Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts

At first the “lofty appearance” (Sec. 19) of the severe father amazes the wanderer, then it turns out, however, that the king (ideal father) is friendly, gracious and meek, and we are assured that “nothing graces exalted persons as much as these virtues.” And then he leads the wanderer into his kingdom and allows him to enjoy all the merely earthly treasures. There takes place, so to speak, a universal gratification of all wishes.

Mythologically we should expect that the hero thrown up from the underworld, should have brought with him the drink of knowledge. This is [pg 110] actually the case, as he has indeed gained the thing whose constitution is metaphorically worked out in the whole story, that is, the philosopher's stone. The wanderer is a true soma robber.

Let us hark back to the next to last section. Here, near the end of the dream, the King becomes sleepy. The real sleeper already feels the approaching awakening and would like to sleep longer (to phantasy). But he pretends that the king is sleepy, thus throwing the burden from his own shoulders. And to this experience is soon attached a symbol of waking: the wanderer, the dreamer of the parable, is taken to another land, indeed into a bright land. He wakes from his dreams with a pious echo of his wish fulfillment on his lips ... “to which end help us, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.” It is quite prosaic to conclude this melodious finale by means of the formula “threshold symbolism.”

To sum up in a few words what the parable contains from the psychoanalytic point of view, and to do this without becoming too general in suggesting as its results the universal fulfillment of all wishes, I should put it thus: the wanderer in his phantasy removes and improves the father, wins the mother, procreates himself with her, enjoys her love even in the womb and satisfies besides his infantile curiosity while observing procreative process from the outside. He becomes King and attains power and magnificence, even superhuman abilities.

Possibly one may be surprised at so much absurdity. One should reflect, however, that those [pg 111] unconscious titanic powers of imagination that, from the innermost recesses of the soul set in motion the blindly creating dream phantasy, can only wish and do nothing but wish. They do not bother about whether the wishes are sensible or absurd. Critical power does not belong to them. This is the task of logical thinking as we consciously exercise it, inasmuch as we observe the wishes rising from the darkness and compare and weigh them according to teleological standards. The unconsciously impelling affective life, however, desires blindly, and troubles itself about nothing else.