Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS

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Or perhaps it is yet to be discovered.

Except for the few most enlightened alchemists, most medieval adepts believed that they could actually turn lead into gold. Literature shows how these frustrated would-be gold makers became entangled in the subterranean labyrinth of fantasies, hallucinations, visions, and dreams. But what seemed to be the greatest mistake of these alchemical sorcerer's apprentices became their greatest achievement: in the darkness of all these dead ends, the "Sons of Hermes" discovered, through their activated imagination, the unconscious.

C.G. Jung realized that many of his clients' dreams and states of consciousness looked strikingly similar to the descriptions in alchemical texts. As a result, he came to believe that knowledge of alchemy could be used to better understand the processes of psychological and spiritual transformation in psychotherapy.

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In these imaginations, the basic archetype of the anima played a role that should not be underestimated. One can speculate whether this could have influenced the image design in Quire 13, for example.With the conspicuous mass of sole representations of naked women, one could assume that it is a projection surface of the illustrator.

Even the marvelous "nymphs and dryads" are "anima projections, if they are male statements."

Quote from C.G. Jung on Wikipedia