Proteus (alchemy)
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In alchemy, the Greek god Proteus has been often used as the symbol of the "first matter" (prima materia).
The German alchemist Heinrich Khunrath wrote of the shape-changing sea-god who, because of his relationship to the sea, is both a symbol of the unconscious as well as the perfection of the art. Alluding to the scintilla, the spark from "the light of nature" and symbol of the anima mundi, Khunrath in Gnostic vein stated —
- "our Catholick Mercury, by virtue of his universal fiery spark of the light of nature, is beyond doubt Proteus, the sea god of the ancient pagan sages, who hath the key to the sea and ....power over all things".
(from "Von hyleanischen Chaos" cited in Jung C.W. vol.14:50)
In his discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) Sir Thomas Browne queries —
- Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he settled himself in the midst of his Sea-Monsters, doth place them out by fives?
The poet John Milton was also aware of the association of Proteus with the Hermetic art. In Paradise Lost (Book 3 line 603) he wrote —
- Though by their Power Art they bind Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound
- In various shapes old Proteus from the Sea
In modern times the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung defined the mythological figure of Proteus as a personification of the unconscious, who, because of his gift of prophecy and shape-changing has much in common with the central but elusive figure of alchemy, Mercurius. As Jung recognised —
- 'Mercurius was their (the alchemists) favourite name for that being which changed himself, during the work, from the prima materia into the perfected lapis philosophorum ' (C.W. Vol. 14 para.565)
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