i have been obsessed with this topic for
far too long ever since i first heard of
a homunculus about five or six years ago
the concept has been floating around in
my mind
in fact two of our original tale foundry
short stories
the broken glass circus and faith in the
misbegotten
both feature one in some capacity if you
look for it
i've been interested and aware but never
really driven
to figure out what a homunculus actually
is
last year i finally came across a story
that made me want to
homunculus by james blaylock is one of
the weirdest books
i've ever read between the zeppelins and
puzzle boxes and reanimated corpses and
victorian spaceships
it's very easy to feel a little dazed by
the whole experience
honestly it's a riot but behind
everything
there's the consistent thread of the
homunculus
the much sought-after little man in the
glass jar whose very presence
is powerful enough to change the fates
of the characters who come across it
even mine apparently i'm making this
video now aren't i
but it's a happy coincidence because i
think it's long past time i dug into
this anyway
it may not be the most important part of
the tale
but it's certainly one of the more
interesting bits
a big thanks to campfire writing and
world building software for making this
video possible
and a big thanks to our patreon
supporters as well
we love you as bizarre
and esoteric as the topic may seem you
might
actually be more familiar with it than
you think homunculi have not been
altogether forgotten by modern media
in the anime fullmetal alchemist they're
the principal antagonists
across the internet they've been the
subject of endless pseudo-scientific
hoaxes
they even show up in places as far flung
as the ancient mmorpg
runescape the general understanding
seems to be that they're artificial
humanoids created through magic
an interesting concept to be sure but
this
is definitely one of those scenarios
where fact is far
stranger than fiction the term
homunculus is latin for
little person but if we look at the
period of time during which people
started using that term the definitions
get
quite a bit more inventive in his book
onomastica 2
the 16th century scholar michael toxides
described monkeyli
as little men or images created in
similarity to humans
possessing in itself the invisible man
deriving from the stars
the invisible man deriving from the
stars
i guess that probably means something
about spiritual purity
it's hard to tell with these cryptical
texts sometimes
but you see what i mean instantly
strange carl jung believed that the
first ever example of homunculi appeared
in a third century greek text called
visions of zosimos which chronicles the
dream journey of an alchemist
along the way he encounters several
creatures which he refers to as
anthroparians which again means
something akin to
small humans on one occasion in
particular
a character in the story quote melts
into the opposite of himself
into a mutilated anthropareon again
the concept of a homunculus being
somehow reflective of the human soul
only this time in a bad way also a far
more intimate way
this version of the homunculus seems to
be a part of you which
under the right circumstances can be
revealed
thinking in a very similar vein 17th
century scholars thought of homunculi as
something
altogether more ridiculous mostly
because they treated it like
actual science instead of fantasy
spermists like nicholas hartsoker
yes spermist was an actual occupation
apparently
believed in what they called the theory
of pre-formation
which posited that every living thing
that will ever be
already exists just at so minute a scale
as to be imperceptible to the naked eye
these complete pre-formed nanoscopic
individuals were known either as
homunculi
or animal cules depending on whether
they would become a person
or an animal get them into the right
environment such as a womb or an
appropriate alchemical apparatus
and slowly they grow into more familiar
full-scale life-forms but the first
known appearance of the homunculus by
name
appeared in the works of the 16th
century scholar paracelsus
king gives us by far the most complete
picture
throughout his writings he describes a
great variety of homunculi
and practices surrounding them some of
the ideas appear to be very sporadic
and at times even contradictory but he
does provide a useful taxonomy
particularly in his works de-homunculus
at monstrous vomlogan
and a naturam according to him there are
three primary types of homunculi
first we have the more innocuous magical
homunculus
which is more of a symbol than anything
he describes it as a doll
or a moment made from earth wax or metal
as a simulacra of a living person
it can then be used magically to protect
or harm that person
much like a voodoo doll there is a
variety of applications for this
but suffice it to say he saw this as a
very spiritual
thing a good way to manipulate one's own
soul in the physical space
next more in line with pre-formation
theory and more mythological sounding by
a mile
we have the pathological homunculus
these
are monsters think of a basilisk or a
cockatrice and you're on the right track
they're produced through what paracelsus
viewed as an unnatural or
impure exposure of human seed
essentially if it ends up anywhere other
than the uterus or the appropriate
alchemical apparatus
it will turn into a monster quote
whatever the air touches is no longer
seed but a material of homunculus
and finally the one you've probably been
waiting for and the one that initially
drew me to this topic all those years
ago
the alchemical homunculus the artificial
little person
in the glass jar this is where
things get really weird let me read you
an excerpt from one of paracelsus's
books
the process for creating a homunculus
this way requires
and i quote that the sperm of a man be
putrified by itself in a sealed cucurbit
for 40 days
with the highest degree of putrefaction
in a horse's womb
or at least so long that it comes to
life and moves itself
and stirs which is easily observed
after this time it will look somewhat
like a man
but transparent without a body if
after this it be fed wisely on the
arcanum of human blood
and be nourished for 40 weeks and kept
in the even temperature of a horse's
womb
a living human child grows there from
with all its members like another child
which is born of a woman but much
smaller
gross but for its absolute weirdness
also fascinating this quote was actually
my first ever exposure to the homunculus
and you can probably see why i was
disturbed and mystified enough for it to
remain
in my head for so long surprisingly
this wasn't just some weird thing
paracelsus came up with
plenty of his contemporaries described
such processes
and if you look back to ancient greece
you find something strikingly similar
bugonia was a practice that sought to
spontaneously generate new life from the
corpses of animals
very commonly bees or wasps from cow
carcasses
you'd prepare the vessel through various
means such as filling it with things
like honey and flowers then plugging up
all the orifices
and then you'd leave the treated corpse
in a dark sealed place for some time
eventually when you open it back up tada
there will be new life
plato's book of the cow describes such a
process but
used to produce a rational animal from
human sperm
rather than something like bees from
honey equally gross
even a touch more brutal depending on
your outlook but also
equally fascinating thankfully not
every alchemist was willing to put
animals in harm's way to achieve this
the 9th century persian practitioner of
the art jabir
disavowed these practices calling the
homunculi they produced
demonic so in his writings he provides
an alternative approach
according to him if you seal a container
of human seed into a large
metal rotating sphere you will simulate
the effect of the crystalline spheres
that rotate about the earth itself
and produce a homunculus with a small
caveat
yours won't be evil so it will have the
face of a boy or a girl
naturally i assume by this he means that
it will be more lifelike and human than
other homunculi
but again cryptic old texts so
we have some methods we have some
definitions we have a vague idea of what
this thing
is now the question is why
what is there to gain from all of this
weirdness
in james blaylock's book the homunculus
is a creature from the stars
sought for its strange energies and
abilities
in its presence scientists and engineers
are able to achieve
feats they never would have otherwise
such as successfully reanimating the
dead
in actual history i imagine a lot of
people dreamt of creating homunculi for
the same reason
power apparently the first century
religious figure simon magus boasted of
his
own type of homunculus which he said not
only made him like
god but more powerful than god because
he created his from
air which quote was a thing more
difficult than creating him of earth
in the 18th century with the help of the
italian cleric abe jalani
count johann ferdinand von kufstein was
rumored to have created 10 homunculi
with the ability to see the future
he kept them in glass containers at his
masonic lodge in vienna
where dignitaries and people of renown
would visit to see them
he called them the scrying ghosts
in plato's book of the cow which i
mentioned a little earlier the
homunculus you're instructed to create
is supposedly capable of prophecy
able to tell its creator of all things
that are absent
whatever that means and if you vivisect
it you can get your hands on all kinds
of mystical components
including fluid that will allow you to
walk on water
so a lot of potential for power here if
you're into that
but homunculi have also historically
been seen as beings of deep spiritual
significance too
some people appreciated the concept not
because they had anything to gain in
concrete terms
but because they found that the idea
enriched their souls or gave voice to
their ideals
that spermist i mentioned earlier
nicholas heartsoker
when it was pointed out to him that
there was a ridiculous expansiveness to
his pre-formation theory
that if everyone existed already
pre-formed
then every person with reproductive
organs would technically have
infinite pre-formed people inside of
them he
actually embraced the idea he liked how
well that clicked with the christian
concept of the original sin
if that was the case then technically
everyone was there for adam's
transgression
so in his view the perdition of the
entire species would make sense
another case of a very spiritually
significant perception of the homunculus
comes in the second part of johann
wolfgang vongota's famous story
thoustis where a homunculus is depicted
as a being of pure spirit
born into a mortal form a contrast to
faust's quest
to shed his mortal form and become a
being of pure spirit
even paracelsus himself viewed the
homunculus in a shockingly positive
light
despite the gruesome manner in which he
suggested to make it
he said that it was in no way repugnant
to god
or nature he felt it was part of what he
called the christian
majia naturales which is a type of magic
based on faith
and imagination all in all a far cry
from the little alien man in the bottle
blaylock describes
but a powerful symbol and an interesting
sort of magic
all the same i'm curious to see what all
of you creatives will make of these
ideas in your own work
if anything be sure to share your ideas
in the comments
of course if you want to experiment with
this on a slightly larger scale
it's going to require a lot of intuition
but also
a lot of world building as well and it's
really easy for things to get lost in
the shuffle as you go
so to make things just a touch easier on
you
i recommend using campfire blaze
campfire blaze is a browser-based suite
of tools to help you keep your writing
organized
collaborate with friends in real time or
work by yourself to flesh out every
facet of your story
develop your manuscript and blaze's word
processor create characters design your
plot
and build your world to your heart's
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need
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with campfire blaze before we wrap up
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thank you so much and
that's it for this video there's usually
a few weeks between uploads
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meantime come join our community
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hope to see you there until then thanks
for watching
and keep making stuff up i'll see you
next time bye
[Music]
you