The mystery of Melusina
Melusine's name is associated with the work of Paracelsus, who chooses this figure from the folk legend collected by Raymond of Arras, and linked to the origin of the Lusignanos. Melusina (mère Lusine) is the wife of Raimondino, son of the King of the Brettons; endowed with supernatural powers she bestows heroic courage on her husband. Surprised by him as she transforms into a Siren, Melusina disappears into the realm of water, and will only reappear from time to time as an omen of misfortune. Her heraldry's attributes (tail, vat) are comparable to similar attributes of Isis in the Hellenistic period. Goethe would write, and later include in Wilhelm Meister (The Wanderings) "The New Melusina." The Poitou legend also reports this: Ramon, in despair at having unwittingly killed Emmeric, Count of Poitiers, his benefactor, flees into the woods. In a clearing he finds a spring with three beautiful women; one of them is Melusina, who consoles him.
In Paracelsus Melusina is analogous to Nymphs and Sirens (Nymphldidic) and lives in Aquaster (the aqueous principle, the quasi-material psychic principle related to the lunar, from which, according to Paracelsus, Mary also comes). Paracelsus says many things about Melusina; it is, however, a mental vision that can also be interpreted as a variant of the Mercurial Serpent and linked to the symbolism of the Philosophical Tree, identified in turn with the female figure of Gnosis (Irenaeus).
Jung compares Paracelsus' Melusina to the Filius Regius or Rex Marinus, who calls from the depths of the waters. Melusina, who returns in Goethe as Margaret in the first Faust and Helena in the second Faust, has also been compared, with some elasticity, to Beatrice. For Paracelsus, the "Boxes" (spiritual forces that guide the action of the adept) stimulate Melusina to take human form. Of Melusina says Jung, in his study of Paracelsus:
"This figure is certainly neither an allegorical chimera nor a mere metaphor: it has its own particular psychic reality in the sense that it is an apparition full of fascination which, by its very nature, is on the one hand a psychic vision, but it is also , taking into account the psyche's capacity for imaginative realization (called "Ares" by Paracelsus), a distinct objective entity, like a dream that becomes reality for a moment. The soul belongs to these frontier phenomena that occur under particular psychic conditions."
In the circumstances of a collapse of values, when darkness comes over the future, Melusina arrives as a real and rescuing presence: the unconscious appears as a mental vision, and Melusina emerges from the realm of waters assuming human form. However, Melusina deceives: his acts have supreme significance and utmost meaninglessness. It is therefore necessary to extract wisdom from meaninglessness, which of wisdom is the mother. It so happens when, like the adept, one knocks on the door of the unknown to obey the law of the future. Melusina, akin to Morgana (herself linked by birth to Aphrodite, and thus to Astarte) must therefore thwart herself if the work of extracting Liquor Sophiae is to be accomplished: and her thwarting, like that of Polia, takes place in May, house of Venus, month of Mary, marked in Taurus by the conjunction of Sun and Moon. That is, by the Sacred (or chemical) Wedding of spring.
