GROW YOUR OWN HOMUNCULUS

Creating a homunculus via alchemy

Even today, the alchemists of medieval times remain famous for their supposed (but unconfirmed) ability to transmute base metals into gold, using the fabled philosopher's stone. Less well-remembered, yet even more controversial, is their alleged artificial creation of manikins - i.e. tiny living humanoids known as homunculi.

Some references to homunculi in alchemical texts featured them as symbolic rather than literal. For instance, the fabled Philosopher's Stone is sometimes considered to be a homunculus, with its creation no less than the representation of the Great Work (Magnum Opus) process, merely described in a different way.

A symbolic homunculus, depicted in The Pretiosissimum Donum Dei ('The Most Precious Gift of God'), an important 15th-Century alchemical work by Georgius Aurach de Argentina

In September 1994, however, Paul Thompson published an engrossing review of this largely-forgotten arcane subject in America's Fate Magazine that contained some remarkable revelations regarding the alleged creation of living homunculi, and which in turn inspired my own ongoing fascination with this subject.

Alchemists claimed that the culture medium required for the growth of homunculi contained several biological fluids such as sputum or egg-white, and sometimes inorganic fluids like dew, but the two substances most commonly cited as essential were human blood and semen - both of which are widely believed in primitive or non-scientific societies to harbour the vital essence of life. Also required was horse manure, whose heat-releasing properties were utilised to incubate the medium.

Bearing in mind that all of the above ingredients are readily obtainable, why was the production of homunculi a skill restricted to alchemists? The answer is that the recipes always seemed to contain one vital ingredient that was exceptionally complex and difficult to prepare.

Paracelsus, painted by Quentin Massys

For example, in the homunculus recipe contained within the treatise De Natura Rerum, written by 16th-Century Swiss scholar and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus (aka Philippus von Hohenheim), 'the arcanum of human blood' was included - essential but esoteric, its constituents known only to the alchemical fraternity. Here, just in case any reader wishes to attempt it himself, is Paracelsus's description of how to create a homunculus:

"Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite [glass vessel] with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus [horse manure] for 40 days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for 40 weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence."

Equally obscure is 'animal tincture', listed in another medieval recipe.

The vaguely human-looking root of the mandragora or mandrake plant Mandragora officinarum inspired the false belief during medieval times that it could be utilised in the production of homunculi. During his body's last convulsive spasms before death, a hanged man will sometimes ejaculate semen, and it was said that where this fell to the ground, a mandrake would grow. If its anthropomorphic root was then pulled out before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed, and nurtured with milk, honey, and sometimes human blood too, the root would subsequently develop into a homunculus, which would guard and protect its owner.

Mandrake with unrealistically humanoid root, depicted in Tacuinum Sanitatis, a 15th-Century manuscript

An even more exotic recipe for growing your own homunculus was cited during the 1700s by no less a figure of learning than Dr David Christianus from Germany's Giessen University. According to his claim, an egg should be taken from a black hen, and a tiny hole should be poked through its shell. A bean-sized portion of the albumen then needed to be removed and replaced by human semen, after which the egg's opening should be sealed with the hymen from a virgin maiden. Once this was accomplished, the egg must be buried in dung during the first day of the March lunar cycle. After 30 days, a homunculus should emerge from the egg, and as long as its owner provided it with a regular diet of earthworms and lavender seeds it would protect him and assist him in all of his endeavours.

Notwithstanding the inherent difficulties in obtaining the necessary ingredients and in performing the intricate series of processes required, records detailing the successful culturing of homunculi do exist. An extraordinary specimen grown from distilled human blood and able to emit beams of red light was reputedly cultured and exhibited at the court of France's King Louis XIV by royal physician-alchemist Dr Pierre Borel.

A century earlier, the celebrated Elizabethan magus John Dee was rumoured to have created homunculi to assist him in his spying activities on behalf of England's Queen Elizabeth I, with claims that these manikins lurked unseen amid shadows and gloom, listening for incriminating information concerning suspected enemies of the Crown that they would then impart to their creator. Of course, such allegations conveniently ignore a basic tenet of homunculus lore, namely that these man-made entities rarely survive for very long if taken out of the large glass jars or other strong vitreous vessels in which they have been reared. Paying homage to the above-noted medieval claims, Peter Ackroyd's famous novel The House of Doctor Dee (1993) includes a section in which Dee successfully creates a homunculus.

Portrait of John Dee by an unknown 16th-Century artist (public domain)

As fully documented in Dr Emil Besetzny's Masonic handbook Die Sphinx (1873), and also recorded by German physician and occultist Dr Franz Hartmann in his own book The Life of Paracelsus (1887), the most outstanding case, however, must surely be the creation of ten living homunculi in a mere five weeks. This was reputedly accomplished in 1775 by two alchemists - the Austrian nobleman Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein, and the Italian mystic and Rosicrucian cleric Abbé Geloni.

Like all homunculi, they were grown in sealed jars (as noted earlier, homunculi die if exposed for any considerable period to the air), which were filled with water and eventually buried under heaps of horse manure. These were treated (as usual) with some special, but unspecified, solution, which doubled the size of eight of the homunculi, producing a series of 1-ft-tall specimens.

No two homunculi looked the same, and to each was fixed an identity. Eight were physical manikins, known respectively as the king, queen, knight, monk, nun, seraph, miner, and architect, and clothes pertinent to their identities were manufactured for them. Each of these eight homunculi was fed with special rose-pink tablets every 3-4 days, and their water was changed once a week. On one occasion, the 'king' homunculus escaped from his jar, and was earnestly trying to remove the seal on the jar housing the 'queen' when he was spotted by Count Kufstein's butler, Kammerer. Chased by Kufstein and Kammerer, the 'king' soon fainted from exposure to the air, and was put back inside his own receptacle.

The remaining two homunculi were non-corporeal, and only appeared when Geloni tapped their jars and chanted certain magical words. A face would then materialise in each of them; moreover, in one the liquid would turn blue, in the other it would turn red. The red 'spirit' homunculus bore a horrible expression upon its face, was fed with a thimbleful of animal blood once a week, and its water was changed every 2-3 days, being replaced each time with fresh rainwater; whereas the blue 'spirit' homunculus had a beautiful angelic face, but was never fed, and its water was never changed.

All ten homunculi would answer questions concerning future events, invariably predicting correctly the outcomes, and they were observed by many people. These included some very notable personages, like Count Franz Josef von Thun and Count Max Lamberg. Surely, however, such bizarre man-made entities could not really have existed - or could they?

As I noted when I first documented homunculi, back in 1996 within my book The Unexplained, I cannot help but wonder whether these particular examples (or at least the eight corporeal ones) were nothing more than large anuran amphibians (frogs and toads) brought back by travellers from the tropics. Certainly, the collecting and exhibiting as curios all manner of dead and living specimens of exotic, unfamiliar creatures not native to Europe was a very widespread activity in the West as far back the Middle Ages. One likely candidate is the sub-Saharan African clawed toad (aka frog) Xenopus laevis, a common species that is very hardy, can live for up to 25 years, is vaguely humanoid in shape, can be up to 1 ft or so in length if measured from snout-tip to hind claw-tip (with its very long hind legs fully extended backwards), and has big protruding eyes. Moreover, it lives almost permanently in water - thus explaining why the 'king' fainted soon after escaping from its jar?

An extremely popular laboratory species as well as a pet, thanks to numerous escapes and deliberate releases X. laevis is nowadays represented by many well-established naturalised populations existing far beyond its native African distribution range, in countries such as France, Italy, Portugal, the U.K. (in southern Wales, but formerly on the Isle of Wight too, the U.S.A., Mexico, Chile, and Indonesia (on Java). Consequently, the presence of specimens thriving in Europe during the 1700s after having been brought here from Africa as novelties is by no means an implausible concept. Xenopus as a homunculus? It would not be the first time that a potent elixir of superstitious fear, religious fervour, and zoological ignorance distilled and decanted during the pre-scientific age had transmogrified a real but little-known, odd-looking creature into something ostensibly arcane and anomalous.

Were homunculi truly created from blood, or were they merely specimens of large anuran amphibians such as the African clawed toad (like this one)? (Michael Linnenbach/Wikipedia)

Very pertinent to this intriguing possibility is a claim made against Pope Formosus (his papacy spanning 891-896 AD) by the Cadaver Synod. This was the macabre but aptly-named posthumous ecclesiastical trial of the latter pontiff's exhumed, rotting corpse that was held in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome during January 897 AD and conducted by Pope Stephen VI. As documented by Dr Bob Curran in his fascinating book Man-Made Monsters: A Field Guide to Golems, Patchwork Soldiers, Homunculi, and Other Created Creatures (2011):

"[Pope Formosus] was accused of practicing witchcraft, and creating strange potions, and creating small beings in jars or receptacles. Legend says that one of these resembled a frog with huge eyes, which manifested a "diabolical intelligence" and which "brought terror to all who saw it," altough what became of this creature (and another than Formosus supposedly created) is unknown...It is possible that his alleged alchemical creations (if they actually existed) were destroyed upon his death."

Dr Bob Curran's fascinating book Man-Made Monsters ((c) Dr Bob Curran/New Page Books)

As for the ten homunculi of Kufstein and Geloni: no-one knows what happened to nine of these ostensibly man-made manikins either, after their two supposed creators had ultimately gone their separate ways. However, an event occurred that may actually have left behind some tangible evidence of the tenth. Once, the jar containing the 'monk' homunculus was accidentally dropped, smashing as it hit the floor and killing its humanoid inhabitant. His body was afterwards buried in the grounds of Kufstein's Tyrolean residence - but where is this today? If only we knew its locality, the soil around it could be sifted, as suggested by Paul Thompson - and who knows what remains might be found?

One thing is certain. If a 12-in-long skeleton is ever found under these circumstances, Thompson would be very interested to learn more about it - and so would I.


This article is extracted and greatly expanded from the short homunculus section of my book The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries (Carlton: London, 1996).

HOW GREEN WAS MY POLAR BEAR?

Green polar bear at Singapore Zoo in 2004 (Singapore Zoo)

Although very commonly exhibited by birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and an immense variety of invertebrates, green as a predominant colour is only very rarely displayed by mammals. Bearing in mind that many mammalian species live (or spend at least part of their time) in trees, or remain hidden amid bushes or dense undergrowth foliage from predators, one might have expected a substantial number of green mammals to exist, having evolved green fur for effective camouflage. Yet, strangely, this particular adaptation for survival has seldom occurred.

IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN...

One of the most notable of the few exceptions to this odd rule is West Africa’s green bush squirrel Paraxerus poensis. Its distinctive olive-green upperparts and greenish-yellow underparts do indeed provide it with efficient camouflage within its savannah and woodland habitat, protecting it in particular from predation by airborne squirrel-devouring eagles.

Green bush squirrel (Studio Creazioni Dami)

A marsupial counterpart of sorts is the green ringtail possum or toollah Pseudochirops archeri of northern Queensland, Australia. On 20 May 1961, a detailed analysis of the greenish-yellow colouration of this species’ fur was published by zoologists Drs Hobart M. Van Deusen and E.L. Stearns in the Journal of Mammalogy. This study revealed that its fur’s colour was due to a mingling of yellow, white, and black colours, produced in turn by the effects of varying amounts of melanism and xanthin (a yellow pigment) within individual hairs in combination with reflection of white light from the fur. Much the same effect is also responsible for the olive-tinted fur of the green (vervet) monkey Chlorocebus pygerythrus.

ALGAL ASSOCIATIONS AND INFESTATIONS

In addition to these naturally-green species, however, green colouration can also occur in mammals via botanical intervention. The most familiar example of this phenomenon is the green hue of sloths’ fur. The outer surface of each hair bears a number of diagonal ridges, and each of these ridges contains unicellular Cyanoderma and Trichophilus blue-green algae or cyanophytes. These thrive in the moist, warm climate of the sloth’s Neotropical rainforest habitat, and the sloth benefits from the effective camouflage that it gains from its alga-impregnated pelage. Consequently, the alga-sloth association is truly symbiotic, because both partners benefit from it.

Sloth on ground, revealing its fur’s green colouration

So far, therefore, all of the examples of green mammals presented here have involved species in which such colouration is, for one reason or another, a normal occurrence – nothing special or aberrant. Conversely, there are various other cases on record in which this particular hue’s occurrence is anything but normal, resulting in some decidedly strange and spectacular outcomes.

During the late 1970s, for instance, Canadian fur trappers were a source of considerable bewilderment to the international zoological community – because they insisted that they often encountered polar bears Ursus maritimus with bright green fur! Needless to say, such claims initially received short shrift from science, but the reports persisted – and eventually a green polar bear was actually captured!

At much the same time, and once again to the great surprise of zoologists everywhere, news emerged that polar bears in at least two California zoos (San Diego and Fresno) had turned green too. Detailed fur examinations took place, utilising hair samples not only from the captured green polar bear but also from the verdurous zoo specimens. The answer obtained from all of these specimens was the same, and involved a very curious twist to the trichological tale already documented here for the green sloths.

As published on 29 March 1979 in the scientific journal Nature by San Diego-based researchers Drs Ralph A Lewin and Phillip T. Robinson, it transpired that just as with sloths, the polar bears’ green colouration was due to attached cyanophyte algae - but there the similarity ended. For whereas the sloths’ algae were sited externally upon their fur, those of the polar bears were located internally. That is, they were actually present within the medulla (the hollow tubular section) of certain hairs in the bears’ pelage – predominantly the wider, stiffer guard hairs of the bears’ outer coat.

On initial consideration, one might imagine that the bright green hue bestowed upon them by this algal infestation would put the affected polar bears at a very considerable disadvantage, by making them extremely conspicuous against their snowy-white Arctic surroundings. With the exception of humans, however, the polar bear, being the top predator in this region, is not preyed upon or killed by any other species (though they will sometimes attack one another and even resort to cannibalism). Consequently, the enhanced visibility caused by the algae is less deleterious than would otherwise be the case. As for the California zoos’ green polar bears, a salt solution was applied to rid them of their unwanted algae.

A similar outbreak of green polar bears took place at Singapore Zoo in 2004, but this time they were cured of their algae by bleaching their fur with a hydrogen peroxide solution. In addition, three polar bears at Japan’s Higashiyama Zoo became stained with green during July 2008 after swimming in a pond overgrown with algae. A YouTube video of one of these Japanese green polar bears showing its unusual condition can be accessed here.

Alga-stained green polar bear at Higashiyama Zoo, Japan (Higashiyama Zoo)

As it happens, scientists should not have been too surprised about reports concerning green polar bears. A decade earlier, they had already been baffled by comparable stories of green seals, which by coincidence also emerged from Canada. The species in question was the grey seal Halichoerus grypus, and subsequent investigations revealed that algae were indeed involved (specifically, Enteromorpha groenlandica), but this time growing among the hairs present on the seals’ backs. Moreover, various currently-unidentified green algae may sometimes colour the pelage of monk seals Monachus spp.

A COUPLE OF PEPPERMINT PUPPIES...

Very occasionally, reports of green dogs and cats appear in the media. Usually, of course, there is a perfectly straightforward explanation – often involving an unfortunate interaction with a pot of green paint! Much more mysterious, conversely, was a case highlighted by several newspapers during April 1984 (but not on 1 April, I hasten to add!), concerning the alleged birth in northern Italy of a puppy with green fur. Apparently it was one of six puppies born to a farmer’s gun dog, yet the other five puppies were all normally-coloured.

Bearing in mind the considerable novelty of this occurrence if found to be genuine, the zoological world was surprisingly uninterested and unwilling to investigate it, though some unnamed scientists did suggest rather non-specifically that it may be due to a spontaneous mutation. More memorable was the opinion proffered by an equally nameless vet that it may be a form of dandruff. Any pet owner faced with the dilemma of a dog with green dandruff could perhaps be forgiven for wondering momentarily whether they should treat their unfortunate pet’s fur with shampoo or with weedkiller!

After being alerted to its existence by a report in the local Middlesbrough Evening Gazette newspaper on 29 January 1987, English cryptozoological researcher Richard Muirhead was able to view a week-old green puppy when he visited the home of its owners. The peppermint-tinted individual in question was one of nine puppies born to a three-year-old Labrador x collie bitch. As with the Italian green puppy, however, all of its siblings were of wholly unremarkable colour. A vet suggested that the extraordinary hue of the Middlesbrough individual may be due to ‘utera verdi’ [sic], i.e. uteroverdin.

First documented back in 1830, this is a thick, dark-green discharge (lochia) released by the placenta into the womb (uterus), staining anything with which it comes into contact, and can be observed passing from the vulva at the time of parturition, indicating placental separation for one or more puppies, and reliably signalling that whelping should begin within a few hours for a term bitch. However, as Richard rightly pointed out, if uteroverdin were responsible for the green colouration of this puppy’s fur, why hadn’t it also stained the fur of the puppy’s eight siblings? All nine of the puppies had shared their mother’s womb at the same time, so all nine should have exhibited at least some degree of staining. Moreover, if uteroverdin were indeed responsible here, there should be numerous reports on file of other green newborn puppies, because uteroverdin secretion is a common, typical occurrence.

AND A CUPRINOUS KITTEN FROM DENMARK

A no less extraordinary case, but this time featuring a bright green kitten, hit the news headlines in autumn 1995, just in time for me to prepare and include the following box feature concerning it in my book The Unexplained (1996):

‘Denmark’s Green Kitten’ (click the above box feature to read it directly in greatly-enlarged format)

During this viridescent kitten’s all-too-short time in the limelight (pun definitely intended!), I was kept up to speed regarding it by fellow zoologist and anomalous animals enthusiast Lars Thomas from Copenhagen University. By early February 1996, however, the remarkable saga itself was all but over, yet the mystery surrounding it remained unresolved, as noted by Lars in the last of various letters on this subject that I’d received from him during the previous weeks:

“Alas, the green cat is no longer green. Its colour has been fading all the time, and now you can only just, if the lighting is good, make out a weak greenish tinge on the legs and the stomach. And even that will probably disappear in a few weeks as well.

“No one has been able to ascertain the reason for the cat’s rather strange colour. At first it looked like the colour was purely structural, i.e. it was caused by the light being reflected in a certain way from the uneven surface of the hairs. But further studies showed that it was the actual hairs being green.

“The general theory is that the colour is the result of something the kitten has eaten or drunk. And the reason the colour is now fading is because the cat is now a pet, drinking clean water and milk, and getting food from a tin. But as to the substance that caused the colour, no-one has the faintest idea. The forensic laboratory in the State Hospital in Copenhagen has been studying hair samples of the cat for several months now, but has not come to any conclusion yet...

“I did manage to get one of the doctors at the laboratory talking, and he suggested that the colour might be caused by some form of mild copper-poisoning. This is very difficult to believe, as the cat has always been very healthy. A few cases of humans developing greenish hair from drinking copper-polluted water are known, but they had white [i.e. blonde] hair, and even then, the [green] colour was very weak. This kitten’s natural colour is bluish-grey, and the green colour was very strong.

“So, as you can see, the mystery has still not been solved.”

And as far as I’m aware, the same is true even today – but just in case I am mistaken about this, over to you Lars...!

A GREENER SHADE OF LION, THE EMERALD ISLE’S PHANTOM GREEN CAT, AND MR GREEN GENES – THE WORLD’S FIRST TRANSGENIC GLOWING GREEN CAT

Finally, three green felids of differing yet equally exotic form. In his book Simba: The Life of the Lion (1962), C.A.W. Guggisberg briefly mentioned that a prospector had once claimed to have spied a green lion in the forests of western Uganda. Whether the said green lion was stalking pink elephants at the time is not recorded!

Exquisite painting of a green lion (Felipe Soltero, at www.redbubble.com/people/SolteroArt)

As an interesting (albeit wholly unconnected!) aside, in alchemy the symbol representing Nature’s green raw energy was a green lion. This was also used to symbolise aqua regis – a greenish-tinged liquid created by mixing nitric acid with hydrochloric acid, and so corrosive that it could even dissolve gold - the noblest of all metals to the alchemist. This chemical process was often illustrated in alchemical manuscripts by images of a green lion devouring the golden sun.

Green lion devouring the sun, from the Rosarium Philosophorum (1550), an important alchemical treatise

In 1996, residents of Balbriggan, a town in County Dublin, Ireland, were claiming that a glowing green phantom cat had been seen there. Bearing in mind that a popular nickname for Ireland is the Emerald Isle, any reports of a green-hued spectre there – feline or otherwise - are nothing if not appropriate!

Nor should we – or, indeed, could we – forget the transgenic glowing green cats (not to mention mice, rabbits, pigs, and even monkeys) that have been created by various scientific teams during the past two decades by introducing genes controlling bioluminescence in certain animal species into the DNA of feline and several other mammalian embryos. In October 2008, the world’s first transgenic glowing green cat – created by scientists at New Orleans’s Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species - was introduced to the media. Named Mr Green Genes, in ordinary light he looked just like any other six-month-old cat, but when viewed in ultraviolet light his eyes, gums, and tongue glowed a vivid lime green. The gene responsible for this uncanny effect was derived from a jellyfish.

Moreover, in 1995 the world’s first transgenic glowing mammals were produced by a Japanese research team from Osaka University’s Microbiology Disease Research Institute. They created mice that glowed green under artificial light by taking a gene controlling the production of a luminous protein called aequorin in Aequorea victoria, a species of Pacific jellyfish, and incorporating it into mouse embryos.

Happily, these luminescent mammals’ weird-looking ability to glow like jellyfishes has not been accompanied by a similar ability to sting like them too! Firefly genes controlling the production of luminous enzymes called luciferases have also been incorporated into various transgenic mammals to induce glowing.

Continuing this theme of exotic and unexpected green fauna, in the very next ShukerNature blog post I’ll be examining my all-time favourite mystery beast from classic cryptofiction, surveying some Celtic canids of the supernatural variety, and reporting an extraordinary new discovery in the real world that represents the most intimate phytozoological association currently known that involves a vertebrate species – so don’t miss it!

This present article is excerpted from one of my in-progress books, The Anomalarium of Doctor Shuker, scheduled for completion and publication in 2012.