The Seba library treats Vulcan in 6 passages, across 4 authors (including Jung, Carl Gustav, Abraham, Lyndy, López-Pedraza, Rafael).
What the poet beholds in his Vulcan’s pit is in truth the ‘Spirit’ as ever it was, namely the totality of primary forms from which the archetypal images come.
Jung reads Hölderlin’s ‘Vulcan’s pit’ as an image of the collective unconscious, the chthonic depth from which all archetypal forms originate.
, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis
Let Mars assist Vulcan; the bird arising from it / Will be a conqueror of iron and fire. In this context Mars signifies iron, *Vulcan the fire and the *bird the *philosophical child or stone born from the *egg or vessel.
Vulcan is identified with the alchemical fire of the opus, cooperating with Mars (iron) to produce the philosophical child from the vessel.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998thesis
Imus Vulcanum referat, bene monstret at alter / Mercurium
In Maier’s Scrutinium chymicum, Vulcan represents the lowest, most terrestrial of the four elemental fire-stages, positioned below Mercury in the alchemical hierarchy of fire.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting
the epiphany of a god, Vulcan, in a blacksmith’s forge, ‘Vulcan’s Forge,’ and the presence of Bacchus seen in the faces of the drinkers in ‘The Drunkards.’
López-Pedraza cites Velázquez’s ‘Vulcan’s Forge’ as a paradigm case of archetypal method: recognizing a god’s epiphanic presence within an ordinary craft scene.
, Hermes and His Children, 1977thesis
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626): medicine; Vulcan
Francis Bacon’s engagement with Vulcan is noted in the context of alchemical imagery, linking the figure to medicine within the concordance of alchemical authors.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
an INTJ’s bearing can seem downright Vulcan. The Vulcans, of course, are a fictional people in the Star Trek series — resolute logicians who barely change expression or use body language.
Thomson deploys ‘Vulcan’ as a pop-cultural analogy for the INTJ’s austere, emotion-suppressing exterior, illustrating the penetration of the mythic name into typological discourse.
, Personality Type: An Owner’s Manual, 1998aside