The Magic Flute. Die Zauberflöte, An Alchemical Allegory

The Dutch theologian Tjeu van den Berk has written a masterly study of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute from a Jungian and alchemical point of view. He clearly shows that there is a close analogy between this opera and the alchemical study Mysterium Coniunctionis by depth psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Jung took Paracelsian alchemy as a starting point for his last major work. Medieval alchemy worked with two principles, Sulphur as the masculine, solar principle and Mercury as the feminine, lunar principle. But Paracelsus introduced Salt as a cosmic principle of its own and enriched the alchemical tradition with a symbolism that was adopted by the Rosicrucians. When Jung wrote his inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy, he organized the overwhelming mass of alchemical symbols along the same lines as had been done by the Paracelsians. He considered Salt as the feminine principle related to the Moon and Sulphur as the masculine principle related to the Sun. The conjunction of the sun and the moon accordingly takes place between Sulphur and Salt. Jung devoted a separate essay to the principle Mercury (Quicksilver), better known in alchemy as Mercurius, the spirit in matter. He stressed the dual nature of Mercury. Mercurius was often described as hermaphroditic. Sometimes his body is said to be masculine and his soul feminine, sometimes the reverse. Mozart held exactly the same view of alchemy. He belonged to a branch of the Freemasons closely linked to the Rosicrucians. Both spiritual and practical alchemy flourished in Vienna towards the end of the eighteenth century. Around the year 1780 an English visitor estimated that Vienna counted some 3000 practising alchemists. The whole world of matter was still experienced as a mystery by those Freemasons who were not under the influence of the Enlightenment. Mozart, together with his librettists, transformed the three principles of Paracelsian alchemy into human characters. We find in The Magic Flute the two versions of the principle Quicksilver: the birdcatcher Papageno and his female counterpart Papagena. Papageno belongs as birdcatcher to the realm of the Queen of the Night. He is the wingless Mercurius whose task it is to prevent birds, symbols of the winged Mercurius, from flying freely in the air. Van den Berk further shows that prince Tamino represents the masculine Sulphur, whereas Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night, suffers the fate of the feminine Salt. Pamina stays in the realm of the sun-priest Sarastro where she undergoes various painful transformations. The Moor Monostatos makes various attempts to rape her. Psychologically speaking Monostatos personifies a negative shadow aspect of Sarastro, but he also represents the alchemical stage of the blackening, the stage of corruption, suffering, chaos and decay. Van den Berk is not the first to interpret The Magic Flute as an alchemical drama. The first time Mozart's opera was performed in Milan was in April 1816. Shortly thereafter there appeared in the weekly Corriere delle Dame a commentary in which the alchemical symbolism of the opera was explained by an unknown author who called himself 'a son of Hermes.' He had no difficulty in understanding the opera, since obviously he was very familiar with the alchemical symbolism Mozart had used. According to him Pamina 'is the symbol for the virginal water of the wise, destined to marry Tamino, symbol for the sulphur that must be united with it in a stable bond.' About Papageno he wrote: 'He is completely clad in feathers, carries a birdcage and blows a syrinx with seven pipes. This is a depiction of Hermes while hunting; this is the volatile quicksilver of the philosophers, one time compared with a winged dragon, another time with birds, but usually with the eagle, the vulture, and other birds of prey, since the quicksilver of the sacred art flies around tearing things apart in the expanse of space.' Since Mozart was an active member of a Masonic lodge, he knew that his Queen of the Night personified the central symbol of Freemasonry, the five-pointed Flaming or Blazing Star. Papageno several times calls his Mistress the Star-flaming Queen. This symbol goes back to ancient Egypt where the soul of Isis was identified with the dog-star Sirius, the brightest star in the Northern hemisphere. Van den Berk points out that the Queen of the Night indeed has a close relationship to Isis: 'The Queen of the Night is best described as the Black Isis. In several places within Christian Europe there still exist Black Madonnas. The alchemist Fulcanelli pointed out that these are the successors of the countless statues of Black Isis that were worshipped all throughout the Greco-Roman world. But why black? Because this mother-mater and black matter are one and the same.' Jung notes in Mysterium Coniunctionis that the cognomen of Isis in Greek was chemeia, the Black One. According to the Roman author Apuleius she had a robe of the deepest black. She was also called the Old One and appeared as a teacher of alchemy in the treatise Isis the Prophetess to her Son Horus. Van den Berk not only gives a convincing interpretation of a libretto that by some critics is considered as an unintelligible monstrosity. He also writes extensively about the makers of The Magic Flute, the librettists Emanuel Schikaneder and Karl Gieseke, and the composer Mozart. The basic idea for The Magic Flute is derived from Oberon, an opera by Gieseke, who was not only a chorus singer but also a mineralogist and alchemist. According to van den Berk the final text of the libretto has been written by Schikaneder who played the part of Papageno when The Magic Flute was first performed in Vienna. But Mozart must have contributed a lot, not only the music itself, but also the philosophy of music put forward in the opera. In his bookcase he had a book about metaphysics and chemistry by the Lutheran pietist and theosophist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, who lived at a time when alchemy and chemistry were not yet distinguished. Oetinger had practised alchemy himself, but he had come to the conclusion that chemistry was unable to raise the human soul into higher spheres. Only the true science of music and the squaring of the circle could do so: 'That is why one must rise from chemistry up into the numbers of music and acquire knowledge of a very special kind of metaphysics.' Mozart was very much aware of what Oetinger was writing about. In The Magic Flute it is really the music that lends the alchemical process of transformation its uplifting force. Before Tamino and Pamina enter the path of trials, Pamina sings about the flute in the hands of Tamino: 'Play your magic flute to protect us on our way.' Music itself has become a divine power itself: 'Through the power of music we step lightly through the dark night of death.'