ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY 2<,7 



It seems to be useless to quote any more alchemistical 

 prescriptions of Paracelsus, or of any other alchemist. 

 To the uninitiated they are unintelligible ; while the 

 initiated, having the light of the spirit for his teacher, 



wUl show that such a thing is not necessarily impossible. Modern autho- 

 rities believe it to be not impossible. Moleschott thinks that we may 

 perhaps yet succeed in establishing conditions by which organic forms 

 can be generated ; Liebig is of the opinion that chemistry will yet 

 succeed in making organic substances by artificial means. Goethe says in 

 his " Faust " : — 



" And such a brain, that has the power to think, 

 Will in the future be produced by a thinker. " 

 Where no germ is present such a generation would certainly be impos- 

 sible ; but chickens can be artificially hatched out, and perhaps homunculi 

 may be developed. There seem to be some historic evidences that such 

 things have been accomplished, as the following account will show : — 



In a book called "The Sphinx," edited by Dr. Emil Besetzny, and pub- 

 lished at Vienna in 1873 ^y ^- Rosner (Tuchlauben, No. 22), we find some 

 interesting accounts in regard to a number of " spirits " generated by a 

 Joh. Ferd, Count of Kueffstein, in Tyrol, in the year 1 775. The sources 

 from which these accounts are taken consist in masonic manuscripts and 

 prints, but more especially in a diary kept by a certain Jas. Kammerer, 

 who acted in the capacity of butler and famulus to the said Count. There 

 were ten homunculi — or, as he calls them, " prophesying spirits " — pre- 

 served in strong bottles, such as are used to preserve fruit, and which were 

 filled with water ; and these " spirits " were the product of the labour of 

 the Count J. F. of Kueffstein (Kufstein), and of an Italian Mystic and 

 Rosicrucian, Abbe Geloni. They were made in the course of five weeks, 

 and consisted of a king, a queen, a knight, a monk, a nun, an architect, a 

 miner, a seraph, and finally of a blue and a red spirit. " The bottles were 

 closed with ox-bladders, and with a great magic seal (Solomon's seal ?). 

 The spirits swam about in those bottles, and were about one span long, 

 and the Count was very anxious that they should grow. They were 

 therefore buried under two cart-loads of horse-manure, and the pile daily 

 sprinkled with a certain liquor, prepared with great trouble by the two 

 adepts, and made out of some * very disgusting materials.' The pile of 

 manure began after such sprinklings to ferment and to steam as if heated 

 by a subterranean fire, and at least once every three days, when every- 

 thing was quiet, at the approach of the night, the two gentlemen would 

 leave the convent and go to pray and to fumigate at that pile of manure. 

 After the bottles were removed the ' spirits ' had grown to be each one 

 about one and a half span long, so that the bottles were almost too 

 small to contain them, and the male homunculi had come into possession 

 of heavy beards, and the nails of their fingers and toes had grown a great 

 deal. By some means the Abb^ Schiloni provided them with appropriate 

 clothing, each one according to his rank and dignity. In the bottle of the 

 red and in that of the blue spirit, however, there was nothing to be seen 



