'Life is a pure flame and we live by an invisible sun within us'.
Long before the singer Sting's 1981 hit song 'Invisible Sun', the image of an invisible sun can be found in both Renaissance alchemical literature as well as Thomas Browne's Discourse Urn-Burial. The startlingly original image occurs in the apotheosis of Browne's discourse of 1658 -
Long before the singer Sting's 1981 hit song 'Invisible Sun', the image of an invisible sun can be found in both Renaissance alchemical literature as well as Thomas Browne's Discourse Urn-Burial. The startlingly original image occurs in the apotheosis of Browne's discourse of 1658 -
'But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us'.
But it was in fact the Belgian alchemist Gerhard Dorn (circa 1530-84) who was the first to claim that within man there is an 'invisible sun', that is, a life-giving force, equivalent to the imago Dei, or image of God within man.
Dorn's astral imagery of an 'invisible sun' can be found in his Speculativa philosophia, which was reprinted in the door-stop sized tomes of the alchemical anthology known as the Theatrum Chemicum (vol.1 1604) an edition of which was once in Browne's library, and from where in all probability he 'borrowed' imagery of an invisible sun. [1]
C.G. Jung in his Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56) frequently cites Gerhard Dorn, who is in fact the most frequently quoted alchemical author by him.
Dorn's astral imagery of an 'invisible sun' can be found in his Speculativa philosophia, which was reprinted in the door-stop sized tomes of the alchemical anthology known as the Theatrum Chemicum (vol.1 1604) an edition of which was once in Browne's library, and from where in all probability he 'borrowed' imagery of an invisible sun. [1]
C.G. Jung in his Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56) frequently cites Gerhard Dorn, who is in fact the most frequently quoted alchemical author by him.
In his Speculativa Philosophia Dorn declares-
'The sun is invisible in men, but visible in the world, yet both are of one and the same sun'.
Carl Jung comments on Dorn's image, in his magnum opus Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56) -
'The sun is invisible in men, but visible in the world, yet both are of one and the same sun'.
Carl Jung comments on Dorn's image, in his magnum opus Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56) -
In Dorn's view there is in man an 'invisible sun', which he identifies with the Archeus. This sun is identical with the 'sun in the earth'. The invisible sun enkindles an elemental fire which consumes man's substance and reduces his body to the prima materia. [2]
In any event the source of what is essentially an 'imago dei', (image of God) continues to attract interest, along with Browne's esoteric associations in general, the physician-philosopher paradoxically to modern sensibilities being equally deeply-immersed in Hermeticism, alchemy and astrology as well as the 'new science' and the Baconian investigation into nature's properties.
Notes
[1] 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 25 no. 124
[2] C.G. Jung Mysterium Coniunctionis Paragraph 49
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