Miscarriage

Miscarriage is a symbol of something expelled prematurely. The alchemists used this image to represent a forced or rushed process. In the Tractatus Aristotelis (quoted in Mysterium Coniunctionis, par. 68), it states: “The serpent is hasty, strives for death before birth, wishes to lose the fetus, and desires a miscarriage.” All haste is of the devil, as the alchemists said, but the symbol can also express the inability to endure, as in the following description: “This serpent … swells like a jet-black toad, and … prays to be freed from its misery.” (Ibid., footnote.) The “serpent” here is a symbol of the process itself in its negative form.

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