he wildly
rushing spirits and to get possession of their powers without injury. The
entire inundation must, in the philosophical vessel, be absorbed by the
bodies that have turned black, and then it works on them for the purpose
of new creation, fructifying them like the floods of water upon the earth.
It does no damage to the materia only then, when it is actually black
(stage of victory). If this happens, it (the materia) is in contrast to
the waters raging over it, like an ocean which suffers no alteration by
the influx of waters. "Like an ocean that continually fills itself and yet
does not overflow its boundaries, even with the inflowing waters, so the
man acquires calm, into whom all desires flow in similar wise, and not he
who wantonly indulges his desire." (Bhag. Gita, II, 70. Latin: translated
by Schlegel: German [Schroeder].)

"Wer wie das Meer in das die Wasser stroemen
Das sich anfuellet und doch ruhig dasteht
Wer so in sich die Wuensche laesst verschwinden,
Der findet Ruhe--nicht wer ihnen nachgibt."

Above I have compared the lion of the parable to the Sphinx of OEdipus, and
on the other hand, it appears from later deliberation that it (the lion)
must be the retrogressive element in men, which is to be sacrificed in the
work of purification. Now I find several remarks of Jung (Psychology of
the Unconscious) that mediate very well between both ideas. Even if I do
not care to go so far as to see in the animal only the sexual impelling
powers, but prefer to regard it rather as the titanic part of our
impulses, I find the conception of the author very fortunate. The Sphinx,
that double being, symbolizes the double natured man, to whom his
bestiality still clings. Indeed it is to be taken exactly as a functional
representation of the development of reason out of the impulses (human
head and shoulders growing out of an animal body).

The homunculus motive would likewise have to be regarded in a new light. I
have said that the mystic was his own father; he creates a new man
(himself) out of himself with a merely symbolic mother, therefore with
peculiar self-mastery, without the cooeperation of any parents. That means
the same thing as the artificial creation of a man. We recognize therefore
the anagogic significance of the homunculus, the idea of which we found
closely interwoven with alchemy in general. This connection also has not
escaped Jung, though he takes it one-sidedly and draws a to