nature, for here is the father become son and born again." Ibid: "The stone [that is in the anagogic sense, man] is at first the senex, afterwards young, so it is said filius interficit patrem; the father must die, the son be born, die with each other and be renewed with each other."

We must proceed similarly if we wish to interpret the parable anagogically.

What I have already taken from the anagogic fairy tale interpretation as a symbol of introversion shows, of course, also the character of intro-determination.

As for the nature of the relatively unchangeable spiritual tendencies represented by the elementary types [That can also be called in mythological study primal motives] a simple examination of the essentials without any psychological hair splitting, brings us at once to an elementary scheme that will help us to understand the changes (intro-determination) that take place in accordance with the elementary types. We need here only to examine the simplest reactions of the individual, necessarily produced by rubbing up again the external world; reactions which become persistent forms of experience that are approximately as self-evident as the libido itself. The degree of egoism which is active in the elementary tendencies must, according to the experience of psychoa.n.a.lysis, be considered very great. For this purpose I have selected in what follows an excessively egotistical expression for the "t.i.tanic" aspect, the retrospective form, of the tendencies; and this same excessive expression which would seem to be rather objectionable when applied to the basis of a religious development, enables us, thanks to the principle of intro-determination, to understand this development.

Starting from the libido in the most general sense we arrive first of all at the two phenomena, the agreeableness and the disagreeableness, from which results at once, acceptance and aversion. Obstacles may aggravate both activities, so that acceptance becomes robbery and aversion becomes annihilation. These possibilities can to be sure only become acts in so far as they prove practically feasible. In all cases they are present in the psyche, and in this crude primal form play no small part in the soul of the child. It is indeed only a blind sentimentality that can raise the child to an angelic status, from which it is as far removed as from its opposite. We should be careful not to regard the crude form of the impulse as crude in the sense of an educated humanity, which must see in the crudeness something morally inferior. In robbery and annihilation there exists on the primitive or childish level hardly the slightest germ of badness. There is much to be said about the psychology and morality of the child. I cannot, however, enter very deeply into this broad topic, interesting though it is.

The primal tendencies, when directed toward the persons in the environment, produce certain typical phenomena. I can unfortunately describe them only with expressions which, if the cultured man uses them, evoke the idea of crime. An ethically colorless language should be made available for these things. [The dream and the myth have found for them the language of symbolism.] The opposition of a fellow man against the working out of an impulse arouses a tendency to overcome this man, to get him out of the way, to kill him. The type of the obstructing man is always the instructor (father, eventually mother). That he is at the same time a doer of good is less appreciated because the psychical apparatus takes the satisfaction of desires as the natural thing, which does not excite its energy nearly as much as does a hindrance to its satisfaction.

[Recognition of a good deed, thankfulness, etc., regularly presuppose sublimation; they do not belong to the t.i.tanic aspect. A form of appreciation of this kindness however comes to mind. Towards the mother there occurs on the part of the child, though it has been completely overlooked for a long time, very early and gradually increasing, a s.e.xually-toned feeling, although the manifestations of this feeling are very dim and at times may completely disappear. In this "love" is contained a germ of desire, of erotic appropriation-to-self. Any woman in the environment and especially the mother must needs supply the ideal of the desired woman. In so far as the father is perceived as an obstacle to the love towards the mother he must, in the elementary tendency, be killed to remove the obstacle, and there arises the murder impulse belonging to the dipus Complex. [The child has no clear idea of death. It is only a matter of wis.h.i.+ng to have some one out of the way. If this primal motive appears to us subsequently as a "killing," it is again only because of the error of superposition, just as in the later mentioned "rape."] In so far as the mother herself does not meet the desired tenderness or in refusing, acts as a corrective agent, while carrying on the education, she, too, becomes an obstacle, a personality contrasting with the "dear" mother, a contrast which plunges the psyche in anxiety and bitterness. Anxiety comes princ.i.p.ally from the conflict of psychical tendencies, which result from the same person being both loved and hated. The correlative to the denying action of the mother is to commit rape on her. Another cause of the attraction towards the mother besides the erotically toned one, is the desire for her care, called forth by the hards.h.i.+ps encountered elsewhere in the world. It is an indolence opposed to the duties of life. The propensity towards ease is psychologically a very important factor. The home is in general the place of protection; the characteristic embodiment of this is preeminently the mother. We speak of maternal solicitude but less of paternal solicitude. I have noted the solicitous mother type in the story of the three feathers, where the mother toad bestows the gifts from the big box. In so far as the solicitous person refuses the requests made of her and for reasons of necessity thrusts the child out into the world, or in so far as any other obstacles (demands of life) stand in the way of the gratification of the lazy, "feed me" state of mind, like the angel with the flaming sword before the entrance to paradise, so far the obstructing power appears as the type of the "terrible" mother, a picture whose terribleness is yet intensified by the working of the incest conflict. In this aspect therefore the otherwise beloved mother is a hostile personality.

To the process of education on the part of the parents, felt as pedantry by the child, or to otherwise misunderstood action, he opposes a well known defiance, and there results, as also from the attempt to change in general the rough path of life, the hopeful attempt to get a creative "improvement," which I have already discussed. The wish to die sometimes occurs. Further the obstacles that stand in the way of the full erotic life in the external world, in so far as they are insuperable or are not overcome on account of laziness, lead to autoerotism. (That this is found even in early childhood is for the mechanism of the impulses, a side-issue. The scheme just given is not to be regarded as a historical or chronological development, but the tendencies are quite as intimately connected with each other as with the acquisition of the psychical restraints that are not generally brought to view; in separating them we commit something like an error.)

We have considered the following main forces: 1. Removal of obstacles. 2.

Desire for the solicitude of the parents. 3. Desire for the pleasurable [especially of the woman]. 4. Auto-erotism. 5-6. Improvement and re-creation. 7. Death wish. The following scheme shows the retrograde (t.i.tanic) as well as the anagogic aspect of these powers, which later corresponds to an intro-determination of the types, and a species of sublimation of impulses.

RETROGRADE ASPECT. ANAGOGIC ASPECT.

1. Killing of the father. Killing of the old Adam.

2. Desire for the mother Introversion.

(laziness).

3. Incest. Love towards an Ideal.

4. Auto-erotism. Siddhi.(4) 5. Copulation with the mother. Spiritual regeneration.

6. Improvement. Re-creation.(5) 7. Death wish. Attainment of the ideal.

We need not scent anything extraordinary behind these intro-determinations, as the scheme is here indeed only roughly sketched; they take place in each and every one of us, otherwise we should be mere beasts. Only they do not in every one of us rise to the intensity of the mystical life.

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 role tastes and smells often play in descriptions given by persons who have followed the path of mysticism. I mention the odor of sanct.i.ty 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 coordination 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 "Seitenholchen" (Wound in the Side) in Jesus' body and with an unmistakable identification of this "cleft" with the v.u.l.v.a.

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.

With us Cross people The closet of the side often is worth The whole little lamb.

Ye poor sinners.

But deep, but deep within, Yes deep, right deep within, And whoever will be blessed He wishes himself within Into the dear rendezvous Of all the darlings.

Ravis.h.i.+ng little lamb.

I, poor little thing, I kiss the ring On thy little ringer, Thou wound of the spear Hold thy little mouth near, It must be kissed.

Lamb, say nothing to me in there For this precious minute Thou art mine only.

On this curiosity compare the psychological explanations of Pfister.

(Frommigkeit G. Ludw. v. Zinzendorf.)

Returning to the previously mentioned "spiritual powers" I should mention that alchemy also attempts to include in a short schema the inventory of powers available for the Great Work. It uses different symbols for this purpose; one of the most frequent is the seven metals or planets. Whether I say with the astrologers that the soul (not the celestial spirit, which is derived from G.o.d) flowing in from the seven planets upon man, is therefore composed of their seven influences, or if with the alchemists I speak of the seven metals, which come together in the microcosm, it is of course quite the same, but expressed in another closely related symbol.

The metals are, as we know, incomplete and have to be "improved" or "made complete." That means we must sublimate our impulses.

"From the highest to the lowest everything rises by intermediate steps on the infinite ladder, in such manner that those pictures and images, as outgrowths of the divine mind, through subordinate divinities and demiG.o.ds impart their gifts and emanations to men. The highest of these are: Spirit of inquiry, power of ruling and mastering self, a brave heart, clearness of perception, ardent affection, acuteness in the art of exposition, and fruitful creative power. The efficient forces of all these G.o.d has above all and originally in himself. From him they have received the seven spirits and divinities, which move and rule the seven planets, and are called angels, so that each has received his own, distinct from the rest.

They share them again among the seven orders of demons subordinated to them, one under each. And these finally transmit them to men." (Adamah Booz. Sieb. Grunds., p. 9 ff.)

In this enumeration the fundamental powers, whose part.i.tion varies exceedingly, already show a certain measure of intro-determination. If we wish to contrast their t.i.tanic with their anagogic aspect, we get approximately the following scheme, to which I add the familiar astrological characters of the seven planets.

Destroying (castration). [Symbol: Saturn] Introversion.

Mastery. [Symbol: Jupiter] Mastery of oneself.

Love of combat. [Symbol: Mars] Warring against oneself.

Libido. [Symbol: Sol] Sublimated libido.

s.e.xual life, incest. [Symbol: Venus] Regeneration.

Hypercriticism, fussing. [Symbol: Mercury] Knowledge.

Joy in change; Improvement. [Symbol: Luna] Changing oneself.

[Freud is of the opinion that the original inquisitiveness about the s.e.xual secret is abnormally transformed into morbid over subtlety; and yet can still furnish an impulsive power for legitimate thirst for knowledge.]

Beside the part.i.tion of the fundamental powers according to the favorite number seven, there are to be sure in alchemy still other schemata with other symbols. We must furthermore continually keep in mind that the symbols in alchemy are used in many senses.

In so far as the Constellations, as is often to be understood in the hermetic art, are fundamental psychic powers, it sounds just like psychoa.n.a.lysis when Paracelsus expresses the view that in sleep the "sidereal" body is in un.o.bstructed operation, soars up to its fathers and has converse with the stars.

With regard to intro-determination I must refer to my observations in the following sections on the extension of personality. It is an important fact that those external obstructions which oppose the unrestrained unfolding of the t.i.tanic impulses are gradually taken up as constraints into the psyche, which adopts those external laws, that would make life practicable. In so far as deep conflicts do not hinder it, there arises by the operation of these laws a corresponding influence upon the propensities. Habit, however, can learn to carry a heavy yoke with love, even to make it the condition of life. I have just made the restriction: if conflicts do not hinder it; now usually these exist, even for the mystics; and the "Work" is above all directed toward their overcoming. For the annihilation of the opposition, the weapons aimed outward in the "t.i.tanic" phase must be turned inward; there and not outside of us is the conflict. [Here we see the actual intro-determination briefly mentioned above.]

B. Effects Of Introversion.