Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that inhabited northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons of time that have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks that live to-day. Down through the countless centuries the living stream has carved its structural habitations in much the same form. The...

Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts offers a psychoanalytic, philologically alert reading of alchemical, Rosicrucian, and occult texts, with The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz as centerpiece. Silberer correlates dream-work processes—condensation, displacement, dramatization—with esoteric allegory and distinguishes material, functional, and anagogic meanings. In lucid, case-informed prose, he reframes alchemy as inner transformation rather than laboratory craft and an...

Herbert Silberer's *Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts* is a pioneering study of the psychological meanings concealed within alchemical texts, initiatory rites, mystical narratives, and occult imagery. Rather than treating these materials merely as historical curiosities or literal accounts of supernatural practice, Silberer reads them as symbolic dramas of psychic transformation, relating their motifs to dreams, moral struggle, spiritual aspiration, and the integration of the...

Herbert Silberer's main focus in "Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism" was to explore the relationship between mysticism, dreams, and the unconscious mind. He examined the symbolism present in mystical experiences, dreams, and various forms of religious and esoteric practices, seeking to understand the underlying psychological mechanisms behind them.The book is divided into two main parts:Part I - Mysticism: In this section, Silberer delves into the nature of mysticism and its manifest...

Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that inhabited northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons of time that have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks that live to-day. Down through the countless centuries the living stream has carved its structural habitations in much the same form. The...

A reading of alchemical images as psychology: the furnace, the marriage of sun and moon, the death and washing of the king. Silberer was one of the early Vienna circle around Freud, and this book was among Jung's sources; Freud's coldness towards him is part of an unhappy story that ended badly. This edition adds 60 plates of painting, among them works by Odilon Redon, Franciabigio and Moroni, plus three illustrations restored and coloured, in Smith Ely Jelliffe's translation.

Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts is a learned psychoanalytic inquiry into esoteric images, especially alchemical, Rosicrucian, Masonic, and mystical motifs, read as symbolic expressions of inner psychic transformation. Silberer combines close textual interpretation with comparative mythology and early depth psychology, moving between allegory, dream analysis, and spiritual hermeneutics. Its style is dense, analytic, and speculative, situated at the intersection of fin-de-siè...

Herbert Silberer’s Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (1917) explores the deeper meanings behind alchemical texts, Rosicrucian allegories, and mystical traditions, arguing that these works are not simply about chemical experiments but are symbolic accounts of inner transformation. Using both Freudian psychoanalysis and spiritual interpretation, Silberer demonstrates how myths, dreams, and esoteric emblems express unconscious drives as well as higher religious aspirati...

In "Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts," Herbert Silberer offers a profound exploration of the esoteric symbols and metaphors found within alchemical texts and occult practices. Through a meticulous analysis intertwining psychology and mysticism, Silberer unveils the intricate connections between the spiritual transformation represented in alchemical traditions and the deeper layers of human consciousness. His literary style is rich and nuanced, blending rigorous scholarship w...

Charles Corliss presents, for the first time, the complete English translation of Herbert Silberer’s work on dreams, Der Traum: Einführung in die Traumpsychologie. Based on lectures delivered at the majestic Urania Star Observatory in Vienna in 1918, Der Traum was a wide-ranging, accessible introduction to the meaning of dreams, with examples from Silberer’s practice providing a rich source of illustration. One hundred years after the work was first published in Silberer’...

CONTENTSTranslator's PrefacePart I. The Parable.Section I. The Parable.Section II. Dream And Myth Interpretation.Part II. Analytic Part.Section I. Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of The Parable.Section II. Alchemy.Section III. The Hermetic Art.Section IV. Rosicrucianism And Freemasonry.Section V. The Problem Of Multiple Interpretation.Part III. Synthetic Part.Section I. Introversion And Regenerati...

"Prominent among the stones of a fireplace in my country den, one large rounded giant stands out. It was bourne by the glacial streams from a more northern resting place and is marked by a fossil of a mollusk that inhabited northern seas many million years ago. Yet in spite of the eons of time that have passed it can be compared with specimens of mollusks that live to-day. Down through the countless centuries the living stream has carved its structural habitations in much the same form. Th...