Dr.

Karl Shuker - Grow Your Own Homunculus

http://selfdenition.org/magic/alchemy/dr-karl-sh...

Reproduction of a Blogspot article by Dr Karl Shuker

http://karlshuker.blogspot.mx/2012/01/grow-your-own-homunculus.html

W E D N E S D A Y, 4 J A N U A R Y
2012
GROW YOUR OWN HOMUNCULUS

Creating a homunculus via alchemy

Even today, the alchemists of medieval times remain
famous for their supposed (but unconrmed) ability to
transmute base metals into gold, using the fabled
philosopher's stone. Less well-remembered, yet even
more controversial, is their alleged articial creation
of tiny living humanoids - known as homunculi. Some
references to homunculi in alchemical texts featured

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them as symbolic rather than literal. For instance, the

fabled Philosopher's Stone is sometimes considered to
be a homunculus, with its creation no less than the
representation of the Great Work (Magnum Opus)
process, merely described in a dierent way.

symbolic

homunculus,

depicted

in

The

Pretiosissimum Donum Dei ('The Most Precious

Gift

of

God'),

alchemical

work

an

important

by

15th-Century

Georgius

Aurach

de

Argentina
In

September

1994,

published

an

forgotten

arcane

however,

engrossing
subject

review
in

Paul
of

Thompson

this

America's

largelyFate

Magazine that contained some remarkable revelations

regarding the alleged creation of living homunculi.

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Alchemists claimed that the culture medium required

for

the

growth

of

homunculi

contained

several

biological uids such as sputum or egg-white, and

sometimes inorganic uids like dew, but the two
substances most commonly cited as essential were
human blood and semen - both of which are widely
believed in primitive or non-scientic societies to
harbour the vital essence of life. Also required was
horse manure, whose heat-releasing properties were
utilised to incubate the medium.
Bearing in mind that all of the above ingredients are
readily

obtainable,

why

was

the

production

of

homunculi a skill restricted to alchemists? The answer

is that the recipes always seemed to contain one vital
ingredient that was exceptionally complex and diicult
to prepare.

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Paracelsus, painted by Quentin Massys

For example, in the homunculus recipe contained
within the treatise De Natura Rerum, written by
16th-Century

Swiss

scholar

Theophrastus

Paracelsus

(aka

and

alchemist

Philippus

von

Hohenheim), 'the arcanum of human blood' was

included - essential but esoteric, its constituents
known only to the alchemical fraternity. Here, just in
case any reader wishes to attempt it himself, is
Paracelsus's

description

of

how

to

create

homunculus:
"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed
cucurbite [glass vessel] with the highest putrefaction
of the venter equinus [horse manure] for 40 days, or
until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated,
which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in
some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless,
transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be
every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently
with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40
weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter
equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living
infant, having all the members of a child that is born
from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a
homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated
with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and
begins to display intelligence."
Equally obscure is 'animal tincture', listed in another
medieval recipe.

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The vaguely human-looking root of the mandragora or

mandrake plant Mandragora oicinarum inspired the
false belief during medieval times that it could be
utilised in the production of homunculi. During his
body's last convulsive spasms before death, a hanged
man will sometimes ejaculate semen, and it was said
that where this fell to the ground, a mandrake would
grow. If its anthropomorphic root was then pulled out
before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then
washed, and nurtured with milk, honey, and sometimes
human blood too, the root would subsequently develop
into a homunculus, which would guard and protect its
owner.

Mandrake with unrealistically humanoid root,

depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 15th-Century
manuscript
An even more exotic recipe for growing your own

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homunculus was cited during the 1700s by no less a

gure of learning than Dr David Christianus from
Germany's Giessen University. According to his claim,
an egg should be taken from a black hen, and a tiny
hole should be poked through its shell. A bean-sized
portion of the albumen then needed to be removed and
replaced by human semen, after which the egg's
opening should be sealed with the hymen from a virgin
maiden. Once this was accomplished, the egg must be
buried in dung during the rst day of the March lunar
cycle. After 30 days, a homunculus should emerge
from the egg, and as long as its owner provided it with
a regular diet of earthworms and lavender seeds it
would protect him and assist him in all of his
endeavours.
Notwithstanding the inherent diiculties in obtaining
the necessary ingredients and in performing the
intricate

series

of

processes

required,

records

detailing the successful culturing of homunculi do

exist. An extraordinary specimen grown from distilled
human blood and able to emit beams of red light was
reputedly cultured and exhibited at the court of
France's King Louis XIV by royal physician Dr Borel.

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Dr. Karl Shuker - Grow Your Own Homunculus

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Homunculi feature in many contemporary novels

including Peter Ackroyd's The House of Doctor
Dee(1993),

in

Elizabethan

which

magus

he

portrays

John

Dee

real-life

successfully

creating a homunculus
As

fully

documented

in

Dr

Emil

Besetzny's

book Sphinx (1873), however, the most outstanding

case must surely be the creation of ten living
homunculi in a mere ve weeks, accomplished by two
Austrian alchemists from the late 16th Century - Count
Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein and Abb Geloni.
Like all homunculi, they were grown in sealed jars
(homunculi die if exposed for any considerable period
to the air), lled with water and eventually buried
under heaps of manure. These were treated (as usual)
with some special, but unspecied, solution, and
doubled the size of eight of the homunculi, producing a
series of 1-ft-tall specimens.
No two homunculi looked the same, and to each was
xed an identity. Eight were physical manikins, known
respectively as the king, queen, knight, monk, nun,
seraph, miner, and architect, and clothes pertinent to
their identities were manufactured for them. Each of
these eight homunculi was fed with special pink

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tablets every 3-4 days, and their water was changed

once a week. On at least one occasion, the 'king'
homunculus escaped from his jar, and was earnestly
trying to remove the seal on the jar housing the
'queen' when he was spotted by Count Kufstein's
butler. Chased by Kufstein and the butler, the 'king'
soon fainted from exposure to the air, and was put
back inside his own receptacle.
The remaining two homunculi were non-corporeal, and
only appeared when Geloni tapped their jars and
chanted certain magical words. A face would then
materialise in each of them; moreover, in one the
liquid would turn blue, in the other it would turn red.
The red 'spirit' homunculus was fed on blood, and its
water was changed every 2-3 days, but the blue 'spirit'
homunculus was never fed and its water was never
changed.
All ten homunculi would answer questions concerning
future events, invariably predicting correctly the
outcomes, and they were observed by many people.
These included some very notable personages, like
Count Franz Josef von Thun and Count Max Lamberg.
Surely, however, such bizarre man-made entities could
not really have existed - or could they?
I cannot help but wonder whether these particular
homunculi were nothing more than large amphibians
brought back by travellers from the tropics. One likely
candidate is the African clawed toad Xenopus laevis, a
common species vaguely humanoid in shape, which
lives permanently in water - explaining why the 'king'
fainted soon after escaping from its jar?

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Homunculi

http://selfdenition.org/magic/alchemy/dr-karl-sh...

created

from

blood,

or

merely

specimens of the African clawed toad (like this

one)? (Michael Linnenbach/Wikipedia)
No-one knows what happened to nine of the homunculi
after

Geloni

and

Kufstein

ultimately

went

their

separate ways. However, an event occurred that may

actually have left behind some tangible evidence of the
tenth. Once, the jar containing the 'monk' homunculus
was accidentally dropped, smashing as it hit the oor
and killing its humanoid inhabitant. His body was
afterwards

buried

in

the

grounds

of

Kufstein's

Tyrolean residence - but where is this today? If only

we knew its locality, the soil around it could be sifted,
as suggested by Paul Thompson - and who knows what
remains might be found?
One thing is certain. If a 12-in-long skeleton is ever

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found under these circumstances, Thompson would be

very interested to learn more about it - and so would I.

This article is extracted and expanded from the

homunculus section of my book The Unexplained:
An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and
Paranormal Mysteries (Carlton: London, 1996).
-- Dr Karl Shuker
(Available at Amazon.Com)

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