Pike's Ghost

Jerry Friedman · 28 Nov 2011, 23:43 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:43:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Pike's Ghost
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W590B365923C00EEFC688FECFB20 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W590B365923C00EEFC688FECFB20 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <1322523784.90359.YahooMailNeo at web114717.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

> From: Lee Berman severiansola at hotmail.com
...

> Leaving the question of Typhon's alien nature aside for now, the Mandragora 
> seems 
> almost indisputable proof of Typhon's potential to be cloned or downloaded 
> into a
> new body in some manner. There is nothing dragon-like about the fetus in the 
> bottle.
> What possible reason is there for Wolfe to call it "Mandragora" if not 
> to refer to 
> Typhon, the only other reference to a man-dragon there is.
...

Oddly enough, a possible answer is at Wikipedia.

"Some alchemists, impressed by this idea, speculated on the culture of the mandragore, and experimented in the artificial reproduction of a soil sufficiently fruitful and a sun sufficiently active to humanise the said root, and thus create men without the concurrence of the female."??A Wikipedia editor has added, "(See: Homunculus)."

From /Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual/?by ?liphas L?vi, translated by?Arthur Edward Waite.? The book is at
http://books.google.com/books?id=e0GcOrh-xNAC&pg=PA323

There's a little more on plant-animal hybridization in the full passage, and perhaps people will find other points of interest.

So this may be saying that someone has taken a mandrake root and humanized it, creating a homunculus.

No doubt there's much more to say about this, but this margin is too small.

Jerry Friedman

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