I need everything you know about homunculi?

Question

I have developed a deep interest in homunculi. If you know anything about them or have any sites that would help i would be eternally great full. I would also appreciate any information about famous alchemists and the likes. Any topics that relate to this, anything at all. Please and thank you.

Answer 1

In Carl Jung's studies of Alchemy, he believed the first record of a homunculus in alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of Zosimos, written in the third century AD, although the actual word "homunculus" was never used. In the visions, Zosimos mentions encountering a man who impales him with a sword, and then undergoes "unendurable torment," his eyes become blood, he spews forth his flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion, and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into himself," which is a rather grotesque personification of the ouroboros, the dragon that bites its own tail, which represents the dyophysite nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man, the Leaden Man, and so forth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit themselves to unendurable torment" and undergo alchemical transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.[1]

There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant involved the use of the mandrake. Popular belief held that this plant grew where s***n ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed" with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and protect its owner. Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus at the University of Giessen during the 18th century, was to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human s***n, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender seeds and earthworms.

The idea of the homunculus has proven to be fruitful inspiration. Homunculi can be found in centuries' worth of literature. These literary references have spawned references in modern times in film, animation, video and card games.

    * One of the very earliest literary references to the homunculus which also hints of its origination occurs in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in which the author states-

    I am not of Paracelsus minde that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction. ..., (Part 1:36)

19th century engraving of Goethe's Faust and Homunculus

19th century engraving of Goethe's Faust and Homunculus

    * The alchemical connection also occurs in the German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's rendition of Faust, Part 2 which has that famed sorcerer's former student, Wagner, create a homunculus, who then carries out extended conversations with Mephistopheles.

    * In his source study of Englishwoman Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, Prof. Radu Florescu notes that her father, William Godwin, and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley were both quite familiar with the lives and works of alchemists like Paracelsus and others. Florescu also suggests that Johann Conrad Dippel, an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein whom he believes may have been the inspiration for Dr. Frankenstein, was a student of Dr. David Christianus.

    * In Laurence Sterne´s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Volume I, Chapter II , there is a reference to the homunculus: "(...) the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception."

    * Writing on the purely superficial westernization of Russian intellectuals in his travel journalism Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, Dostoevsky writes: 'There is no soil, we say, and no people, nationality is nothing but a certain system of taxation, the soul is a tabula rasa, a small piece of wax out of which you can readily mould a real man, a world man or a homunculus – all that must be done is to apply the fruits of European civilisation and read two or three books’

[edit] Contemporary literary representations

    * In the twentieth century Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, has several references to a homunculus, particularly detailed in a chapter dealing with druidic rites performed at a party in the country estate (castle) of a wealthy Rosicrucian. After a series of sensually stimulating occult acts are played out for the small audience, several homunculi appear to be created, but the main character, Casaubon, cannot decide if they are wax or indeed authentic magic.

    * German horror writer Hanns Heinz Ewers used the mandrake method for creating a homunculus as the inspiration for his 1911 novel Alraune, in which a prostitute is impregnated with s***n from a hanged murderer to create a woman devoid of morals or conscience. Several cinematic adaptations of Alraune have been made over the years, the most recent in 1952 with Erich von Stroheim. The 1995 film Species also appears to draw some inspiration from this variation on the homunculus legend.

    * In her tribute to the painter Jules Pascin, English poet Mina Loy penned the following stanza:

"Silence bleeds/ from his slashed wrists/ the dim homunculus/ within/ cries for the unbirth"

    * The English 'Prince of Story Tellers' Dennis Wheatley's novel 'The Satanist' Hutchinson 1960. As part of the plot a Satanist using Homunculus as part of his Occult ritual to create air breathing creatures. The Homunculus were created and stored in large fluid filled jars from a previous ritual. The ultimate transformation required a 21-year-old virgin to be sacrificed and her blood fed to the Homunculus. The virgin had previously been christened to Satan at birth by her father for occult favours and riches, unknown to herself. This book reflects Dennis Wheatley's remarkable detail for Occult happenings which includes a warning for those who might dabble in this area.

    * In English novelist W. Somerset Maugham's 1908 work The Magician, Oliver Haddo, a character based on British occultist Aleister Crowley, is obsessed with the creation of homunculi.

    * In English novelist Peter Ackroyd's novel The House of Doctor Dee, John Dee, the Elizabethean mathematician, astrologer, philosopher and magus, attempts and succeeds in creating a homunculus.

    * American author David H. Keller, M.D., wrote two pieces featuring homunculi. One was a short story, "A Twentieth-Century Homunculus," published in Amazing Stories in 1930, which describes the creation of homunculi on an industrial scale by a pair of misogynists. In the other, a novel called The Homunculus, published in 1949 by Prime Press of Philadelphia, retired Colonel Horatio Bumble creates such a being.

    * Also examining the misogynistic tendencies of the creators of homunculi, Swedish novelist Sven Delblanc lampoons both his homunculus' creator and the Cold War industrial-military complexes of the Soviet Union and NATO in his novel The Homunculus: A Magic Tale.

    * A homunculus called Twigleg is one of the main characters of the 1997 children's novel Dragon Rider by German author Cornelia Funke. This homunculus is created by combining artificial ingredients and a small living creature (probably a small insect or spider). He is also referred to as a "manikin".

    * In Jane R Goodall's 2004 mystery novel "The Walkers" (Hodder Headline ISBN 0-7336-1897-9), ancient secrets pertaining to the creation of the alchemical homunculus are central to a plot involving murders based on Hogarth's prints and set in "Swinging London". The creation of homunculi, together with the search for the philosopher's stone, was a central aim of alchemy. Implicit in the novel is the uneasy speculation that the original experiment succeeded and this evil being may indeed move through history.

    * In Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses "homunculus" is used to describe the cuchillero who tries to murder John Grady Cole in the prison.

    * In Sean Williams' Books of the Cataclysm one of the central characters is a homunculus containing the consciousnesses of the Mirror Twins Seth & Hadrian Callisto.

    * In "Doctor Illuminatus" (Alchemist's Son Trilogy) by Martin Booth, Pierre de Loudéac persists to create a homunculus and succeeds. Also mentioned in the sequel "Soul Stealer". Martin Booth passed away before the trilogy was completed.

    * In Hugh Paxton's 2006 novel Homunculus (MacMillan New Writing ISBN-13: 978-0230007369), alchemy is harnessed for modern military purposes. Homunculi created from human body parts and powered by moonshine are used as bioweapons in war-torn Sierra Leone.

    * In Nobel Prize winner Johannes Vilhelm Jensen's novel The Fall of the King (published in Danish 1900-01), a homunculus is featured. It is eventually burned at the stake.

    * In James P. Blaylock's novel Homunculus, published in 1986, a homunculus is much sought after by several of the book's characters because of its powerful magical abilities.

    * In Judd Trichter's online story, "Praise Monkey," a homunculus literally and symbolically becomes the prime mover behind a government employee's career advancement.

[edit] Film and pop culture

[edit] Film, Television and Literature

    * The homunculus' likely first appearance in film was the six-part 1916 German serial  

Answer 2

The only homunculus I know of is the Golem of Prague.

I think he was meant to have been made by a jew so maybe you could find the story in a yiddish folklore book or something.

Answer 3

homunculi...as in that which is in our nervous system?

Just google the subject...I'm sure you'll find a ton of information.

Legs are more laterally (and posteriorly) placed in our brain...face and arms more medially (and superiorly).  Some parts of our brain are devoted more whereas some are devoted less to the parts of our body and that corresponds with having increased motor/sensory information that can be processed or picked up by them.

Answer 4

The word is grateful, not great full. Everything I know about homunculi is - they are fictitious, non-existent.

Answer 5

Isaac Newton is probably the most famous alchemist.  Sure, he wasn't famous for his alchemy, but according to a show I just watched he spent more time writing about alchemy than he did on science and mathematics combined.  It goes to show how a stubborn adherence to the unsubstantiated can be a real time waster.