Images of Alchemy: Nigredo, Putreficatio

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on January 12, 2012

from Aurei Velleris, (Hamburg: bei Christian Liebezeit, in der St. Joh. Kirch, 1708)

The Black Ravenshead

That is the black and stinking earth of the wise, wherein awaken worms. There one swallows the other; there one thing destroyed is the other thing born. Then this earth is at the bottom of the vessel, and wholly dissolves itself in the water as before.

Here it is asked how long it takes to turn the stone black, and what the sign is of the right decomposition. I answer: when the black color appears, then is the same darkness a certain sign of the right putrefaction and decomposition of the stone, but when the darkness wholly disappears, then is it a sign that the stone has wholly decomposed and putrefied.

The Second Dream of Gilgamesh: The Axeman Cometh

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on August 5, 2011



Enkidu and Gilgamesh



A second time Gilgamesh said to his mother:

Mother, I have had another dream:

At the gate of my marital chamber there lay an axe,
and people had collected about it.
The Land of Uruk was standing around it,
the whole land had assembled about it,
the populace was thronging around it.
I laid it down at your feet,
I loved it and embraced it as a wife,
and you made it compete with me.

The mother of Gilgamesh, the wise, all-knowing, said to her son;
Rimat-Ninsun, the wise, all-knowing, said to Gilgamesh:
The axe that you saw (is) a man.
(that) you love him and embrace as a wife,
but (that) I have compete with you.
There will come to you a mighty man,
a comrade who saves his friend–
he is the mightiest in the land, he is strongest,
he is as mighty as the meteorite of Anu!”

Gilgamesh spoke to his mother saying:
“”By the command of Enlil, the Great Counselor, so may it to pass!
“May I have a friend and adviser, a friend and adviser may I have!
“You have interpreted for me the dreams about him!”
After the harlot recounted the dreams of Gilgamesh to Enkidu
the two of them made love.










The First Recorded Dream: The Dream of Gilgamesh

by Stephen Parker, Ph.D (Article Selection and Commentary) on August 4, 2011








Gilgamesh got up and revealed the dream, saying to his mother:

Mother, I had a dream last night.

Stars of the sky appeared, and some kind of meteorite of Anu fell next to me.

I tried to lift it but it was too mighty for me, I tried to turn it over but I could not budge it.

The Land of Uruk was standing around it, the whole land had assembled about it, the populace was thronging around it, the Men clustered about it, and kissed its feet as if it were a little baby.

I loved it and embraced it as a wife.

I laid it down at your feet, and you made it compete with me.


Commentary: Marie Louise Von Franz

This dream is about forty-six hundred years old. Still today we can find modern parallels for the language of the unconscious has changed much less than the language of human consciousness. So if we interpret this dream from a modern stand-point we could say that up to the moment before the star fell upon Gilgamesh, he fulfilled the collective role of a king. He was the hero-king. He is typical of a man who ambitiously follows a collective pattern. Nowadays, he might be a great politician or a movie star — a man who has followed up certain collective alleys and reached a goal.

Looked at from within, such a person reacts in a very collective way fulfilling a collective role of power. They are generally not very individual.The star, on the contrary, represents his uniqueness — every soul has one star in the heaven. We can say that up to the appearance of the star Gilgamesh, with all his collective power and achievement, had not done anything unique. On the contrary, he had only fulfilled the typical pattern of the hero-king. The, probably, about the middle of life (because that is where it most frequently occurs), something changes.

While he is walking around among his subjects, proud of his own power position, a star falls from the sky onto his back. It turns out to be a very heavy load. That is the moment when his unique destiny befalls him, literally falls on his back. That means that just as Christ had to carry his cross, Gilgamesh now has to carry the burden of having to become the unique, chosen individual, a task which he as avoided by being an ambitious, collective man.


The Way of the Dream
Pages 69- 70.





Source of Text
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab1.htm




Source of Image

http://www.historywiz.com/galleries/gilgameshking.htm










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