In the Body there is Soul and Spirit. The Sages say truly That two animals are in this forest: One glorious, beautiful, and swift, A great and strong deer; The other an unicorn. They are concealed in the forest, But happy shall that man be called Who shall snare and capture them. The Masters show you here clearly That in all places These two animals wander about in forests (But know that the forest is but one). If we apply the parable to our Art, We shall call the forest the Body. That will be rightly and truly said. The unicorn will be the Spirit at all times. The deer desires no other name But that of the Soul; which name no man shall take away from it. He that knows how to tame and master them by Art, To couple them together, And to lead them in and out of the forest, May justly be called a Master. For we rightly judge That he has attained the golden flesh, And may triumph everywhere; Nay, he may bear rule over great Augustus. — Book Of Lambspring by Nicholas Barnaud Delphinas
"That in the forest are hidden a deer and an unicorn. In the Body there is Soul and Spirit."
"The Sages say truly That two animals are in this forest: One glorious, beautiful, and swift, A great and strong deer; The other an unicorn. They are concealed in the forest, But happy shall that man be called Who shall snare and capture them. The Masters shew you here clearly That in all places These two animals wander about in forests (But know that the forest is but one). If we apply the parable to our Art, We shall call the forest the Body. That will be rightly and truly said. The unicorn will be the Spirit at all times. The deer desires no other name But that of the Soul; which name no man shall take away from it. He that knows how to tame and master them by Art, To couple them together, And to lead them in and out of the forest, May justly be called a Master. For we rightly judge That he has attained the golden flesh."
The Unicorn
"I have chosen the example of the unicorn in order to show how the symbolism of Mercurius is intermingled with the traditions of pagan Gnosticism and of the Church [...] The virgin represents his passive, feminine aspect, while the unicorn or the lion illustrates the wild, rampant, masculine, penetrating force of the spiritus mercurialis. Since the symbol of the unicorn as an allegory of Christ and of the Holy Ghost was current all through the Middle Ages, the connection between them was certainly known to the alchemists, so that there can be no question that Ripley had in his mind, when he used this symbol, the affinity, indeed the identity, of Mercurius with Christ."
- Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
"Basilius the Great, one of the old Fathers of the church, and St. Ambrose, St. Augustine's teacher, belonging also to the fourth century, used the rhinoceros as an analogy of God. They said that God was like a rhinoceros because of his great strength. That is the origin of the legend of the unicorn in the lap of the virgin, as a symbol of the Holy Ghost and the immaculate conception.8 One finds that symbolism on many ancient tapestries; and the unicorn was also wounded in the side by the spear, so he represented Christ in the form of the Holy Ghost-the Holy Ghost having there the form of the wild untameable Jahveh, the God ofthe Old Testament."
- Jung, Lecture on Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939
"The very fierce animal with only one horn is called unicorn. In order to catch it, a virgin is put in a field; the animal then comes to her and is caught, because it lies down in her lap. Christ is represented by this animal, and his insuperable strength by its horn. He, who lay down in the womb of the Virgin, has been caught by the hunters; that is to say, he was found in human shape by those who loved him."
- Honorius of Autun, Speculum de mysteriis ecclesiae
Two Fishes: Soul & Spirit
"Be warned and understand truly that two fishes are swimming in our sea. The Sea as the Body, the two Fishes are Soul and Spirit. The Sages will tell you That two fishes are in our sea Without any flesh or bones. Let them be cooked in their own water; Then they also will become a vast sea, The vastness of which no man can describe. Moreover, the Sages say That the two fishes are only one, not two; They are two, and nevertheless they are one, Body, Spirit, and Soul. Now, I tell you most truly, Cook these three together, That there may be a very large sea. Cook the sulphur well with the sulphur, And hold your tongue about it: Conceal your knowledge to your own advantage, And you shall be free from poverty. Only let your discovery remain a close secret." — The book of Lambspring, Musaeum Hermeticum Reformatum et Amplificatum, c. 1678
