Homunculus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Homunculus is a term used, generally, in various fields of study to refer to any representation of a human being. Historically, it referred specifically to the concept of a miniature though fully formed human body, for example, in the studies of alchemy

Alchemy

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

and preformationism

Preformationism

In the history of biology, preformationism is either the specific contention that all organisms were created at the same time, and that succeeding generations grow from homunculi, animalcules, or other fully formed but miniature versions of themselves that have existed since the beginning of...

. Currently, in scientific fields, a homunculus may refer to any scale model

Scale model

A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...

of the human body that, in some way, illustrates physiological, psychological, or other abstract human characteristics or functions.

Alchemy

In Carl Jung

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...

's studies of alchemy

Alchemy

, he believed the first record of a homunculus in alchemical literature appeared in the Visions of Zosimos
Zosimos of Panopolis
Zosimos of Panopolis was an Egyptian or Greek alchemist and Gnostic mystic from the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th century AD. He was born in Panopolis, present day Akhmim in the south of Egypt, ca. 300. He wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, of which quotations in the Greek language...

, written in the third century AD, although the actual word "homunculus" was never used. In the visions, Zosimos mentions encountering a man who impales himself with a sword, and then undergoes "unendurable torment", his eyes become blood, he spews forth his flesh, and changes into "the opposite of himself, into a mutilated anthroparion (a Greek alchemical concept of a being somewhat similar to a golem

Golem

In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....

but possessing a sense of will and intelligence), and he tore his flesh with his own teeth, and sank into himself", which is a rather grotesque personification of the ouroboros

Ouroboros

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. The name originates from within Greek language; οὐρά meaning "tail" and βόρος meaning "eating", thus "he who eats the tail"....

, the dragon that bites its own tail, which represents the dyophysite

Dyophysite

Dyophysite is a theological term used in understanding how the divine and human are related in the person of Jesus Christ, an area of study known as Christology...

nature in alchemy: the balance of two principles. Zosimos later encounters several other homunculi, named as the Brazen Man, the Leaden Man, and so forth. Commonly, the homunculi "submit themselves to unendurable torment" and undergo alchemical transformation. Zosimos made no mention of actually creating an artificial human, but rather used the concept of personifying inanimate metals to further explore alchemy.

In Islamic alchemy, Takwin
Takwin
Takwin was a goal of certain Ismaili Muslim alchemists, notably Jabir ibn Hayyan. In the alchemical context, takwin refers to the creation of synthetic life in the laboratory, up to and including human life...

was a goal of certain Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

alchemists, notably Jabir ibn Hayyan

Geber

Abu Musa Jābir ibn Hayyān, often known simply as Geber, was a prominent polymath: a chemist and alchemist, astronomer and astrologer, engineer, geologist, philosopher, physicist, and pharmacist and physician. Born and educated in Tus, he later traveled to Kufa...

(later known as Geber in Europe). In the alchemical context, Takwin refers to the artificial creation of life in the laboratory

Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...

, up to and including human life.

There are also variants cited by other alchemists. One such variant involved the use of the mandrake

Mandrake (plant)

Mandrake is the common name for members of the plant genus Mandragora, particularly the species Mandragora officinarum, belonging to the nightshades family...

. Popular belief held that this plant grew where semen ejaculated by hanged men (during the last convulsive spasms before death) fell to the ground, and its roots vaguely resemble a human form to varying degrees. The root was to be picked before dawn on a Friday morning by a black dog, then washed and "fed" with milk and honey and, in some prescriptions, blood, whereupon it would fully develop into a miniature human which would guard and protect its owner. Yet a third method, cited by Dr. David Christianus at the University of Giessen

University of Giessen

The University of Giessen is officially called the Justus Liebig University Giessen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.-History:The University of Gießen is among the oldest institutions of...

during the 18th century, was to take an egg laid by a black hen, poke a tiny hole through the shell, replace a bean-sized portion of the white with human semen, seal the opening with virgin parchment, and bury the egg in dung on the first day of the March lunar cycle. A miniature humanoid would emerge from the egg after thirty days, which would help and protect its creator in return for a steady diet of lavender

Lavender

The lavenders are a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. An Old World genus, distributed from Macaronesia across Africa, the Mediterranean, South-West Asia, Arabia, Western Iran and South-East India...

seeds and earthworm

Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...

Preformationism

, a philosophical theory of heredity, claimed that either the egg or the sperm (exactly which was a contentious issue) contained a complete preformed individual called a homunculus. Development was therefore a matter of enlarging this into a fully formed being.

The term homunculus was later used in the discussion of conception and birth, Nicolas Hartsoeker

Nicolas Hartsoeker

Nicolaas Hartsoeker was a Dutch mathematician and physicist who invented the screw-barrel simple microscope circa 1694....

discovered "animalcules" in the semen of humans and other animals. This was the beginning of spermists' theory, who held the belief that the sperm was in fact a "little man" (homunculus) that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child. This seemed to them to neatly explain many of the mysteries of conception. It was later pointed out that if the sperm was a homunculus, identical in all but size to an adult, then the homunculus may have sperm of its own. This led to a reductio ad absurdum

Reductio ad absurdum

In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...

with a chain of homunculi "all the way down

Turtles all the way down

"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The phrase was popularized by Stephen Hawking in 1988. The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", viz...

". This was not necessarily considered by spermists a fatal objection however, as it neatly explained how it was that "in Adam" all had sinned

Original sin

Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...

: the whole of humanity was already contained in his loins. The spermists' theory also failed to explain why children tend to resemble their mothers as well as their fathers, though some spermists believed that the growing homunculus assimilated maternal characteristics from the womb environment in which they grew.

Modern science

The homunculus is commonly used today in scientific disciplines, such as psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, to describe the distorted scale model

Scale model

of a human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space human body parts occupy on the somatosensory cortex (sensory homunculus) and the motor cortex

Motor cortex

Motor cortex is a term that describes regions of the cerebral cortex involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary motor functions.-Anatomy of the motor cortex :The motor cortex can be divided into four main parts:...

(motor homunculus). The lips, hands, feet and sex organs have more sensory neurons than other parts of the body, so the homunculus has correspondingly large lips, hands, feet, and genitals. Well known in the field of neurology, this is also commonly called "the little man inside the brain." This scientific model is known as the cortical homunculus

Cortical homunculus

A cortical homunculus is a pictorial representation of the anatomical divisions of the primary motor cortex and the primary somatosensory cortex , i.e., the portion of the human brain directly responsible for the movement and exchange of sense and motor information of the rest of the body.There...

.

In medical science, the term homunculus is sometimes applied to certain fetus

Fetus

A fetus is a developing mammal or other viviparous vertebrate after the embryonic stage and before birth.In humans, the fetal stage of prenatal development starts at the beginning of the 11th week in gestational age, which is the 9th week after fertilization.-Etymology and spelling variations:The...

-like ovarian cystic teratoma

Teratoma

A teratoma is an encapsulated tumor with tissue or organ components resembling normal derivatives of all three germ layers. There are rare occasions when not all three germ layers are identifiable...

e. These will sometimes contain hair, sebaceous material and in some cases cartilagous

Cartilage

Cartilage is a flexible connective tissue found in many areas in the bodies of humans and other animals, including the joints between bones, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the elbow, the knee, the ankle, the bronchial tubes and the intervertebral discs...

or bony

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

structures.

Homunculus argument

The homunculus argument

Homunculus argument

The homunculus argument is a fallacy arising most commonly in the theory of vision. One may explain vision by noting that light from the outside world forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these images as if they are images on a movie screen The homunculus...

accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory, 1987). Homunculus argument

Homunculus argument

s are always fallacious. In the psychology and philosophy of mind 'homunculus arguments' are useful for detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.

Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a person watching a movie. They see the images as something separate from themselves, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the retinae in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they are the screen. The Homunculus Argument shows this is not a full explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person, or homunculus, behind the eye that gazes at the retinae. A more sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinae are transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision the Homunculus Argument invalidates theories that do not explain 'projection', the experience that the viewing point is separate from the things that are seen (adapted from Gregory, 1987; 1990).

"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently, their act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to their practical problem. . . . Must we then say that for the agent's . . . reflections how to act to be intelligent they must first reflect how best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion." Ryle 1949.

Ryle's theory is that intelligent acts cannot be a property of an inner being or mind, if such a thing were to exist.

The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to be the same but this is not the case. The homunculus argument says that if there is a need for a 'little man' to complete a theory then the theory is incomplete. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent would need to think before it could have a thought.

A common and effective response to all homunculi arguments is that it begs the question in favor of reductionism. As Quine maintains in his book Two Dogmas of Empiricism, "reductionism is a metaphysical article of faith". One cannot simply go on using reductionist methods forever as it leads to an infinite regress, which is a logical fallacy. At one point or another, one must acknowledge that some things in reality are foundational.

Early literary representations

Homunculi can be found in centuries worth of literature.

One of the very earliest literary references to the homunculus which also hints of its origination occurs in Thomas Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....

's Religio Medici
Religio Medici
Religio Medici is a book by Sir Thomas Browne, which sets out his spiritual testament as well as being an early psychological self-portrait. In its day, the book was a European best-seller and brought its author fame and respect throughout the continent...

(1643) in which the author states-

I am not of Paracelsus minde that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction. ... (Part 1:36)

The alchemical connection also occurs in the German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

's rendition of Faust, Part 2 which has that famed sorcerer's former student, Wagner, create a homunculus, who then carries out extended conversations with Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles
Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore...

as well as travels with him to the Pharsalian Fields to save Faust
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...

.
In his source study of Englishwoman Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...

's novel Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...

, Prof. Radu Florescu
Radu Florescu
Radu Florescu is a Romanian academic who holds the position of Emeritus Professor of History at Boston College. He was Director of the East European Research Center at Boston College, and also a professor of history....

notes that her father, William Godwin
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...

, and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

were both quite familiar with the lives and works of alchemists like Paracelsus
Paracelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....

and others. Florescu also suggests that Johann Conrad Dippel
Johann Conrad Dippel
Johann Konrad Dippel was a German pietist theologian, alchemist and physician.-Life:He was born at Castle Frankenstein near Mühltal and Darmstadt, and therefore once the addendum Franckensteinensis and once the addendum Franckensteina-Strataemontanus was used.He studied theology, philosophy and...

, an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein whom he believes may have been the inspiration for Victor Frankenstein, was a student of Dr. David Christianus.
In Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...

´s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years....

, Volume I, Chapter II, there is a reference to the homunculus: "(...) the animal spirits, whose business it was to have escorted and gone hand-in-hand with the homunculus, and conducted him safe to the place destined for his reception."
Writing on the purely superficial westernization of Russian intellectuals in his travel journalism Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, Dostoevsky writes: 'There is no soil, we say, and no people, nationality is nothing but a certain system of taxation, the soul is a tabula rasa, a small piece of wax out of which you can readily mould a real man, a world man or a homunculus – all that must be done is to apply the fruits of European civilisation and read two or three books’

Contemporary literary representations

In the twentieth century Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

's Foucault's Pendulum
Foucault's Pendulum
Foucault's Pendulum is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988; the translation into English by William Weaver appeared a year later....

, has several references to a homunculus, particularly detailed in a chapter dealing with druidic rites performed at a party in the country estate (castle) of a wealthy Rosicrucian
Rosicrucian
Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...

. After a series of sensually stimulating occult acts are played out for the small audience, several homunculi appear to be created, but the main character, Casaubon, cannot decide if they are wax or indeed authentic magic.
German horror writer Hanns Heinz Ewers
Hanns Heinz Ewers
Hanns Heinz Ewers was a German actor, poet, philosopher, and writer of short stories and novels. While he wrote on a wide range of subjects, he is now known mainly for his works of horror, particularly his trilogy of novels about the adventures of Frank Braun, a character modeled on himself...

used the mandrake method for creating a homunculus as the inspiration for his 1911 novel Alraune
Alraune
Alraune is a novel by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers published in 1911. It is also the name of the female lead character.-Legend:...

, in which a prostitute is impregnated with semen from a hanged murderer to create a woman devoid of morals or conscience. Several cinematic adaptations of Alraune have been made over the years, the most recent in 1952 with Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...

. The 1995 film Species
Species (film)
Species is a 1995 science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson, and starring Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker, Marg Helgenberger, and Natasha Henstridge...

also appears to draw some inspiration from this variation on the homunculus legend.
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:...

's novel The Satanist Hutchinson 1960. As part of the plot a Satanist using Homunculi as part of his Occult ritual to create air-breathing creatures. The Homunculi were created and stored in large fluid filled jars from a previous ritual. The ultimate transformation required a 21-year-old virgin to be sacrificed and her blood fed to the Homunculi. The virgin had previously been christened to Satan at birth by her father for occult favours and riches, unknown to herself.
In English novelist W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...

's 1908 work The Magician
The Magician (Maugham novel)
The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life...

, Oliver Haddo, a character based on British occultist Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

, is obsessed with the creation of homunculi.
In the young-adult fantasy book Rumo
Rumo
Rumo is a comune in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 45 km north of Trento. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 833 and an area of 30.8 km²....

by German novelist and cartoonist Walter Moers
Walter Moers
Walter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and authors.-Life and work:...

, Homunculi are hybrid life forms created out of a giant viscous liquid containing various animal cells. They are used as cheap labour.
In English novelist Peter Ackroyd's novel The House of Doctor Dee, John Dee
John Dee (mathematician)
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

, the Elizabethan mathematician, astrologer, philosopher and magus, attempts and succeeds in creating a homunculus.
American author David H. Keller
David H. Keller
David H. Keller was a writer for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century who wrote science fiction, fantasy and horror. He was the first psychiatrist to write for the genre, and was most often published as David H...

, M.D., wrote two pieces featuring homunculi. One was a short story, "A Twentieth-Century Homunculus", published in Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...

in 1930, which describes the creation of homunculi on an industrial scale by a pair of misogynists. In the other, a novel called The Homunculus, published in 1949 by Prime Press of Philadelphia, retired Colonel Horatio Bumble creates such a being.
Also examining the misogynistic tendencies of the creators of homunculi, Swedish novelist Sven Delblanc lampoons both his homunculus' creator and the Cold War industrial-military complexes of the Soviet Union and NATO in his novel The Homunculus: A Magic Tale.
American poet Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

incorporates a homunculus in her 1962 poem "Cut," part of her posthumously-published Ariel
Ariel (Plath)
Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published, and was originally published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems in the 1965 edition of Ariel, with their free flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from...

(1965).
In American author Mike Mignola
Mike Mignola
Michael Joseph "Mike" Mignola is an American comic book artist and writer who created the comic book series Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics. He has worked for animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire and the adaptation of his one shot comic book, The Amazing Screw-On Head.-Career:Mignola...

's Hellboy
Hellboy
Hellboy is a comic book superhero created by writer-artist Mike Mignola. The character first appeared in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 , and has since appeared in various eponymous miniseries, one-shots and intercompany crossovers...

and BPRD
Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense
The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is a fictional organization in the comic book work of Mike Mignola, charged with protecting America and the world from the occult, paranormal and supernatural. It maintains the services of several supernatural persons, including Hellboy. The B.P.R.D...

comic books, a medieval homunculus is discovered by BPRD agents, revived via pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words and , was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter...

, and eventually becomes part of the Bureau's "enhanced talents" team. Named Roger
Roger (Hellboy)
Roger the Homunculus is a fictional character featured in the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comic books published by Dark Horse Comics. He is an unusually large homunculus, a humanoid being said to be created by means of alchemy....

, the homunculus was alchemically created with blood and herbs, stewed in a jar, and then incubated in horse manure. Some years later, Roger is tragically blown apart by a villain and presumed dead.
A homunculus called Twigleg is one of the main characters of the 1997 children's novel Dragon Rider
Dragon Rider (novel)
Dragon Rider is a 1997 German children's novel by Cornelia Funke. Originally translated by Oliver Latsch, Dragon Rider was published in 2004 by The Chicken House in the UK and Scholastic Inc. in the US, using a translation by Anthea Bell...

by German author Cornelia Funke
Cornelia Funke
Cornelia Funke is a multiple award-winning German author of children's fiction. She was born on 10 December 1958, in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia. Funke is best known for her Inkworld trilogy, with the English translation of the third book, Inkdeath, released on 6 October 2008. Many of her...

. This homunculus is created by combining artificial ingredients and a small living creature (probably a small insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

or spider
Spider
Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

). He is also referred to as a "manikin".
In Jane R. Goodall
Jane R. Goodall
Jane R. Goodall is an Australian author.Born in Yorkshire, England, Goodall studied at London and Oxford Universities. She currently lectures in drama at the School of Community Arts, University of Western Sydney....

's 2004 mystery novel The Walker (Hodder Headline ISBN 0-7336-1897-9), ancient secrets pertaining to the creation of the alchemical homunculus are central to a plot involving murders based on Hogarth's prints and set in "Swinging London". The creation of homunculi, together with the search for the philosopher's stone, was a central aim of alchemy. Implicit in the novel is the uneasy speculation that the original experiment succeeded and this evil being may indeed move through history.
In Sean Williams' Books of the Cataclysm one of the central characters is a homunculus containing the consciousnesses of the Mirror Twins Seth & Hadrian Callisto.
Micah Nathan
Micah Nathan
Micah Nathan is an American author, screenwriter, and award-winning essayist. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Gods of Aberdeen, was published in June 2005 by Simon & Schuster and became an international bestseller...

's 2005 novel Gods of Aberdeen
Gods of Aberdeen
Gods of Aberdeen is a novel written by Micah Nathan, published in June 2005 by Simon & Schuster. It was translated into Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese with the title The Last Alchemist...

contains a scene where a mandrake root is pulled from the ground and the protagonist questions if it's being used to create a homunculus.
In Doctor Illuminatus (Alchemist's Son Trilogy) by Martin Booth
Martin Booth
Martin Booth was a prolific British novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press.-Early life:...

, Pierre de Loudéac persists to create a homunculus and succeeds. Also mentioned in the sequel Soul Stealer. Martin Booth died before the trilogy was completed.
In Hugh Paxton's 2006 novel Homunculus (MacMillan New Writing ISBN 978-0230007369), alchemy is harnessed for modern military purposes. Homunculi created from human body parts and powered by moonshine are used as bioweapons in war-torn Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

.
In Nobel Prize winner Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
*Not to be confused with German author Wilhelm Jensen .Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, in Denmark always called Johannes V. Jensen, was a Danish author, often considered the first great Danish writer of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944...

's novel The Fall of the King
The Fall of the King
The Fall of the King is a novel by Danish author Johannes V. Jensen, published in three parts from 1900 to 1901. It tells the story of Mikkel Thøgersen and the social entanglements which bring him into the service of king Christian II of Denmark....

(published in Danish 1900-01), a homunculus is featured. It is eventually burned at the stake.
In James P. Blaylock's novel Homunculus, published in 1986, a homunculus is much sought after by several of the book's characters because of its powerful magical abilities.
In Arakawa Hiromu's Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist
, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution...

, the main antagonists are Homunculi. In the manga and 2009 anime, they are created from the fabled Philosopher's Stone
Philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...

with Father, whose original form fits the classical perception of a Homunculus.
In Kamen Rider OOO
Kamen Rider OOO
is a 2010-2011 Japanese tokusatsu drama in Toei Company's Kamen Rider Series, being the twelfth series in the Heisei period run and the twenty-first overall. It began airing on September 5, 2010, the week following the conclusion of Kamen Rider W, joining Tensou Sentai Goseiger and then Kaizoku...

, the Greeed are Homunculi made out of coins and fueled by desire that resulted by the actions of alchemists under a king who desired immortality.
In Nobuhiro Watsuki
Nobuhiro Watsuki
is a Japanese manga artist, best known for his samurai-themed series Rurouni Kenshin. He once worked as an assistant for his favorite author Takeshi Obata.-Biography:...

's manga Buso Renkin
Buso Renkin
is a manga series written and drawn by Nobuhiro Watsuki, the creator of Rurouni Kenshin. Buso Renkin was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from June 2003 to 2005, ending at 80 chapters. The individual chapters were collected by Shueisha into ten tankōbon volumes which were...

, Homunculi are the antagonists for most of the series.
In the popular Atelier
Atelier
Atelier is the French word for "workshop", and in English is used principally for the workshop of an artist in the fine or decorative arts.Atelier may also refer to:* The Atelier Method of art instruction...

series by Gust Corporation, Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland includes a Homunculi who helps the main protagonist, Rorona, around the workshop.
In Jerry Stubblefield's 2009 novel "Homunculus" (Black Heron ISBN 978-0-930773-91-5) the protagonist hallucinates giving birth, through his navel, to the homunculus mapped on his brain, and the little man becomes a major player in the man's failing marriage.
In the anime Fullmetal Alchemist the main antagonists are Homunculi created through forbidden alchemical processes.
In the Sony PS2 Video Game Shadow of Memories
Shadow of Memories
, also known as Shadow of Destiny in North America, is an adventure video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo for the PlayStation 2. Originally released for the PlayStation 2, it was later ported to the PC and Xbox in 2002 by the now-defunct Runecraft company...

(Shadow of Destiny in the US) the protagonist, Eike, embarks on a time travelling quest to prevent his own death. He frequently interacts with a creature calling itself Homunculus and is entrusted to hand over the Red Stone (The Philosopher's Stone) to a struggling Alchemist attempting to create the Elixir of Life.
In the Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

trading card game, Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...

, homunculi are a recurring creature type. These homunculi typically have a single, large eye and act as servants to rich, powerful individuals, as well as assistants to mad scientists.
In Dr Who The Talons of Weng Chiang, the 'Peking Homunculus' was an animated doll running off a computer wired into the cerebral cortex of a pig. It was intended as a plaything for the presidents children, but somehow the pig influence became dominant and the crazed automaton massacred them in the nursery. It was later used as a weapon in Victorian London by Magnus Greel, the Minister of Justice, where it went by the name of Mr. Sin
In the Sony Playstation 2 video game Haunting Ground
Haunting Ground
Haunting Ground, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation 2 console in 2005. The game shares many similarities with Clock Tower 3.-Gameplay:...

one of the antagonists is a successfully created Homunculus, made by the keeper of the castle that you play through. Tormented by the fact that she is not human, the Homunculus takes after the main character in an attempt to kill and use her human parts to "complete" herself. The Homunculus' name is Daniella, and she is voiced by the talented Moira Quirk
Moira Quirk
Moira Shannon Quirk is a British actress, voice actress and sex symbol who was the referee of the Nickelodeon game show Nickelodeon GUTS for four seasons....

.
In the novel Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Random Riggs (2011), the main character, Jacob, encounters a Peculiar boy named Enoch who's Peculiar talent is making Homunculi.

Alchemy

Preformationism

Modern science

Homunculus argument

Early literary representations

Contemporary literary representations

See also