Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts by Herbert Silberer (great book club books txt) 📖

of the entrance into the mother or earth. Only by closer [pg 295] examination can it sometimes be seen which process is chiefly intended.

“And that shalt thou know my son, whoso does not know how to kill, and to bring about a rebirth, to make the spirits revive, to purify, to make bright and clear ... he as yet knows nothing and will accomplish nothing.” (Siebengestirn, p. 21.)

“These are the two serpents sent by Juno (which is the metallic nature) which the strong Hercules (i.e., the wise man in his cradle) has to strangle, i.e., to overpower and kill, in order in the beginning of his work to have them rot, be destroyed and to bear.” (Flamel, p. 54.)

Again and again the masters declare that one cannot attain to true progress except by means of the blacks, death and putrefaction.

In the “Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae,” of the year 1633, we read: “Know then that it is the duty of spiritual alchemy to mortify and to refine all obscuring prejudice as corruptible and vain, and so break down the tents of darkness and ignorance, so that that imperishable but still beclouded spirit may be free and grow and multiply in us through the help of the fiery spirit, full of grace, which God so kindly moistened, so as to increase it from a grain to a mountain. That is the true alchemy of which I am speaking, that which can multiply in me that rectangular stone, which is the cornerstone of my life and my soul, so that the dead in me shall be awakened anew, and arise from the old [pg 296] nature that had become corrupted in Adam, as a new man who is new and living in Christ, and therefore in that rectangular stone....”

To the “sacrifice” of the person introverting, Jung devotes an entire chapter in his Psychology of the Unconscious, Chapt. IV. A brief résumé of it would show that by the sacrifice is meant the giving up of the mother, i.e., the disclaiming of all bonds and limitations that the soul has carried over from childhood into adulthood. The victory over the dragon is equivalent to the sacrificing of the regressive (incestuous) tendency. After we have sought the mother through introversion we must escape from her, enriched by the treasure which we have gotten.

The sacrifice of a part of ourself (killing of the dragon, the father, etc.) is, as Jung points out, represented also in mythology by the shooting with sharp arrows at the symbol of the libido. The symbol of the libido is generally a sun symbol. Now it is particularly noteworthy that the VIII key of the alchemist Basilius Valentinus (see figure 3, p. 199) shows arrows being shot, which are aimed at the [Symbol: sun] (this libido symbol par excellence) that is aptly used as a “target.” Death is clearly enough accentuated and correlated with the sinking of the corns of wheat into the earth. [John XII, 24, 25, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his [pg 297] life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.] As this rises, so also will the dying mystic rise. The grave crosses have the form [Symbol: Fire] ([Symbol: Sulphur]); they show that the interred one is a certain sulphur, the impure sulphur, willfulness. The birds, from which we are to protect the grain, may in the end be the Siddhi; they are, in the introversion form of the religious work, what would otherwise be merely “diversions” or “dissipations.”

The mystical death is the death of egoism (in Hindu terminology ahamkāra). Jacob Boehme writes in his book of the true atonement, I, 19: “... Although I am not worthy, [Jesus] take me yet in thy death and let me only in thy death die my death; still strike thou me in my acknowledged selfishness to the ground and kill my selfishness by thy death....” In the Mysterium Magnum, XXXVI, 74, 75: “... We exalt not the outspoken word of the wisdom of God, but only the animal will to selfishness and egoism which is departed from God, which honors itself as a false God of its own and may not believe or trust God (as the Antichrist who has placed himself in God's stead); and we teach on the contrary that the man of the Antichrist's image shall wholly die so that he may be born in Christ of a new life and will, which new will has power in the perfect word of nature with divine eyes to see all the miracles of God, both in nature and creature, in the perfect wisdom. For as dies the Antichrist in the soul, so rises Christ from the dead.”

In the hermetic book, “Gloria Mundi,” it is related [pg 298] of Adam that he would have been able, if he had not acted contrary to God, to live 2000 years in paradise and would then have been taken up into heaven; but he had drawn on himself death, sickness and calamity. Only through the grace of God was he given a partial knowledge of the powers of things, of herbs and remedies against manifold infirmities. “When, however, he could no longer maintain himself by the medicinal art [in paradise] he sent his son Seth forth to paradise for the tree of life, which he received, not physically, but spiritually. Finally he desired the oil of compassion, whereupon by the angels, at God's command to give the oil, the promise was given and thereupon the seed of the oil tree sent, which seed Seth planted on his return, after his father's death and on his father's grave, from which grew the wood of the holy cross, on which our Lord Jesus Christ, through his passion and death, freed us from death and all sins; which Lord Christ in his holiest humanity has become the tree and the wood of life and has brought to us the fruit of the oil of compassion....” Adam is the undomesticated man; this ideal must die to the moral aspirant.

The painful duty of killing a part of self is beautifully expressed in the Bhagavad-Gita, where the hero, Aryuna, hesitates to fight against his “kindred,” to shoot at them—the bow falls from his hand.

Dying relates to the old realms. The old laws expire to make room for the new. The new life [pg 299] cancels the old deeds. (Cf. Paul, Rom. VII-VII.)

Vedanta doctrine: But as to the duty of the scripture canon and perception, both last as long as Samsāra, i.e., until the awakening. If this is attained, perception is annulled, and if you derive thence the objection that thereby the veda is annulled, it must be noted that according to our own doctrine father is not father and the Veda is not the veda. (Deussen, Syst. d. Ved., p. 449.)