In the third test, the search for “the fairest woman,” the crown of life, conceived exoterically as well as esoterically, the carrot represents the vegetative life (body, the natural man), and the six mice that draw it are our old friends the six swans or virtues, and the highest of these compassion—or love—goes as the enthroned queen in the carriage. The uninitiated man is almost in doubt and asks, “What shall I do with a carrot?” Yet the great mother replies, as it were, “Take one of my fundamental forces.” And what do we see then? The toad becomes a beautiful maiden, etc. The man [pg 229] now all at once realizes how fearfully and wonderfully he is made. Filled with reverence of himself he is ready to cry, “Not my will but thine be done.”
Still another test remains. We must all go through a sort of mystical ring, which hangs in the hall (of learning). Only one in the whole universe is in a condition to accomplish it, to endure it without injury. The beautiful delicate maid with the miraculous gift is the spirit [spiritus or [Symbol: Mercury] of alchemy].
We shall add that the two interpretations externally contradict each other, although each exhibits a faultless finality. I should note that I have limited myself to the briefest exposition; in a further working out of the analysis the two expositions can be much more closely identified with the motives of the story.
First, then, the question arises, how one and the same series of images can harmonize several mutually exclusive interpretations (problem of multiple interpretation); yet we have discovered in the parable three practically equivalent schemes of interpretation, the psychoanalytic, the chemical (scientific), and the anagogic. Secondly, the question presents itself more particularly how can two so antithetic meanings as the psychoanalytic and the anagogic exist side by side.