Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

[RenegadeHealer]

Interesting that the ideas of Jung got in there. I sometimes wonder if a Jungian type concept could be involved in the VMS.

What scholar looked at the VMs in recent years and remarked that the imagery looked strikingly "Paracelsan"? He was quick to add that this couldn't be so, since Paracelsus was not contemporary with its creation. I want to say it was either Alain Touwaide or Jurgen Hermes, but I'll look it up and add it to this post when I get the chance.

I think despite the obvious anachronism of naming Paracelsus specifically, whoever said that might have been onto something. I think it's highly possible the author[s?] of the VMs and Paracelsus share common, possibly quite strong and proximal, influences. I think looking at the circles Paracelsus' teachers ran in, and the lineage of the major ideas he wrote about, might be a very promising lead. Without even delving into this, though, I suspect a limiting factor might be the survival (or rather, lack thereof) of any full books from any of these lineages. This is especially true in light of the fact that alchemical works of both natural law (science) and mysticism were controversial, and I can only imagine, frequent casualties of book-burnings.

What I'm getting at is this: if we came to find the VMs represents a missing link in the chain of Classical Greek natural philosophical and mystical ideas borrowed back from the peoples of the Middle East, that would be nothing short of earth-shattering to philologists. But it would also ratchet up the heartache of wondering what the earlier links in this chain, which are likely gone for good, might have looked like.

I hope that someday, with efforts like Project Gutenburg and Google Books, an unbroken chain of spiritual and natural philosophical ideas can be traced definitively all the way back to the beginnings of written language in the Fertile Crescent, and hint at a vast body of disseminated orally transmitted wisdom that could stretch deep into prehistory. But I also understand this is quite a pipe dream, and the Dark Ages in the Classical World might just pose the first of many unbridgeable gaps.

As for Carl Jung, he's perhaps best known for the idea that humanity has told and retold the same important stories over generations since its beginnings, as a reflection of our common psychology, and the fact that we all face the same basic questions and challenges throughout life. And like his teacher Sigmund Freud, Jung argued that this process of meaning-making-by-storytelling was largely unconscious and spontaneous. Fascinating stuff.