Theos-Talk Archives (March 1997 Message tt00006)

Dear Folks:

Paracelsus' in "De Natura Rerum" vol. I, is quoted by Franz
Hartmann in his ~Life of Paracelsus~ on pp. 256ff. on the
Homunculi:

> Human beings may come into existence without natural parents.
> That is to say, such beings may grow without being developed and
> born by a female organism; by the art of an experienced
> spagyricus (alchemist).

> The generatio homunculi has until now been kept very secret, and
> so little was publicly known about it that the old philosophers
> have doubted its possibility. But I know that such things may be
> accomplished by spagyric assisted by natural processes. If the
> sperma, enclosed in a hermetically sealed glass, is buried in
> horse manure for about forty days, and properly 'magnetized,' it
> begins to live and to move. After Such a time it bears the form
> and resemblance of a human being, but it will be transparent and
> without a corpus. If it is now artificially fed with the arcanum
> sanguinis hominis until it is about forty weeks old, and if
> allowed to remain during that time in the horse manure in a
> continually equal temperature, it will grow into a human child,
> with all its members developed like any other child, such as may
> have been born by a woman, only it will be much smaller. We call
> such a being a homunculus, and it may be raised and educated like
> any other child, until it grows older and obtain reason and
> intellect, and is able to take care of itself. This is one of
> the greatest secrets, and it ought to remain a secret until the
> days approach when all secrets will be known.

Franz Hartmann's footnote reads:


> Parcelsus has been reproached for his belief in the possibility
> of generating homunculi; but a deeper insight into the process of
> Nature will show that such a thing is not necessarily impossible.
> Modern authorities believe it to be not impossible. Moleschott
> thinks that we may perhaps yet succeed in establishong conditions
> by which organic forms may be generated; Liebig is of the opinion
> that chemistry will yet succeed in making organic substances by
> artificial means. Goethe says in his "Faust":
>
> "And such a brain, that has the power to think,
>
> Will in the future be produced by a thinker." - "Faust," Pt. II.
> act ii

Where no germ is present such a generation would certainly be
impossible; but chickens may be artificially hatched out, and
perhaps homunculi may be developed. There seem to be some
historic evidences that such things have been accomplished, as
the following account will show:

> In a book called the "Sphinx" edited by Dr. Emil Besetzny, and
> published at Vienna in 1878 by L. Rosner (Tuchlauben, No. 22),
> we find some interesting accounts in regard to a number of
> "spirits" generated by a Joh. Ferd. Count of Kueffstein, in
> Tyrol, in the year 1775. The sources from which these accounts
> are taken consists in masonic manuscripts and prints, but more
> especially in a diary kept by a certain Jas. Kammerer, who acted
> in the capacity of butler and famulus to the said Count. There
> were ten homunculi - or, as he calls them, "prophesying spirits"
> - preserved in strong bottles, such as are used to preserve
> fruit, and which were filled with water; and these "spirits" were
> the product of the labour of the Count J. F. of Kueffstein
> (Kufstein), and of an Italian Mystic and Rosicrucian, Abbi
> Geloni. They were made in the course of five weeks, and
> consisted of a king, a queen, a knight, a monk, an nun, an
> architeet, a miner, a seraph, and finally of a blue and a red
> spirit.
>
> The bottles were closed with ox-bladders, and with a great magic
> seal (Solomon's seal?). The spirits swam about in those bottles,
> and were about one span long, and the Count was very anxious that
> they should grow. They were therefore buried under two cartloads
> of horse manure, and the pile daily sprinkled with a certain
> liquor, prepared with great trouble by the two adepts, and made
> out of some 'very disgusting materials.' The Pile of manure began
> after such sprinklings to ferment and to steam as if heated by a
> subterranean fire, and at least once every three days, when
> everything was quiet, at the approach of the night, the two
> gentlemen would leave the convent and go to pray and to fumigate
> at that pile of manure. After the bottles were removed the
> 'spirits' had grown to be each one about one and a half span
> long, so that the bottles were almost too small to contain them,
> and the male homunculi had come into posession of heavy beards,
> and the nails of their fingers and toes had grown a great deal.
> By some means the Abbi Schiloni provided them with appropriate
> clothing, each one according to his rank and dignity. In the
> bottle of the red and in that of the blue spirit, however, there
> was nothing to be seen but 'clear water;' but whenever the Abbi
> knocked three times at the seal upon the mouth of the bottles,
> speaking at the same time some Hebrew words, the water in the
> bottle began to turn blue (respectively red), and the blue and
> the red spirits would show their faces, first very small, but
> growing in propotions until they attained the size of an ordinary
> human face. The face of the blue spirit was beautiful, like an
> angel, but that of the red one bore a horrible expression.
>
> ...
>
> The bottles were carried to the place where the masonic lodge of
> which the Count was presiding master met, and after each meeting
> they were carried back again. During the meetings the spirits
> gave prophecies about future events that usually proved to be
> correct. They knew the most secret things, but each of them was
> only acquainted with such things that belonged to his station;
> for instance, the king could talk politics, the monk about
> religion, the miner about minerals, etc.; but the blue and the
> red spirits seemed to know everything. (Some facts proving their
> clairvoyant powers are given in the original.)
>
> By some accident the glass containing the monk fell one day upon
> the floor, and was broken. The poor monk died after a few
> painful respirations, in spite of all the efforts of the Count to
> save his life, and his body was burried in the garden. An
> attempt to generate another one, made by the Count without the
> assistance of the Abbie, who had left, resulted in failure, as it
> produced only a small thing like a leech, which had very little
> vitality, and soon died.
>
> ...
>
> It seems that the Count of Kufstein in later years became anxious
> for the salvation of his soul, and considered it incompatible
> with the requirements of his conscience to keep those spirits
> longer in his possession, and that he got rid of them in some
> manner not mentioned by the scribe. We will not make an attempt
> at comment, but would advise those who are curious about this
> matter to read the book from which the above account is an
> extract. There can be hardly any doubt as to its veracity,
> because some historically well-known persons, such as Count Max
> Lamberg, Count Franz Josef v. Thun, and others, saw them, and
> they possesses undoubtedly visible and tangible bodies; and it
> seems that they were either elemental spirits, or, what appears
> to be more probable, homunculi.

This sounds to me as animated shells, growing from germs, rather
than human parts cobbled together like Frankenstein's monster.