It is clear that, in borrowing from Aurora consurgens, the artist behind plate 5 in Splendor solis, by adding the delicate golden boarder in Mining the Ore, with all of its mushrooms, babes, and blackbirds – as well as the obtuse inclusion of the biblical scene at its base, felt that he was somehow expanding upon or illustrating the message already conveyed in the image of the miners and pelican. Let us see if his innovative additions actually shed any light on the possible meaning(s) contained in the original painting.

The next feature to catch our eye in Mining the Ore is the biblical episode at the base scene. Mistakenly identified by Skinner as Ruth, this portion of the plate reflects a famous story recorded in the Book of Esther wherein the queen saves the Jewish people from King Ahasuerus’ pogrom. In commemoration of this reversal, the Jewish festival of Purim was established, which, for all practical purposes, resembles nothing so much as a Semitic circus or carnival, replete with rowdy parades, encouraged drinking, harmless pranks, and especially clown costumes. Indeed, clowns have come to be somewhat characteristic of the Mardi Gras-like festivities. Something about them just seems to resonate with the queer quality of Purim. But, again, has any of this anything at all to do with magic mushrooms?

At first glance, Hancock’s speculations might seem ridiculous. But, when one considers the archaic nature of the impish trickster archetype to which the mushroom is tied – and the fact that even Jung admitted in a letter to a student that hallucinogens such as mescaline and LSD may induce a brush with what he termed the “collective unconscious,” Hancock’s pontifications suddenly appear not only excusable but warranted. As Terence McKenna once noted, “the archetype of DMT is the circus. These [entities]…at one level, they’re clowns.”[1]

Apropos Queen Esther, most scholars agree that the name Esther was derived from Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess of war and sex. Identified with the Mesopotamian goddess, Inanna, legend holds that Ishtar descended to Kur, the ancient Sumerian Underworld, passing through seven gates or arches, where she received the magical water of life – a reference which any 16^th century Alchemist would immediately recognize as an allusion to the famed elixir vitae. Heinrich, of course, conflates this elixir with a tincture or brew prepared from magic mushrooms.

While the reference to the “branch to their nose” is indeed obscure, that Drower and others have linked this cryptic phrase to the Haoma rite of the Zoroastrians is especially significant. The Zoroastrian religion appropriated the ancient Soma rite of the Vedantists as Haoma, both of which have been connected to magic mushrooms in the past, most notably by R. Gordon Wasson in Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality and later by O.T. Oss and O.N. Oeric in their Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower’s Guide, where it is claimed by a pseudonymous Terence McKenna that, in 1984, heterodox Bengali Hindus announced the identification of Soma as “a psilocybian mushroom, Stropharia cubensis [now classified as Psilocybe cubensis].”(8)

Ishtar’s father, Sin or Nanna, too deserves some mention. McKenna wrote in his formidable treatise, Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge:

“In the mythologies of the Near East, there is a lunar god that must have been imported to India from the west. […] The patron deity of Harran was a male moon god: Sin or Nannar. He was thought to have arisen from a god of nomads and a protector of cattle related to the masculine cult of the moon god in early Arabia. His daughter Ishtar in time overshadowed all the other female deities, as did her counterpart Isis in Egypt.

As the father, or source, of the Goddess, it is fitting that Sin wears headgear suggestive of a mushroom. No other deity in the Babylonian pantheon has this headgear. I found three examples of Sin or Nannar on cylinder seals; in each the headgear was prominent, and in one instance the accompanying text by a nineteenth-century scholar mentioned that this headgear was in fact the identifier for the god.”(9)

As McKenna makes clear, in addition to being loosely associated with fungi, Sin was a male moon god. Aside from a small number of instances among certain Native American tribes, masculine moon deities are an extreme rarity. Although, we can think of at least one other masculine lunar god who has already received mention in the present study: Soma. That’s right; not only was Soma a lunar deity, but he was a masculine one. Strikingly, if one directs his gaze immediately above the biblical scene at the base of the plate, in the pool of water directly below the busy miner duo, he may clearly see floating therein a crescent moon possessing the obvious face of a reposed male. Is this our Soma?

Splendor solis is indeed a curious tract, and plate 5 is perhaps the most curious of them all. The search for meaning in Alchemical manuscripts is a daunting, dizzying task that brings us “from swerve of shore to bend of bay,” against 16^th century Germany all the way to the ancient Near and Far East. The mushroom model of interpretation outlined by Heinrich in ‘95 is to my knowledge one of the best devised for navigating the murky depths of Alchemical symbolism.

We hope that our short explication of a now obscure Alchemical plate has helped to demonstrate why we believe that to be true.