At the moment, progress does not stand still. Various areas of human life are developing rapidly. Everyone is waiting for big and grandiose discoveries, but no one pays attention to successful but small experiments. And if a few centuries ago they did not know how to amputate a leg correctly, now artificial organs are being created in full force, and even children will not be surprised by this.
But, one way or another, it all started small. The Middle Ages was the turning point when many brilliant alchemists and occultists laid the foundation for the development of modern medicine. Many associate the names of the most famous of them with something magical and not entirely real. However, most of their developments were nothing more than mere experiments in the field of medicine.
What is a homunculus?
One of these medieval alchemical scientists was Paracelsus, a native of Germany. But he became famous for one of the most entertaining experiments not only of that time, but also of our time. Namely, the creation of a homunculus. Many of you have probably already heard this definition, but did not understand what it means.
A homunculus is a humanoid creature grown in artificial conditions. Even today this may seem like science fiction, but if you believe people who have already successfully carried out such an experiment, you can grow a homunculus even at home. In this article we will tell you about the methods of growing these creatures, invented both by Paracelsus himself and by modern man.
How the physician Paracelsus created “little people”
The fact is that no one will be able to completely repeat Paracelsus’ experiment. The alchemist created his wondrous creature under the conditions that were available to him at the time of the Middle Ages, and therefore all the records are quite abstract. So, he did not write down the specific temperature for growing a half-human, and indeed all his actions exactly. Like any other scientist (and he also called himself a magician), Paracelsus had his own secrets, which he did not reveal to anyone. Therefore, how exactly he created his homunculus can only be guessed at, or one can go the route of one’s own experiments.
All that is known about how to grow a homunculus from our doctor is that you need to take a small vessel and fill it with sperm. The alchemist then placed this vessel in horse manure, according to his notes, for 40 days. After opening the flask and removing the newly formed creature from there, it must be fed with human blood.
The doctor himself wrote that he did not need the homunculus for rituals or magic. He wanted to feed him and raise him to the status of an ordinary little man. After reading the works of this outstanding alchemist, many people still have a question to this day: is it possible to grow a homunculus yourself? Read on for the answer to this.
How to grow a homunculus at home and is it possible?
It is not known for certain whether it is possible to raise a full-fledged creature at home. People who have already carried out such experiments made videos about their achievements and posted them on the Internet. If you believe what you saw, then they still managed to achieve something resembling a living creature. We suggest you conduct the experiment yourself and determine whether it will give results. So, how to grow a homunculus at home?
What will you need?
You can try to grow a homunculus from a chicken egg. Take a small container and a chicken egg. Neither its color nor its size is absolutely important, the main thing is that it is freshly harvested. Of course, eggs from the supermarket will not suit you.
You will also need alcohol and cotton wool (to disinfect the injection site), adhesive tape, a syringe and male sperm. Even modern scientists confirm the fact that the seed plays a more important role in the development of the embryo than the egg.
You will also need a piece of dense material (a hat or sweater, for example) and a warm place. Since the exact temperature for growing a homunculus is unknown, even a place near a central heating radiator will do. Let's move on to the process.
How to grow a homunculus from an egg?
You need to make a hole in the egg. Before this, the puncture site and the syringe needle must be disinfected so that infection does not get inside, otherwise it threatens to ruin the whole process. It is quite difficult to make a hole in the shell without damaging it, so we recommend filing the puncture site a little in advance with a file or nail file.
Now we carefully introduce the sperm into the egg. When inserted, the needle inside should barely move. Some of the liquid may leak out, but this cannot be avoided, so you should not focus on this. Now you will need to seal the hole in the egg with a small piece of adhesive tape. You don’t have to worry about tightness, it’s not that important. Now place the workpiece in a container and wrap it with a piece of thick fabric.
After which it is worth finding a suitable place for the future homunculus. Make sure that the workpiece remains motionless during cultivation and that no one can touch it or knock it over. The cultivation time can vary from 10 days to 40; different sources indicate different figures; if you believe former experimenters, the process could be completed at different times. We suggest you choose something in between.
Opening the blank
After a certain time, we can open our homunculus. If you see that there are dark places around the puncture, don’t worry, this is acceptable. An unpleasant odor is also acceptable; if you did everything correctly and nothing interfered with the growth of the creature, then it should not be very pungent. Now you can safely break the egg and see what happens. The main thing is to do this with a light movement so as not to damage the contents.
As you can see, growing a homunculus is quite simple, and the result of the experiment depends only on you.
It is human nature to take on the solution of any, even the most tricky tasks and unexpected problems, while he believes that everything is within human power. Scientists have been trying to artificially create a human-like creature since time immemorial, and for medieval alchemists such a task was on par with obtaining gold and finding the philosopher's stone. In the fundamental work of the famous physician Paracelsus (1493 - 1541), who lived during the Renaissance, “On the Nature of Things,” you can find fairly detailed instructions for creating these artificial people. The word “homunculus” (from the Latin “little man”) first appeared there, since the diminutive suffix to the word “homunculus” was necessary for Paracelsus to emphasize the short stature of the artificially appeared little man. In the Middle Ages, there was a very widespread belief that various spirits, including humanoid creatures, could be enclosed in vessels. It was even claimed that Pope Benedict IX contained seven sworn spirits in a glass jar.
The word “homunculus” became widely known after its appearance in W. Goethe’s “Faust” in the image of a creature emitting light, embodying the idea of an endless desire for beauty and life, which can be considered its second birth.
If we recall children's fairy tales, then, in fact, the world-famous Thumbelina, Little Thumb and Little Pea are also homunculi, born from a barley grain, a cabbage stalk and a pea.
How to make a homunculus from an egg?
Nowadays, there are also enough enthusiasts to raise a homunculus. They take photos and videos of their experiments in creating homunculi to post online for everyone to see. They are trying to make homunculoa from chicken and even ostrich eggs. Other videos immediately appear exposing the quackery of raising these creatures. I suggest watching a video about one attempt to grow a homunculus, and draw your own conclusions.
Everything unusual and unusual leaves its mark primarily in folk art, Wikipedia, literature and cinema. Science fiction novels, fantasy films and TV series, like those that tell us about mysterious and enigmatic creatures, excite many today, and maybe very soon everything that humanity has dreamed of will come true.
And the topic of growing a home homunculus from an ordinary chicken egg. The authors of numerous videos on YouTube claim that they know the secret of how to make a homunculus at home. To prove their experiments, they show photos of small embryos. Let's figure out what a homunculus is, true or false, using sound scientific approach.
How to make a homunculus at home
The history of this term dates back to the distant Middle Ages of the 16th century. Then the famous alchemist Paracelsus proposed a method according to which male sperm is poured into a flask, and with the help of horse manure, magnetization and some other sophistications, a creature is obtained, which received the Latin name homunculus.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was generally accepted that the homunculus was present in the sperm itself, and when it entered the female womb, it developed and became a human organism. But even then, the brilliant Russian anatomist and physiologist Friedrich Wolf, represented by academic science, spoke sharply negatively regarding the possibility of creating such an alchemical baby.
We live in the 21st century, and in order to refute the claims of the authors of viral videos, we can use basic knowledge of biology and physiology. And the answer to the question whether a homunculus is possible and how to grow it at home under normal conditions will be found immediately, and without organizing a laboratory experiment.
Creating a homunculus from a chicken egg
In videos and photos popular on the Internet, experimental alchemists use their seed to fertilize an ordinary chicken egg. Later, after the incubation period, a homunculus creature is born. Well, miracles of selection, no less!
Any school biology textbook makes it clear that crossing animals of different classes is impossible; in this case, hybrids die or produce infertile offspring. This is due to the huge difference in genomes. Hybridization of chicken and homo sapiens is impossible, if only for the simple reason that scientists consider even artificial things to be unrealistic. But let's look deeper.
We know that domestic chickens have 78 chromosomes in their cell nuclei. In humans, this figure is significantly different - 46 chromosomes. Any change in one direction or another due to mutations inevitably leads to serious diseases such as autism and Down syndrome.
The next obvious reason to doubt the reality of the possibility of creating a homunculus from an egg is the significant differences in the sequences and division of the DNA molecule, as well as the proteins and RNA encoded by it. The principles of structure of sperm and eggs are completely different.
Conception in all birds occurs inside the body, namely in the animal’s oviduct after the period of ovulation. The female reproductive cell rapidly loses its ability to fertilize. That is, in simple words, if a chicken egg has already been laid, then it will not be possible to fertilize it in any way. But if male sperm were artificially injected into a chicken’s oviduct, this would be closer to reality.
But even here we know that when fusions of domestic chicken and hamster cells are artificially produced in cell cultures, then, as a rule, the resulting hybrids immediately begin to throw out the chromosomes of a separate species until they are completely eliminated.
Growing a Homunculus - True or False?
Thus, with the help of basic knowledge of selection methods and principles, we found out that it is impossible to grow a homunculus either at home or in the laboratory in the presence of any scientific instruments and instruments.
The homunculus is unreal and is a common fake and a popular meme like. And if the creation of this creature was real, then the author of the video would definitely receive the Nobel Prize, as for the recent sensational one.
Do not believe the photos of a living homunculus, they are all faked and only misleading, and the authors of the fiction receive money from views of gullible people. Do not take the word of even seemingly authoritative researchers. If they are engaged in journalism and somehow make money from their craft, as, for example, then you can expect any tales from them, such as the myth about the dangers of alcohol. If you love science, read WikiScience!
First of all, it is worth mentioning that during its heyday, alchemy existed in the form of two sections, “high alchemy” and “applied” - the adherents of the high despised the adherents of the applied one for the mundaneness of their aspirations (the notorious search for gold, wealth and attempts to fit into the court of those in power), and strictly speaking, “high alchemy” was closer to religious philosophy than to chemistry in the modern world. The area of interest of high alchemy includes knowledge of the essence of being and matter and the search for the philosopher's stone (it should be noted that the philosopher's stone was a substance capable of transforming all aspects of life to their ideal prototype - healing diseases of the body and soul, giving immortality, etc. And the ability to transform metals into gold was, from their point of view, nothing more than the healing of diseases of metals and in no case was the goal of the “great work”!) To create a stone, from the point of view of alchemy adherents, it was necessary to first understand the essence of life and existence in general, and for this, experiments were carried out with the creation of life (initially this was the point of contact between alchemy and Kabbalah, according to legends which gave initiates the power to revive clay golems with the power of true words, such an approach was also shared by high alchemy for which the homunculus was more of a helping spirit or something similar, and not a test tube baby and was created from inanimate matter and energy.) - further experiments with homunculi shifted to the plane of applied alchemy (various instructions, spells, etc. etc. methods designed for a wide range of people) and ceased to interest high adherents - they fundamentally refused such popularization of their art and wrote all treatises in the most symbolic language, closed to the uninitiated.
From a scientific point of view, the methods of creating a homunculus that have spread among ordinary people are a relic of the medieval theory of embryo formation (animalculism) - according to it, the rudiments of all organs are collected from each organ into a spermatozoon and a ready-made embryo is formed in it, and the female body is needed only as an incubator. Thus, “practical” alchemists tried to replace the female body in this process with a retort and, using various manipulations with spells and a nutrient medium, force those same embryos to grow. (in this regard, the similarity between many of the instructions for creating a homunculus and the instructions for breeding basilisks is interesting!)
Naturally, not a single documented creation of a homunculus exists, although many famous scientists and alchemists are credited with their creation (Villanova, Paracelsus and even Newton!), but attention to questions of life and death is indeed characteristic of many alchemists throughout the history of this discipline, as well as characteristic of popular rumor - therefore the creation of homunculi is very widely covered in the literature. If you are interested in this, I can advise you to turn to primary sources in search of interesting stories and instructions ("Golem" by Gustav Meyrink regarding the Kabbalistic approach, "Faust" by Goethe + translated books on alchemy, etc.)
