In the XV-XVI centuries, the idea of creating a homunculus - an artificial person - through an alchemical process was very popular among alchemists. I tried to raise my homunculus and Paracelsus.
And although he himself claimed to have achieved success in this matter, there is not a single evidence confirming this fact. The evidence of one of his followers, Count von Küffstein, who allegedly raised a dozen homunculi, does not look too convincing.
However, is it worth finding fault? After all, there are recognized authorities who did not consider it shameful to take their words on faith. Three centuries after Paracelsus, Johann Goethe wrote the drama Faust, the hero of which creates a living little man - a homunculus. And if so, why don't we at least be interested in how this is done?
Human cooking recipe
In his treatise De Natura Rerum, Paracelsus wrote: "Human beings can be born without natural parents." He was convinced that these "creatures" can grow and develop, being created without the participation of male and female principles. The great "know-it-all" argued that a person can be created artificially, for which the intervention of an experienced alchemist is enough.
So, for "preparing a man" - a homunculus - you need an airtight bottle, semen and … horse manure. (Sperm is the main ingredient in this recipe. To obtain the result, an egg is not needed. We put the sperm in a bottle, bury it in the manure and … go for help to a familiar alchemist - nothing is possible without him, because only he can make the substance come to life and start moving.
In forty days, the organic contents of the bottle will acquire the shape and features of a human, however, only an alchemist will be able to contemplate this miraculous transformation, for all others - the uninitiated - the “semi-finished product” of the homunculus will be invisible. However, it's too early to get upset. Have patience and for the next forty weeks keep the invisible at the temperature of the mare's womb and generously nourish it with "human vitality", that is, with blood.
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As a result, you will see a homunculus in all its glory - a perfect human child, which, if anything, will differ from the one born by a woman, it will be only in its tiny size. And what to do with it next? If you believe Paracelsus, then "he can be raised and raised, like any other child, until he gets older and acquires intelligence and intelligence and is not able to take care of himself."
You are smiling? Have you heard more stupidity? That is so, but still do not rush to boo Dr. Hohenheim. In the end, something more important grew out of this "delusional" venture of his - the method of fertilization "in vitro" ("in vitro"), thanks to which many people finally found a long-awaited child.
Prophetic Spirits
Be that as it may, the experience of Paracelsus, albeit unsuccessful, excited many minds, so that he had enough followers. In 1873, a book by a certain doctor Emil Bezetzny, The Sphinx, was published in Vienna, in which curious readers, if they so desired, could find several interesting descriptions of “spirits” - produced by Count Johann Ferdinand von Küffstein in Tyrol in 1775.
The source of these descriptions was the diary of Jasper Kammerer, who served as the count's honorary butler and assistant. It is thanks to his revelations that we now know for certain that von Küffstein had ten homunculi in his service, or, as he called them, "prophetic spirits" who lived in bottles filled with water.
These very "spirits" were created in five weeks of joint efforts of Count von Kuffstein himself and the Italian mystic Abbot Geloni. Each of the homunculi got their own name - one was called "king", the second - "queen", the third - "knight", the fourth - "monk", the fifth - "nun", sixth - "architect", the seventh - "miner", eighth - "seraphim". And the ninth and tenth "spirits" were known as blue and red.
The blue spirit is beautiful in its face
The bottles in which the homunculi were kept were sealed with bull bubbles and some sort of magical seal. I must say that the "spirits" were very small in stature - only 23 centimeters, which greatly upset their creator, von Kyuffstein.
Wanting them to grow faster, the Count placed them in even larger bottles. Then he buried them in a heap of horse dung and sprinkled it with some kind of liquid almost with his own hand every day. After all these procedures, the manure began to ferment and emit steam, as if warmed by an underground fire.
The count decided that it was time to take out the bottles into the light of God, he was eager to see how much his "crumbs" had grown. Well, it turned out that the homunculi really gained a lot in growth - they reached as much as 35 centimeters, in addition, the males grew beards and nails.
Abbot Geloni provided all the "spirits" with suitable clothing - according to their rank and dignity. Only the blue and red "spirit", due to the incorporealness of the garment, did not get it. They were generally invisible to the human eye. When the abbot struck the seal on the neck, the water in the bottle turned blue (or, accordingly, fancy), and the "perfume" showed faces. The face of the blue "spirit" was beautiful, while the face of the red "spirit", on the contrary, made a terrifying impression.
Conditions of detention
The count fed his charges every four days with a certain pink substance. Once a week, the bottles were filled with clean rainwater. The change of water was carried out very quickly, because when the "spirits" were in the air, they lost consciousness. The diet of the red "spirit" included a weekly sip of chicken blood, and the blood disappeared into the water immediately, without even being able to color it.
By the way, the water was changed for him with enviable regularity - every two or three days, and every time the bottle was opened, the water in it became dark, cloudy and spread the smell of rotten eggs. The blue "spirit" could only dream of such treatment - his bottle was always sealed, and therefore he did not eat anything and lived his whole life in the same "water environment".
A sad fate
Why did the count need homunculi? Everything is very simple. Bottles with "prophetic spirits" were brought into the room where the members of the Masonic lodge, whose chairman was von Kuffstein himself, met. During the meetings, the “spirits” predicted future events, and almost always their prophecies came true. They knew the most intimate, but each of them was only familiar with what related to his title: for example, "king" could talk about politics, "monk" - about religion, "miner" - about minerals. Only blue and red "spirits" knew everything.
By an accident, the vessel containing the "monk" fell to the floor and shattered. The poor homunculus died after several agonizing breaths, despite the Count's best efforts to save him. An attempt to do the same, undertaken by the count alone without the help of the abbot (who had left shortly before), led to failure. The count managed to create only a small creature, faintly resembling a leech, which soon died.
And the "king" did not loose his girdle at all: he ran out of his bottle, which was not properly sealed. When the butler found him, the "king" was sitting on top of the bottle containing the "queen" and tried to free her. The count ran to the call, after a short chase he caught the fugitive, who, due to a long stay in the air, was already close to fainting, and returned him to the bottle.
Apparently, in subsequent years, Count von Küffstein began to worry about saving his soul, the awakened conscience demanded more and more insistently that he get rid of the homunculi, which he did after a short hesitation.
And the impossible is possible
Whether this is true or not is no longer clear. However, the main thing is that the very idea of creating a person by nonsexual means has ceased to be blasphemous. In any case, in the 19th century, the German chemist Justus Liebig assumed that someday chemistry would certainly create organic substances in an artificial way. And Jacob Moleschott, a famous German physiologist and philosopher who lived in the same 19th century, went even further: he insisted that he was able to create conditions in which organic forms could be produced.
… In Rome, in one of the squares, today you can find a large stone on which some incomprehensible signs are applied. They say that these letters are nothing more than an encrypted formula for creating an artificial human - a homunculus.
A. Afanasyeva
“Interesting newspaper. Magic and mysticism №17 2012