Homunculus

Reproduction of a Blogspot article by Dr Karl Shukerhttp://karlshuker.blogspot.mx/2012/01/grow-your-own-homunculus.html

W E D N E S D AY, 4 J A N U A R Y2 0 1 2GROW YOUR OWN HOMUNCULUS

Creating a homunculus via alchemy

Even today, the alchemists of medieval times remainfamous for their supposed (but unconrmed) ability totransmute base metals into gold, using the fabledphilosopher's stone. Less well-remembered, yet evenmore controversial, is their alleged articial creationof tiny living humanoids - known as homunculi. Somereferences to homunculi in alchemical texts featured

Dr. Karl Shuker - Grow Your Own Homunculus http://selfdenition.org/magic/alchemy/dr-karl-sh...

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them as symbolic rather than literal. For instance, thefabled Philosopher's Stone is sometimes considered tobe a homunculus, with its creation no less than therepresentation of the Great Work (Magnum Opus)process, merely described in a dierent way.

A symbolic homunculus, depicted in ThePretiosissimum Donum Dei ('The Most PreciousGift of God'), an important 15th-Centuryalchemical work by Georgius Aurach deArgentina

In September 1994, however, Paul Thompsonpublished an engrossing review of this largely-forgotten arcane subject in America's FateMagazine that contained some remarkable revelationsregarding the alleged creation of living homunculi.


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Alchemists claimed that the culture medium requiredfor the growth of homunculi contained severalbiological uids such as sputum or egg-white, andsometimes inorganic uids like dew, but the twosubstances most commonly cited as essential werehuman blood and semen - both of which are widelybelieved in primitive or non-scientic societies toharbour the vital essence of life. Also required washorse manure, whose heat-releasing properties wereutilised to incubate the medium.

Bearing in mind that all of the above ingredients arereadily obtainable, why was the production ofhomunculi a skill restricted to alchemists? The answeris that the recipes always seemed to contain one vitalingredient that was exceptionally complex and diicultto prepare.


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Paracelsus, painted by Quentin Massys

For example, in the homunculus recipe containedwithin the treatise De Natura Rerum, written by16th-Century Swiss scholar and alchemistTheophrastus Paracelsus (aka Philippus vonHohenheim), 'the arcanum of human blood' wasincluded - essential but esoteric, its constituentsknown only to the alchemical fraternity. Here, just incase any reader wishes to attempt it himself, isParacelsus's description of how to create ahomunculus:

"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealedcucurbite [glass vessel] with the highest putrefactionof the venter equinus [horse manure] for 40 days, oruntil it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated,which can easily be seen. After this time it will be insome degree like a human being, but, nevertheless,transparent and without body. If now, after this, it beevery day nourished and fed cautiously and prudentlywith the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venterequinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and livinginfant, having all the members of a child that is bornfrom a woman, but much smaller. This we call ahomunculus; and it should be afterwards educatedwith the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up andbegins to display intelligence."

Equally obscure is 'animal tincture', listed in anothermedieval recipe.


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The vaguely human-looking root of the mandragora ormandrake plant Mandragora oicinarum inspired thefalse belief during medieval times that it could beutilised in the production of homunculi. During hisbody's last convulsive spasms before death, a hangedman will sometimes ejaculate semen, and it was saidthat where this fell to the ground, a mandrake wouldgrow. If its anthropomorphic root was then pulled outbefore dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, thenwashed, and nurtured with milk, honey, and sometimeshuman blood too, the root would subsequently developinto a homunculus, which would guard and protect itsowner.

Mandrake with unrealistically humanoid root,depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 15th-CenturymanuscriptAn even more exotic recipe for growing your own


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homunculus was cited during the 1700s by no less agure of learning than Dr David Christianus fromGermany's Giessen University. According to his claim,an egg should be taken from a black hen, and a tinyhole should be poked through its shell. A bean-sizedportion of the albumen then needed to be removed andreplaced by human semen, after which the egg'sopening should be sealed with the hymen from a virginmaiden. Once this was accomplished, the egg must beburied in dung during the rst day of the March lunarcycle. After 30 days, a homunculus should emergefrom the egg, and as long as its owner provided it witha regular diet of earthworms and lavender seeds itwould protect him and assist him in all of hisendeavours.

Notwithstanding the inherent diiculties in obtainingthe necessary ingredients and in performing theintricate series of processes required, recordsdetailing the successful culturing of homunculi doexist. An extraordinary specimen grown from distilledhuman blood and able to emit beams of red light wasreputedly cultured and exhibited at the court ofFrance's King Louis XIV by royal physician Dr Borel.


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Homunculi feature in many contemporary novelsincluding Peter Ackroyd's The House of DoctorDee(1993), in which he portrays real-lifeElizabethan magus John Dee successfullycreating a homunculus

As fully documented in Dr Emil Besetzny'sbook Sphinx (1873), however, the most outstandingcase must surely be the creation of ten livinghomunculi in a mere ve weeks, accomplished by twoAustrian alchemists from the late 16th Century - CountJohann Ferdinand von Kufstein and Abb Geloni.

Like all homunculi, they were grown in sealed jars(homunculi die if exposed for any considerable periodto the air), lled with water and eventually buriedunder heaps of manure. These were treated (as usual)with some special, but unspecied, solution, anddoubled the size of eight of the homunculi, producing aseries of 1-ft-tall specimens.

No two homunculi looked the same, and to each wasxed an identity. Eight were physical manikins, knownrespectively as the king, queen, knight, monk, nun,seraph, miner, and architect, and clothes pertinent totheir identities were manufactured for them. Each ofthese eight homunculi was fed with special pink


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tablets every 3-4 days, and their water was changedonce a week. On at least one occasion, the 'king'homunculus escaped from his jar, and was earnestlytrying to remove the seal on the jar housing the'queen' when he was spotted by Count Kufstein'sbutler. Chased by Kufstein and the butler, the 'king'soon fainted from exposure to the air, and was putback inside his own receptacle.

The remaining two homunculi were non-corporeal, andonly appeared when Geloni tapped their jars andchanted certain magical words. A face would thenmaterialise in each of them; moreover, in one theliquid would turn blue, in the other it would turn red.The red 'spirit' homunculus was fed on blood, and itswater was changed every 2-3 days, but the blue 'spirit'homunculus was never fed and its water was neverchanged.

All ten homunculi would answer questions concerningfuture events, invariably predicting correctly theoutcomes, and they were observed by many people.These included some very notable personages, likeCount Franz Josef von Thun and Count Max Lamberg.Surely, however, such bizarre man-made entities couldnot really have existed - or could they?

I cannot help but wonder whether these particularhomunculi were nothing more than large amphibiansbrought back by travellers from the tropics. One likelycandidate is the African clawed toad Xenopus laevis, acommon species vaguely humanoid in shape, whichlives permanently in water - explaining why the 'king'fainted soon after escaping from its jar?


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Homunculi created from blood, or merelyspecimens of the African clawed toad (like thisone)? (Michael Linnenbach/Wikipedia)No-one knows what happened to nine of the homunculiafter Geloni and Kufstein ultimately went theirseparate ways. However, an event occurred that mayactually have left behind some tangible evidence of thetenth. Once, the jar containing the 'monk' homunculuswas accidentally dropped, smashing as it hit the oorand killing its humanoid inhabitant. His body wasafterwards buried in the grounds of Kufstein'sTyrolean residence - but where is this today? If onlywe knew its locality, the soil around it could be sifted,as suggested by Paul Thompson - and who knows whatremains might be found?

One thing is certain. If a 12-in-long skeleton is ever


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found under these circumstances, Thompson would bevery interested to learn more about it - and so would I.

This article is extracted and expanded from thehomunculus section of my book The Unexplained:An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural andParanormal Mysteries (Carlton: London, 1996). -- Dr Karl Shuker(Available at Amazon.Com)


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Homunculus

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