Alchemy
Everyone who gives creative expression to
the experience of the unconscious is an alchemist.
http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.jungalchemical.toc.htm
The third degree of [Alchemical] conjunction is universal: it is relation or identity of the personal with the supra-personal atman, and of the individual tao with the universal tao. . . . ~Carl Jung, CW 14, Para 762
To deal with the coniunctio in human words is a disconcerting task, since you are forced to express and formulate a process taking place "in Mercurio" and not on the level of human thought and human language, i.e., not within the sphere of discriminating consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
Just as some alchemists had to admit that they never succeeded in producing the gold or the Stone, I cannot confess to have solved the riddle of the coniunctio mystery.
On the contrary I am darkly aware of things lurking in the background of the problem-things too big for our horizons. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
It is said of the Stone: habet mille nomina [has a thousand names] which means that there is not one name expressing the Mystery. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
Instead of creating light, we conceal in darkness, instead of lifting up, we expose the treasure to ridicule and contempt. Instead of opening a way, we barricade it by an inextricable snarl of paradoxes. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
"In Mercurio" spirit and matter are one. This is a mystery nobody is ever going to solve. It is real, but we are unable to express its reality. It is neti-neti in other words: beyond our grasp, although it is a definite experience. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
To deal with the coniunctio in human words is a disconcerting task, since you are forced to express and formulate a process taking place "in Mercurio" and not on the level of human thought and human language, i.e., not within the sphere of discriminating consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
Just as some alchemists had to admit that they never succeeded in producing the gold or the Stone, I cannot confess to have solved the riddle of the coniunctio mystery.
On the contrary I am darkly aware of things lurking in the background of the problem-things too big for our horizons. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
It is said of the Stone: habet mille nomina [has a thousand names] which means that there is not one name expressing the Mystery. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
Instead of creating light, we conceal in darkness, instead of lifting up, we expose the treasure to ridicule and contempt. Instead of opening a way, we barricade it by an inextricable snarl of paradoxes. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
"In Mercurio" spirit and matter are one. This is a mystery nobody is ever going to solve. It is real, but we are unable to express its reality. It is neti-neti in other words: beyond our grasp, although it is a definite experience. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 392-396
The ‘squaring of the circle’ is one of the many archetypal motifs which form the basic patterns of our dreams and fantasies.
But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 715.
But it is distinguished by the fact that it is one of the most important of them from the functional point of view. Indeed, it could even be called the archetype of wholeness. ~Carl Jung, CW 9i, Para 715.
Mircea Eliade said, "...both Tantrist and alchemist strive to dominate 'matter'. They do not withdraw from the world as do the ascetic and metaphysician, but dream of conquering it and changing its ontological regime. In short, there is good ground for seeing in the tantric 'sâdhana', and in the work of the alchemist, parallel efforts to free themselves from the laws of Time, to 'decondition' their existence and gain absolute freedom.”
[Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, Univ. of Chicago Press,
1956 by Flammarion, 1978, 2nd Edition, pg.129.]
To produce transformations the magician uses the conception of "dynamic interconnectedness” to describe the physical world as the sort of thing that imagination and desire can affect. This holistic world is an independent whole, a web in which no strand is autonomous. Mind and body, galaxy and atom, sensation and stimulus, are intimately bound. Oneness is the backdrop of all that exists.
The primordial unbound state is nothing. All things are independent yet interrelated. The worldview is that all things come from the One Thing, or First Cause. Beyond delusory illusions of projection and archetypal possession, those who value human imagination and perceive cosmic oneness in worldly differences, can transcend the worldly vision, with meanings and revelations.
In Taoist and Vedic thought, the cosmic holistic entity – the universe – manifests its desire for self-expression as many – unity in diversity. This cyclic expression is oscillation – energetic flux -- of eternal growth and decay. Dualism is reconciled in complementary functions radiating cosmic forces. Integral gender vitality is the meaning of the sacred wedding. The unmanifest accounts for the overall stability of the universe. Holistic consciousness that guides nature is the invincible Silent Witness.
Universe is a spiritual arena, the domain of ‘desire-based consciousness. This power is integrating if it is turned into earth, grounded and balanced in manifest life. Self-healing flourishes optimally when dualism is transcended. Freed of the personal limitations of the individual mind, ‘compatible’ entities remain in ‘complementary’ pairs. The mystery of immortality is tied to that of death/rebirth. The nature of life is immortality.
“‘Desire for self-existence’ of the source permeates through all the minds of its aberrations, eternally establishing immortality in the universe,” says Rengarajan. [ DNA Decipher Journal | August2015 | Volume 5 | Issue 1| pp. 35-54Rengarajan, S. , Cosmic Intelligence & DNA (Part III) ]
Such passion explains even the absurd, as we learned in Episode One. We have come full circle. The serpent bites its own tail. The mirror cracks. The Mystery of death, immortality, and the deep unconscious woods is preserved – the eternal cycle continues, interweaving spirituality, culture, and nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zW1NySW-24
[Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, Univ. of Chicago Press,
1956 by Flammarion, 1978, 2nd Edition, pg.129.]
To produce transformations the magician uses the conception of "dynamic interconnectedness” to describe the physical world as the sort of thing that imagination and desire can affect. This holistic world is an independent whole, a web in which no strand is autonomous. Mind and body, galaxy and atom, sensation and stimulus, are intimately bound. Oneness is the backdrop of all that exists.
The primordial unbound state is nothing. All things are independent yet interrelated. The worldview is that all things come from the One Thing, or First Cause. Beyond delusory illusions of projection and archetypal possession, those who value human imagination and perceive cosmic oneness in worldly differences, can transcend the worldly vision, with meanings and revelations.
In Taoist and Vedic thought, the cosmic holistic entity – the universe – manifests its desire for self-expression as many – unity in diversity. This cyclic expression is oscillation – energetic flux -- of eternal growth and decay. Dualism is reconciled in complementary functions radiating cosmic forces. Integral gender vitality is the meaning of the sacred wedding. The unmanifest accounts for the overall stability of the universe. Holistic consciousness that guides nature is the invincible Silent Witness.
Universe is a spiritual arena, the domain of ‘desire-based consciousness. This power is integrating if it is turned into earth, grounded and balanced in manifest life. Self-healing flourishes optimally when dualism is transcended. Freed of the personal limitations of the individual mind, ‘compatible’ entities remain in ‘complementary’ pairs. The mystery of immortality is tied to that of death/rebirth. The nature of life is immortality.
“‘Desire for self-existence’ of the source permeates through all the minds of its aberrations, eternally establishing immortality in the universe,” says Rengarajan. [ DNA Decipher Journal | August2015 | Volume 5 | Issue 1| pp. 35-54Rengarajan, S. , Cosmic Intelligence & DNA (Part III) ]
Such passion explains even the absurd, as we learned in Episode One. We have come full circle. The serpent bites its own tail. The mirror cracks. The Mystery of death, immortality, and the deep unconscious woods is preserved – the eternal cycle continues, interweaving spirituality, culture, and nature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zW1NySW-24
The philosopher's stone or stone of the philosophers (Latin: lapis philosophorum) is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold (chrysopoeia, from the Greek χρυσός khrusos, "gold," and ποιεῖν poiēin, "to make") 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 in alchemy. The philosopher's stone was the central symbol of the mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss. Efforts to discover the philosopher's stone were known as the Magnum Opus ("Great Work").[1]
The Stone as a Spiritual Metaphor Alchemy has always made extensive use of analogy, symbolism, and so forth to relate chemical and physical concepts to esoteric and mystic ones. In some epochs and contexts, these metaphysical aspects came to predominate, and the chemical processes were then viewed as mere symbols of spiritual processes.
In this hermetic side of alchemy, the "philosopher's stone", supposed to to be the most tangible and dense crystalization or condensation of a subtle substance, became a metaphor for an inner potential of the spirit and reason to evolve from a lower state of imperfection and vice (symbolized by the base metals) to a higher state of enlightenment and perfection (symbolized by gold). In this view, spiritual elevation, the transmutation of metals, and the purification and rejuvenation of the body were seen to be manifestations of the same concept.
The mystical revival in the late 20th century renovated the public interest on alchemy, and particularly on this metaphysical and philosophical conception of the philosopher's stone - which is now subscribed by many people, especially within several New Age movements.
In this hermetic side of alchemy, the "philosopher's stone", supposed to to be the most tangible and dense crystalization or condensation of a subtle substance, became a metaphor for an inner potential of the spirit and reason to evolve from a lower state of imperfection and vice (symbolized by the base metals) to a higher state of enlightenment and perfection (symbolized by gold). In this view, spiritual elevation, the transmutation of metals, and the purification and rejuvenation of the body were seen to be manifestations of the same concept.
The mystical revival in the late 20th century renovated the public interest on alchemy, and particularly on this metaphysical and philosophical conception of the philosopher's stone - which is now subscribed by many people, especially within several New Age movements.
The idea lies concealed here that Christianity is only concerned with the problem of the salvation of man, whereas alchemy is concerned with that of the whole of nature. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Alchemy, Page 61.
The goal of alchemy is not merely material, it is partly in "the Beyond", and is almost exactly similar to the goal of Taoism, where the whole effort is directed towards finding or creating Tao. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 143.
It [Alchemy] is the idea of producing a perfect and complete being, a being which has a redeeming effect and which has many names: panacea, medicina catholica, the philosophers' stone and innumerable other synonyms. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 143.
The goal which the alchemist sets himself, however, is not a direct redemption of the human being, nor is it a propitiation of the Deity nor a defence against evil. ~ Jung, ETH, Page 143.
The goal which the alchemist sets himself, however, is not a direct redemption of the human being, nor is it a propitiation of the Deity nor a defence against evil. ~Jung, ETH, Page 143.
This means, applied to alchemy, that it is death to take alchemy as an external occupation, but the man who regards it as an inward experience, can live and rejoice.
~Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 97.
The central idea of Taoism is no moral question, but is the Tao, the indefinable essence of the right way, and this is also the mystery of alchemy. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 142.
The "art of gold making" is a sort of creating of the world, or it is based on the pattern of the creation of the world, and, as in Genesis, a cosmos is fashioned from the chaos.
~Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 97.
The earth, in the alchemistic sense, means the body and in a double sense: chemical bodies (substances), minerals etc., and the human body. ~Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 101.
Mercury is the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and entered matter as an emanation of God, and since then it is concealed in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 180.
"Go to the streams of the river Nile and there thou wilt find a stone which has a spirit. Take this stone, divide it and put thy hand inside it and draw out its heart: for its soul is in its heart." ~Ostanes cited by Carl Jung, ETH, Page 205.
The alchemists think of the Redeemer as lying hidden or sleeping in the materia,
he does not only descend from heaven but comes also from the depths of matter.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 189.
Every profound student of alchemy knows that the making of gold was not the real purpose and that the process was a western form of Yoga. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Page 107.
Who would have thought that the alchemists, popularly supposed to be searching for gold, were really promising themselves freedom from illusion, exaggerated emotion, passion, excess and all possible vices? ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIII, Page 108.
There can hardly be any doubt that not a few of those seekers had the dawning knowledge that the secret nature of the stone was man's own self. This "self"was evidently never thought of as an entity identical with the ego, and for this reason it was described as a "hidden nature" dwelling in inanimate matter, as a spirit, daemon, or fiery spark. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 94.
In alchemy the egg stands for the chaos apprehended by the artifex, the prima materia containing the captive world-soul. Out of the egg — symbolized by the round cooking vessel — will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul, which is ultimately identical with the Anthropos who was imprisoned in the embrace of Physis. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy; Page 202.
The goal of alchemy is not merely material, it is partly in "the Beyond", and is almost exactly similar to the goal of Taoism, where the whole effort is directed towards finding or creating Tao. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 143.
It [Alchemy] is the idea of producing a perfect and complete being, a being which has a redeeming effect and which has many names: panacea, medicina catholica, the philosophers' stone and innumerable other synonyms. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 143.
The goal which the alchemist sets himself, however, is not a direct redemption of the human being, nor is it a propitiation of the Deity nor a defence against evil. ~ Jung, ETH, Page 143.
The goal which the alchemist sets himself, however, is not a direct redemption of the human being, nor is it a propitiation of the Deity nor a defence against evil. ~Jung, ETH, Page 143.
This means, applied to alchemy, that it is death to take alchemy as an external occupation, but the man who regards it as an inward experience, can live and rejoice.
~Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 97.
The central idea of Taoism is no moral question, but is the Tao, the indefinable essence of the right way, and this is also the mystery of alchemy. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 142.
The "art of gold making" is a sort of creating of the world, or it is based on the pattern of the creation of the world, and, as in Genesis, a cosmos is fashioned from the chaos.
~Jung, ETH, Lecture XI, Page 97.
The earth, in the alchemistic sense, means the body and in a double sense: chemical bodies (substances), minerals etc., and the human body. ~Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 101.
Mercury is the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and entered matter as an emanation of God, and since then it is concealed in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 180.
"Go to the streams of the river Nile and there thou wilt find a stone which has a spirit. Take this stone, divide it and put thy hand inside it and draw out its heart: for its soul is in its heart." ~Ostanes cited by Carl Jung, ETH, Page 205.
The alchemists think of the Redeemer as lying hidden or sleeping in the materia,
he does not only descend from heaven but comes also from the depths of matter.
~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 189.
Every profound student of alchemy knows that the making of gold was not the real purpose and that the process was a western form of Yoga. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Page 107.
Who would have thought that the alchemists, popularly supposed to be searching for gold, were really promising themselves freedom from illusion, exaggerated emotion, passion, excess and all possible vices? ~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIII, Page 108.
There can hardly be any doubt that not a few of those seekers had the dawning knowledge that the secret nature of the stone was man's own self. This "self"was evidently never thought of as an entity identical with the ego, and for this reason it was described as a "hidden nature" dwelling in inanimate matter, as a spirit, daemon, or fiery spark. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Page 94.
In alchemy the egg stands for the chaos apprehended by the artifex, the prima materia containing the captive world-soul. Out of the egg — symbolized by the round cooking vessel — will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul, which is ultimately identical with the Anthropos who was imprisoned in the embrace of Physis. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy; Page 202.
It [Alchemy] is also called Hermetic Philosophy, though, of course, that conveys just as little as the term alchemy. —It was the parallel development, as Narcissism was, to the conscious development of Christianity, of our Christian philosophy, of the whole psychology of the middle ages. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 17.
It [Alchemy] is the mental work of 1,700 years, in which there is stored up all they could make out about the nature of the archetypes, in a peculiar way that's foolish. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 17.
It [Alchemy] is the mental work of 1,700 years, in which there is stored up all they could make out about the nature of the archetypes, in a peculiar way that's foolish. ~Carl Jung, Evans Conversations, Page 17.
"When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend 'the One, the All'. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites." --Jung, Psychology & Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 3.1).
"Now, all these myth-pictures represent a drama of the human psyche on the further side of consciousness, showing man as both the one to be redeemed and the redeemer. The first formulation is Christian, the second alchemical. In the first case man attributes the need of redemption to himself and leaves the work of redemption, the actual opus, to the autonomous divine figure; in the latter case man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus, and attributes the state of suffering and consequent need of redemption to the anima mundi imprisoned in matter. In both cases redemption is a work. In Christianity it is the life and death of the God-man which, by a unique sacrifice, bring about the reconciliation of man, who craves redemption and is sunk in materiality, with God. The mystical effect of the God-man's self-sacrifice extends, broadly speaking, to all men, though it is efficacious only for those who submit through faith or are chosen by divine grace; but in the Pauline acceptance it acts as an apocatastasis and extends also to non-human creation in general, which, in its imperfect state, awaits redemption like the merely natural man." --Jung, (Part 3, Chapter 3.3).
It was Khunrath who said that Christ is the saviour of man, whereas the mysterious substance of alchemy is the saviour of the universe, not only of man but of nature.
~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIV, Page 121.
The "Aurora Consurgens" asks the question: "What is the science? It is the gift and sanctuary of the Deity, it is a divine thing, and is hidden by the Wise in symbolical words and in many ways." ~Cited in ETH Lectures, Page 175.
The creation and birth of this superior personality is what is meant by our text when it speaks of the 'holy fruit', the 'diamond body', or refers in other ways to an indestructible body. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 123.
This leads us over to the secret gnosis of the Middle Ages, when it takes the form of alchemy. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8March1935, Pages 198
"Now, all these myth-pictures represent a drama of the human psyche on the further side of consciousness, showing man as both the one to be redeemed and the redeemer. The first formulation is Christian, the second alchemical. In the first case man attributes the need of redemption to himself and leaves the work of redemption, the actual opus, to the autonomous divine figure; in the latter case man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus, and attributes the state of suffering and consequent need of redemption to the anima mundi imprisoned in matter. In both cases redemption is a work. In Christianity it is the life and death of the God-man which, by a unique sacrifice, bring about the reconciliation of man, who craves redemption and is sunk in materiality, with God. The mystical effect of the God-man's self-sacrifice extends, broadly speaking, to all men, though it is efficacious only for those who submit through faith or are chosen by divine grace; but in the Pauline acceptance it acts as an apocatastasis and extends also to non-human creation in general, which, in its imperfect state, awaits redemption like the merely natural man." --Jung, (Part 3, Chapter 3.3).
It was Khunrath who said that Christ is the saviour of man, whereas the mysterious substance of alchemy is the saviour of the universe, not only of man but of nature.
~Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture XIV, Page 121.
The "Aurora Consurgens" asks the question: "What is the science? It is the gift and sanctuary of the Deity, it is a divine thing, and is hidden by the Wise in symbolical words and in many ways." ~Cited in ETH Lectures, Page 175.
The creation and birth of this superior personality is what is meant by our text when it speaks of the 'holy fruit', the 'diamond body', or refers in other ways to an indestructible body. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 123.
This leads us over to the secret gnosis of the Middle Ages, when it takes the form of alchemy. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture 8March1935, Pages 198
There are many aspects to the study of and practice of alchemy.
1- The strictly laboratory alchemists. They maintain that Philosopher’s Stone is an external material stone that can be made in the lab which will transform baser metals to gold, and through their elixirs and medicines, eliminate disease, and rejuvenate one physically, mentally and spiritually. The laboratory techniques and works reveal to them the mysteries of nature and the wonders of creation.
2 - There are also the strictly spiritual alchemists. They believe in the regeneration of the soul and consciousness through the attunement with that which is the higher and the divine in themselves. Inner states are transmuted through the elevation of the vibrations of spiritual and metaphysical energies. Such works lead them to inner mystical experiences, spiritual attainment and cosmic consciousness.
3- Then there are the spiritual laboratory alchemists. They see the whole beauty of alchemy as being in the holistic world. They understand the "Glory of the whole world" as is related by Hermes. They know the secret behind the embodiment of the Spirit, and the spiritualization of the body as it expresses itself in a new spiritual body of light. To them the alchemical process occurs simultaneously with the inner and the outer worlds. They are always in the crucible with their experiments.
4- There are also the Jungian psychological alchemists. To the Jungians the Philosopher’s Stone is the Integration of the Self, which is arrived at through the union and
reconciliation of the opposites, the feminine and the masculine natures of the soul and consciousness.
5- There are also the purely philosophically intellectual alchemists. They are lovers of the most beautiful Hermetic literatures. To them, alchemy is a Philosophy and can be seen
expressed in mythology, religion, the bible, and in philosophical works that speak universally through all epochs and civilization.
--Steve Kalec
In the cheap and vile substance, which can be found everywhere and which is despised, the highest and most precious substance mind is hidden, which longs to be redeemed and to return to its original state of incorruptibility, to the form in which it was originally created and in which it was of the same nature as the creator. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Alchemy, Lecture VII, Page 66.
This stone, set so beautifully, is certainly the Lapis Philosophorum.
It is harder than diamond.
But it expands into space through four distinct qualities, namely breadth, height, depth, and time. It is hence invisible and you can pass through it without noticing it.
The four streams of Aquarius flow from the stone.
This is the incorruptible seed that lies between the father and the mother and prevents the heads of both cones from touching: it is the monad which countervails the Pleroma."
On the pleroma, see below p. 347.
Concerning the reference to the incorruptible seed, see the dialogue with Ha in the note to image 94, p. 297, n. 157 above. ~Liber Novus, Footnote 339, Page 336.
1- The strictly laboratory alchemists. They maintain that Philosopher’s Stone is an external material stone that can be made in the lab which will transform baser metals to gold, and through their elixirs and medicines, eliminate disease, and rejuvenate one physically, mentally and spiritually. The laboratory techniques and works reveal to them the mysteries of nature and the wonders of creation.
2 - There are also the strictly spiritual alchemists. They believe in the regeneration of the soul and consciousness through the attunement with that which is the higher and the divine in themselves. Inner states are transmuted through the elevation of the vibrations of spiritual and metaphysical energies. Such works lead them to inner mystical experiences, spiritual attainment and cosmic consciousness.
3- Then there are the spiritual laboratory alchemists. They see the whole beauty of alchemy as being in the holistic world. They understand the "Glory of the whole world" as is related by Hermes. They know the secret behind the embodiment of the Spirit, and the spiritualization of the body as it expresses itself in a new spiritual body of light. To them the alchemical process occurs simultaneously with the inner and the outer worlds. They are always in the crucible with their experiments.
4- There are also the Jungian psychological alchemists. To the Jungians the Philosopher’s Stone is the Integration of the Self, which is arrived at through the union and
reconciliation of the opposites, the feminine and the masculine natures of the soul and consciousness.
5- There are also the purely philosophically intellectual alchemists. They are lovers of the most beautiful Hermetic literatures. To them, alchemy is a Philosophy and can be seen
expressed in mythology, religion, the bible, and in philosophical works that speak universally through all epochs and civilization.
--Steve Kalec
In the cheap and vile substance, which can be found everywhere and which is despised, the highest and most precious substance mind is hidden, which longs to be redeemed and to return to its original state of incorruptibility, to the form in which it was originally created and in which it was of the same nature as the creator. ~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Alchemy, Lecture VII, Page 66.
This stone, set so beautifully, is certainly the Lapis Philosophorum.
It is harder than diamond.
But it expands into space through four distinct qualities, namely breadth, height, depth, and time. It is hence invisible and you can pass through it without noticing it.
The four streams of Aquarius flow from the stone.
This is the incorruptible seed that lies between the father and the mother and prevents the heads of both cones from touching: it is the monad which countervails the Pleroma."
On the pleroma, see below p. 347.
Concerning the reference to the incorruptible seed, see the dialogue with Ha in the note to image 94, p. 297, n. 157 above. ~Liber Novus, Footnote 339, Page 336.
The word meditation is used, when someone holds an inner dialogue
(colloquium) with someone else who is invisible, and also when God is
invoked, or when someone speaks to himself or to his good angel. ~Dr.
Rulandus, Cited ETH, Page 171.
The purpose of the meditation of the alchemists is also spiritualis, but in contrast to the other methods of meditation which we studied here - those of Yoga, Mahayana Buddhism and the Ignatian excercises - the subject of meditation in alchemy is something unknown, and not a known dogmatic formula. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 174.
And so we find them in alchemy also, and the fact is recorded that in deep meditation dissociation occurs between the ego and a "second", that takes on the form of an inner figure, or represents something quite objective which will answer questions or produce enlightening remarks. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 172.
Therefore the prima materia is called "monad", "ens reale" and "forma interna", that is, it is the inner form which gives things their existence, and is, therefore, the cause of all existence. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 221.
The purpose of the meditation of the alchemists is also spiritualis, but in contrast to the other methods of meditation which we studied here - those of Yoga, Mahayana Buddhism and the Ignatian excercises - the subject of meditation in alchemy is something unknown, and not a known dogmatic formula. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 174.
And so we find them in alchemy also, and the fact is recorded that in deep meditation dissociation occurs between the ego and a "second", that takes on the form of an inner figure, or represents something quite objective which will answer questions or produce enlightening remarks. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 172.
Therefore the prima materia is called "monad", "ens reale" and "forma interna", that is, it is the inner form which gives things their existence, and is, therefore, the cause of all existence. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Page 221.
Mercurius as a three-headed dragon, German, ca. 1600, Book of Secrets
Alchemical philosophy deals with the art of transmutation by a series of stages. Whereas orthodox religious thought emphasized the repression of darkness and the worship of light exclusively, the hermetic approach embraced darkness with the belief that it was a necessary material in the evolutionary process. This is famously described in alchemical literature as the magical act of turning lead into gold.
Alchemical philosophy deals with the art of transmutation by a series of stages. Whereas orthodox religious thought emphasized the repression of darkness and the worship of light exclusively, the hermetic approach embraced darkness with the belief that it was a necessary material in the evolutionary process. This is famously described in alchemical literature as the magical act of turning lead into gold.
The opus consists of three parts: insight, endurance, and action. Psychology is needed only in the first part, but in the second and third parts moral strength plays the predominant role. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 375.
The alchemical operation consisted essentially in separating the prima
materia, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the passive
principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in the
coniunctio or 'chymical marriage'... the ritual cohabitation of Sol and Luna.
- C.G. Jung Mysterium Coniunctionis
The alchemical operation consisted essentially in separating the prima
materia, the so-called chaos, into the active principle, the soul, and the passive
principle, the body, which were then reunited in personified form in the
coniunctio or 'chymical marriage'... the ritual cohabitation of Sol and Luna.
- C.G. Jung Mysterium Coniunctionis
WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
Life is the greatest mystery man has tried to unravel since he was (is) the most highest angel of heaven. He gave up his heavenly crown, his wings and his glorious robe of light to plunge into Malkuth and experiences the holistic Cosmic being. Man cannot ever separate Kether from Malkuth. In fact Kether is in Malkuth. It is here that we experience, in the WORLD where we are. The world is Heaven and Earth. Without the grounding of earth, heaven is out of this world and beyond the reach of consciousness, because spirit is volatile to infinity and never graspable. Without Heaven, the earth is cold and a desolate desert that is so fixed in the material that it would lack the fire of life itself. Thus man has his feet firmly grounded on earth, and has his head soaring into the heavens. A balloon not tied down to earth floats away to only burst into oblivion. There is a heaven and there is an earth for a reason. We have a body and we have a soul. The beauty is the alchemist' s beauty, the understanding of the love between matter and spirit that produces Life, Light (consciousness) and Love. Spirit and Matter will always be, and consciousness will always exist, function, and evolve in the marriage of these two most mysterious aspects of Being, LIGHT and DARKNESS.
A jewel in reality is darkness by itself. Its beauty is never seen without the very light of the sun that shines through it. Yet the light is not perceived in its glorious beauty until it is seen in the jewel. Thus the jewel manifests the light as does the light bring out the beauty of the jewel. Who is more beautiful or worthy? Is it the Bride or the Groom ?
Light cannot ever express itself without a medium. In space light is dark. When it hits the atmosphere, the soul of Malkuth, it becomes light and is perceived by the spiritual beings who behold their own Light, their own kind. They live in Malkuth so they could experience their own light and bring this experience back to heaven (within their own being) from where they first dared to plunge from. Jacob's Ladder is a profound principle to meditate and understand.
The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, of Spirit and Matter, this is the Alchemical Wedding, where matter becomes Spirit and Spirit becomes Matter. It is in this experience that the body is introduced into a new state, experiencing corporeality as a function of the state of light, while at the same time, light also becomes a function of a new corporeality as it is embodied, fixed and Heaven Established on Earth.
Steve Kalec
Life is the greatest mystery man has tried to unravel since he was (is) the most highest angel of heaven. He gave up his heavenly crown, his wings and his glorious robe of light to plunge into Malkuth and experiences the holistic Cosmic being. Man cannot ever separate Kether from Malkuth. In fact Kether is in Malkuth. It is here that we experience, in the WORLD where we are. The world is Heaven and Earth. Without the grounding of earth, heaven is out of this world and beyond the reach of consciousness, because spirit is volatile to infinity and never graspable. Without Heaven, the earth is cold and a desolate desert that is so fixed in the material that it would lack the fire of life itself. Thus man has his feet firmly grounded on earth, and has his head soaring into the heavens. A balloon not tied down to earth floats away to only burst into oblivion. There is a heaven and there is an earth for a reason. We have a body and we have a soul. The beauty is the alchemist' s beauty, the understanding of the love between matter and spirit that produces Life, Light (consciousness) and Love. Spirit and Matter will always be, and consciousness will always exist, function, and evolve in the marriage of these two most mysterious aspects of Being, LIGHT and DARKNESS.
A jewel in reality is darkness by itself. Its beauty is never seen without the very light of the sun that shines through it. Yet the light is not perceived in its glorious beauty until it is seen in the jewel. Thus the jewel manifests the light as does the light bring out the beauty of the jewel. Who is more beautiful or worthy? Is it the Bride or the Groom ?
Light cannot ever express itself without a medium. In space light is dark. When it hits the atmosphere, the soul of Malkuth, it becomes light and is perceived by the spiritual beings who behold their own Light, their own kind. They live in Malkuth so they could experience their own light and bring this experience back to heaven (within their own being) from where they first dared to plunge from. Jacob's Ladder is a profound principle to meditate and understand.
The Marriage of Heaven and Earth, of Spirit and Matter, this is the Alchemical Wedding, where matter becomes Spirit and Spirit becomes Matter. It is in this experience that the body is introduced into a new state, experiencing corporeality as a function of the state of light, while at the same time, light also becomes a function of a new corporeality as it is embodied, fixed and Heaven Established on Earth.
Steve Kalec
Not for nothing did alchemy style itself an "art," feeling—and rightly so—that it was concerned with creative processes that can be truly grasped only by experience, though intellect may give them a name. ~Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Pg 482
“I hold the view that the alchemist’s hope of conjuring out of matter the philosophical gold, or the panacea, or the wonderful stone, was only in part an illusion, an effect of projection; for the rest it corresponded to certain psychic facts that are of great importance in the psychology of the unconscious.
As is shown by the texts and their symbolism, the alchemist projected what I have called the process of individuation into the phenomena of chemical change.” ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 482, Para 564.
“I hold the view that the alchemist’s hope of conjuring out of matter the philosophical gold, or the panacea, or the wonderful stone, was only in part an illusion, an effect of projection; for the rest it corresponded to certain psychic facts that are of great importance in the psychology of the unconscious.
As is shown by the texts and their symbolism, the alchemist projected what I have called the process of individuation into the phenomena of chemical change.” ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 482, Para 564.
Symbolism of the Colors: Gray, Blue, Red.]
As we have heard, different colors correspond to the four stages.
We mentioned already that the color gray is the color of ghosts.
Gray is a combination color; it is semidarkness, in which light just starts to emerge from complete blackness.
In alchemy, nigredo is the initial state, in which death reigns, absolute unconsciousness.
Then follows the albedo, that is, whitening.
The alchemists call it the rising sun that brings the morning and the crack of dawn.
In this respect there is a certain analogy to the stage of the gray mouse.
In alchemy, red comes after white: after dawn comes sunrise, and after sunrise the full sun.
In Greek alchemy, the complete constellation is called the “midday position of the sun.”
When the sun reaches its zenith, the meaning of the day is fulfilled.
What has been prepared during the night has now reached its highest perfection.
In other contexts, too, the finished body is called rubinus or carbunculus in alchemy.
It is a more intense state than albedo.
Red, as it is, is an emotional color and stands for blood, passion, and fire.
The blue color is assigned to the following stage.
Blue stands in stark contrast to red and indicates a cool and calming state.
Blue is the color of Mary’s mantle in heaven.
She is the womb in which Christ was born, and has always represented the symbol of a spiritual vessel.
Blue is also the color of water and can thus represent the unconscious: just as we see the fish in the clear blue of the water, the spiritual contents contrast with the darkness of the unconscious.
The color blue cannot be found in alchemy, but it is found in the East, where it takes the place of black and actually represents a color of the underworld.
In Egypt, too, Osiris in the underworld is portrayed in black or blue.
It is more a bluish-green color that characterizes not only the underworld (Osiris as the “Master of Green”), but also the water world.
This world corresponds to the “lower waters,” in which the animals live as disembodied spirits.
Thus blue is also the bluish-green sea that houses the spirits of the dead.
The fourth stage is man, to whom no color is assigned.
So the development occurs in four stages, and this is no coincidence.
This is the most frequently found structure, as, for instance, in a basic law of alchemy, according to which the process of transformation occurs in four stages.
This gives expression to the idea that everything human develops out of something divided into four.
In the legend of paradise, the river that flows out of the Garden of Eden parts and becomes four riverheads.
This image has been taken up by the Gnostics to illustrate the development of the inner human being.
According to Simon Magus, paradise is the uterus, and the Garden of Eden the navel.
Four flows emanate from the navel, two air- and two blood-vessels, so to speak, through which the growing child receives its food, the blood, and the pneuma.
In antiquity, the world was classified into four elements, to which also four temperaments corresponded.
Four reemerges in the work of Schopenhauer in the theorem of the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
In Christianity, the division into four is expressed by the symbol of the cross.
Where else does the division into four appear in Christianity?
Participant: In the benedictio fontis.
Professor Jung: Yes, in it the priest divides the water in the form of the cross, he seemingly divides it into four parts.
In this way he repeats the beginning of creation.
By this act the water becomes the mysterious, eternal, and divine water, by which man is cleansed of all sinfulness and impurity.
The ablution, as it were, puts him back into the primordial state of innocence.
Apart from the four there are, of course, still other sacred numbers, but in each case of totality quaternity plays an important role, be it about the most primitive or the most elaborate ideas.
The four always expresses the coming into being of what is essentially human, the emergence of human consciousness.
Thus, the alchemical process also begins with such a division into the four elements, by which the body is put back into its primordial state and so can undergo transformation.
~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Pages 365-367.
As we have heard, different colors correspond to the four stages.
We mentioned already that the color gray is the color of ghosts.
Gray is a combination color; it is semidarkness, in which light just starts to emerge from complete blackness.
In alchemy, nigredo is the initial state, in which death reigns, absolute unconsciousness.
Then follows the albedo, that is, whitening.
The alchemists call it the rising sun that brings the morning and the crack of dawn.
In this respect there is a certain analogy to the stage of the gray mouse.
In alchemy, red comes after white: after dawn comes sunrise, and after sunrise the full sun.
In Greek alchemy, the complete constellation is called the “midday position of the sun.”
When the sun reaches its zenith, the meaning of the day is fulfilled.
What has been prepared during the night has now reached its highest perfection.
In other contexts, too, the finished body is called rubinus or carbunculus in alchemy.
It is a more intense state than albedo.
Red, as it is, is an emotional color and stands for blood, passion, and fire.
The blue color is assigned to the following stage.
Blue stands in stark contrast to red and indicates a cool and calming state.
Blue is the color of Mary’s mantle in heaven.
She is the womb in which Christ was born, and has always represented the symbol of a spiritual vessel.
Blue is also the color of water and can thus represent the unconscious: just as we see the fish in the clear blue of the water, the spiritual contents contrast with the darkness of the unconscious.
The color blue cannot be found in alchemy, but it is found in the East, where it takes the place of black and actually represents a color of the underworld.
In Egypt, too, Osiris in the underworld is portrayed in black or blue.
It is more a bluish-green color that characterizes not only the underworld (Osiris as the “Master of Green”), but also the water world.
This world corresponds to the “lower waters,” in which the animals live as disembodied spirits.
Thus blue is also the bluish-green sea that houses the spirits of the dead.
The fourth stage is man, to whom no color is assigned.
So the development occurs in four stages, and this is no coincidence.
This is the most frequently found structure, as, for instance, in a basic law of alchemy, according to which the process of transformation occurs in four stages.
This gives expression to the idea that everything human develops out of something divided into four.
In the legend of paradise, the river that flows out of the Garden of Eden parts and becomes four riverheads.
This image has been taken up by the Gnostics to illustrate the development of the inner human being.
According to Simon Magus, paradise is the uterus, and the Garden of Eden the navel.
Four flows emanate from the navel, two air- and two blood-vessels, so to speak, through which the growing child receives its food, the blood, and the pneuma.
In antiquity, the world was classified into four elements, to which also four temperaments corresponded.
Four reemerges in the work of Schopenhauer in the theorem of the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
In Christianity, the division into four is expressed by the symbol of the cross.
Where else does the division into four appear in Christianity?
Participant: In the benedictio fontis.
Professor Jung: Yes, in it the priest divides the water in the form of the cross, he seemingly divides it into four parts.
In this way he repeats the beginning of creation.
By this act the water becomes the mysterious, eternal, and divine water, by which man is cleansed of all sinfulness and impurity.
The ablution, as it were, puts him back into the primordial state of innocence.
Apart from the four there are, of course, still other sacred numbers, but in each case of totality quaternity plays an important role, be it about the most primitive or the most elaborate ideas.
The four always expresses the coming into being of what is essentially human, the emergence of human consciousness.
Thus, the alchemical process also begins with such a division into the four elements, by which the body is put back into its primordial state and so can undergo transformation.
~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Pages 365-367.
And matter [which was alive and had psychical qualities for him) contained a secret intention, a kind of wish, as if it wanted to be transformed. --Jung, Modern Psychology, Alchemy Lecture VII, p. 65
“The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is “secret,” i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it. In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery - his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence.” ― C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
Mercury is the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and entered matter as an emanation of God, and since then it is concealed in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 180.
“The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is “secret,” i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it. In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery - his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence.” ― C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
Mercury is the anima mundi, the soul of the world, and entered matter as an emanation of God, and since then it is concealed in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Page 180.
Not for nothing did alchemy style itself an "art," feeling—and rightly so—that it was concerned with creative processes that can be truly grasped only by experience, though intellect may give them a name. ~Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, P. 482.
For the alchemist, the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 312.
The concept of imaginatio is perhaps the most important key to the understanding of the opus.
The author of the treatise "De sulphure" speaks of the "imaginative faculty" of the soul in that passage where he is trying to do just what the ancients had failed to do, that is, give a clear indication of the secret of the art. The soul, he says, is the vice-regent of God (sui locum tenens sen vice Rex est) and dwells in the life-spirit of the pure blood.
It rules the mind (ilia gubernat mentem) and this rules the body.
The soul functions (operatur) in the body, but has the greater part of its function (operatio) outside the body (or, we might add by way of explanation, in projection).
This peculiarity is divine, since divine wisdom is only partly enclosed in the body of the world: the greater part of it is outside, and it imagines far higher things than the body of the world can conceive (concipere).
And these things are outside nature: God's own secrets. The soul is an example of this: it too imagines many things of the utmost profundity (profundissima) outside the body, just as God does.
True, what the soul imagines happens only in the mind (non exequitur Jiisi in mente), but what God imagines happens in reality.
"The soul, however, has absolute and independent power [absolutam et. separatam pofestatem] to do other things [alia facere] than those the body can grasp.
But, when it so desires, it has the greatest power over the body [potestatem in corpus], for otherwise our philosophy would be in vain.
Thou canst conceive the greater, for we have opened the gates unto thee."
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Pages 279-280.
SUFFERING
"The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness – was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? ...
" ... The spiritual haughtiness and nausea of every man who has suffered profoundly – it almost determines the order of rank how profoundly human beings can suffer – his shuddering certainty, which permeates and colors him through and through, that by virtue of his suffering he knows more than the cleverest and wisest could possibly know, and that he knows his way and has once been at home in many distant, terrifying worlds of which you know nothing – this spiritual and silent haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the initiated, of the almost sacrificed, finds all kinds of disguises necessary to protect itself against contact with obtrusive and pitying hands and altogether against everything that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble; it separates. ... "
--Frederich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil", 1882
For the alchemist, the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 312.
The concept of imaginatio is perhaps the most important key to the understanding of the opus.
The author of the treatise "De sulphure" speaks of the "imaginative faculty" of the soul in that passage where he is trying to do just what the ancients had failed to do, that is, give a clear indication of the secret of the art. The soul, he says, is the vice-regent of God (sui locum tenens sen vice Rex est) and dwells in the life-spirit of the pure blood.
It rules the mind (ilia gubernat mentem) and this rules the body.
The soul functions (operatur) in the body, but has the greater part of its function (operatio) outside the body (or, we might add by way of explanation, in projection).
This peculiarity is divine, since divine wisdom is only partly enclosed in the body of the world: the greater part of it is outside, and it imagines far higher things than the body of the world can conceive (concipere).
And these things are outside nature: God's own secrets. The soul is an example of this: it too imagines many things of the utmost profundity (profundissima) outside the body, just as God does.
True, what the soul imagines happens only in the mind (non exequitur Jiisi in mente), but what God imagines happens in reality.
"The soul, however, has absolute and independent power [absolutam et. separatam pofestatem] to do other things [alia facere] than those the body can grasp.
But, when it so desires, it has the greatest power over the body [potestatem in corpus], for otherwise our philosophy would be in vain.
Thou canst conceive the greater, for we have opened the gates unto thee."
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Pages 279-280.
SUFFERING
"The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness – was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? ...
" ... The spiritual haughtiness and nausea of every man who has suffered profoundly – it almost determines the order of rank how profoundly human beings can suffer – his shuddering certainty, which permeates and colors him through and through, that by virtue of his suffering he knows more than the cleverest and wisest could possibly know, and that he knows his way and has once been at home in many distant, terrifying worlds of which you know nothing – this spiritual and silent haughtiness of the sufferer, this pride of the elect of knowledge, of the initiated, of the almost sacrificed, finds all kinds of disguises necessary to protect itself against contact with obtrusive and pitying hands and altogether against everything that is not its equal in suffering. Profound suffering makes noble; it separates. ... "
--Frederich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil", 1882
The secret is that only that which can destroy itself is truly alive. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page 81.
Alchemical change is marked by suffering, dark depression, dismemberment, putrefaction, and dissolution; and all are essential to the work. The act of disordering allows new possibilities to arise – if painfully. But without the loss and the suffering, then perhaps there is no movement towards the wholeness of the Philosopher’s Stone.
On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes.
But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness.
There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion". ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Page 96.
Hermeticism is not something you choose, it is a destiny, just as the ecclesia spiritualis is not an organization but an electio.
~Carl Jung to Rudolf Bernuoelli, Letters Volume 1, Page 351.
Alchemical change is marked by suffering, dark depression, dismemberment, putrefaction, and dissolution; and all are essential to the work. The act of disordering allows new possibilities to arise – if painfully. But without the loss and the suffering, then perhaps there is no movement towards the wholeness of the Philosopher’s Stone.
On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes.
But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness.
There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion". ~Carl Jung, CW 9, Page 96.
Hermeticism is not something you choose, it is a destiny, just as the ecclesia spiritualis is not an organization but an electio.
~Carl Jung to Rudolf Bernuoelli, Letters Volume 1, Page 351.
Alchemical Garden Beyond Time
(Bocklin / du Nome remix, digital collage)
(Bocklin / du Nome remix, digital collage)
I am therefore inclined to assume that the real root of alchemy is to be
sought less in philosophical doctrines than in the projections of
individual investigators. I mean by this that while working on his
chemical experiments the operator had certain psychic experiences which
appeared to him as the particular behavior of the chemical process.
Since it was a question of projection, he was naturally unconscious of
the fact that the experience had nothing to do with matter itself (that
is, with matter as we know it today). He experienced his projection as a
property of matter; but what he was in reality experiencing was his own
unconscious. In this way he recapitulated the whole history of
mankind's knowledge of nature.... Such projections repeat themselves
whenever man tries to explore an empty darkness and involuntarily fills
it with living form. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter
2.1).
Nigredo ("blackening"): the first of the four alchemical stages. Jungian equivalent: en-countering the shadow; also, the deflation that follows when an inflated ego invades the collective unconscious (a deflation described by St. John of the Cross as a "dark night"). The initial stage is the “nigredo,” the blackness of death, the darkness darker than dark.
The substance is always the same, but a new value is given to it, and the new value is the treasure. That is the secret of alchemy for instance. ~Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 653.
The circulation is not merely movement in a circle, but means on the one hand the marking off of the sacred precinct, and on the other, the fixation and concentration. ~Jung, CW 13, Alchemical Studies, Page 25.
Nigredo ("blackening"): the first of the four alchemical stages. Jungian equivalent: en-countering the shadow; also, the deflation that follows when an inflated ego invades the collective unconscious (a deflation described by St. John of the Cross as a "dark night"). The initial stage is the “nigredo,” the blackness of death, the darkness darker than dark.
The substance is always the same, but a new value is given to it, and the new value is the treasure. That is the secret of alchemy for instance. ~Jung, Zarathustra Seminar, Page 653.
The circulation is not merely movement in a circle, but means on the one hand the marking off of the sacred precinct, and on the other, the fixation and concentration. ~Jung, CW 13, Alchemical Studies, Page 25.
"The philosophers have said: that no one could attain the science of the spiritual, unless his soul be divine and his nativity spiritual."
"It is by the revelation of the highest and greatest God that I have attained this art, and only through diligent study, wakefulness, and through constantly reading the authentic books."
"The materia must be understood, for the philosophers of all ages have held knowledge to be the most important thing in this work. One must have an untroubled fund of knowledge."
"He, who would attain this highest mystery, must realise that this art does not lie in man's power, but depends up on God's goodness, and that neither will nor desire can lead him to it, but only God's mercy. One must only exercise this art for the honour and glory of God (ad solam Dei gloriam) and for no other goal. Nature is one, true and simple, perfect in its essence, and a secret spirit lies hidden in it. If thou wouldst recognise it, thou must thyself be true, simple, patient, steadfast and devout, and must not harm thy neighbour, in short: thou must be a regeneratus, a new being."
"Spirit, body and soul must all take part in this work."
"In this art, which comes from God, no sensual, wicked or infernal spirits are admitted, but only a simple, straight, true and steadfast spirit whose essence is pure and devout. All others misunderstand the highest mystery."
"But when God grants his grace, to someone who understands it, this will appear incomprehensible in the eyes of the world and those who love this mystery will be scorned of men and looked down upon as . . . "
"Just as learned men also, doctors and others, cannot find it, because they have never looked at it, although it lies before their eyes, and do not trust it, although it contains such power in itself. And no One can teach them any better while they follow their nature and their intellect : therefore they cannot find it for very wisdom, because it transcends their power of comprehension, for it is the work of God and of nature and can only be reached through nature. Therefore they remain ignorant."
"Only a few attain the possession of this Kingdom, although many labour in the construction of our stone. The Creator has not given the true knowledge and possession of it to the multitude, but only to the few, who hate lies and cling to the truth, devote themselves to the art with heartfelt sighs and seek it conscientiously; but above all to those who love God without hypocrisy, and therefore pray to him.”
"If he succeeds in finding a worthy, suitable man, and he begins to feel the weight of his own years, then he may impart the art to him, but not to several! For this science must always remain secret. Because, were a wicked man to have knowledge of it, the Christian world would be in great d anger. Puffed up with pride (inflatus superbia) over his heritage, he would overthrow the legitimate rulers who govern others . . . God has hidden this knowledge from great doctors and has only given it to a few who were truly devout and humble. And as among the myriads of stars in the Heavens, there are only seven planets, so among millions of people, only a few attain this knowledge. Those, who think themselves wise although they know nothing, are not bidden to our feast . "
"One should not begin to touch this secret, impenetrable work, and the spirit which lies hidden beneath it . . . before having explored it in the depths of its own singularities and characteristics, and in relation to the indispensable harmonising with nature. One gains nothing from this spirit, if one has not already clearly recognised and known it. God is wonderful in his works and his wisdom is infinite and he does not allow himself to be mocked. Many entangled themselves lightly in this work and have died in the laboratory, or have been otherwise pursued by misfortune. For the art is not easy, as some imagine, because the philosophers have likened it to the play of children and the work of women."
"A few philosophers have found it easy, simply because God granted them understanding. Therefore one should pray and begin with God's help."
"So man must become as the corn of the field . . . therefore he must die outright and unfold completely.”
"And as all things proceed from one, through the meditation of the One."
"One must reflect on the books."
"And indeed thou must work with greatest concentration of unlimited meditation ; for with it thou wilt find, and without it thou wilt not."
"Understand then and meditate up on it . . . . Meditate upon these words, and with the will of God, thou wilt find "
"It is a stone and yet no stone. Moreover, if thou art a seer, and meditatest on it, then thou canst hope to perceive it.”
"It is therefore necessary, that we principally discern the soul, through the intelligence. If we do this, we shall reach the goal and be exalted by the science through meditation: But this is the procedure of the philosophers, and the philosopher begins in the teaching (sermone) at this place, at the more subtle end of nature."
"I have spent much time in meditating on the teaching, in understanding the words, and in meditating on the meaning."
"The human mind is composed of nothing better than the spagiric and meditative procedure, ap art from the divine gift of grace."
"No one can truly know himself, if he does not investigate through diligent meditation, and know who he really is."
"Direct therefore thy feeling, senses, reason and thoughts toward this salt alone."
"Therefore study, meditate, sweat, work, cook . . . and in this manner a wholesome flood will burst forth, which comes from the heart of the son of the great world."
[Alchemical Quotation cited by Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture IV, Pages 161-170.
"It is by the revelation of the highest and greatest God that I have attained this art, and only through diligent study, wakefulness, and through constantly reading the authentic books."
"The materia must be understood, for the philosophers of all ages have held knowledge to be the most important thing in this work. One must have an untroubled fund of knowledge."
"He, who would attain this highest mystery, must realise that this art does not lie in man's power, but depends up on God's goodness, and that neither will nor desire can lead him to it, but only God's mercy. One must only exercise this art for the honour and glory of God (ad solam Dei gloriam) and for no other goal. Nature is one, true and simple, perfect in its essence, and a secret spirit lies hidden in it. If thou wouldst recognise it, thou must thyself be true, simple, patient, steadfast and devout, and must not harm thy neighbour, in short: thou must be a regeneratus, a new being."
"Spirit, body and soul must all take part in this work."
"In this art, which comes from God, no sensual, wicked or infernal spirits are admitted, but only a simple, straight, true and steadfast spirit whose essence is pure and devout. All others misunderstand the highest mystery."
"But when God grants his grace, to someone who understands it, this will appear incomprehensible in the eyes of the world and those who love this mystery will be scorned of men and looked down upon as . . . "
"Just as learned men also, doctors and others, cannot find it, because they have never looked at it, although it lies before their eyes, and do not trust it, although it contains such power in itself. And no One can teach them any better while they follow their nature and their intellect : therefore they cannot find it for very wisdom, because it transcends their power of comprehension, for it is the work of God and of nature and can only be reached through nature. Therefore they remain ignorant."
"Only a few attain the possession of this Kingdom, although many labour in the construction of our stone. The Creator has not given the true knowledge and possession of it to the multitude, but only to the few, who hate lies and cling to the truth, devote themselves to the art with heartfelt sighs and seek it conscientiously; but above all to those who love God without hypocrisy, and therefore pray to him.”
"If he succeeds in finding a worthy, suitable man, and he begins to feel the weight of his own years, then he may impart the art to him, but not to several! For this science must always remain secret. Because, were a wicked man to have knowledge of it, the Christian world would be in great d anger. Puffed up with pride (inflatus superbia) over his heritage, he would overthrow the legitimate rulers who govern others . . . God has hidden this knowledge from great doctors and has only given it to a few who were truly devout and humble. And as among the myriads of stars in the Heavens, there are only seven planets, so among millions of people, only a few attain this knowledge. Those, who think themselves wise although they know nothing, are not bidden to our feast . "
"One should not begin to touch this secret, impenetrable work, and the spirit which lies hidden beneath it . . . before having explored it in the depths of its own singularities and characteristics, and in relation to the indispensable harmonising with nature. One gains nothing from this spirit, if one has not already clearly recognised and known it. God is wonderful in his works and his wisdom is infinite and he does not allow himself to be mocked. Many entangled themselves lightly in this work and have died in the laboratory, or have been otherwise pursued by misfortune. For the art is not easy, as some imagine, because the philosophers have likened it to the play of children and the work of women."
"A few philosophers have found it easy, simply because God granted them understanding. Therefore one should pray and begin with God's help."
"So man must become as the corn of the field . . . therefore he must die outright and unfold completely.”
"And as all things proceed from one, through the meditation of the One."
"One must reflect on the books."
"And indeed thou must work with greatest concentration of unlimited meditation ; for with it thou wilt find, and without it thou wilt not."
"Understand then and meditate up on it . . . . Meditate upon these words, and with the will of God, thou wilt find "
"It is a stone and yet no stone. Moreover, if thou art a seer, and meditatest on it, then thou canst hope to perceive it.”
"It is therefore necessary, that we principally discern the soul, through the intelligence. If we do this, we shall reach the goal and be exalted by the science through meditation: But this is the procedure of the philosophers, and the philosopher begins in the teaching (sermone) at this place, at the more subtle end of nature."
"I have spent much time in meditating on the teaching, in understanding the words, and in meditating on the meaning."
"The human mind is composed of nothing better than the spagiric and meditative procedure, ap art from the divine gift of grace."
"No one can truly know himself, if he does not investigate through diligent meditation, and know who he really is."
"Direct therefore thy feeling, senses, reason and thoughts toward this salt alone."
"Therefore study, meditate, sweat, work, cook . . . and in this manner a wholesome flood will burst forth, which comes from the heart of the son of the great world."
[Alchemical Quotation cited by Carl Jung, ETH, Lecture IV, Pages 161-170.
The fact that deity and devil belong together also plays a great role in alchemy.
There the devil appears in the form of the serpens Mercurii, which, however, is at the same time the serpent of the Nous.
For the Naassenes, too, the nachash, the serpent, is the Nous, or the Logos.
Psychologically speaking, the fact that the Logos at first manifests itself as a poisonous snake means that whenever a powerful content emerges from the unconscious, which we cannot yet grasp with our consciousness, there is a danger that the whole ego-consciousness will be pulled down into the unconscious and dissolved.
This introversion process can eventually lead to mental illness.
Consciousness is completely emptied, because its contents are attracted by the unconscious as by a magnet.
This process leads to a complete loss of the ego, so that the person in question becomes a mere automaton.
Such a person is actually no longer there.
He makes the impression of a piece of wood that lets itself be pushed around.
He has completely lost his initiative and spontaneity, because his consciousness has been dissolved by a content of the unconscious.
In the process of individuation, too, new contents can announce themselves in this devouring form and darken consciousness; this is experienced as a depression,
that is to say, as being pulled downward.
As the unconscious has a tendency to project itself into the outer world, there is a danger that one might get dissipated in the environment, instead of staying with oneself.
That’s why the alchemists stress again and again that the alchemical vessel has to remain hermetically closed during the opus.
If the lid springs open, vapor will escape and the process will be disrupted.
Only when we bear our situation and accept our depression will it be possible for us to change internally.
Then the devouring animal will be deprived of its power, and the new content can be grasped by consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 373.
There the devil appears in the form of the serpens Mercurii, which, however, is at the same time the serpent of the Nous.
For the Naassenes, too, the nachash, the serpent, is the Nous, or the Logos.
Psychologically speaking, the fact that the Logos at first manifests itself as a poisonous snake means that whenever a powerful content emerges from the unconscious, which we cannot yet grasp with our consciousness, there is a danger that the whole ego-consciousness will be pulled down into the unconscious and dissolved.
This introversion process can eventually lead to mental illness.
Consciousness is completely emptied, because its contents are attracted by the unconscious as by a magnet.
This process leads to a complete loss of the ego, so that the person in question becomes a mere automaton.
Such a person is actually no longer there.
He makes the impression of a piece of wood that lets itself be pushed around.
He has completely lost his initiative and spontaneity, because his consciousness has been dissolved by a content of the unconscious.
In the process of individuation, too, new contents can announce themselves in this devouring form and darken consciousness; this is experienced as a depression,
that is to say, as being pulled downward.
As the unconscious has a tendency to project itself into the outer world, there is a danger that one might get dissipated in the environment, instead of staying with oneself.
That’s why the alchemists stress again and again that the alchemical vessel has to remain hermetically closed during the opus.
If the lid springs open, vapor will escape and the process will be disrupted.
Only when we bear our situation and accept our depression will it be possible for us to change internally.
Then the devouring animal will be deprived of its power, and the new content can be grasped by consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 373.
“When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend ‘the One, the All’. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites.” ― C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
The Philosopher's stone and the birth of the black light
"As consciousness descends deeper into the darkness, the ego's light becomes inferior to a deeper light that appears from the Philosopher's stone as the alchemists call it. The stone is the opus, the work of our lives, and in psychological terms represents the Self (the center and totallity of the psyche) as it comes to manifestations in our lives. This Stone is not fixed; it is a living dynamism continually flowing between and transcending in all dimensions."
-- Monika Wikman, Pregnant Darkness
The Philosopher's stone and the birth of the black light
"As consciousness descends deeper into the darkness, the ego's light becomes inferior to a deeper light that appears from the Philosopher's stone as the alchemists call it. The stone is the opus, the work of our lives, and in psychological terms represents the Self (the center and totallity of the psyche) as it comes to manifestations in our lives. This Stone is not fixed; it is a living dynamism continually flowing between and transcending in all dimensions."
-- Monika Wikman, Pregnant Darkness
The Method
The basis of alchemy is the work (opus). Part of this work is practical, the operatio itself, which is to be thought of as a series of experiments with chemical substances.
In my opinion it is quite hopeless to try to establish any kind of order in the infinite chaos of substances and procedures.
Seldom do we get even an approximate idea of how the work was done, what materials were used, and what results were achieved.
The reader usually finds himself in the most impenetrable darkness when it comes to the names of the substances—they could mean almost anything.
And it is precisely the most commonly used substances, like quicksilver, salt, and sulphur, whose alchemical meaning is one of the secrets of the art.
Moreover, one must not imagine for a moment that the alchemists always understood one another.
They themselves complain about the obscurity of the texts, and occasionally betray their inability to understand even their own symbols and symbolic figures.
For instance, the learned Michael Maier accuses the classical authority Geber of being the obscurest of all, saying that it would require an Oedipus to solve the riddle of the "Gebrina Sphinx."
Bernard of Treviso, another famous alchemist, goes so far as to call Geber an obscurantist and a Proteus who promises kernels and gives husks.
The alchemist is quite aware that he writes obscurely.
He admits that he veils his meaning on purpose, but nowhere—so far as I know—does he say that he cannot write in any other way.
He makes a virtue of necessity by maintaining either that mystification is forced on him for one reason or another, or that he really wants to make the truth as plain as possible, but cannot proclaim aloud just what the prima materia or the lapis is.
The profound darkness that shrouds the alchemical procedure comes from the fact that although the alchemist was interested in the chemical part of the work he also used it to devise a nomenclature for the psychic transformations that really fascinated him.
Every original alchemist built himself, as it were, a more or less individual edifice of ideas, consisting of the dicta of the philosophers and of miscellaneous analogies to the fundamental concepts of alchemy.
Generally these analogies are taken from all over the place.
Treatises were even written for the purpose of supplying the artist with analogy-making material.
The method of alchemy, psychologically speaking, is one of boundless amplification.
The amplificatio is always appropriate when dealing with some obscure experience which is so vaguely adumbrated that it must be enlarged and expanded by being set in a psychological context in order to be understood at all.
That is why, in analytical psychology, we resort to amplification in the interpretation of dreams, for a dream is too slender a hint to be understood until it is enriched by the stuff of association and analogy and thus amplified to the point of intelligibility.
This amplificatio forms the second part of the opus, and is understood by the alchemist as theoria.
Originally the theory was the so-called "Hermetic philosophy," but quite early on it was broadened by the assimilation of ideas taken over from Christian dogma. In the oldest alchemy known to the West the Hermetic fragments were handed down mostly through Arabic originals.
Direct contact with the Corpus Hermeticum was only established in the second half of the fifteenth century, when the Greek manuscript reached Italy from Macedonia and was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino.
The vignette (fig. 144) that is on the title-page to the Tripus aureus (1618) is a graphic illustration of the double face of alchemy.
The picture is divided into two parts.
On the right is a laboratory where a man, clothed only in trunks, is busy at the fire; on the left a library, where an abbot,"' a monk,and a layman" are conferring together. In the middle, on top of the furnace, stands the tripod with a round flask on it containing a winged dragon.
The dragon symbolizes the visionary experience of the alchemist as he works in his laboratory and "theorizes."
The dragon in itself is a monstrum—a symbol combining the chthonic principle of the serpent and the aerial principle of the bird. It is, as Ruland says, a variant of Mercurius.
But Mercurius is the divine winged Hermes (fig. 146) manifest in matter, the god of revelation, lord of thought and sovereign psychopomp.
The liquid metal, —"living silver," quicksilver—was the wonderful substance that perfectly expressed the nature of that which glistens and animates within.
When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver, but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter.
The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence.
It appears as the tail-eater, in the Codex Nfarcianus (fig. 147), which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, "together with the legend: (the One, the All).
Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail (cf. figs. 20, 44, 46, 47).
For this reason the opus was often called circulate (circular) or else rota (the wheel) (fig. 80).
Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again as the lapis.
He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into four elements.
He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone.
He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught—a symbol uniting all opposites (fig. 148). ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Pages 288-295.
The basis of alchemy is the work (opus). Part of this work is practical, the operatio itself, which is to be thought of as a series of experiments with chemical substances.
In my opinion it is quite hopeless to try to establish any kind of order in the infinite chaos of substances and procedures.
Seldom do we get even an approximate idea of how the work was done, what materials were used, and what results were achieved.
The reader usually finds himself in the most impenetrable darkness when it comes to the names of the substances—they could mean almost anything.
And it is precisely the most commonly used substances, like quicksilver, salt, and sulphur, whose alchemical meaning is one of the secrets of the art.
Moreover, one must not imagine for a moment that the alchemists always understood one another.
They themselves complain about the obscurity of the texts, and occasionally betray their inability to understand even their own symbols and symbolic figures.
For instance, the learned Michael Maier accuses the classical authority Geber of being the obscurest of all, saying that it would require an Oedipus to solve the riddle of the "Gebrina Sphinx."
Bernard of Treviso, another famous alchemist, goes so far as to call Geber an obscurantist and a Proteus who promises kernels and gives husks.
The alchemist is quite aware that he writes obscurely.
He admits that he veils his meaning on purpose, but nowhere—so far as I know—does he say that he cannot write in any other way.
He makes a virtue of necessity by maintaining either that mystification is forced on him for one reason or another, or that he really wants to make the truth as plain as possible, but cannot proclaim aloud just what the prima materia or the lapis is.
The profound darkness that shrouds the alchemical procedure comes from the fact that although the alchemist was interested in the chemical part of the work he also used it to devise a nomenclature for the psychic transformations that really fascinated him.
Every original alchemist built himself, as it were, a more or less individual edifice of ideas, consisting of the dicta of the philosophers and of miscellaneous analogies to the fundamental concepts of alchemy.
Generally these analogies are taken from all over the place.
Treatises were even written for the purpose of supplying the artist with analogy-making material.
The method of alchemy, psychologically speaking, is one of boundless amplification.
The amplificatio is always appropriate when dealing with some obscure experience which is so vaguely adumbrated that it must be enlarged and expanded by being set in a psychological context in order to be understood at all.
That is why, in analytical psychology, we resort to amplification in the interpretation of dreams, for a dream is too slender a hint to be understood until it is enriched by the stuff of association and analogy and thus amplified to the point of intelligibility.
This amplificatio forms the second part of the opus, and is understood by the alchemist as theoria.
Originally the theory was the so-called "Hermetic philosophy," but quite early on it was broadened by the assimilation of ideas taken over from Christian dogma. In the oldest alchemy known to the West the Hermetic fragments were handed down mostly through Arabic originals.
Direct contact with the Corpus Hermeticum was only established in the second half of the fifteenth century, when the Greek manuscript reached Italy from Macedonia and was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino.
The vignette (fig. 144) that is on the title-page to the Tripus aureus (1618) is a graphic illustration of the double face of alchemy.
The picture is divided into two parts.
On the right is a laboratory where a man, clothed only in trunks, is busy at the fire; on the left a library, where an abbot,"' a monk,and a layman" are conferring together. In the middle, on top of the furnace, stands the tripod with a round flask on it containing a winged dragon.
The dragon symbolizes the visionary experience of the alchemist as he works in his laboratory and "theorizes."
The dragon in itself is a monstrum—a symbol combining the chthonic principle of the serpent and the aerial principle of the bird. It is, as Ruland says, a variant of Mercurius.
But Mercurius is the divine winged Hermes (fig. 146) manifest in matter, the god of revelation, lord of thought and sovereign psychopomp.
The liquid metal, —"living silver," quicksilver—was the wonderful substance that perfectly expressed the nature of that which glistens and animates within.
When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver, but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter.
The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence.
It appears as the tail-eater, in the Codex Nfarcianus (fig. 147), which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, "together with the legend: (the One, the All).
Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail (cf. figs. 20, 44, 46, 47).
For this reason the opus was often called circulate (circular) or else rota (the wheel) (fig. 80).
Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again as the lapis.
He is the play of colours in the cauda pavonis and the division into four elements.
He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning, that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone.
He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught—a symbol uniting all opposites (fig. 148). ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Pages 288-295.
[Carl Jung “individuation is impossible without a relationship to one's environment”]
Since the stone is a matter of 'knowledge" or science, it springs from man. But it is outside him, in his surroundings, among his "equals” i.e., those of like mind.
This description fits the paradoxical situation of the self, as its symbolism shows.
It is the smallest of the small, easily overlooked and pushed aside.
Indeed, it is in need of help and must be perceived, protected, and as it were built up by the conscious mind, just as if it did not exist at all and were called into being only through man's care and devotion.
As against this, we know from experience that it had long been there and is older than the ego, and that it is actually the spiritus rector of our fate.
The self as such does not become conscious by itself, but has always been taught, if at all, through a tradition of knowing (the Purusha/Atman teaching, for instance).
Since it stands for the essence of individuation, and individuation is impossible without a relationship to one's environment, it is found among those of like mind with whom individual relations can be established.
The self, moreover, is an archetype that invariably expresses a situation within which the ego is contained.
Therefore, like every archetype, the self cannot be localized in an individual ego-consciousness, but acts like a circumambient atmosphere to which no definite limits can be set, either in space or in time.
(Hence the synchronistic phenomena so often associated with activated archetypes.) ~Aion; Pages 167-168.
Since the stone is a matter of 'knowledge" or science, it springs from man. But it is outside him, in his surroundings, among his "equals” i.e., those of like mind.
This description fits the paradoxical situation of the self, as its symbolism shows.
It is the smallest of the small, easily overlooked and pushed aside.
Indeed, it is in need of help and must be perceived, protected, and as it were built up by the conscious mind, just as if it did not exist at all and were called into being only through man's care and devotion.
As against this, we know from experience that it had long been there and is older than the ego, and that it is actually the spiritus rector of our fate.
The self as such does not become conscious by itself, but has always been taught, if at all, through a tradition of knowing (the Purusha/Atman teaching, for instance).
Since it stands for the essence of individuation, and individuation is impossible without a relationship to one's environment, it is found among those of like mind with whom individual relations can be established.
The self, moreover, is an archetype that invariably expresses a situation within which the ego is contained.
Therefore, like every archetype, the self cannot be localized in an individual ego-consciousness, but acts like a circumambient atmosphere to which no definite limits can be set, either in space or in time.
(Hence the synchronistic phenomena so often associated with activated archetypes.) ~Aion; Pages 167-168.
Indigo Homunculus, Iona Miller, 2008
Charging or energizing of the Homunculus—the emergent Rotundum. The inner man, the homunculus passes through the stages and undergoes transformation. Psychologically, it is analogous to self-reparenting, and materializing archetypal forms. Understanding appears as if it were a “conception.” The Homunculus is the product of the Royal Marriage of Sun and Moon, and is equivalent to the lapis or anthropos. In the ancient art of alchemy, the soul is depicted as a homunculus or “small man.” It is symbolically equivalent to the Elixir or Universal Medicine. It personifies the unconscious as an inner man, a hermaphroditic being, a spirit in a bottle, a “brain child.” Zosimos and Paracelsus spoke of the homunculus as devouring himself, and giving birth to himself—the death/rebirth necessary for casting off the old and inviting in the new self image. The paradoxical image typically appears before dissolution of the center into its unconscious element—the undifferentiated consciousness of the ground state. In alchemy, the homunculus is sort of a primal “test-tube baby,” created through a dynamic process in the Hermetically-sealed retort vessel. Dr. Frankenstein never had it so good. It feeds daily on the hidden mysteries of nature. Psychologically, this process is the creation of renewal of spirit, which takes place in the psyche when psychic contents are prevented from “leaking out” and being lost. “Heating” is symbolic of amplifying or intensifying the transformative process. In terms from chaos theory, magnetizing the entity, an ancient prescription, might insinuate the formation of a strange attractor as the complex core of the system. An attractor describes a temporary stability far from equilibrium. The homunculus is the archetype of the magical child. It is thus an embryonic symbol of rebirth, or re-creation of self by Self. In alchemy, the homunculus is generated by a succession of transformations through the four elements to reach its essential nature. The elements of fire, earth, air and water are analogous to spiritual, physical, mental and emotional life.
Charging or energizing of the Homunculus—the emergent Rotundum. The inner man, the homunculus passes through the stages and undergoes transformation. Psychologically, it is analogous to self-reparenting, and materializing archetypal forms. Understanding appears as if it were a “conception.” The Homunculus is the product of the Royal Marriage of Sun and Moon, and is equivalent to the lapis or anthropos. In the ancient art of alchemy, the soul is depicted as a homunculus or “small man.” It is symbolically equivalent to the Elixir or Universal Medicine. It personifies the unconscious as an inner man, a hermaphroditic being, a spirit in a bottle, a “brain child.” Zosimos and Paracelsus spoke of the homunculus as devouring himself, and giving birth to himself—the death/rebirth necessary for casting off the old and inviting in the new self image. The paradoxical image typically appears before dissolution of the center into its unconscious element—the undifferentiated consciousness of the ground state. In alchemy, the homunculus is sort of a primal “test-tube baby,” created through a dynamic process in the Hermetically-sealed retort vessel. Dr. Frankenstein never had it so good. It feeds daily on the hidden mysteries of nature. Psychologically, this process is the creation of renewal of spirit, which takes place in the psyche when psychic contents are prevented from “leaking out” and being lost. “Heating” is symbolic of amplifying or intensifying the transformative process. In terms from chaos theory, magnetizing the entity, an ancient prescription, might insinuate the formation of a strange attractor as the complex core of the system. An attractor describes a temporary stability far from equilibrium. The homunculus is the archetype of the magical child. It is thus an embryonic symbol of rebirth, or re-creation of self by Self. In alchemy, the homunculus is generated by a succession of transformations through the four elements to reach its essential nature. The elements of fire, earth, air and water are analogous to spiritual, physical, mental and emotional life.
Jung on “Meditation” in Alchemy.
Lecture V 30th May, 1941
We began to speak about "meditation" in the last lecture and I have still some excerpts to read from the writings of the alchemists on this subject.
MICHAEL MAIER (a famous alchemist who lived at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries) says:
"Chemistry inspires those who practise it to meditate on heavenly things."
Here again we see that the alchemistic opus is not just a laboratory work, but also a religious exercise. Meditation on "heavenly things " must refer to spiritual things.
The next passage comes from a medieval lexicon of alchemistic terminology and concepts, compiled by a Dr. RULANDUS.
Under the word "meditatio" he says:
"The word meditation is used, when someone holds an inner dialogue (colloquium) with someone else who is invisible, and also when God is invoked, or when someone speaks to himself or
to his good angel."
Those of you, who heard my lectures on the Ignatian exercises, will remember that the term "colloquies" is also used in those exercises: dialogues take place with the chief figures in the world of
Christian imagery, with the Mother of God, with Christ or with one of the saints.
These inner conversations are called colloquies, but are not described as meditation in the Ignatian exercises, whereas Rulandus definitely defines meditation as an inner conversation with a "vis-a-vis".
He does not say whether these inner figures answer, but there is sufficient proof in the alchemistic literature for us to conclude that they did.
In the Ignatian exercises such conversations are one-sided, we are never told that anybody answers which would be rather essential in a "colloquium".
But the alchemists really try to establish an objective relation to a "second" in their meditation, and this "second" has been regarded since olden times as the so-called "paredros", a spiritual
helper, who is present during the work and who gives instructions.
There is a text where the "spiritus Mercurii" first appears as a vapour which gradually condenses until it takes on a more or less recognisable human form.
This figure is a typical ghost, and agrees with the descriptions of ghosts which we find in all places and all ages.
There is an excellent collection of such apparitions in the book "Phantasms of the Living ".
This book consists of two thick volumes, which give the reader an unsurpassable insight into the phenomenology of such apparitions.
The purpose of the book is to corroborate the existence of telepathy and similar things, n-at primarily to describe the apparitions.
But all such phenomena are exceedingly important for every psychologist and for all those interested in psychology, for they have played a considerable role in human culture since the
earliest times.
Every culture has recognised the existence of such phenomena, and it is only the interpretations which differ.
And so we find them in alchemy also, and the fact is recorded that in deep meditation a dissociation occurs between the ego and a "second", that takes on the form of an inner figure, or represents
Something quite objective which will answer questions or produce enlightening remarks.
Sacrifices were even made to this "paredros" in antiquity, and there are instructions in the literature as to how these figures can be conjured, called up or cast out.
I have already mentioned that it is usually a matter of the spirits of the planets which correspond to the substances used, or those. which play a special role in the horoscope of the alchemist.
The planets were regarded then as gods or spirits, and not just as stars, as we think of them today.
We must never forget to reckon with the fact that the psyche was projected into practically everything.
Meditation then, as defined by Rulandus, does not merely consist of reflecting about the meaning of the authentic books, nor about the nature of the substances on which the alchemists were
working, but it also reveals the presence of a personification of the unconscious.
We find quite a different use of the term meditation in the writings of a later seventeenth century alchemist, which is nevertheless also very typical of the peculiar psychology of alchemy.
This author speaks of a "nova volatilitas" and says:
""The stone will meditate a new volatility."
The volatility of matter means that it is vapourisable.
This sentence occurs in a passage which is concerned with a volatile substance that has solidified, and is now considering a condition of new volatility, as if the substance itself could meditate.
This is a pure projection of psychical events into matter.
A substance meditating seems a ridiculous idea to us, but it was not to the mentality of those days.
On the primitive level every stone, tree or animal can have a soul, or can suddenly develop a voice.
At any moment a tree or a stone can become animated, and such an occurrence is no miracle to the primitive, but merely belongs to the course of nature.
And in the seventeenth century, it was still more or less self-evident that the substances with which the alchemists were working should suddenly take on the nature of animated beings.
It is from this fact that the legends of the hob goblins arise.
My compatriot, Paracelsus, was absolutely convinced of the reality of these hobgoblins, who appeared to the miners and workmen in the darkest parts of the mines.
We find similar phenomena on the sea, such as the "Klab autermann" that appears to sailors before a storm or an accident.
He is also a kind of homunculus, and such figures are either a direct animation of some object or appear independently in nature.
The fylgias in the Icelandic saga are another example.
I know of such phenomena myself with quite normal Swiss people who saw a homunculus of the mountains during a mountain accident.
In the same treatise we read:
"If thou wilt meditate deeply on that which I have indicated here, thou wilt have the key which will enable thee to solve all the seeming contradictions between the philosophers."
You see here that meditation requires deep reflection on all those riddles which the alchemist encounters in the alchemistic treatises with their contradictory style.
The contradictions dissolve through meditation.
So we must assume that these contradictions, which are frequent in the literature, are symbolical expressions, which become clear when one penetrates behind them and finds out what is
really referred to.
Another author says:
"It requires deep meditation, before thou canst understand our sea and its ebb and flow."
The mystery, which should be fathomed during the meditation, is called "our sea" in this passage.
The sea of the alchemists is an old and well known symbol for the unconscious; that is, it really represents the unconscious , but in the language of the alchemists "our sea" refers to the
"humidum radicale" (radical humidity) in the substances, the soul of matter.
This again is a projection of the existence of the soul which the human being feels within himself.
If we translate "our sea" as the unconscious, this passage tells us that there are tides in the unconscious.
Phenomena, which could be metaphorically compared with ebb and flow, do actually take place in the unconscious: sometimes it is nearer to us and sometimes further away.
In other words: there are times when there is a danger that consciousness may be flooded by the unconscious, at other times this danger do{es not exist or is at least much less acute.
This is particularly obvious with primitive people, though we can also see it in ourselves; there are certain seasons when the unconscious has a general tendency to gain the upper hand.
Advent is such a classical time, it has been known since olden days as a season when evil spirits are abroad.
There is a saying in the Canton Lucerne even today that Wotan's host is out or abroad.
Presumably such ideas are connected with the longest nights, when the sun sets at its earliest.
It is a piece of natural life which has survived till today.
Blackouts were general, you must remember, before the discovery of gas and electricity, and man was forced then to live with nature.
Oil was very expensive, and burning chips unreliable and short lived, so people went to bed with the cocks and hens.
Human consciousness blacks itself out, so to speak, at the beginning of the winter, and the unconscious overcomes the conscious as the night overcomes the day.
This is the reason why the night is always the time when things become uncanny, for the light of the conscious has been blacked out.
Such things are more obvious with primitives, for we have fallen somewhat out of mature with all our technical novelties, and have become less aware of the night.
Yet children often suffer from night terrors, and how many women look under their beds or into the cupboard before going to bed?
And these people are civilised Europeans, not primitives!
It is as Faust says: "Es eignet sich, es zeigt sich an, es warnt . . . . Die P£orte knarrt, und niemand kommt herein." (It becomes peculiar, it announces itself, it warns. . The door creaks and no one enters.)
This passage describes a typical nocturnal phenomenon, the fear of darkness, and this is the reason why the primitive has a totally different "Weltanschauung" in the night than in the day.
Ghosts are abroad at night, unheard of things can happen, and the slightest noise lets loose a panic.
We rationalise such noises as burglars, but many people, who would ridicule the idea of ghosts by day, believe in them at night.
These are "ebb and flow" phenomena and, like the tides, they have some connection with the moon.
We say that people are moonstruck, and epilepsy is supposed to be connected with the moon.
The mentally diseased are still called lunatics in English, and their hospitals lunatic asylums (luna = moon).
It is clear, therefore, why our author says that it re quires deep meditation in order to unravel the secret of the unconscious.
In summing up the alchemists' point of view with regard to meditation, I must point out that in one respect all meditation is similar.
It is a kind of submersion, a method of psychical submersion, with which the idea of spiritualisation is connected.
Spritualisation is prepared through meditation: "The stone will meditate a new volatility”.
The purpose of the meditation of the alchemists is also spiritualis, but in contrast to the other methods of meditation which we studied here - those of Yoga, Mahayana Buddhism and the
Ignatian excercises - the subject of meditation in alchemy is something unknown, and not a known dogmatic formula.
You will remember the very dogmatic injunctions for imagining the Amitabha Land, the Buddha and so on in the Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra.
There is nothing of the same kind in alchemy, the subject of meditation is a mystery, and the alchemist must meditate in order to understand this mystery.
He has no idea what he should imagine, and he has only a highly contradictory terminology at his disposal.
When he thinks about this secret it is unknown to him, he has no idea what it is.
He does not meditate on his sins or his plans, nor does he, so to speak, think about himself at all, but he thinks about the unknown element in the world, in the substances and in himself.
The object of his meditation is essentially unknown, and his meditation serves the purpose of perceiving this unknown, of making it clearer, and of gaining certain images of it.
In other words: meditation is making his unconscious conscious.
I read you a passage from Dorneus where he said the essential thing for the alchemist was to know himself, and to find out who he really was.
Dorneus became conscious that the secret was not merely in matter but was also in man.
There are many such passages in the old authors, where they definitely state that man, as well as chemical matter, contains the origin of the mysterious substance which becomes the philosophers'
stone.
Meditation is intrinsically a method of understanding for the alchemists; they hope, through the application of meditation, to become aware of certain mysteries which are intangible and invisible.
The knowledge, which they thus acquire, they call the "scientia".
VIII. Scientia
I have collected a further series of excerpts from the alchemistic writings on this subject, in which we shall also meet some very peculiar things.
Alphidius says:
"The food of whoever finds this knowledge will be legitimate and eternal"
Alphidius is an author who lived perhaps as early as the thirteenth or even the twelfth century.
Very likely he wrote in Arabic or Hebrew, but this is uncertain.
In any case he refers in this passage to Leviticus "All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lord made
by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy."
The idea of a legitimate and eternal food is to be found in both passages.
"The food", in the text of Alphidius, is the unleavened bread of Leviticus, which "shall be a statute forever in your generations."
One might perhaps assume that Alphidius was a Jew, for there were a great many Hebrew treatises written in Spain during the time of the Moors, and Alphidius belonged to that region.
This knowledge" is equal then to an eternal, legitimate food of life, a food which bestows life.
It is found through meditation, and is a panacea which enriches life and makes it fuller or healthier.
This is something which we experience also.
It is when our lives have become so flat and meaningless that we can hardly go on living, that the moment comes when we turn to the unconscious and to our dreams and phantasies.
We meditate on these in order to discover the contents of the unconscious, and to find a new meaning in life.
The result is something very similar to receiving a "legitimate and eternal food", the right food which reanimates life, for everything depends on our attitude to it.
Even a very bad situation can change when we look at it differently.
The "Aurora Consurgens" asks the question:
"What is the science? It is the gift and sanctuary of the Deity, it is a divine thing, and is hidden by the Wise in symbolical words and in many ways."
This author is quite sure that the contradictory statements of the alchemists are made with the purpose of expressing this thing, but in such a way that no one can understand.
One is never certain, when one reads these texts, whether the author has really understood something, and is expressing himself symbolically in order to keep it a secret, or whether he has not
really understood himself, and is expressing himself as clearly as he can.
The subject is exceedingly difficult, for it really is a mystery.
What is the unconscious?
Whenever we speak of it, we express ourselves involuntarily in a peculiar metaphorical language in order to get somewhere near its character.
So it is possible that these people were speaking as clearly as they could in their language, and the reader who knew understood.
When I was reading these texts I often thought: "Yes I know what you mean", but I was never absolutely sure that I did, till I came on an old treatise which was underlined and had marginal notes in an
old handwriting, which probably belonged to the early seventeenth century.
Just those passages were underlined that I should have underlined myself, I could have read the meaning of the whole treatise from the places he had marked.
Then I knew that we both understood the text in the same way.
In one obscure passage, for instance, just as I came to the conclusion that the author meant the devil, I came on the marginal note "Diabolus".
But on the other hand, when a certain monastery sold all its alchemistic books (assuming they were nonsense) I came across a book which a monk had read in his old age.
He also had underlined in red pencil, but exactly the places which I should not have marked, namely the passages concerned with gold making.
This interest in gold was a grievous sin against the fundamental spirit of alchemy; this monk was evidently too fond of money, in spite of living in a monastery.
Another Father wrote of him: "He studied this book for several years but it did him no good.
"I thought: "Naturally not with such a point of view", but it was really impossible that anyone who lived in the Catholic world of the eighteenth century should understand.
The anonymous author of the "Aurora Consurgens" says further "The science is nothing less than a gift of God and a sacrament."
The manuscript of this text, which we have in Zurich, belongs to the fourteenth or even the fifteenth century, but the original text, judging by its whole character and make up, must have belonged to
about the end of the thirteenth century.
The chief authority quoted is St. Thomas of Aquinas (1225-74) .
One must keep the date in mind, and also the fact that the author was a cleric.
When such a man calls the science of the alchemists a sacrament, one cannot take it seriously enough; for in those days and in that milieu it was the strongest expression which the author could possibly
have used to describe a mystery.
The author continues:
"There are three precious words in which the mystery is concealed. These must be given to the devout, namely the poor, from the first to the last man."
These words are an allusion to an alchemistic tradition of which you may have heard, namely the Aurea Catena (the golden chain).
This chain reaches from the earliest dawn of mankind into the most distant future, and consists of people who know the secret.
One hands on the golden bucket secretly to the next and the chain stretches through all ages.
The science, according to this author, is a sacrament, a divine mystery, so these "three divine words" in which it is concealed are thus made equal to the Gospel.
And therefore it must be given to the poor in spirit.
These same poor were also mentioned by Joannes de Rupescissa, as "les pauvres hommes evangelisans"; who, as we saw, were the alchemists themselves elves.
Alchemy is a sort of divine message, a gospel, to these "poor men", a science which comes from God and must be handed on secretly from one to the next down the ages.
These "three precious words" refer to a treatise which is possibly of Arabic origin, though this is rather uncertain.
The treatise is ascribed to one of the older so-called "arabizantes", KALID BEN YEZYD, who is presumably a legendary authority. It is called the "Liber trium verborum Kallid acutissimi " (the book of three words by the most intelligent Kallid.)
These three precious words are elucidated in the treatise. I will read you a passage from it: (The art consists of three words:
"It is said that the water preserves the foetus for three months in the uterus. The air warms it for three months. The fire preserves it for the same length of time. And all this is said as a parable of Mercury. And this word, discourse and dark way of speaking are made known in order that the truth should be seen."
The author claims here to have disclosed the secret in order that one might see the truth; but naturally it is all very obscure.
We can make out, however, that it is a matter of the three elements: water, air and fire, and that mercury is being spoken of. Mercury, as the metal, could represent the earth, so we may assume that this pregnancy produces the fourth element, the earth.
In other words it is the fourth element which alchemy is concerned with.
This is a very important hint. The idea of three plays a considerable role in the whole of alchemy, particularly in medieval alchemy where the triad is directly called the "ternarius supernaturalis" (the supernatural triad), and is termed the gift of God.
The pneuma, the mind (which deals with matter) has a part in the divine pneuma, the divine triad, whereas the fourth is the earth.
Psychologically the earth always refers to the body, for the body consists, so to speak, of earth.
We can therefore assume, psychologically speaking, that the object which is to be transformed in alchemy is connected with the human body: it is a mystery of the body.
You know that the unconscious has a great deal to do with the body, many symptoms of a bodily nature, for instance, are directly caused by the unconscious.
There are certain disturbances of the unconscious, in the sympathetic system, which produce symptoms exactly like organic disturbances.
I once saw a case where forty centimeters of the large intestine (colon des cendens) had been removed, because, as the result of a disturbance in the sympathetic system, a paralysis of the large
intestine had set in, so the surgeon had simply cut out forty centimetres.
Three weeks after the operation,' when the patient was getting up, the trouble began again at the hitherto normal end.
This was too much and, not wanting to have the whole of her inside cut out, the woman came to consult me.
She brought her X-ray plates with her, showing a really horrible condition, but it was simply a disturbance in the sympathetic system.
I was able to assure her that she would survive it, and it got better through psychological treatment.
It had been quite unnecessary to cut out those forty centimetres.
I do not want to assert that all illness comes from psychological disturbances, but amazing things do happen.
The unconscious can cause eruptions of the skin, for instance, and even tuberculosis, and when one sees such things one realizes how much the unconscious affects the body.
It is therefore possible to reach the body through the unconscious, the old hypnotists and magnetisers knew long ago that one could bring about the most marvellous changes through hypnotic suggestion.
This procedure is very archaic but one can reach the unconscious with such arts, whilst the Latin and Greek terminology of modern medicine makes no impression whatever up on it.
Stinking ointments, however, and even the laying on of hands, reach the unconscious and then it reacts, but it merely despises our modern erudition and academic style. M
y respected predecessor, Paracelsus, said similar things; he also told the doctors, in his language, that they should use prescriptions which would impress the unconscious .
We must honour the sciences, but the vital thing in illness is to respect the nature of the patient.
In such matters, the alchemists, as you see, came on the track of highly modern things. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Pages 171-178.
Lecture V 30th May, 1941
We began to speak about "meditation" in the last lecture and I have still some excerpts to read from the writings of the alchemists on this subject.
MICHAEL MAIER (a famous alchemist who lived at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries) says:
"Chemistry inspires those who practise it to meditate on heavenly things."
Here again we see that the alchemistic opus is not just a laboratory work, but also a religious exercise. Meditation on "heavenly things " must refer to spiritual things.
The next passage comes from a medieval lexicon of alchemistic terminology and concepts, compiled by a Dr. RULANDUS.
Under the word "meditatio" he says:
"The word meditation is used, when someone holds an inner dialogue (colloquium) with someone else who is invisible, and also when God is invoked, or when someone speaks to himself or
to his good angel."
Those of you, who heard my lectures on the Ignatian exercises, will remember that the term "colloquies" is also used in those exercises: dialogues take place with the chief figures in the world of
Christian imagery, with the Mother of God, with Christ or with one of the saints.
These inner conversations are called colloquies, but are not described as meditation in the Ignatian exercises, whereas Rulandus definitely defines meditation as an inner conversation with a "vis-a-vis".
He does not say whether these inner figures answer, but there is sufficient proof in the alchemistic literature for us to conclude that they did.
In the Ignatian exercises such conversations are one-sided, we are never told that anybody answers which would be rather essential in a "colloquium".
But the alchemists really try to establish an objective relation to a "second" in their meditation, and this "second" has been regarded since olden times as the so-called "paredros", a spiritual
helper, who is present during the work and who gives instructions.
There is a text where the "spiritus Mercurii" first appears as a vapour which gradually condenses until it takes on a more or less recognisable human form.
This figure is a typical ghost, and agrees with the descriptions of ghosts which we find in all places and all ages.
There is an excellent collection of such apparitions in the book "Phantasms of the Living ".
This book consists of two thick volumes, which give the reader an unsurpassable insight into the phenomenology of such apparitions.
The purpose of the book is to corroborate the existence of telepathy and similar things, n-at primarily to describe the apparitions.
But all such phenomena are exceedingly important for every psychologist and for all those interested in psychology, for they have played a considerable role in human culture since the
earliest times.
Every culture has recognised the existence of such phenomena, and it is only the interpretations which differ.
And so we find them in alchemy also, and the fact is recorded that in deep meditation a dissociation occurs between the ego and a "second", that takes on the form of an inner figure, or represents
Something quite objective which will answer questions or produce enlightening remarks.
Sacrifices were even made to this "paredros" in antiquity, and there are instructions in the literature as to how these figures can be conjured, called up or cast out.
I have already mentioned that it is usually a matter of the spirits of the planets which correspond to the substances used, or those. which play a special role in the horoscope of the alchemist.
The planets were regarded then as gods or spirits, and not just as stars, as we think of them today.
We must never forget to reckon with the fact that the psyche was projected into practically everything.
Meditation then, as defined by Rulandus, does not merely consist of reflecting about the meaning of the authentic books, nor about the nature of the substances on which the alchemists were
working, but it also reveals the presence of a personification of the unconscious.
We find quite a different use of the term meditation in the writings of a later seventeenth century alchemist, which is nevertheless also very typical of the peculiar psychology of alchemy.
This author speaks of a "nova volatilitas" and says:
""The stone will meditate a new volatility."
The volatility of matter means that it is vapourisable.
This sentence occurs in a passage which is concerned with a volatile substance that has solidified, and is now considering a condition of new volatility, as if the substance itself could meditate.
This is a pure projection of psychical events into matter.
A substance meditating seems a ridiculous idea to us, but it was not to the mentality of those days.
On the primitive level every stone, tree or animal can have a soul, or can suddenly develop a voice.
At any moment a tree or a stone can become animated, and such an occurrence is no miracle to the primitive, but merely belongs to the course of nature.
And in the seventeenth century, it was still more or less self-evident that the substances with which the alchemists were working should suddenly take on the nature of animated beings.
It is from this fact that the legends of the hob goblins arise.
My compatriot, Paracelsus, was absolutely convinced of the reality of these hobgoblins, who appeared to the miners and workmen in the darkest parts of the mines.
We find similar phenomena on the sea, such as the "Klab autermann" that appears to sailors before a storm or an accident.
He is also a kind of homunculus, and such figures are either a direct animation of some object or appear independently in nature.
The fylgias in the Icelandic saga are another example.
I know of such phenomena myself with quite normal Swiss people who saw a homunculus of the mountains during a mountain accident.
In the same treatise we read:
"If thou wilt meditate deeply on that which I have indicated here, thou wilt have the key which will enable thee to solve all the seeming contradictions between the philosophers."
You see here that meditation requires deep reflection on all those riddles which the alchemist encounters in the alchemistic treatises with their contradictory style.
The contradictions dissolve through meditation.
So we must assume that these contradictions, which are frequent in the literature, are symbolical expressions, which become clear when one penetrates behind them and finds out what is
really referred to.
Another author says:
"It requires deep meditation, before thou canst understand our sea and its ebb and flow."
The mystery, which should be fathomed during the meditation, is called "our sea" in this passage.
The sea of the alchemists is an old and well known symbol for the unconscious; that is, it really represents the unconscious , but in the language of the alchemists "our sea" refers to the
"humidum radicale" (radical humidity) in the substances, the soul of matter.
This again is a projection of the existence of the soul which the human being feels within himself.
If we translate "our sea" as the unconscious, this passage tells us that there are tides in the unconscious.
Phenomena, which could be metaphorically compared with ebb and flow, do actually take place in the unconscious: sometimes it is nearer to us and sometimes further away.
In other words: there are times when there is a danger that consciousness may be flooded by the unconscious, at other times this danger do{es not exist or is at least much less acute.
This is particularly obvious with primitive people, though we can also see it in ourselves; there are certain seasons when the unconscious has a general tendency to gain the upper hand.
Advent is such a classical time, it has been known since olden days as a season when evil spirits are abroad.
There is a saying in the Canton Lucerne even today that Wotan's host is out or abroad.
Presumably such ideas are connected with the longest nights, when the sun sets at its earliest.
It is a piece of natural life which has survived till today.
Blackouts were general, you must remember, before the discovery of gas and electricity, and man was forced then to live with nature.
Oil was very expensive, and burning chips unreliable and short lived, so people went to bed with the cocks and hens.
Human consciousness blacks itself out, so to speak, at the beginning of the winter, and the unconscious overcomes the conscious as the night overcomes the day.
This is the reason why the night is always the time when things become uncanny, for the light of the conscious has been blacked out.
Such things are more obvious with primitives, for we have fallen somewhat out of mature with all our technical novelties, and have become less aware of the night.
Yet children often suffer from night terrors, and how many women look under their beds or into the cupboard before going to bed?
And these people are civilised Europeans, not primitives!
It is as Faust says: "Es eignet sich, es zeigt sich an, es warnt . . . . Die P£orte knarrt, und niemand kommt herein." (It becomes peculiar, it announces itself, it warns. . The door creaks and no one enters.)
This passage describes a typical nocturnal phenomenon, the fear of darkness, and this is the reason why the primitive has a totally different "Weltanschauung" in the night than in the day.
Ghosts are abroad at night, unheard of things can happen, and the slightest noise lets loose a panic.
We rationalise such noises as burglars, but many people, who would ridicule the idea of ghosts by day, believe in them at night.
These are "ebb and flow" phenomena and, like the tides, they have some connection with the moon.
We say that people are moonstruck, and epilepsy is supposed to be connected with the moon.
The mentally diseased are still called lunatics in English, and their hospitals lunatic asylums (luna = moon).
It is clear, therefore, why our author says that it re quires deep meditation in order to unravel the secret of the unconscious.
In summing up the alchemists' point of view with regard to meditation, I must point out that in one respect all meditation is similar.
It is a kind of submersion, a method of psychical submersion, with which the idea of spiritualisation is connected.
Spritualisation is prepared through meditation: "The stone will meditate a new volatility”.
The purpose of the meditation of the alchemists is also spiritualis, but in contrast to the other methods of meditation which we studied here - those of Yoga, Mahayana Buddhism and the
Ignatian excercises - the subject of meditation in alchemy is something unknown, and not a known dogmatic formula.
You will remember the very dogmatic injunctions for imagining the Amitabha Land, the Buddha and so on in the Amitayur-Dhyana Sutra.
There is nothing of the same kind in alchemy, the subject of meditation is a mystery, and the alchemist must meditate in order to understand this mystery.
He has no idea what he should imagine, and he has only a highly contradictory terminology at his disposal.
When he thinks about this secret it is unknown to him, he has no idea what it is.
He does not meditate on his sins or his plans, nor does he, so to speak, think about himself at all, but he thinks about the unknown element in the world, in the substances and in himself.
The object of his meditation is essentially unknown, and his meditation serves the purpose of perceiving this unknown, of making it clearer, and of gaining certain images of it.
In other words: meditation is making his unconscious conscious.
I read you a passage from Dorneus where he said the essential thing for the alchemist was to know himself, and to find out who he really was.
Dorneus became conscious that the secret was not merely in matter but was also in man.
There are many such passages in the old authors, where they definitely state that man, as well as chemical matter, contains the origin of the mysterious substance which becomes the philosophers'
stone.
Meditation is intrinsically a method of understanding for the alchemists; they hope, through the application of meditation, to become aware of certain mysteries which are intangible and invisible.
The knowledge, which they thus acquire, they call the "scientia".
VIII. Scientia
I have collected a further series of excerpts from the alchemistic writings on this subject, in which we shall also meet some very peculiar things.
Alphidius says:
"The food of whoever finds this knowledge will be legitimate and eternal"
Alphidius is an author who lived perhaps as early as the thirteenth or even the twelfth century.
Very likely he wrote in Arabic or Hebrew, but this is uncertain.
In any case he refers in this passage to Leviticus "All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings of the Lord made
by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy."
The idea of a legitimate and eternal food is to be found in both passages.
"The food", in the text of Alphidius, is the unleavened bread of Leviticus, which "shall be a statute forever in your generations."
One might perhaps assume that Alphidius was a Jew, for there were a great many Hebrew treatises written in Spain during the time of the Moors, and Alphidius belonged to that region.
This knowledge" is equal then to an eternal, legitimate food of life, a food which bestows life.
It is found through meditation, and is a panacea which enriches life and makes it fuller or healthier.
This is something which we experience also.
It is when our lives have become so flat and meaningless that we can hardly go on living, that the moment comes when we turn to the unconscious and to our dreams and phantasies.
We meditate on these in order to discover the contents of the unconscious, and to find a new meaning in life.
The result is something very similar to receiving a "legitimate and eternal food", the right food which reanimates life, for everything depends on our attitude to it.
Even a very bad situation can change when we look at it differently.
The "Aurora Consurgens" asks the question:
"What is the science? It is the gift and sanctuary of the Deity, it is a divine thing, and is hidden by the Wise in symbolical words and in many ways."
This author is quite sure that the contradictory statements of the alchemists are made with the purpose of expressing this thing, but in such a way that no one can understand.
One is never certain, when one reads these texts, whether the author has really understood something, and is expressing himself symbolically in order to keep it a secret, or whether he has not
really understood himself, and is expressing himself as clearly as he can.
The subject is exceedingly difficult, for it really is a mystery.
What is the unconscious?
Whenever we speak of it, we express ourselves involuntarily in a peculiar metaphorical language in order to get somewhere near its character.
So it is possible that these people were speaking as clearly as they could in their language, and the reader who knew understood.
When I was reading these texts I often thought: "Yes I know what you mean", but I was never absolutely sure that I did, till I came on an old treatise which was underlined and had marginal notes in an
old handwriting, which probably belonged to the early seventeenth century.
Just those passages were underlined that I should have underlined myself, I could have read the meaning of the whole treatise from the places he had marked.
Then I knew that we both understood the text in the same way.
In one obscure passage, for instance, just as I came to the conclusion that the author meant the devil, I came on the marginal note "Diabolus".
But on the other hand, when a certain monastery sold all its alchemistic books (assuming they were nonsense) I came across a book which a monk had read in his old age.
He also had underlined in red pencil, but exactly the places which I should not have marked, namely the passages concerned with gold making.
This interest in gold was a grievous sin against the fundamental spirit of alchemy; this monk was evidently too fond of money, in spite of living in a monastery.
Another Father wrote of him: "He studied this book for several years but it did him no good.
"I thought: "Naturally not with such a point of view", but it was really impossible that anyone who lived in the Catholic world of the eighteenth century should understand.
The anonymous author of the "Aurora Consurgens" says further "The science is nothing less than a gift of God and a sacrament."
The manuscript of this text, which we have in Zurich, belongs to the fourteenth or even the fifteenth century, but the original text, judging by its whole character and make up, must have belonged to
about the end of the thirteenth century.
The chief authority quoted is St. Thomas of Aquinas (1225-74) .
One must keep the date in mind, and also the fact that the author was a cleric.
When such a man calls the science of the alchemists a sacrament, one cannot take it seriously enough; for in those days and in that milieu it was the strongest expression which the author could possibly
have used to describe a mystery.
The author continues:
"There are three precious words in which the mystery is concealed. These must be given to the devout, namely the poor, from the first to the last man."
These words are an allusion to an alchemistic tradition of which you may have heard, namely the Aurea Catena (the golden chain).
This chain reaches from the earliest dawn of mankind into the most distant future, and consists of people who know the secret.
One hands on the golden bucket secretly to the next and the chain stretches through all ages.
The science, according to this author, is a sacrament, a divine mystery, so these "three divine words" in which it is concealed are thus made equal to the Gospel.
And therefore it must be given to the poor in spirit.
These same poor were also mentioned by Joannes de Rupescissa, as "les pauvres hommes evangelisans"; who, as we saw, were the alchemists themselves elves.
Alchemy is a sort of divine message, a gospel, to these "poor men", a science which comes from God and must be handed on secretly from one to the next down the ages.
These "three precious words" refer to a treatise which is possibly of Arabic origin, though this is rather uncertain.
The treatise is ascribed to one of the older so-called "arabizantes", KALID BEN YEZYD, who is presumably a legendary authority. It is called the "Liber trium verborum Kallid acutissimi " (the book of three words by the most intelligent Kallid.)
These three precious words are elucidated in the treatise. I will read you a passage from it: (The art consists of three words:
"It is said that the water preserves the foetus for three months in the uterus. The air warms it for three months. The fire preserves it for the same length of time. And all this is said as a parable of Mercury. And this word, discourse and dark way of speaking are made known in order that the truth should be seen."
The author claims here to have disclosed the secret in order that one might see the truth; but naturally it is all very obscure.
We can make out, however, that it is a matter of the three elements: water, air and fire, and that mercury is being spoken of. Mercury, as the metal, could represent the earth, so we may assume that this pregnancy produces the fourth element, the earth.
In other words it is the fourth element which alchemy is concerned with.
This is a very important hint. The idea of three plays a considerable role in the whole of alchemy, particularly in medieval alchemy where the triad is directly called the "ternarius supernaturalis" (the supernatural triad), and is termed the gift of God.
The pneuma, the mind (which deals with matter) has a part in the divine pneuma, the divine triad, whereas the fourth is the earth.
Psychologically the earth always refers to the body, for the body consists, so to speak, of earth.
We can therefore assume, psychologically speaking, that the object which is to be transformed in alchemy is connected with the human body: it is a mystery of the body.
You know that the unconscious has a great deal to do with the body, many symptoms of a bodily nature, for instance, are directly caused by the unconscious.
There are certain disturbances of the unconscious, in the sympathetic system, which produce symptoms exactly like organic disturbances.
I once saw a case where forty centimeters of the large intestine (colon des cendens) had been removed, because, as the result of a disturbance in the sympathetic system, a paralysis of the large
intestine had set in, so the surgeon had simply cut out forty centimetres.
Three weeks after the operation,' when the patient was getting up, the trouble began again at the hitherto normal end.
This was too much and, not wanting to have the whole of her inside cut out, the woman came to consult me.
She brought her X-ray plates with her, showing a really horrible condition, but it was simply a disturbance in the sympathetic system.
I was able to assure her that she would survive it, and it got better through psychological treatment.
It had been quite unnecessary to cut out those forty centimetres.
I do not want to assert that all illness comes from psychological disturbances, but amazing things do happen.
The unconscious can cause eruptions of the skin, for instance, and even tuberculosis, and when one sees such things one realizes how much the unconscious affects the body.
It is therefore possible to reach the body through the unconscious, the old hypnotists and magnetisers knew long ago that one could bring about the most marvellous changes through hypnotic suggestion.
This procedure is very archaic but one can reach the unconscious with such arts, whilst the Latin and Greek terminology of modern medicine makes no impression whatever up on it.
Stinking ointments, however, and even the laying on of hands, reach the unconscious and then it reacts, but it merely despises our modern erudition and academic style. M
y respected predecessor, Paracelsus, said similar things; he also told the doctors, in his language, that they should use prescriptions which would impress the unconscious .
We must honour the sciences, but the vital thing in illness is to respect the nature of the patient.
In such matters, the alchemists, as you see, came on the track of highly modern things. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Pages 171-178.
The Sun and the Moon
In the Hermetic philosophy, the Sun has always been a symbol of a certain aspect of consciousness as it radiates outwards of it's self. The sun can only shine and give outwards its potent rays of light and warmth. It cannot receive or take; it is not its nature, for it is only half and a part of the Oneness of being. The other aspect of consciousness is symbolized in the Moon as the feminine receptive nature of the unconscious mind. By herself she is dark and cold and is as a passive polarity compared to the active polarity of the Sun. Alchemically the Lunar nature is one of gathering inwards and nurturing, while the nature of the Sun is one of outpouring and expansive. The Sun, which is consciousness, and which is in itself a divine energy, sees himself in her reflection, while her darkness as the unconscious is warmed and made to shine with radiance. The Sun sees his reflection in the Moon. As Fulcanelli has said, “the moon secretly absorbs the rays of the Sun and nurtures them in her bosom”.
Metaphysically, the inner process of meditation and initiation is functioning on the very same principles. The conscious mind directing thought and concentration is as the Sun. The unconscious aspect of our being is as the moon and functions on a lunar level. The unconscious psychic energies within us must be warmed and kindled by the solar essence. This is that metaphysical insemination which the philosophers speak of when they say that “consciousness must inseminate the unconscious”. It is this act that brings to birth a third aspect of consciousness in our being, the luminous subjective self as the inner divine child. When one practices meditation, one can enter into the fertile feminine unconscious where one’s birthing of the inner divine child lies as the emerging inner self. One must first make the conscious effort of his or her active will power and concentration and act upon the passive energies of the unconscious. In turn the receptive and passive energies of the unconscious, nurtures and matures the divine seed of the Sun, or our "Gold" , as the alchemists like to call it. In this way, this feminine aspect becomes the mother of divinity in that she brings forth the Son of the Sun. This is that mystical love affair, that passion and divine union of the male and female seed that the philosophers speak of which begets the Philosopher’s Stone. The Sun and the moon as the Father and the Mother, now see themselves in the divine Son as the divine man. This is the true union of the bride and groom, the re-union of Adam and Eve and the mystical wedding of the alchemists
As the King, so too our Alchemical Queen has her part in the alchemical process. It is a most beautiful event to behold the Sun through the feminine reflection as the Lunar Astral Light. Especially when she is pregnant and full. She is our most beautiful Diana. The alchemists have always spoken highly of her and expressed her beauty in most beautiful allegorical ways as the Lilly of the Valley and the White Rose of the whitening stage of the alchemical process. It is the “beholding of the most beautiful body of Diana stripped of all her terrestriality”. Thus the wife of the Sun becomes the very mother of our own rebirth, where consciousness becomes conscious of consciousness and we realises the source of a greater light coming from the Sun within us as the Father. But we never forget our mother the moon and her gentle nurturing. In this symbolism and allegory we see the Christian mystery of the Holy Virgin mother conceived of the father, the Sun, and who gave birth to the divine child who becomes our inner master, and saviour, as our regenerated soul and consciousness. --Steve Kalec
“Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego’s rapports with the unconscious and his contents initiate an evolution, more precisely a real metamorphoses of the psyche.” - Carl Jung
Splendor Solis, J. Karl Bogartte
I am therefore inclined to assume that the real root of alchemy is to be sought less in philosophical doctrines than in the projections of individual investigators. I mean by this that while working on his chemical experiments the operator had certain psychic experiences which appeared to him as the particular behavior of the chemical process. Since it was a question of projection, he was naturally unconscious of the fact that the experience had nothing to do with matter itself (that is, with matter as we know it today). He experienced his projection as a property of matter; but what he was in reality experiencing was his own unconscious. In this way he recapitulated the whole history of mankind's knowledge of nature.... Such projections repeat themselves whenever man tries to explore an empty darkness and involuntarily fills it with living form. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 2.1).
The psychological context of dream-contents consists in the web of associations in which the dream is naturally embedded. Theoretically we can never know anything in advance about this web, but in practice it is sometimes possible, granted long enough experience. Even so, careful analysis will never rely too much on technical rules; the danger of deception and suggestion is too great. In the analysis of isolated dreams above all, this kind of knowing in advance and making assumptions on the grounds of practical expectation or general probability is positively wrong. It should therefore be an absolute rule to assume that every dream, and every part of a dream, is unknown at the outset, and to attempt an interpretation only after carefully taking up the context. We can then apply the meaning we have thus discovered to the text of the dream itself and see whether this yields a fluent reading, or rather whether a satisfying meaning emerges. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12: Page 48
Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation. It is therefore possible for it to be more developed or less. In an outward form of religion where all the emphasis is on the outward figure (hence where we are dealing with a more or less complete projection) the archetype is identical with externalized ideas but remains unconscious as a psychic factor. When an unconscious content is replaced by a projected image to that extent, it is cut off from all participation in an influence on the conscious mind. Hence it largely forfeits its own life, because prevented from exerting the formative influence on consciousness natural to it; what is more, it remains in its original form — unchanged, for nothing changes in the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy.
The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is "secret," i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it. In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery - his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence." ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 2.1)
When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend 'the One, the All'. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, and the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colors in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 3.1).
Now, all these myth-pictures represent a drama of the human psyche on the further side of consciousness, showing man as both the one to be redeemed and the redeemer. The first formulation is Christian, the second alchemical. In the first case man attributes the need of redemption to himself and leaves the work of redemption, the actual opus, to the autonomous divine figure; in the latter case man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus, and attributes the state of suffering and consequent need of redemption to the anima mundi imprisoned in matter. In both cases redemption is a work. In Christianity it is the life and death of the God-man which, by a unique sacrifice, bring about the reconciliation of man, who craves redemption and is sunk in materiality, with God. The mystical effect of the God-man's self-sacrifice extends, broadly speaking, to all men, though it is efficacious only for those who submit through faith or are chosen by divine grace; but in the Pauline acceptance it acts as an apocatastasis and extends also to non-human creation in general, which, in its imperfect state, awaits redemption like the merely natural man. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 3.3).
From this point of view, alchemy seems like a continuation of Christian mysticism carried on in the subterranean darkness of the unconscious.... But this unconscious continuation never reached the surface, where the conscious mind could have dealt with it. All that appeared in consciousness were the symbolic symptoms of the unconscious process. Had the alchemist succeeded in forming any concrete idea of his unconscious contents, he would have been obliged to recognize that he had taken the place of Christ - or, to be more exact, that he regarded not as ego but as self, had taken over the work of redeeming not man but God. He would then have had to recognize not only himself as the equivalent of Christ, but Christ as a symbol of the self. This tremendous conclusion failed to dawn on the medieval mind. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 5.1).
To remain a child too long is childish, but it is just as childish to move away and then assume that childhood no longer exists because we do not see it. But if we return to the "children's land" we succumb to the fear of becoming childish, because we do not understand that everything of psychic origin has a double face. One face looks forward, the other back. It is ambivalent and therefore symbolic, like all living reality. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12; Page 74.
Western man is held in thrall by the "ten thousand things"; he sees only particulars, he is ego-bound and thing-bound, and unaware of the deep root of all being. Eastern man, on the other hand, experiences the world of particulars, and even his own ego, like a dream; he is rooted essentially in the "Ground," which attracts him so powerfully that his relations with the world are relativized to a degree that is often incomprehensible to us. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12; Page 8.
In so far as the archetypal content of the Christian drama was able to give satisfying expression to the uneasy and clamorous unconscious of the many, the consensus omnium raised this drama to a universally binding truth–not of course by an act of judgment, but by the irrational fact of possession, which is far more effective. Thus Jesus became the tutelary image or amulet against the archetypal powers that threatened to possess everyone. The glad tidings announced: ‘It has happened, but it will not happen to you inasmuch as you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God!’ Yet it could and it can and it will happen to everyone in whom the Christian dominant has decayed. For this reason there have always been people who, not satisfied with the dominants of conscious life, set forth–under cover and by devious paths, to their destruction or salvation–to seek direct experience of the eternal roots, and, following the lure of the restless unconscious psyche, find themselves in the wilderness where, like Jesus, they come up against the son of darkness. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy
The psychological context of dream-contents consists in the web of associations in which the dream is naturally embedded. Theoretically we can never know anything in advance about this web, but in practice it is sometimes possible, granted long enough experience. Even so, careful analysis will never rely too much on technical rules; the danger of deception and suggestion is too great. In the analysis of isolated dreams above all, this kind of knowing in advance and making assumptions on the grounds of practical expectation or general probability is positively wrong. It should therefore be an absolute rule to assume that every dream, and every part of a dream, is unknown at the outset, and to attempt an interpretation only after carefully taking up the context. We can then apply the meaning we have thus discovered to the text of the dream itself and see whether this yields a fluent reading, or rather whether a satisfying meaning emerges. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12: Page 48
Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation. It is therefore possible for it to be more developed or less. In an outward form of religion where all the emphasis is on the outward figure (hence where we are dealing with a more or less complete projection) the archetype is identical with externalized ideas but remains unconscious as a psychic factor. When an unconscious content is replaced by a projected image to that extent, it is cut off from all participation in an influence on the conscious mind. Hence it largely forfeits its own life, because prevented from exerting the formative influence on consciousness natural to it; what is more, it remains in its original form — unchanged, for nothing changes in the unconscious. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy.
The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is "secret," i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it. In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery - his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence." ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 2.1)
When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictoral symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the tenth or eleventh century, together with the legend 'the One, the All'. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail. For this reason the opus was often called circulare (circular) or else rota (the wheel). Mercurius stands at the beginning and end of the work: he is the prima materia, the caput corvi, and the nigredo; as dragon he devours himself and as dragon he dies, to rise again in the lapis. He is the play of colors in the cauda pavonis and the division into the four elements. He is the hermaphrodite that was in the beginning that splits into the classical brother-sister duality and is reunited in the coniunctio, to appear once again at the end in the radiant form of the lumen novum, the stone. He is metallic yet liquid, matter yet spirit, cold yet fiery, poison and yet healing draught - a symbol uniting all the opposites. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 3.1).
Now, all these myth-pictures represent a drama of the human psyche on the further side of consciousness, showing man as both the one to be redeemed and the redeemer. The first formulation is Christian, the second alchemical. In the first case man attributes the need of redemption to himself and leaves the work of redemption, the actual opus, to the autonomous divine figure; in the latter case man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus, and attributes the state of suffering and consequent need of redemption to the anima mundi imprisoned in matter. In both cases redemption is a work. In Christianity it is the life and death of the God-man which, by a unique sacrifice, bring about the reconciliation of man, who craves redemption and is sunk in materiality, with God. The mystical effect of the God-man's self-sacrifice extends, broadly speaking, to all men, though it is efficacious only for those who submit through faith or are chosen by divine grace; but in the Pauline acceptance it acts as an apocatastasis and extends also to non-human creation in general, which, in its imperfect state, awaits redemption like the merely natural man. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 3.3).
From this point of view, alchemy seems like a continuation of Christian mysticism carried on in the subterranean darkness of the unconscious.... But this unconscious continuation never reached the surface, where the conscious mind could have dealt with it. All that appeared in consciousness were the symbolic symptoms of the unconscious process. Had the alchemist succeeded in forming any concrete idea of his unconscious contents, he would have been obliged to recognize that he had taken the place of Christ - or, to be more exact, that he regarded not as ego but as self, had taken over the work of redeeming not man but God. He would then have had to recognize not only himself as the equivalent of Christ, but Christ as a symbol of the self. This tremendous conclusion failed to dawn on the medieval mind. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (Part 3, Chapter 5.1).
To remain a child too long is childish, but it is just as childish to move away and then assume that childhood no longer exists because we do not see it. But if we return to the "children's land" we succumb to the fear of becoming childish, because we do not understand that everything of psychic origin has a double face. One face looks forward, the other back. It is ambivalent and therefore symbolic, like all living reality. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12; Page 74.
Western man is held in thrall by the "ten thousand things"; he sees only particulars, he is ego-bound and thing-bound, and unaware of the deep root of all being. Eastern man, on the other hand, experiences the world of particulars, and even his own ego, like a dream; he is rooted essentially in the "Ground," which attracts him so powerfully that his relations with the world are relativized to a degree that is often incomprehensible to us. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy (1944). CW 12; Page 8.
In so far as the archetypal content of the Christian drama was able to give satisfying expression to the uneasy and clamorous unconscious of the many, the consensus omnium raised this drama to a universally binding truth–not of course by an act of judgment, but by the irrational fact of possession, which is far more effective. Thus Jesus became the tutelary image or amulet against the archetypal powers that threatened to possess everyone. The glad tidings announced: ‘It has happened, but it will not happen to you inasmuch as you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God!’ Yet it could and it can and it will happen to everyone in whom the Christian dominant has decayed. For this reason there have always been people who, not satisfied with the dominants of conscious life, set forth–under cover and by devious paths, to their destruction or salvation–to seek direct experience of the eternal roots, and, following the lure of the restless unconscious psyche, find themselves in the wilderness where, like Jesus, they come up against the son of darkness. ~Carl Jung; Psychology and Alchemy
Thrice-Greatest Hermes beginning the Great Work — Aurora Consurgens,
"Go for the dark and the unknown ... For what is even more obscure and unknown." ~ Alchemical Motto
"Go for the dark and the unknown ... For what is even more obscure and unknown." ~ Alchemical Motto
Eye of Cosmos, Randy Mack
THE HOMUNCULUS - Iona Miller, 1993
In the ancient art of alchemy (another analog of the transformation process), the soul is depicted as a homunculus, or "small man." It was symbolically equivalent to the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixer or Universal Medicine. This homunculus personified the unconscious as an Inner Man, a hermaphroditic being, a spirit in the bottle, a "brain child."
Zosimos and Paracelsus spoke of the homunculus as devouring himself, rending himself with his own teeth, like the Urobouros serpent which bites its tail and gives birth to itself. Both homunculus and uroborous are symbols of paradox. What an image of the dynamics of chaos and order, as it appears in experiential psychotherapy. The image typically appears before dissolution of the center into its unconscious element--the undifferentiated consciousness of the ground state.
In the ancient art of alchemy (another analog of the transformation process), the soul is depicted as a homunculus, or "small man." It was symbolically equivalent to the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixer or Universal Medicine. This homunculus personified the unconscious as an Inner Man, a hermaphroditic being, a spirit in the bottle, a "brain child."
Zosimos and Paracelsus spoke of the homunculus as devouring himself, rending himself with his own teeth, like the Urobouros serpent which bites its tail and gives birth to itself. Both homunculus and uroborous are symbols of paradox. What an image of the dynamics of chaos and order, as it appears in experiential psychotherapy. The image typically appears before dissolution of the center into its unconscious element--the undifferentiated consciousness of the ground state.
"Our Water is a water that does not wet the hands." always talked about, never explained. There is only one place in the world of the past where the term 'waters' was ever used, in Genesis. All the parts, above and below were waters! So right off, the author is telling you Genesis is the way of the stone. Many said, 'Genesis is the most important book ever written about Alchemy." So what is the dry water? The waters below were the earth, which was wet, and air! The waters above are, note waters, plural, were the sun and moon. The sun is the Secret Fire or the fire. So you have earth, air, fire and water. The way it works, is the firmament was created first to divide the above waters, and then used to let them come together. How did they come together? The air with warmth of the fire, cause the below water to evaporate and be carried. The carried vapor, which is mercury to an alchemist, absorbed the fire, or essence of the fire, which could be from the sun or moon or both. It depends on the stage of the process. Now we know air does not wet the hands, but it is not a fire. The earth could wet the hands as it was liquid in the beginning. The sun and moon could not wet the hands. The vapor does not wet the hands either. it has to be something your using to work! Your not using the air unless your running the process. If you running the process, vapor is absorbing the above, condensing to the below, and feeding the below to cause the matter to be changed. so which is the water that does not wet the hands? It is the essence from either the sun or moon that is in the air that is holding the vapor! You can't see it, you can't feel it, but it is there and it is causing the changes. They booth are parts of the above waters which do not wet the hands. You know the earth and air are below the firmament, the sun and moon are shining into your little creation, but you never knew the essences were being collected by the vapor and being delivered to the below. The mercury which is used in each step as a term, or, as Flamel said, "we use the term everywhere, but it is not the True mercury until September when the "Dry land called earth" is produced. In Genesis, it said, "a gentle moisture rose up and watered the whole face of the land, as God had not caused it to rain upon the earth." How would the author know this? It was something he believed as he knew the process by working it, and he was telling you something. In fact, he was telling you many things about the Original alchemy!
Alchemy seeks the metaphorical “gold” and goal of human life—what Buddhists call “Enlightenment”; what the Taoists called “The Way”; the “Heaven” of the Christians, Muslims, and Jews; and the “Realized” nature of any adept.
[Alchemy] speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature.
Alchemy represents the projection of a drama both cosmic and spiritual in laboratory terms. The ‘opus magnum’ had two aims: the rescue of the human soul and the salvation of the cosmos . . This work is difficult and strewn with obstacles; the alchemical opus is dangerous. Right at the beginning you meet the “dragon,” the chthonic spirit, the “devil” or, as the alchemists called it, the “blackness,” the nigredo, and this encounter produces suffering. . .In the language of the alchemists, matter suffers until the nigredo disappears…
In psychological terms, the soul finds itself in the throes of melancholy, locked in a struggle with the ‘shadow’. The mystery of the coniunctio, the central mystery of alchemy, aims precisely at the synthesis of opposites, the assimilation of the blackness, the integration of the devil. (Jung, 1952 interview with Mircea Eliade in Combat)
I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is “secret,” i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it.
In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery – his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence.” ― C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
[Alchemy] speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature.
Alchemy represents the projection of a drama both cosmic and spiritual in laboratory terms. The ‘opus magnum’ had two aims: the rescue of the human soul and the salvation of the cosmos . . This work is difficult and strewn with obstacles; the alchemical opus is dangerous. Right at the beginning you meet the “dragon,” the chthonic spirit, the “devil” or, as the alchemists called it, the “blackness,” the nigredo, and this encounter produces suffering. . .In the language of the alchemists, matter suffers until the nigredo disappears…
In psychological terms, the soul finds itself in the throes of melancholy, locked in a struggle with the ‘shadow’. The mystery of the coniunctio, the central mystery of alchemy, aims precisely at the synthesis of opposites, the assimilation of the blackness, the integration of the devil. (Jung, 1952 interview with Mircea Eliade in Combat)
I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is “secret,” i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown. The real nature of matter was unknown to the alchemist: he knew it only in hints. In seeking to explore it he projected the unconscious into the darkness of matter in order to illuminate it.
In order to explain the mystery of matter he projected yet another mystery – his own psychic background -into what was to be explained: Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius! This procedure was not, of course, intentional; it was an involuntary occurrence.” ― C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
Android Jones
Walter Bruneel - Alchemical Wedding
http://www.walterbruneel-art.com/
http://www.walterbruneel-art.com/
What is alchemy - - Another emblem shows the mermaid-like Aphrodite (Venus), goddess of the sea, with a golden crown and twin tails. Of this favored symbol of the alchemists, the epigram in the . Viridarium states: I am a goddess exceeding fair, born from the depths of the sea, which in its course washes and surrounds all the dry land. Let my breasts pour forth to thee twin streams of blood and milk (vac virginis), which thou' canst well know. These two combined leave to be wrought upon by a gentle fire, then will the Moon, and Apollo (the .Sun) answer thy prayers.”
Water is the image of a profound process of transformation. Water gives life , fruitful but also kills. The alchemists have taught us to talking about its dual nature which always involves an alternation of birth and death, and for this reason it becomes the very essence of the creative force . The alchemists spoke of ' divine water ' , of ' aqua permanens ' . The water causes in some way a sort of ' suffering ' of the matter that is in turn separated , torn , dissolved , decomposed , transformed in a similar process to the dismemberment of a human body . L ' ' aqua permanens ' in alchemy dissolves bodies ( physical and psychological ) into their constituent elements , generates a solution, a " solutio " ( the beginning of a "re- solution " , whatever meaning we give to this term ) . This ' solutio ' leads us to those phases of the alchemical Opus we know as ' blackness ' , ' putrefaction ' , ' mortificatio ' . Only at the end of the process ' ' divine water ' transforms ' nigredo' ( darkness ) into the ' albedo ' that re- animates what it had "killed" and resurrecting what was dead. As the dream is the royal road to the unconscious into consciousness , so the water is considered " the Alpha and the Omega " of the entire Alchemical Opus and for these reasons the " philosophers " alchemists were continually seeking and wanted it desperately . Jung tells us clearly that an explanation of the nature of this water will be in the process of " dramatization illustrating the drastic images with violent and painful process of transformation, which is both cause and effect of the water , even more precise, it is the true essence . Drama shows how the divine process manifests itself in the context of our understanding and experience of the man's transmutation " (Commentary to the visions of Zosimus ) .
Water is the image of a profound process of transformation. Water gives life , fruitful but also kills. The alchemists have taught us to talking about its dual nature which always involves an alternation of birth and death, and for this reason it becomes the very essence of the creative force . The alchemists spoke of ' divine water ' , of ' aqua permanens ' . The water causes in some way a sort of ' suffering ' of the matter that is in turn separated , torn , dissolved , decomposed , transformed in a similar process to the dismemberment of a human body . L ' ' aqua permanens ' in alchemy dissolves bodies ( physical and psychological ) into their constituent elements , generates a solution, a " solutio " ( the beginning of a "re- solution " , whatever meaning we give to this term ) . This ' solutio ' leads us to those phases of the alchemical Opus we know as ' blackness ' , ' putrefaction ' , ' mortificatio ' . Only at the end of the process ' ' divine water ' transforms ' nigredo' ( darkness ) into the ' albedo ' that re- animates what it had "killed" and resurrecting what was dead. As the dream is the royal road to the unconscious into consciousness , so the water is considered " the Alpha and the Omega " of the entire Alchemical Opus and for these reasons the " philosophers " alchemists were continually seeking and wanted it desperately . Jung tells us clearly that an explanation of the nature of this water will be in the process of " dramatization illustrating the drastic images with violent and painful process of transformation, which is both cause and effect of the water , even more precise, it is the true essence . Drama shows how the divine process manifests itself in the context of our understanding and experience of the man's transmutation " (Commentary to the visions of Zosimus ) .
In "Golden Tractates of Hermes" we read.
“Understand then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares; protect me,
and I will protect thee, increase my strength that I may help thee! My sol
and my beams are most inward and secretly in my own Luna, my light,
exceeding every light, and my good things are better than all other good things.
I give freely, and I reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches,
delights; and them that seek after me I make to know and understand, and
posses divine things."
Julius Evola says that " The Intellectual principle in man is the beginning and the end of
the preparation, that man is the principle and the greatest force in the spagyric Work."
One must be able to first transmute the lead of his own being into gold. That is why the
alchemist knows that at all times he is also in his crucible. The work cannot be merely
an exterior work, for the exterior world is only half the world. The whole world is a
union of both the inner and the outer. As Hermes says in the Emerald tablet,
" In this way you will have the glory of the whole world", the Stone. It is said
that true miracles ( transmutations) occur at the convergence of these two worlds.
In the alchemical process, Julius Evola says , "the most essential role is played by
the psychic energy and the "dignity" of the operator. His inner energies, exercise an
efficacious influence on the mineral forces, thanks to an inner relation with them that is
absolutely beyond the reach of normal consciousness" . This should not be less of
a mystery if we consider that within ourselves, in our blood, in our bodies are resident
all these metals . We have iron in our blood including traces of all the other metals.
Since the law of correspondence, resonance and attunement have the greatest role
in physical alchemy experiments ? Surely there must then be a harmony between the
inner consciousness of the alchemist and the outer procedure and happening in the
crucible, flask or retort. As an Arab text says, "the different spiritual and corporeal
forces must be converging and not moving apart , the physical and spiritual forces
must be similar so that they can mutually help each other." All reality is One, Mind is
One, the way is One. The cosmological and metaphysical principles that apply to
the transmutation of consciousness also apply to metals because the " furnace " is
also One. One must light this furnace and keep its fire, tend to it as in a vigil always.
It is unimaginable the virtue that there is developed in the constant, even,
and uninterrupted heat that is endured through time. " Seek ye the Secret Fire,
for without it you can do nothing in our Art " !
No one has and no one ever will achieve metallic transmutation until he learns
to look elsewhere and understand what is the mystery of inner transmutation.
Artephius says that " the work that the magister does is not the work done by hands",
and all the masters have said that the substances and elements of which they speak
are not the same as those of common man.
Yet it is said that it takes gold to make gold. But which gold if it is
not your common gold ?
"And the purest and most perfect gold of all, a gold of absolute purity, dwells
infinitely and incomparably above the lower forms of gold, which stand far below
it, as likenesses are inferior in their dignity to the thing they represent. As there is
a real difference between an image appearing in a mirror, and the thing that it
represents, likewise, and infinitely more so, there is a difference between this
purest gold of all and the other kinds of gold. As perfectly pure gold is different
from a dye made with gall, which is only a very remote likeness of gold, so does
God reach above all other things in his holiness and infinite dignity."
___LeMyesier&# 39;s Breviculum, on the Art of Blessed Raymond Lull____
“Understand then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares; protect me,
and I will protect thee, increase my strength that I may help thee! My sol
and my beams are most inward and secretly in my own Luna, my light,
exceeding every light, and my good things are better than all other good things.
I give freely, and I reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches,
delights; and them that seek after me I make to know and understand, and
posses divine things."
Julius Evola says that " The Intellectual principle in man is the beginning and the end of
the preparation, that man is the principle and the greatest force in the spagyric Work."
One must be able to first transmute the lead of his own being into gold. That is why the
alchemist knows that at all times he is also in his crucible. The work cannot be merely
an exterior work, for the exterior world is only half the world. The whole world is a
union of both the inner and the outer. As Hermes says in the Emerald tablet,
" In this way you will have the glory of the whole world", the Stone. It is said
that true miracles ( transmutations) occur at the convergence of these two worlds.
In the alchemical process, Julius Evola says , "the most essential role is played by
the psychic energy and the "dignity" of the operator. His inner energies, exercise an
efficacious influence on the mineral forces, thanks to an inner relation with them that is
absolutely beyond the reach of normal consciousness" . This should not be less of
a mystery if we consider that within ourselves, in our blood, in our bodies are resident
all these metals . We have iron in our blood including traces of all the other metals.
Since the law of correspondence, resonance and attunement have the greatest role
in physical alchemy experiments ? Surely there must then be a harmony between the
inner consciousness of the alchemist and the outer procedure and happening in the
crucible, flask or retort. As an Arab text says, "the different spiritual and corporeal
forces must be converging and not moving apart , the physical and spiritual forces
must be similar so that they can mutually help each other." All reality is One, Mind is
One, the way is One. The cosmological and metaphysical principles that apply to
the transmutation of consciousness also apply to metals because the " furnace " is
also One. One must light this furnace and keep its fire, tend to it as in a vigil always.
It is unimaginable the virtue that there is developed in the constant, even,
and uninterrupted heat that is endured through time. " Seek ye the Secret Fire,
for without it you can do nothing in our Art " !
No one has and no one ever will achieve metallic transmutation until he learns
to look elsewhere and understand what is the mystery of inner transmutation.
Artephius says that " the work that the magister does is not the work done by hands",
and all the masters have said that the substances and elements of which they speak
are not the same as those of common man.
Yet it is said that it takes gold to make gold. But which gold if it is
not your common gold ?
"And the purest and most perfect gold of all, a gold of absolute purity, dwells
infinitely and incomparably above the lower forms of gold, which stand far below
it, as likenesses are inferior in their dignity to the thing they represent. As there is
a real difference between an image appearing in a mirror, and the thing that it
represents, likewise, and infinitely more so, there is a difference between this
purest gold of all and the other kinds of gold. As perfectly pure gold is different
from a dye made with gall, which is only a very remote likeness of gold, so does
God reach above all other things in his holiness and infinite dignity."
___LeMyesier&# 39;s Breviculum, on the Art of Blessed Raymond Lull____
Rebecca Yanovskaya - “Ascent of Man and the Destruction of Magic
“My studies of alchemy may seem obscure and baffle many people, but taken symbolically - the symbolic gold of great worth, of the transforming philosopher’s stone ‘lapis philosophorum’ hunted for centuries by the alchemists - is to be found in man.”
~Carl Gustav Jung
"The union of opposites in the stone is possible only when the adept has become One him/herself. The unity of the stone is the equivalent of individuation, by which [we are] made one; we would say that the stone is a projection of the unified self. This formulation is psychologically correct. It does not, however, take sufficient account of the fact that the stone is a transcendent unity. We must therefore emphasize that though the self can become a symbolic content of consciousness, it is, as a supraordinate totality, necessarily transcendent as well." --Carl Jung, "The Alchemical Interpretation of the Fish,"
in Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self
Objective psychic energy is bipolar, both positive and negative,
whereas the energy of the unus mundus is undivided and magical. The nondual Askasha paradigm is one of integral consciousness, a nonlinear mode of understanding connection throughout the world and cosmos. It reaffirms age-old instinctive comprehension of deep connections among people, societies, and nature, and it integrates and transcends classical religious and scientific paradigms.
The heart is the seat of our relationship with anima mundi, the world soul. The task of the alchemist is the synthesis of the universal man capable of uniting with the world soul in spirit and body. Matter-psyche embodies the magical process. Only connective intelligence can generate a deep conceptual change affecting a deep reshaping the cognitive limitations produced by previous conceptions.
~Carl Gustav Jung
"The union of opposites in the stone is possible only when the adept has become One him/herself. The unity of the stone is the equivalent of individuation, by which [we are] made one; we would say that the stone is a projection of the unified self. This formulation is psychologically correct. It does not, however, take sufficient account of the fact that the stone is a transcendent unity. We must therefore emphasize that though the self can become a symbolic content of consciousness, it is, as a supraordinate totality, necessarily transcendent as well." --Carl Jung, "The Alchemical Interpretation of the Fish,"
in Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self
Objective psychic energy is bipolar, both positive and negative,
whereas the energy of the unus mundus is undivided and magical. The nondual Askasha paradigm is one of integral consciousness, a nonlinear mode of understanding connection throughout the world and cosmos. It reaffirms age-old instinctive comprehension of deep connections among people, societies, and nature, and it integrates and transcends classical religious and scientific paradigms.
The heart is the seat of our relationship with anima mundi, the world soul. The task of the alchemist is the synthesis of the universal man capable of uniting with the world soul in spirit and body. Matter-psyche embodies the magical process. Only connective intelligence can generate a deep conceptual change affecting a deep reshaping the cognitive limitations produced by previous conceptions.
Fomorii Interior II - Otto Rapp
In describing the process of individuation as an alchemical process, Jung maintained that the point of individuation was not to become perfect or attempt to overcome or master our personal psychology, but to become familiar with it, thereby coming into relationship with the parts of ourselves that have become repressed, numbed, split off, or disowned (Sharp, 1991). A lack of relationship between the individual and the Self can lead to pathology when the Self is not realized (in the body), often erupting in symptoms (Edinger, 1995).
Likewise, contemporary psychologist, John Weir Perry (1976) attributes the psychotic break of schizophrenic patients to a visionary state in which an archetypal renewal process is attempting to manifest. Jung argued that before renewal can occur, we must reconnect our individual lives with our historical roots undefined the deep symbolic and archetypal images of the past (Edinger, 1995).
The mytho-historical culture of ancient Egypt provides a powerful opportunity to relate the historical with the personal in a way that can put us in touch with greater wholeness. http://www.depthinsights.com/blog/carl-jungs-process-of-individuation-and-the-archetype-of-renewal/
Likewise, contemporary psychologist, John Weir Perry (1976) attributes the psychotic break of schizophrenic patients to a visionary state in which an archetypal renewal process is attempting to manifest. Jung argued that before renewal can occur, we must reconnect our individual lives with our historical roots undefined the deep symbolic and archetypal images of the past (Edinger, 1995).
The mytho-historical culture of ancient Egypt provides a powerful opportunity to relate the historical with the personal in a way that can put us in touch with greater wholeness. http://www.depthinsights.com/blog/carl-jungs-process-of-individuation-and-the-archetype-of-renewal/
Sir William Fettes Douglas, The Alchemist- c. 19th century. US Public Domain wikimedia
Alchemy is about more than just the transformation of chemical substances. It is a metaphor for the transformation of the mortal into the immortal, and an archetypal representation of the process of individuation. Carl Jung says:
“The alchemists saw it in the transformation of the chemical substance. So if one of them sought transformation, he discovered it outside in matter, whose transformation cried out to him, as it were, “I am the transformation!” But some were clever enough to know, “It is my own transformation-not a personal transformation, but the transformation of what is mortal in me into what is immortal. It shakes off the mortal husk that I am and awakens to a life of its own.” Carl Jung, CW 9i , para. 238)
“The alchemists saw it in the transformation of the chemical substance. So if one of them sought transformation, he discovered it outside in matter, whose transformation cried out to him, as it were, “I am the transformation!” But some were clever enough to know, “It is my own transformation-not a personal transformation, but the transformation of what is mortal in me into what is immortal. It shakes off the mortal husk that I am and awakens to a life of its own.” Carl Jung, CW 9i , para. 238)
"For the alchemist it was clear that the “centre,” or what we would call the self, does not lie in the ego but is outside it, “in us” yet not “in our mind,” being located rather in that which we unconsciously are, the “quid” which we still have to recognize.
Today we would call it the unconscious, and we distinguish between a personal unconscious which enables us to recognize the shadow and an impersonal unconscious which enables us to recognize the archetypal symbol of the self.
Such a point of view was inaccessible to the alchemist, and having no idea of the theory of knowledge, he had to exteriorize his archetype in the traditional way and lodge it in matter, even though he felt, as Dorn and others undoubtedly did, that the centre was paradoxically in man and yet at the same time outside him." ~Carl Jung, Aion, Page 169
Today we would call it the unconscious, and we distinguish between a personal unconscious which enables us to recognize the shadow and an impersonal unconscious which enables us to recognize the archetypal symbol of the self.
Such a point of view was inaccessible to the alchemist, and having no idea of the theory of knowledge, he had to exteriorize his archetype in the traditional way and lodge it in matter, even though he felt, as Dorn and others undoubtedly did, that the centre was paradoxically in man and yet at the same time outside him." ~Carl Jung, Aion, Page 169
Mystic Rose
http://www.flickr.com/groups/textures_only/discuss/72157622246310092/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/textures_only/discuss/72157622246310092/
"I hold the view that the alchemist’s hope of conjuring out of matter the philosophical gold, or the panacea, or the wonderful stone, was only in part an illusion, an effect of projection; for the rest it corresponded to certain psychic facts that are of great importance in the psychology of the unconscious.
As is shown by the texts and their symbolism, the alchemist projected what I have called the process of individuation into the phenomena of chemical change." ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy. Paragraph 564, Page 482.
As is shown by the texts and their symbolism, the alchemist projected what I have called the process of individuation into the phenomena of chemical change." ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy. Paragraph 564, Page 482.
Soror Mystica
Modern Alchemist
http://the-modern-alchemist.iwarp.com/
http://the-modern-alchemist.iwarp.com/
Transmodern Alchemist
http://transmodernalchemy.weebly.com/
http://transmodernalchemy.weebly.com/
The invisible, spiritual, and none material principle of all animation, that which is everywhere found, cannot be seen by the eyes of the flesh. Only the philosophers recognize this immense force in nature. One will never see the energy of life, nor measure, nor weigh it. One can only see and recognize it’s expression through matter and body. Only this expression, can be weighed, measured and given value. Flamel has said, wonderful works of nature can be seen within our vessels, and that we should contemplate the works of nature. How could one not enter into contemplation in such works? The alchemical path is one that is very initiatic, and it is the alchemist who is at all times within his crucible and flasks with his matter. The art work and the artist are one. The magistery and the magister are one. The contemplation and the contemplator are one. That which is realized and the one realizing are one. --Steve Kalec
We are of course quite ignorant of the exact nature of the crucial experience which for the alchemist was equivalent to obtaining the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir. Excessively
prolix in all that concerns the preliminaries and various phases of the opus, alchemical literature makes only cryptic and, for the most part, incomprehensible allusions to the mysterium magnum.
But if we are right in insisting on the interdependent relationships between mineralogical symbolism, metallurgical rites, the magic of fire and the beliefs in the artificial transmutation of metals into gold by operations which replace those of Nature and time; if we take into account the close connection between Chinese alchemy and neo- Taoist techniques, between Indian alchemy and tantrism; if, in short, the Alexandrian alchemists did, as seems probable, project on to mineral substances the initiatory spectacles of the Mysteries- it becomes possible to penetrate into the nature of alchemical experience.
The Indian alchemist provides us with a point of comparison: he works on mineral substances in order to 'cleanse' and to 'awaken' himself, or, in other words, to enter into possession of those divine substances which were dormant in his body. The Western alchemist by endeavoring to 'kill' the ingredients, to reduce them to the materia prima, provokes a sympatheia between the 'pathetic situations' of the substance and his innermost being. In other words, he realizes, as it were, some initiatory experiences which, as the course of the opus proceeds, forge for him a new personality, comparable to the one which is achieved after successfully undergoing the ordeals of initiation.
His participation in the phases of the opus is such that the nigredo, for example, procures for him experiences analogous to those of the neophyte in the initiation ceremonies when he feel 'swallowed up in the belly of the monster, or 'buried', or symbolically 'slain by the masks and masters of initiation'.
Page 160 of "The Forge and the Crucible" by Mircea Eliad
The Golden Chain of Homer describes the attributes and the nature of this Fire are said to be found in three different states or phases of existence.
1. In its Original most Universal state it is perfectly invisible, immaterial, cold and occupies no space, in this tranquil state it is of no use to us, yet in this unmoved state it is omnipresent.
2. In its second state it is manifested by motion or agitation into light. In this state it was separated out of the Chaos, when God said, "Let there be Light." Yet it is still cold. When gently moved or agitated, it manifests warmth and heat, as in the case in all frictions and in fermentation of moist things.
3. When collected in a sufficient quantity, and violently agitated it is manifested into burning fire. This continues burning as long as it is agitated, and has a fit subject to act upon; when that fails, it returns to its first state of tranquil universality. In the character of burning fire it manifests light and heat. (Kalec)
We are of course quite ignorant of the exact nature of the crucial experience which for the alchemist was equivalent to obtaining the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir. Excessively
prolix in all that concerns the preliminaries and various phases of the opus, alchemical literature makes only cryptic and, for the most part, incomprehensible allusions to the mysterium magnum.
But if we are right in insisting on the interdependent relationships between mineralogical symbolism, metallurgical rites, the magic of fire and the beliefs in the artificial transmutation of metals into gold by operations which replace those of Nature and time; if we take into account the close connection between Chinese alchemy and neo- Taoist techniques, between Indian alchemy and tantrism; if, in short, the Alexandrian alchemists did, as seems probable, project on to mineral substances the initiatory spectacles of the Mysteries- it becomes possible to penetrate into the nature of alchemical experience.
The Indian alchemist provides us with a point of comparison: he works on mineral substances in order to 'cleanse' and to 'awaken' himself, or, in other words, to enter into possession of those divine substances which were dormant in his body. The Western alchemist by endeavoring to 'kill' the ingredients, to reduce them to the materia prima, provokes a sympatheia between the 'pathetic situations' of the substance and his innermost being. In other words, he realizes, as it were, some initiatory experiences which, as the course of the opus proceeds, forge for him a new personality, comparable to the one which is achieved after successfully undergoing the ordeals of initiation.
His participation in the phases of the opus is such that the nigredo, for example, procures for him experiences analogous to those of the neophyte in the initiation ceremonies when he feel 'swallowed up in the belly of the monster, or 'buried', or symbolically 'slain by the masks and masters of initiation'.
Page 160 of "The Forge and the Crucible" by Mircea Eliad
The Golden Chain of Homer describes the attributes and the nature of this Fire are said to be found in three different states or phases of existence.
1. In its Original most Universal state it is perfectly invisible, immaterial, cold and occupies no space, in this tranquil state it is of no use to us, yet in this unmoved state it is omnipresent.
2. In its second state it is manifested by motion or agitation into light. In this state it was separated out of the Chaos, when God said, "Let there be Light." Yet it is still cold. When gently moved or agitated, it manifests warmth and heat, as in the case in all frictions and in fermentation of moist things.
3. When collected in a sufficient quantity, and violently agitated it is manifested into burning fire. This continues burning as long as it is agitated, and has a fit subject to act upon; when that fails, it returns to its first state of tranquil universality. In the character of burning fire it manifests light and heat. (Kalec)
The Mountain of the Adepts.
The temple of the wise ("House of the Gathering" or of "Self-Collection"). lit by the sun and moon stands on the seven stages, surmounted by the phoenix. The temple is hidden in the mountain-a hint that the Philosopher's Stone lies buried in the earth and must be extracted and cleansed. The zodiac in the background symbolizes the duration of the opus, while the four elements indicate wholeness. In the foreground, blindfolded man and the investigator who follows his natural instinct. ~Michelspacher, Cabala (1654)
The temple of the wise ("House of the Gathering" or of "Self-Collection"). lit by the sun and moon stands on the seven stages, surmounted by the phoenix. The temple is hidden in the mountain-a hint that the Philosopher's Stone lies buried in the earth and must be extracted and cleansed. The zodiac in the background symbolizes the duration of the opus, while the four elements indicate wholeness. In the foreground, blindfolded man and the investigator who follows his natural instinct. ~Michelspacher, Cabala (1654)
He who sleeps in the grave of the millennia dreams a wonderful dream. He dreams a primordially ancient dream. He dreams of the rising sun.
If you sleep this sleep and dream this dream in this time of the world, you will know that the sun will also rise at this time. For the moment we are still in the dark, but the day is upon us.
He who comprehends the darkness in himself, to him the light is near. He who climbs down into his darkness reaches the staircase of the working light, fire maned Helios.
His chariot ascends with four white horses, his back bears no cross, and his side no wound, but he is safe and his head blazes in the fire.
Nor is he a man of mockery, but of splendor and unquestionable force. I do not know what I speak, I speak in a dream. support me for I stagger, drunk with fire. I drank fire in this night, since I climbed down through the centuries and plunged into the sun far at the bottom. And I rose up drunk from the sun, with a burning countenance and my head is ablaze. Give me your hand, a human hand, so that you can hold me to the earth with it,for whirling veins of fire swoop me up, and exultant longing tears me toward the zenith.
But day is about to break, actual day; the day of this world. And I remain concealed in the gorge of the earth, deep down and solitary, and in the darkening shadows of the valley. That is the shadow and heaviness of the earth.
How can I pray to the sun, that rises far in the East over the desert? Why should I pray to it? I drink the sun within me, so why should I pray to it? But the desert, the desert in me demands prayers, since the desert wants to satisfy itself with what is alive. I want to beg God for it, the sun, or one of the other immortals. I beg because I am empty and am a beggar.
In the day of this world, I forget that I drank the sun and am drunk from its active light and singeing power. But I stepped into the shadows of the earth, and saw that I am naked and have nothing to cover my poverty. No sooner do you touch the earth than your inner life is over; it flees from you into things.
And a wondrous life arises in things. What you thought was dead and inanimate betrays a secret life and silent, inexorable intent. You have got caught up in a hustle and bustle where everything goes its own way with strange gestures, beside you, above you, beneath you, and through you; even the stones speak to you, and magical threads spin from you to things and from things to you. Far and near work within you and you work in a dark manner upon the near and the far. And you are always
helpless and a prey.
But if you watch closely, you will see what you have never seen before, namely that things live their life, and that they live off you: the rivers bear your life to the valley,. one stone falls upon another with your force, plants and animals also grow through you and they are the cause of your death. A leaf dancing in the wind dances with you; the irrational animal guesses your thought and represents you. The whole earth sucks its life from you and everything reflects you again.
Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner; for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things, no matter how remote, how precious, how secret it is. It inheres in things.
Your dog robs you of your father, who passed away long ago, and looks at you as he did. The cow in the meadow has intuited your mother, and charms you with total calm and security. The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.
Like a stray child you stand pitifully among the mighty, who hold the threads of your life. You cry for help and attach yourself to the first person that comes your way. Perhaps he can advise you, perhaps he knows the thought that you do not have, and which all things have sucked out of you.
I know that you would like to hear the tidings of he whom things have not lived, but who lived and fulfilled himself. For you are a son of the earth, sucked dry by the suckling earth, that can suck nothing out of itself, but suckles only from the sun. Therefore you would like to have tidings of the son of the sun, which shines and does not suckle. You would like to hear of the son of God, who shone and gave, who begot, and to whom life was born again, as the earth bears the sun green and colorful children.
You would like to hear of him, the radiating savior, who as a son of the sun cut through the webs of the earth, who sundered the magic threads and released those in bondage, who owned himself and was no one's servant, who sucked no one dry, and whose treasure no one exhausted.
You would like to hear of him who was not darkened by the shadow of earth, but illuminated it, who saw the thoughts of all, and whose thoughts no one guessed, who possessed in himself the meaning of all things, and whose meaning no thing could express.
The solitary fled the world; he closed his eyes, plugged his ears and buried himself in a cave within himself but it was no use. The desert sucked him dry, the stones spoke his thoughts, the cave echoed his feelings, and so he himself became desert, stone, and cave. And it was all emptiness and desert, and helplessness and barrenness, since he did not shine and remained a son of the earth who sucked a book dry and was sucked empty by the desert. He was desire and not splendor, completely earth and not sun.
Consequently he was in the desert as a clever saint who very well knew that otherwise he was no different from the other sons of the earth. If he would have drunk of himself he would have drunk fire.
The solitary went into the desert to find himself But he did not want to find himself but rather the manifold meaning of holy scripture. You can suck the immensity of the small and the great into yourself and you will become emptier and emptier, since immense fullness and immense emptiness are one and the same. He wanted to find what he needed in the outer. But you find manifold meaning only in yourself not in things, since the manifoldness of meaning is not something that is given at the same time, but is a succession of meanings.
The meanings that follow one another do not lie in things, but lie in you, who are subject to many changes, insofar as you take part in life. Things also change, but you do not notice this if you do not change. But if you change, the countenance of the world alters. The manifold sense of things is your manifold sense. It is useless to fathom it in things. And this probably explains why the solitary went into the desert, and fathomed the thing but not himself.
And therefore what happened to every desirous solitary also happened to him: the devil came to him with smooth tongue and clear reasoning and knew the right word at the right moment. He lured him to his desire. I had to appear to him as the devil, since I had accepted my darkness. I ate the earth and I drank the sun, and I became a greening tree that stands alone and grows. ~Carl Jung; Red Book.
If you sleep this sleep and dream this dream in this time of the world, you will know that the sun will also rise at this time. For the moment we are still in the dark, but the day is upon us.
He who comprehends the darkness in himself, to him the light is near. He who climbs down into his darkness reaches the staircase of the working light, fire maned Helios.
His chariot ascends with four white horses, his back bears no cross, and his side no wound, but he is safe and his head blazes in the fire.
Nor is he a man of mockery, but of splendor and unquestionable force. I do not know what I speak, I speak in a dream. support me for I stagger, drunk with fire. I drank fire in this night, since I climbed down through the centuries and plunged into the sun far at the bottom. And I rose up drunk from the sun, with a burning countenance and my head is ablaze. Give me your hand, a human hand, so that you can hold me to the earth with it,for whirling veins of fire swoop me up, and exultant longing tears me toward the zenith.
But day is about to break, actual day; the day of this world. And I remain concealed in the gorge of the earth, deep down and solitary, and in the darkening shadows of the valley. That is the shadow and heaviness of the earth.
How can I pray to the sun, that rises far in the East over the desert? Why should I pray to it? I drink the sun within me, so why should I pray to it? But the desert, the desert in me demands prayers, since the desert wants to satisfy itself with what is alive. I want to beg God for it, the sun, or one of the other immortals. I beg because I am empty and am a beggar.
In the day of this world, I forget that I drank the sun and am drunk from its active light and singeing power. But I stepped into the shadows of the earth, and saw that I am naked and have nothing to cover my poverty. No sooner do you touch the earth than your inner life is over; it flees from you into things.
And a wondrous life arises in things. What you thought was dead and inanimate betrays a secret life and silent, inexorable intent. You have got caught up in a hustle and bustle where everything goes its own way with strange gestures, beside you, above you, beneath you, and through you; even the stones speak to you, and magical threads spin from you to things and from things to you. Far and near work within you and you work in a dark manner upon the near and the far. And you are always
helpless and a prey.
But if you watch closely, you will see what you have never seen before, namely that things live their life, and that they live off you: the rivers bear your life to the valley,. one stone falls upon another with your force, plants and animals also grow through you and they are the cause of your death. A leaf dancing in the wind dances with you; the irrational animal guesses your thought and represents you. The whole earth sucks its life from you and everything reflects you again.
Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner; for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things, no matter how remote, how precious, how secret it is. It inheres in things.
Your dog robs you of your father, who passed away long ago, and looks at you as he did. The cow in the meadow has intuited your mother, and charms you with total calm and security. The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.
Like a stray child you stand pitifully among the mighty, who hold the threads of your life. You cry for help and attach yourself to the first person that comes your way. Perhaps he can advise you, perhaps he knows the thought that you do not have, and which all things have sucked out of you.
I know that you would like to hear the tidings of he whom things have not lived, but who lived and fulfilled himself. For you are a son of the earth, sucked dry by the suckling earth, that can suck nothing out of itself, but suckles only from the sun. Therefore you would like to have tidings of the son of the sun, which shines and does not suckle. You would like to hear of the son of God, who shone and gave, who begot, and to whom life was born again, as the earth bears the sun green and colorful children.
You would like to hear of him, the radiating savior, who as a son of the sun cut through the webs of the earth, who sundered the magic threads and released those in bondage, who owned himself and was no one's servant, who sucked no one dry, and whose treasure no one exhausted.
You would like to hear of him who was not darkened by the shadow of earth, but illuminated it, who saw the thoughts of all, and whose thoughts no one guessed, who possessed in himself the meaning of all things, and whose meaning no thing could express.
The solitary fled the world; he closed his eyes, plugged his ears and buried himself in a cave within himself but it was no use. The desert sucked him dry, the stones spoke his thoughts, the cave echoed his feelings, and so he himself became desert, stone, and cave. And it was all emptiness and desert, and helplessness and barrenness, since he did not shine and remained a son of the earth who sucked a book dry and was sucked empty by the desert. He was desire and not splendor, completely earth and not sun.
Consequently he was in the desert as a clever saint who very well knew that otherwise he was no different from the other sons of the earth. If he would have drunk of himself he would have drunk fire.
The solitary went into the desert to find himself But he did not want to find himself but rather the manifold meaning of holy scripture. You can suck the immensity of the small and the great into yourself and you will become emptier and emptier, since immense fullness and immense emptiness are one and the same. He wanted to find what he needed in the outer. But you find manifold meaning only in yourself not in things, since the manifoldness of meaning is not something that is given at the same time, but is a succession of meanings.
The meanings that follow one another do not lie in things, but lie in you, who are subject to many changes, insofar as you take part in life. Things also change, but you do not notice this if you do not change. But if you change, the countenance of the world alters. The manifold sense of things is your manifold sense. It is useless to fathom it in things. And this probably explains why the solitary went into the desert, and fathomed the thing but not himself.
And therefore what happened to every desirous solitary also happened to him: the devil came to him with smooth tongue and clear reasoning and knew the right word at the right moment. He lured him to his desire. I had to appear to him as the devil, since I had accepted my darkness. I ate the earth and I drank the sun, and I became a greening tree that stands alone and grows. ~Carl Jung; Red Book.
[Carl Jung-I have eaten from the sacrificial flesh]
The sacrifice has been accomplished: the divine child, the image of the God's formation, is slain, and I have eaten from the sacrificial flesh. The child, that is, the image of the God's formation, not only bore my human craving, but also enclosed all the primordial and elemental powers that the sons of the sun possess as an inalienable inheritance.
The God needs all this for his genesis. But when he has been created and hastens away into unending space, we need the gold of the sun. We must regenerate ourselves. But as the creation of a God is a creative act of highest love, the restoration of our human life signifies an act of the Below.
This is a great and dark mystery. Man cannot accomplish this act solely by himself but is assisted by evil, which does it instead of man. But man must recognize his complicity in the act of evil. He must bear witness to this recognition by eating from the bloody sacrificial flesh. Through this act he testifies that he is a man, that he recognizes good as well as evil, and that he destroys the image of the God's formation through withdrawing his life force, with which he also dissociates himself from the God. This occurs for the salvation of the soul, which is the true mother of the divine child.
When it bore and gave birth to the God, my soul was of human nature throughout; it possessed the primordial powers since time immemorial, but only in a dormant condition. They flowed into forming the God without my help. But through the sacrificial murder, I redeemed the primordial powers and added them to my soul. Since they became part of a living pattern, they are no longer dormant, but awake and active and irradiate my soul with their divine working.
Through this it receives a divine attribute. Hence the eating of the sacrificial flesh aided its healing. The ancients have also indicated this to us, in that they taught us to drink the blood and eat the flesh of the savior. The ancients believed that this brought healing to the soul.
There are not many truths, there are only a few. Their meaning is too deep to grasp other than in symbols.! A God who is no stronger than man -what is he? You still should taste holy dread. How would you be worthy of enjoying the wine and the bread if you have not touched the black bottom of human nature? Hence you are lukewarm and pale shadows, proud of your shallow coastlines and broad country roads. But the floodgates will be opened, there are inexorable things, from which only God can save you.
The primordial force is the radiance of the sun, which the sons of the sun have carried in themselves for aeons and pass on to their children. But if the soul dips into radiance, she becomes as remorseless as the God himself since the life of the divine child, which you have eaten, will feel like glowing coals in you.
It will burn inside you like a terrible, inextinguishable fire. But despite all the torment, you cannot let it be, since it will not let you be. From this you will understand that your God is alive and that your soul has begun wandering on remorseless paths. You feel that the fire of the sun has erupted in you. Something new has been added to you, a holy affliction.
Sometimes you no longer recognize yourself You want to overcome it, but it overcomes you. You want to set limits, but it compels you to keep going. You want to elude it, but it comes with you. You want to employ it, but you are its tool; you want to think about it, but your thoughts obey it. finally the fear of the inescapable seizes you, for it comes after you slowly and invincibly.
There is no escape. So it is that you come to know what a real God is. Now you'll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it's all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way. But the way is my own self my own life founded upon myself The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present.! ~Carl Jung; Red Book
The sacrifice has been accomplished: the divine child, the image of the God's formation, is slain, and I have eaten from the sacrificial flesh. The child, that is, the image of the God's formation, not only bore my human craving, but also enclosed all the primordial and elemental powers that the sons of the sun possess as an inalienable inheritance.
The God needs all this for his genesis. But when he has been created and hastens away into unending space, we need the gold of the sun. We must regenerate ourselves. But as the creation of a God is a creative act of highest love, the restoration of our human life signifies an act of the Below.
This is a great and dark mystery. Man cannot accomplish this act solely by himself but is assisted by evil, which does it instead of man. But man must recognize his complicity in the act of evil. He must bear witness to this recognition by eating from the bloody sacrificial flesh. Through this act he testifies that he is a man, that he recognizes good as well as evil, and that he destroys the image of the God's formation through withdrawing his life force, with which he also dissociates himself from the God. This occurs for the salvation of the soul, which is the true mother of the divine child.
When it bore and gave birth to the God, my soul was of human nature throughout; it possessed the primordial powers since time immemorial, but only in a dormant condition. They flowed into forming the God without my help. But through the sacrificial murder, I redeemed the primordial powers and added them to my soul. Since they became part of a living pattern, they are no longer dormant, but awake and active and irradiate my soul with their divine working.
Through this it receives a divine attribute. Hence the eating of the sacrificial flesh aided its healing. The ancients have also indicated this to us, in that they taught us to drink the blood and eat the flesh of the savior. The ancients believed that this brought healing to the soul.
There are not many truths, there are only a few. Their meaning is too deep to grasp other than in symbols.! A God who is no stronger than man -what is he? You still should taste holy dread. How would you be worthy of enjoying the wine and the bread if you have not touched the black bottom of human nature? Hence you are lukewarm and pale shadows, proud of your shallow coastlines and broad country roads. But the floodgates will be opened, there are inexorable things, from which only God can save you.
The primordial force is the radiance of the sun, which the sons of the sun have carried in themselves for aeons and pass on to their children. But if the soul dips into radiance, she becomes as remorseless as the God himself since the life of the divine child, which you have eaten, will feel like glowing coals in you.
It will burn inside you like a terrible, inextinguishable fire. But despite all the torment, you cannot let it be, since it will not let you be. From this you will understand that your God is alive and that your soul has begun wandering on remorseless paths. You feel that the fire of the sun has erupted in you. Something new has been added to you, a holy affliction.
Sometimes you no longer recognize yourself You want to overcome it, but it overcomes you. You want to set limits, but it compels you to keep going. You want to elude it, but it comes with you. You want to employ it, but you are its tool; you want to think about it, but your thoughts obey it. finally the fear of the inescapable seizes you, for it comes after you slowly and invincibly.
There is no escape. So it is that you come to know what a real God is. Now you'll think up clever truisms, preventive measures, secret escape routes, excuses, potions capable of inducing forgetfulness, but it's all useless. The fire burns right through you. That which guides forces you onto the way. But the way is my own self my own life founded upon myself The God wants my life. He wants to go with me, sit at the table with me, work with me. Above all he wants to be ever-present.! ~Carl Jung; Red Book
The system of the four elements, Air, Fire, Water and Earth is a key foundation stone in the development of the Western Esoteric Tradition, and practices associated with it can still be found in almost all the modern traditions of magic and mysticism, including Alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Ceremonial Magic, and Qabalah through to the Wiccan Tradition, Neo-Pagan Witchcraft and Druidry. Its historical origins can be found two and a half thousand years ago in the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles.
ARCHETYPAL IMAGINATION in SPIRITUAL ALCHEMY:
The Art of Alchemy in Archetype, Imagination and Soul
By Iona Miller, 2009
The Art of Alchemy in Archetype, Imagination and Soul
By Iona Miller, 2009
“Psyche cannot be totally different from matter, for how otherwise could it move matter? And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we should arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts. Our present attempts may be bold, but I believe they are on the right lines.” --Carl Jung, AION
“To propose a psychology of Anima Mundi is to invite oneself to a relationship of intimacy with the soul of the world and its objects…From this point of view, the psychic reality of the world’s soul becomes available from the images. There is no way to separate our soul from the souls of others – and by “others” I mean people as well as everything that we can consider an environment. It is, thus no longer possible to work with the classical notion of individuation and its rhetoric of “my travel,” “my process,” “my journeys,” the blind frenetic pursuit of an inner Self, and to ignore the individuation of the soul of the world and its objects. The care of the soul does not necessarily mean introversion or denying the reality of the world, its substance and objects. There is no way to engage in soul-making if we keep ourselves attached exclusively to the Self, and exclude the world.” --Marcus Quintaes on James Hillman’s Polemics in Archetypal Psychologies (Marlan, 2008)
Post-Postmodern Alchemy
The topic of ancient and medieval alchemy was rescued from obscurity largely through the efforts of C. G. Jung. Following an influential dream, he collected an entire library of alchemical works. He compiled alchemy’s universal truths in several of his works including Psychology and Alchemy, Alchemical Studies, Mysterium Coniunctionis, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.
Jung codified the encrypted language of alchemy in terms of our human transformation process, including irrational consciousness. Yet, Jung’s is not the only interpretation of those elements, including the Quest and the Great Work. While initially we might learn about symbols, we have to learn how to work with them, to work within them since they contain us, rather than being contained within ourselves. The alchemist is a living symbol of the healing power of the Philosopher's Stone.
In the Following Treatise We shall Discourse on the Origin of the Stone of the Philosophers and the Art How to Produce It.
The Philosopher’s Stone is produced by means of the Greening and Growing Nature.
HALI the Philosopher, says thereof: “This Stone rises in growing, greening things’. Wherefore when the Green is reduced to its former nature whereby things sprout and come forth in ordained time, it must be decocted and putrefied in the way of our secret art. That by Art may be aided, what nature decocts and putrefies, until she gives it, in due time, the proper form, and our Art but adapts and prepares the matter as becomes Nature, for such work, and such work provides also, with premeditated Wisdom, a suitable vessel.
For Art does not undertake to produce Gold and Silver, anew, as it cannot endow matter with its first origin, nor is it necessary to search our Art in places and caverns of the earth, another way to work and with different intention from Nature, therefore does Art also use different tools and instruments.
For that reason can Art produce extraordinary things out of the aforesaid natural beginnings such as Nature of herself would never be able to create. For unaided Nature does not produce things whereby imperfect metals can in a moment be made perfect, but by the secrets of Our Art this can be done. ~Splendor Solis
Jung’s second-generation followers adhered fairly strictly to his monist view of alchemy. Highlights of this period include now classic works by Marie-Louse von Franz and Edward Edinger. Edinger gave us Ego and Archetype plus Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy. The works of von Franz include Alchemical Active Imagination, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, Number and Time, and Alchemy; An Introduction to the Symbolism and its Psychology, to name but a few.
Other Jugnian contributors include Henry Corbin with Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, on Arabic alchemy, M. Esther Harding's Psychic Energy, Robert Grinnell's Alchemy in a Modern Woman, and Edward Whitmont's Psyche and Substance. Another Jungian contribution is Mircea Eliade's The Forge & the Crucible. Their work was referenced and paralleled by scholars like Frater Albertus, Stanislas Klossowski De Rola, Richard Grossinger, Adam McLean and other modern commentators.
But the 3rd generation of psychotherapeutic practitioners were far more innovative than preservationist. In this they were true to the vital and reflective Mercurical Spirit. Revisioning the whole mindscape, James Hillman led a revolt against the ossified orthodoxy that came to be called Archetypal Psychology and later Imaginal Psychology. It freed the psyche from what had become a conservative fundamentalism with a party line and right and wrong interpretations. It brought back living process and moved interest out of the containment of the cloistered therapy room into the living, breathing World-at-Large.
A similar process is happening in the practice of alchemy, which has come to include not only scholar/practitioners and laboratory or experimentalists, but globalized cultural forms of spagyrics, fire circles, and other volatile practices, which have escaped the retort into the world. It has brought alchemy’s process-oriented spirituality down to earth.
The Way of Alchemy
Alchemy is not a sacred 17th century cow, embodied only in hoary texts, enigmatic laboratory procedures, and static pictures. Soul is made in the fractal reiteration of the deepening of experience – all experience – which molds character (narrative identity) with mythologizing. Alchemy is one of these dynamic means of moving beyond deconstruction into soul-making – a phenomenological approach.
Alchemy is a creative encounter with chaos and a struggle to understand the nature of healing. Chaos is the Universal Solvent. Healing springs from deep within. All apparent structure is hidden in chaos, and in chaos there are hidden forms. As we deconstruct our fictional selves, we find that deep within there is a primordial consciousness of pure Being. Connection with this wellspring is the Source of life and creativity. Chaos is the crucible of creation. Through alchemy, we move deeper into the images, and then become them, rather than merely interacting with them.
Alchemy, like therapy, is a practical Way of making life into a flowing story, and that story is necessarily illustrated to convey what cannot be said in words, to include what happens in the gaps in consciousness. The alchemy of by-gone centuries is as inappropriate today as obsolete science. Naturally, there is value there but we don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of its extant literature to apply its wisdom and gain its treasure.
Post-postmodern alchemy has broken the retort and escaped into the world at large, into bigger stories. We craft a personal narrative by recognizing and reiterating mythic claims, metaphorical enactments through reflective speculation, experimentation, projection, meditation, dream, image and fantasy. Reflection deepens into experience and expression through artful means of what never happens but always is.
Soul is an active intelligence because myth leads to practical moves. Soul is made through suffering the process and by taking up myth as a poetic perspective – a dramatic complexity of multiple metaphorical and symbolic dimensions of experience. In this sense, alchemy cannot be separated from life. The narration is one of life’s possibilities, of our alternative selves as realizable potential, including discordant elements, into meaningful story lived in and through the alchemical process.
If we are truly Mercurial, we oscillate in our thoughts, are enigmatic in our language, inconsistent with ideas, and resistant to any fixed definitions or propositions. Perhaps only archetypal imagination serves this mercurial nature. It is explored and embodied best through artistic expression of archetypal images, making the universal particular and moving archaic symbolism into the immediate present, rather than relying exclusively on stale retrievals and intellectual commentary.
Soul-Making
What soul does is make fantasy images. Alchemy is a psychological metaphysics, a worldview that takes the soul further into mythopoiesis, producing images, events, and phenomena. Analysis and discourse (deductive and inductive reasoning) merely turns the libido into a narcissistic reflection of itself, when it could be embodied or manifested, even beyond self-evident intuition.
Soul-making approximates what it means to be “in soul,” esse in anima, immersed in both an internal and external process of transmutation. It is the process of making psyche matter, of making the World Soul – the Anima Mundi – through image, phenomena and pathologizing. It is not limited to so-called spiritual matters, but spiritualizes the whole sociopolitical field of human endeavors so that it all “matters.”
Imagination is stimulated by mythical fiction, which generates mythological imagination and speculative freedom of the soul. Breaking our containment in the ancient practices through artful means releases libido into the world, into the drive, which loves the world, even into erotic desire for anima mundi.
Embodying the Vision
Alchemy cannot be a closed system of static dogmatic thoughts. It is a way of reimagining and creating metaphors from different points of view or narratives that open the field of infinite meanings. Each reiteration creates new networks, new meaning, new insights, embodiments, metamorphosis and transformation. To participate in this process means mythologizing our own chaotic character.
It is a truism in therapy that art expression clarifies and releases emotional flow. The classical alchemists nearly always illustrated their works, making universal pictures with themselves as point of reference. Alchemy would be a dry discourse without its images, without the discipline of images that leads to flow, to solutio.
REFERENCES
Edinger, Edward F.; ANATOMY OF THE PSYCHE, Open Court; LaSalle, Illinois, 1985.
Edinger, Edward F.; EGO AND ARCHETYPE, Penguin Books Inc., Baltimore, 1973.
Grinnell, Robert; ALCHEMY IN A MODERN WOMAN, Spring Publications, New York, 1973.
Hillman, James; ANIMA; Spring Publications, Dallas, 1985.
Miller, Iona; “Chaos As the Universal Solvent,” Chaosophy ’93, 1992. www.asklepia.org/chaosophy...ophy3.html
Miller, I. & Miller, R.A.; THE MODERN ALCHEMIST (formerly The Book of Lambspring); Phanes Press, Chicago, 1994.
Miller, Iona; “Introduction to Alchemy 101,” 1985. spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/rich....html
Washburn, Michael; THE EGO AND THE DYNAMIC GROUND; SUNY Press, New York, 1988.
“To propose a psychology of Anima Mundi is to invite oneself to a relationship of intimacy with the soul of the world and its objects…From this point of view, the psychic reality of the world’s soul becomes available from the images. There is no way to separate our soul from the souls of others – and by “others” I mean people as well as everything that we can consider an environment. It is, thus no longer possible to work with the classical notion of individuation and its rhetoric of “my travel,” “my process,” “my journeys,” the blind frenetic pursuit of an inner Self, and to ignore the individuation of the soul of the world and its objects. The care of the soul does not necessarily mean introversion or denying the reality of the world, its substance and objects. There is no way to engage in soul-making if we keep ourselves attached exclusively to the Self, and exclude the world.” --Marcus Quintaes on James Hillman’s Polemics in Archetypal Psychologies (Marlan, 2008)
Post-Postmodern Alchemy
The topic of ancient and medieval alchemy was rescued from obscurity largely through the efforts of C. G. Jung. Following an influential dream, he collected an entire library of alchemical works. He compiled alchemy’s universal truths in several of his works including Psychology and Alchemy, Alchemical Studies, Mysterium Coniunctionis, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.
Jung codified the encrypted language of alchemy in terms of our human transformation process, including irrational consciousness. Yet, Jung’s is not the only interpretation of those elements, including the Quest and the Great Work. While initially we might learn about symbols, we have to learn how to work with them, to work within them since they contain us, rather than being contained within ourselves. The alchemist is a living symbol of the healing power of the Philosopher's Stone.
In the Following Treatise We shall Discourse on the Origin of the Stone of the Philosophers and the Art How to Produce It.
The Philosopher’s Stone is produced by means of the Greening and Growing Nature.
HALI the Philosopher, says thereof: “This Stone rises in growing, greening things’. Wherefore when the Green is reduced to its former nature whereby things sprout and come forth in ordained time, it must be decocted and putrefied in the way of our secret art. That by Art may be aided, what nature decocts and putrefies, until she gives it, in due time, the proper form, and our Art but adapts and prepares the matter as becomes Nature, for such work, and such work provides also, with premeditated Wisdom, a suitable vessel.
For Art does not undertake to produce Gold and Silver, anew, as it cannot endow matter with its first origin, nor is it necessary to search our Art in places and caverns of the earth, another way to work and with different intention from Nature, therefore does Art also use different tools and instruments.
For that reason can Art produce extraordinary things out of the aforesaid natural beginnings such as Nature of herself would never be able to create. For unaided Nature does not produce things whereby imperfect metals can in a moment be made perfect, but by the secrets of Our Art this can be done. ~Splendor Solis
Jung’s second-generation followers adhered fairly strictly to his monist view of alchemy. Highlights of this period include now classic works by Marie-Louse von Franz and Edward Edinger. Edinger gave us Ego and Archetype plus Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy. The works of von Franz include Alchemical Active Imagination, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, Number and Time, and Alchemy; An Introduction to the Symbolism and its Psychology, to name but a few.
Other Jugnian contributors include Henry Corbin with Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, on Arabic alchemy, M. Esther Harding's Psychic Energy, Robert Grinnell's Alchemy in a Modern Woman, and Edward Whitmont's Psyche and Substance. Another Jungian contribution is Mircea Eliade's The Forge & the Crucible. Their work was referenced and paralleled by scholars like Frater Albertus, Stanislas Klossowski De Rola, Richard Grossinger, Adam McLean and other modern commentators.
But the 3rd generation of psychotherapeutic practitioners were far more innovative than preservationist. In this they were true to the vital and reflective Mercurical Spirit. Revisioning the whole mindscape, James Hillman led a revolt against the ossified orthodoxy that came to be called Archetypal Psychology and later Imaginal Psychology. It freed the psyche from what had become a conservative fundamentalism with a party line and right and wrong interpretations. It brought back living process and moved interest out of the containment of the cloistered therapy room into the living, breathing World-at-Large.
A similar process is happening in the practice of alchemy, which has come to include not only scholar/practitioners and laboratory or experimentalists, but globalized cultural forms of spagyrics, fire circles, and other volatile practices, which have escaped the retort into the world. It has brought alchemy’s process-oriented spirituality down to earth.
The Way of Alchemy
Alchemy is not a sacred 17th century cow, embodied only in hoary texts, enigmatic laboratory procedures, and static pictures. Soul is made in the fractal reiteration of the deepening of experience – all experience – which molds character (narrative identity) with mythologizing. Alchemy is one of these dynamic means of moving beyond deconstruction into soul-making – a phenomenological approach.
Alchemy is a creative encounter with chaos and a struggle to understand the nature of healing. Chaos is the Universal Solvent. Healing springs from deep within. All apparent structure is hidden in chaos, and in chaos there are hidden forms. As we deconstruct our fictional selves, we find that deep within there is a primordial consciousness of pure Being. Connection with this wellspring is the Source of life and creativity. Chaos is the crucible of creation. Through alchemy, we move deeper into the images, and then become them, rather than merely interacting with them.
Alchemy, like therapy, is a practical Way of making life into a flowing story, and that story is necessarily illustrated to convey what cannot be said in words, to include what happens in the gaps in consciousness. The alchemy of by-gone centuries is as inappropriate today as obsolete science. Naturally, there is value there but we don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of its extant literature to apply its wisdom and gain its treasure.
Post-postmodern alchemy has broken the retort and escaped into the world at large, into bigger stories. We craft a personal narrative by recognizing and reiterating mythic claims, metaphorical enactments through reflective speculation, experimentation, projection, meditation, dream, image and fantasy. Reflection deepens into experience and expression through artful means of what never happens but always is.
Soul is an active intelligence because myth leads to practical moves. Soul is made through suffering the process and by taking up myth as a poetic perspective – a dramatic complexity of multiple metaphorical and symbolic dimensions of experience. In this sense, alchemy cannot be separated from life. The narration is one of life’s possibilities, of our alternative selves as realizable potential, including discordant elements, into meaningful story lived in and through the alchemical process.
If we are truly Mercurial, we oscillate in our thoughts, are enigmatic in our language, inconsistent with ideas, and resistant to any fixed definitions or propositions. Perhaps only archetypal imagination serves this mercurial nature. It is explored and embodied best through artistic expression of archetypal images, making the universal particular and moving archaic symbolism into the immediate present, rather than relying exclusively on stale retrievals and intellectual commentary.
Soul-Making
What soul does is make fantasy images. Alchemy is a psychological metaphysics, a worldview that takes the soul further into mythopoiesis, producing images, events, and phenomena. Analysis and discourse (deductive and inductive reasoning) merely turns the libido into a narcissistic reflection of itself, when it could be embodied or manifested, even beyond self-evident intuition.
Soul-making approximates what it means to be “in soul,” esse in anima, immersed in both an internal and external process of transmutation. It is the process of making psyche matter, of making the World Soul – the Anima Mundi – through image, phenomena and pathologizing. It is not limited to so-called spiritual matters, but spiritualizes the whole sociopolitical field of human endeavors so that it all “matters.”
Imagination is stimulated by mythical fiction, which generates mythological imagination and speculative freedom of the soul. Breaking our containment in the ancient practices through artful means releases libido into the world, into the drive, which loves the world, even into erotic desire for anima mundi.
Embodying the Vision
Alchemy cannot be a closed system of static dogmatic thoughts. It is a way of reimagining and creating metaphors from different points of view or narratives that open the field of infinite meanings. Each reiteration creates new networks, new meaning, new insights, embodiments, metamorphosis and transformation. To participate in this process means mythologizing our own chaotic character.
It is a truism in therapy that art expression clarifies and releases emotional flow. The classical alchemists nearly always illustrated their works, making universal pictures with themselves as point of reference. Alchemy would be a dry discourse without its images, without the discipline of images that leads to flow, to solutio.
REFERENCES
Edinger, Edward F.; ANATOMY OF THE PSYCHE, Open Court; LaSalle, Illinois, 1985.
Edinger, Edward F.; EGO AND ARCHETYPE, Penguin Books Inc., Baltimore, 1973.
Grinnell, Robert; ALCHEMY IN A MODERN WOMAN, Spring Publications, New York, 1973.
Hillman, James; ANIMA; Spring Publications, Dallas, 1985.
Miller, Iona; “Chaos As the Universal Solvent,” Chaosophy ’93, 1992. www.asklepia.org/chaosophy...ophy3.html
Miller, I. & Miller, R.A.; THE MODERN ALCHEMIST (formerly The Book of Lambspring); Phanes Press, Chicago, 1994.
Miller, Iona; “Introduction to Alchemy 101,” 1985. spiritualalchemy.iwarp.com/rich....html
Washburn, Michael; THE EGO AND THE DYNAMIC GROUND; SUNY Press, New York, 1988.
"The alchemical operations were real, only this reality was not physical but psychological. Alchemy represents the projection of a drama both cosmic and spiritual in laboratory terms. The opus magnum had two aims: the rescue of the human soul, and the salvation of the cosmos.” Carl Jung, 1952 Interview at Eranos. ~Image and Quote thanks to Jung Hearted
"Before I discovered alchemy, I had a series of dreams which repeatedly dealt with the same theme. Beside my house stood another, that is to say, another wing or annex, which was strange to me. Each time I would wonder in my dream why I did not know this house, although it had apparently always been there.
Finally, there came a dream in which I reached the other wing. I discovered there a wonderful library, dating largely from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Large, fat folio volumes, bound in pigskin, stood along the walls. Among them were a number of books embellished with copper engravings of a strange character, and illustrations containing curious symbols such as I had never seen before.
At the time I did not know to what they referred; only much later did I recognize them as alchemical symbols. In the dream I was conscious only of the fascination exerted by them and by the entire library. It was a collection of medieval incunabula and sixteenth-century prints....
The unknown wing of the house was a part of my personality, an aspect of myself; it represented something that belonged to me but of which I was not yet conscious." ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams, Reflections Page 202.
Finally, there came a dream in which I reached the other wing. I discovered there a wonderful library, dating largely from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Large, fat folio volumes, bound in pigskin, stood along the walls. Among them were a number of books embellished with copper engravings of a strange character, and illustrations containing curious symbols such as I had never seen before.
At the time I did not know to what they referred; only much later did I recognize them as alchemical symbols. In the dream I was conscious only of the fascination exerted by them and by the entire library. It was a collection of medieval incunabula and sixteenth-century prints....
The unknown wing of the house was a part of my personality, an aspect of myself; it represented something that belonged to me but of which I was not yet conscious." ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams, Reflections Page 202.
"The first state is the hidden state, but by art and the grace of God it can be transmuted into a second, manifest state. That is why “the prima materia sometimes coincides with the idea of the initial stage of the process, the nigredo. It is then the black earth in which the gold or the lapis is shown like the grain of wheat. It is the black, magically fecund earth that Adam took with him from Paradise, also called antimony and described as “black blacker than black” ... ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, Page Page 312.
The alchemical process of "sublimatio"...
"All images that refer to upward movement -- ladders, stairs, elevators, climbing, mountains, flying and so forth -- belong to sublimatio symbolism." --Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche
"The ladder symbolized a continuous, constant connection with the divine powers of the unconscious. We could say the dream itself was such a ladder. It connects us with the unknown depth of our psyche. Every dream is a rung on a ladder, so to speak. -vonFranz
The Way of the Dream, Pages 88-89.
"All images that refer to upward movement -- ladders, stairs, elevators, climbing, mountains, flying and so forth -- belong to sublimatio symbolism." --Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche
"The ladder symbolized a continuous, constant connection with the divine powers of the unconscious. We could say the dream itself was such a ladder. It connects us with the unknown depth of our psyche. Every dream is a rung on a ladder, so to speak. -vonFranz
The Way of the Dream, Pages 88-89.
"Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego’s rapports with the unconscious and his contents initiate an evolution, more precisely a real metamorphoses of the psyche” it is all about, of course, the individuation process." ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections. Illus. Jung Hearted
We should now proceed to find a neutral, or unitarian, language in which every concept we use is applicable as well to the unconscious as to matter, in order to overcome this wrong view that the unconscious psyche and matter are two things. --Professor Wolfgang Pauli
In the alchemical search for the God-head in matter (Kether in Malkuth), Paracelsus contended that matter was a living counterpart of the creating deity. A system of correspondences is the foundation of alchemy. The conception of a primal event manifested in different fields is fundamental to alchemy. The process in the retort vessel is analogous to the process of transformation of the psyche. Through alchemy, we can perceive the parallels between microcosm, universe, and man.
Alchemy is based on the assumption that the equation world = man = God is Truth. The metaphysical perception of alchemy grew in the Jungian school of psychology. It emphasizes the process of psychological transformation. This is the Opus, or Great Work of alchemy. It is given this appellation because that which "works" is that which has the power to transform. The experiments are performed on oneself. This renews the alchemical philosophy which is primarily concerned with the union of psyche and matter. There is an indissoluble unity in alchemy between theory and practice. They are explicate aspects (which are experienced through a metaphorical sensory perception) of the Quest, or attainment of immortality through the union of opposites.
Thus, the goal of the Opus is precisely this union, which is known as the Philosopher's Stone, Royal Marriage, or Unus Mundus (experience of one world view uniting psyche/body/spirit). Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man", his intentions take on profound significance. They can now influence the destiny of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Diamond Body.
Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth via the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The sacred marriage is characterized as the union of the Sun (+0 and Moon (-). These polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative; male-female; god-devil; spirit-matter; father-mother; etc.
The sacred marriage, or coniunctio, creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image (implicate order) of a magical or divine child. There is an inherent paradox in alchemy: all the while stressing redemption of the physical body, or matter, alchemy is actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis (magical child = body of light).
This central problem in alchemy is the spiritual redemption of the physical body. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge one encounters is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values. This develops awareness of the ordering processes inherent in matter. The solution is to visualize the physical body as a metaphor for psychic transformation. [INSERT DRAWING; ALCHEMICAL TREE]
...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you. Instead of treating it like a dead object to be thrown into a vessel and then cooked in order to see what came out, you could just as well take a block of iron, for instance, and ask it what it was, what its kind of life was, what it was doing, how it felt when melted. But since all these materials are within you, you can also contact them directly and in that way they contacted what we would now call the collective unconscious, which to them was also projected into the inner aspect of their own bodies. They consulted these powers directly through what they called meditation and therefore most of these introverted alchemists always stressed the fact that one should not only experiment outwardly but should always insert phases of introversion with prayer and meditation and a kind of yoga. With yoga meditation you try to get the right hypothesis, or information, about what you are doing or about the materials. Or you can, for instance, talk to quicksilver, or to iron, and if you talk to quicksilver and iron then naturally the unconscious fills up the gap by a personification. Then Mercury appears to you and tells you who the sun God is. A power, the soul of Gold, appears and tells you who and what it is.
So, we see that basically the dynamic impulses of the original alchemists and modern physicists is the same. Namely, to find out all that is possible about how God works. This Opus, or Work, is understood as taking place in a sealed retort vessel. The nature of this vessel is the origin of the common-use term, "Hermetically sealed." This containment insures that none of the ingredients will be lost, and also provides a container in which the contents are slowly heated, or cooked (calcinatio).
The initial material (prima materia) then goes through several stages of transformation, defined as operations. These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts. Most, however, include sublimatio (separating), and coniunctio (uniting). There are also operations of circulating, multiplying, and reiterating.
The meditatio, or meditation, consists of inner dialogue with the alchemical figures: Saturn=lead; Luna=silver; Sol=gold; Mercury=quicksilver; Venus=copper; Mars=iron; Jupiter=tin. Because the process of alchemy does not extend into God-Realization. This does not exclude this from occurring through God's grace, however.
Then Kether is in Malkuth, the beginning (prima materia) and end (ultima materia) are One. In alchemy, the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World acts as the soul-guide to the highest region. We experience An-imaginal (Anima-ginal) Reality.
Always remember that the body is of vital importance in any alchemical operation. To transcend somewhere out of the body is not alchemical practice; rather, imagine the body NOWHERE, or now-here.
Alchemy is ...a physiological mythology juxtaposed with a cosmogonic mythology. In between is the psyche itself-the arcane substance, the subjective factor-which achieves a personified level in the divinities of mythology. It is the psyche's own image-making activity, its self-creation through symbols, that is central to this model. It represents a process of the "psychization of instinct," the transformation of instinctual and biophysical phenomena into psychic experience. These phenomena can then to a certain extent be brought within the range of conscious will and reason. In this process instinct loses some of its primordial autonomy. It is an opus contra naturam, so to speak...Alchemy accordingly gives us a model for the psychology of projection; it points at once "upward" and "downward." It is radically symbolic in its insistence on the "arcanum." And finally, in the obligation it imposed for the careful elaboration of theoria, it included the formation of apperceptive concepts and symbols as a fundamental part of the opus . (17)
What happens to body/soul at the level of Malkuth? The process of alchemical initiation begins with the stage known as Mortificatio, or psychological masochism. This is the disintegration of the conscious personality. It is specifically a religious crisis in the life of the individual, where ruling ideas lose their meaning. Needless to say, this is a depressing state of being. This depression is imaged in terms of "blackening" and has, therefore, to do with the Shadow.
The actual process occurs on XXI. The Universe, which corresponds with the Nigredo. To derive pleasure from punishing one's body is a curious pathological image. The unheroic, self-humiliation is a form of masochism with a religious aim: to gain forgiveness through a mode of redemption. This dedication to suffering produces meaning, compassion, humility, and healing. This is a discipline of the soul which contradicts the ego attitude. There is a relationship between ritual flogging in initiation ceremonies and the intoxication of masochistic mortification. The participant is entranced and enters the transformative process. The combination of humiliation and pleasure yields an experience of ambivalence, a primal condition of psyche.
Mortificatio is a psychological operation, not a moral one. We cannot apply a moral frame of reference to it; it is neither good nor bad, better nor worse. It is a necessary, just-so operation. One alchemical text advises, "Take the old black spirit and destroy and torture it..." Another philosopher tells us that "The tortured thing, when it is immersed in the body, changes it into an unalterable and indestructible nature."
So the operation is necessary, not to make us morally better or spiritually purer, but rather to change us. When we immerse masochistic material in the body of fantasy, psyche and psychic reality become indestructible. The operation is necessary, not for the sake of moral ego-strengthening, but to make hard psychic reality. If we could fully realize this, that mortification is a way into the weighty, heavy matter of the soul, it might help us get past the momentary cringe. For we cringe and shrink at the moment of realization, at the reality of psyche where there is no ego-control, especially in its ugliness or banality.
Do not confuse masochism, which is a religious attitude to suffering, with martyrdom, which is a manifestation of the neurotic, heroic ego. The movement from martyrdom to masochism is also a movement from guilt to shame, and this movement has the quality of depth. Guilt is primarily an ego phenomenon, while shame is a quality of the soul. The antidote for guilt is not always forgiveness; it lies rather in the perception of the archetypal dimension in which the ego is caught.
Guilt implies the possibility of rectification, of righting the wrong; hence the ego-protests and justifications which are variations on the martyr's theme: "Well, I'm trying!" and "You make me feel guilty," and "If I only had more will-power."
But shame belongs to the dimension of soul, and implies the permanence of a deficiency, the impossibility of rectification (and also of justification). It is the sense of permanent lack, insufficiency, inadequacy, which cannot be made right or corrected by any activity of the ego--no amount of will power, strivings for perfection, or withdrawal of demands from other people will do the trick. In its very nature, its "natural state", the soul is incomplete, and the experience of its incompleteness is the experience of shame. Guilt is a moral category, shame belongs to psychological experience and the experience of psyche.
"albedo" and "rubedo"...
Jung: "From the darkness of the unconscious comes the light of illumination, the albedo… ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctonis, Paragraph 301 (First Sentence).
[In the] state of whiteness, one does not live in the true sense of the word. It is a sort of abstract, ideal state. In order to make it come alive it must have blood, it must have what the alchemists called the rubedo, the redness of life. Only the total experience of being can transform this ideal state into a fully human mode of existence. Blood alone can reanimate a glorious state of consciousness in which the last trace of blackness is dissolved, in which the devil no longer has an autonomous existence but rejoins the profound unity of the psyche. Then the opus magnum is finished: the human soul is completely integrated. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctonis, Paragraph 301 (First Sentence).
~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 229, Second Paragraph, McGuire and Hull, 1979.
In the alchemical search for the God-head in matter (Kether in Malkuth), Paracelsus contended that matter was a living counterpart of the creating deity. A system of correspondences is the foundation of alchemy. The conception of a primal event manifested in different fields is fundamental to alchemy. The process in the retort vessel is analogous to the process of transformation of the psyche. Through alchemy, we can perceive the parallels between microcosm, universe, and man.
Alchemy is based on the assumption that the equation world = man = God is Truth. The metaphysical perception of alchemy grew in the Jungian school of psychology. It emphasizes the process of psychological transformation. This is the Opus, or Great Work of alchemy. It is given this appellation because that which "works" is that which has the power to transform. The experiments are performed on oneself. This renews the alchemical philosophy which is primarily concerned with the union of psyche and matter. There is an indissoluble unity in alchemy between theory and practice. They are explicate aspects (which are experienced through a metaphorical sensory perception) of the Quest, or attainment of immortality through the union of opposites.
Thus, the goal of the Opus is precisely this union, which is known as the Philosopher's Stone, Royal Marriage, or Unus Mundus (experience of one world view uniting psyche/body/spirit). Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man", his intentions take on profound significance. They can now influence the destiny of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Diamond Body.
Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth via the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The sacred marriage is characterized as the union of the Sun (+0 and Moon (-). These polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative; male-female; god-devil; spirit-matter; father-mother; etc.
The sacred marriage, or coniunctio, creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image (implicate order) of a magical or divine child. There is an inherent paradox in alchemy: all the while stressing redemption of the physical body, or matter, alchemy is actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis (magical child = body of light).
This central problem in alchemy is the spiritual redemption of the physical body. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge one encounters is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values. This develops awareness of the ordering processes inherent in matter. The solution is to visualize the physical body as a metaphor for psychic transformation. [INSERT DRAWING; ALCHEMICAL TREE]
...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you. Instead of treating it like a dead object to be thrown into a vessel and then cooked in order to see what came out, you could just as well take a block of iron, for instance, and ask it what it was, what its kind of life was, what it was doing, how it felt when melted. But since all these materials are within you, you can also contact them directly and in that way they contacted what we would now call the collective unconscious, which to them was also projected into the inner aspect of their own bodies. They consulted these powers directly through what they called meditation and therefore most of these introverted alchemists always stressed the fact that one should not only experiment outwardly but should always insert phases of introversion with prayer and meditation and a kind of yoga. With yoga meditation you try to get the right hypothesis, or information, about what you are doing or about the materials. Or you can, for instance, talk to quicksilver, or to iron, and if you talk to quicksilver and iron then naturally the unconscious fills up the gap by a personification. Then Mercury appears to you and tells you who the sun God is. A power, the soul of Gold, appears and tells you who and what it is.
So, we see that basically the dynamic impulses of the original alchemists and modern physicists is the same. Namely, to find out all that is possible about how God works. This Opus, or Work, is understood as taking place in a sealed retort vessel. The nature of this vessel is the origin of the common-use term, "Hermetically sealed." This containment insures that none of the ingredients will be lost, and also provides a container in which the contents are slowly heated, or cooked (calcinatio).
The initial material (prima materia) then goes through several stages of transformation, defined as operations. These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts. Most, however, include sublimatio (separating), and coniunctio (uniting). There are also operations of circulating, multiplying, and reiterating.
The meditatio, or meditation, consists of inner dialogue with the alchemical figures: Saturn=lead; Luna=silver; Sol=gold; Mercury=quicksilver; Venus=copper; Mars=iron; Jupiter=tin. Because the process of alchemy does not extend into God-Realization. This does not exclude this from occurring through God's grace, however.
Then Kether is in Malkuth, the beginning (prima materia) and end (ultima materia) are One. In alchemy, the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World acts as the soul-guide to the highest region. We experience An-imaginal (Anima-ginal) Reality.
Always remember that the body is of vital importance in any alchemical operation. To transcend somewhere out of the body is not alchemical practice; rather, imagine the body NOWHERE, or now-here.
Alchemy is ...a physiological mythology juxtaposed with a cosmogonic mythology. In between is the psyche itself-the arcane substance, the subjective factor-which achieves a personified level in the divinities of mythology. It is the psyche's own image-making activity, its self-creation through symbols, that is central to this model. It represents a process of the "psychization of instinct," the transformation of instinctual and biophysical phenomena into psychic experience. These phenomena can then to a certain extent be brought within the range of conscious will and reason. In this process instinct loses some of its primordial autonomy. It is an opus contra naturam, so to speak...Alchemy accordingly gives us a model for the psychology of projection; it points at once "upward" and "downward." It is radically symbolic in its insistence on the "arcanum." And finally, in the obligation it imposed for the careful elaboration of theoria, it included the formation of apperceptive concepts and symbols as a fundamental part of the opus . (17)
What happens to body/soul at the level of Malkuth? The process of alchemical initiation begins with the stage known as Mortificatio, or psychological masochism. This is the disintegration of the conscious personality. It is specifically a religious crisis in the life of the individual, where ruling ideas lose their meaning. Needless to say, this is a depressing state of being. This depression is imaged in terms of "blackening" and has, therefore, to do with the Shadow.
The actual process occurs on XXI. The Universe, which corresponds with the Nigredo. To derive pleasure from punishing one's body is a curious pathological image. The unheroic, self-humiliation is a form of masochism with a religious aim: to gain forgiveness through a mode of redemption. This dedication to suffering produces meaning, compassion, humility, and healing. This is a discipline of the soul which contradicts the ego attitude. There is a relationship between ritual flogging in initiation ceremonies and the intoxication of masochistic mortification. The participant is entranced and enters the transformative process. The combination of humiliation and pleasure yields an experience of ambivalence, a primal condition of psyche.
Mortificatio is a psychological operation, not a moral one. We cannot apply a moral frame of reference to it; it is neither good nor bad, better nor worse. It is a necessary, just-so operation. One alchemical text advises, "Take the old black spirit and destroy and torture it..." Another philosopher tells us that "The tortured thing, when it is immersed in the body, changes it into an unalterable and indestructible nature."
So the operation is necessary, not to make us morally better or spiritually purer, but rather to change us. When we immerse masochistic material in the body of fantasy, psyche and psychic reality become indestructible. The operation is necessary, not for the sake of moral ego-strengthening, but to make hard psychic reality. If we could fully realize this, that mortification is a way into the weighty, heavy matter of the soul, it might help us get past the momentary cringe. For we cringe and shrink at the moment of realization, at the reality of psyche where there is no ego-control, especially in its ugliness or banality.
Do not confuse masochism, which is a religious attitude to suffering, with martyrdom, which is a manifestation of the neurotic, heroic ego. The movement from martyrdom to masochism is also a movement from guilt to shame, and this movement has the quality of depth. Guilt is primarily an ego phenomenon, while shame is a quality of the soul. The antidote for guilt is not always forgiveness; it lies rather in the perception of the archetypal dimension in which the ego is caught.
Guilt implies the possibility of rectification, of righting the wrong; hence the ego-protests and justifications which are variations on the martyr's theme: "Well, I'm trying!" and "You make me feel guilty," and "If I only had more will-power."
But shame belongs to the dimension of soul, and implies the permanence of a deficiency, the impossibility of rectification (and also of justification). It is the sense of permanent lack, insufficiency, inadequacy, which cannot be made right or corrected by any activity of the ego--no amount of will power, strivings for perfection, or withdrawal of demands from other people will do the trick. In its very nature, its "natural state", the soul is incomplete, and the experience of its incompleteness is the experience of shame. Guilt is a moral category, shame belongs to psychological experience and the experience of psyche.
"albedo" and "rubedo"...
Jung: "From the darkness of the unconscious comes the light of illumination, the albedo… ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctonis, Paragraph 301 (First Sentence).
[In the] state of whiteness, one does not live in the true sense of the word. It is a sort of abstract, ideal state. In order to make it come alive it must have blood, it must have what the alchemists called the rubedo, the redness of life. Only the total experience of being can transform this ideal state into a fully human mode of existence. Blood alone can reanimate a glorious state of consciousness in which the last trace of blackness is dissolved, in which the devil no longer has an autonomous existence but rejoins the profound unity of the psyche. Then the opus magnum is finished: the human soul is completely integrated. ~Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctonis, Paragraph 301 (First Sentence).
~Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking, Page 229, Second Paragraph, McGuire and Hull, 1979.
"For the alchemist the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter.
Only as a secondary consideration does he hope that some benefit may accrue to himself from the transformed substance as the panacea, the medicina catholica, just as it may to the imperfect bodies, the base or "sick" metals, etc.
His attention is not directed to his own salvation through God's grace, but to the liberation of God from the darkness of matter.
By applying himself to this miraculous work he benefits from its salutary effect, but only incidentally. He may approach the work as one in need of salvation, but he knows that his salvation depends on the success of the work, on whether he can free the divine soul.
To this end he needs meditation, fasting, and prayer; more, he needs the help of the Holy Ghost as his paredroz [ministering spirit].
Since it is not man but matter that must be redeemed, the spirit that manifests itself in the transformation is not the "Son of Man" but as Khunrath very properly puts it, the filius macrocosmi.
Therefore, what comes out of the transformation is not Christ but an ineffable material being named the "stone," which displays the most paradoxical qualities apart from possessing corpus, anima, spiritus, and supernatural powers.
One might be tempted to explain the symbolism of alchemical transformation as a parody of the Mass were it not pagan in origin and much older than the latter.
The substance that harbors the divine secret is everywhere, including the human body. It can be had for the asking and can be found anywhere, even in the most loathsome filth."
- Psychology and Alchemy (1944), translated by R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX, Vol. 12 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), pp. 299-300.
Only as a secondary consideration does he hope that some benefit may accrue to himself from the transformed substance as the panacea, the medicina catholica, just as it may to the imperfect bodies, the base or "sick" metals, etc.
His attention is not directed to his own salvation through God's grace, but to the liberation of God from the darkness of matter.
By applying himself to this miraculous work he benefits from its salutary effect, but only incidentally. He may approach the work as one in need of salvation, but he knows that his salvation depends on the success of the work, on whether he can free the divine soul.
To this end he needs meditation, fasting, and prayer; more, he needs the help of the Holy Ghost as his paredroz [ministering spirit].
Since it is not man but matter that must be redeemed, the spirit that manifests itself in the transformation is not the "Son of Man" but as Khunrath very properly puts it, the filius macrocosmi.
Therefore, what comes out of the transformation is not Christ but an ineffable material being named the "stone," which displays the most paradoxical qualities apart from possessing corpus, anima, spiritus, and supernatural powers.
One might be tempted to explain the symbolism of alchemical transformation as a parody of the Mass were it not pagan in origin and much older than the latter.
The substance that harbors the divine secret is everywhere, including the human body. It can be had for the asking and can be found anywhere, even in the most loathsome filth."
- Psychology and Alchemy (1944), translated by R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series XX, Vol. 12 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), pp. 299-300.
Coagulatio... Incarnation as coagulation...
"God wants to be born in the flame of man's consciousness, leaping ever higher.And what if this has no roots in the earth? One must be able to suffer God. That is the supreme task for the carrier of ideas. He must be the advocate of the earth.God will take care of himself.
My inner principle is: Deus et homo. God needs man in order to become conscious, just as he needs limitation in time and space.Let us therefore be for him limitation in time and space, an earthly tabernacle."
(Letter from Jung to W.R. Corti: April 20, 1929)
Subimatio and birds
" The essential thing about birds is that they, having as their domain the air element, mediate between the earthly realm and the heaven world. The alchemist in observing the flight of birds, recognised in them a picture of the human soul undergoing spiritual development. "
Adam McLean "Birds in Alchemy"
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alcbirds.html
"In alchemical writings we meet a seemingly bewildering multiplicity of animal symbols - red lions, white eagles, stags, unicorns, winged dragons and snakes. Although at first glance all this complex mass of symbolism seems tortured and confused there is an inner coherence to these symbols, which the ancient alchemists used in specific ways reflecting their esoteric content.
In this article I wish to consider a particularly tight knit group of these animal symbols, the birds of alchemy - the Black Crow, White Swan, Peacock, Pelican, and Phoenix - which are descriptive of certain stages of the alchemical process. Of course it would be wrong to suggest that there are fixed rigid meanings with regard to these symbols.
The alchemists always integrated the symbols they used, so that one has to look at the total context, the background against which they stand, but when the birds appear in this sequence it is almost certain that the following interpretation can be applied.
Firstly, let us look at the symbols in general. What did the alchemists wish to symbolise by birds? The essential thing about birds is that they, having as their domain the air element, mediate between the earthly realm and the heaven world.
The alchemist in observing the flight of birds, recognized in them a picture of the human soul undergoing spiritual development. The soul, aspiring upwards, flying free of the restraints of the earth bound body seeking the heavenly light, only to have to return to the earthly consciousness again after the meditation, the alchemist symbolised by the bird.
Thus the bird symbols, in alchemy, reflect the inner experiences of soul alchemy, the soaring of the soul free from the earth bound body and the physical senses. The soul, in the meditations of soul alchemy, touches upon the spiritual world, and brings something of this back into the outer life again.
The birds as symbols mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds, they reflect certain archetypal experiences encountered by the soul in its development through the alchemical process.
These symbols were used in two ways. Firstly, as a description in a text of one aspect of the process. Thus the alchemist might indicate a certain process as the Pelican stage, and describe certain facets of this by using perhaps other symbols, Secondly, these bird symbols could be used as a subject matter for a meditation, and by inwardly building such a symbol, one connected in soul with the essential experience of the particular stage of the alchemical-soul process.
Now us will look at these in detail. I would like to consider them in the following sequence, one which occurs in various sources: Black Crow - White Swan - Peacock - Pelican - Phoenix - as these correspond to a developing inner experience which involves a progressively deepening encounter with the inner spiritual dimension of our being.
"God wants to be born in the flame of man's consciousness, leaping ever higher.And what if this has no roots in the earth? One must be able to suffer God. That is the supreme task for the carrier of ideas. He must be the advocate of the earth.God will take care of himself.
My inner principle is: Deus et homo. God needs man in order to become conscious, just as he needs limitation in time and space.Let us therefore be for him limitation in time and space, an earthly tabernacle."
(Letter from Jung to W.R. Corti: April 20, 1929)
Subimatio and birds
" The essential thing about birds is that they, having as their domain the air element, mediate between the earthly realm and the heaven world. The alchemist in observing the flight of birds, recognised in them a picture of the human soul undergoing spiritual development. "
Adam McLean "Birds in Alchemy"
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alcbirds.html
"In alchemical writings we meet a seemingly bewildering multiplicity of animal symbols - red lions, white eagles, stags, unicorns, winged dragons and snakes. Although at first glance all this complex mass of symbolism seems tortured and confused there is an inner coherence to these symbols, which the ancient alchemists used in specific ways reflecting their esoteric content.
In this article I wish to consider a particularly tight knit group of these animal symbols, the birds of alchemy - the Black Crow, White Swan, Peacock, Pelican, and Phoenix - which are descriptive of certain stages of the alchemical process. Of course it would be wrong to suggest that there are fixed rigid meanings with regard to these symbols.
The alchemists always integrated the symbols they used, so that one has to look at the total context, the background against which they stand, but when the birds appear in this sequence it is almost certain that the following interpretation can be applied.
Firstly, let us look at the symbols in general. What did the alchemists wish to symbolise by birds? The essential thing about birds is that they, having as their domain the air element, mediate between the earthly realm and the heaven world.
The alchemist in observing the flight of birds, recognized in them a picture of the human soul undergoing spiritual development. The soul, aspiring upwards, flying free of the restraints of the earth bound body seeking the heavenly light, only to have to return to the earthly consciousness again after the meditation, the alchemist symbolised by the bird.
Thus the bird symbols, in alchemy, reflect the inner experiences of soul alchemy, the soaring of the soul free from the earth bound body and the physical senses. The soul, in the meditations of soul alchemy, touches upon the spiritual world, and brings something of this back into the outer life again.
The birds as symbols mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds, they reflect certain archetypal experiences encountered by the soul in its development through the alchemical process.
These symbols were used in two ways. Firstly, as a description in a text of one aspect of the process. Thus the alchemist might indicate a certain process as the Pelican stage, and describe certain facets of this by using perhaps other symbols, Secondly, these bird symbols could be used as a subject matter for a meditation, and by inwardly building such a symbol, one connected in soul with the essential experience of the particular stage of the alchemical-soul process.
Now us will look at these in detail. I would like to consider them in the following sequence, one which occurs in various sources: Black Crow - White Swan - Peacock - Pelican - Phoenix - as these correspond to a developing inner experience which involves a progressively deepening encounter with the inner spiritual dimension of our being.
“ Understand then, O Son of Wisdom, what the Stone declares; protect me, and I will protect thee, increase my strength that I may help thee! My sol and my beams are most inward and secretly in my own Luna, my light, exceeding every light, and my good things are better than all other good things. I give freely, and I reward the intelligent with joy and gladness, glory, riches, delights; and them that seek after me I make to know and understand, and posses divine things.”
__Golden Tractates of Hermes"__
__Golden Tractates of Hermes"__
The Philosopher's Stone and Solutio
from Edward Edinger, in the Anatomy of the Psyche
"We are brought finally, to the ultimate in solutio symbolism, the idea that water is the goal of the process. Several terms are used for this liquid version of the Philosophers' Stone: "aqua permanens," "elixir vitae," "tincture," "philosophical water," "universal solvent," "divine water," and so forth. Water as the goal of the opus is defined in this text:
'And by whatever names the philosophers have called their stone they always mean and refer to this one substance, i.e., to the water from which everything originates and in which everything is contained, which rules everything, in which errors are made and which the error is itself corrected. I call it "philosophical" water, not ordinary water but aqua mercurialis.' " ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, page 224
from Edward Edinger, in the Anatomy of the Psyche
"We are brought finally, to the ultimate in solutio symbolism, the idea that water is the goal of the process. Several terms are used for this liquid version of the Philosophers' Stone: "aqua permanens," "elixir vitae," "tincture," "philosophical water," "universal solvent," "divine water," and so forth. Water as the goal of the opus is defined in this text:
'And by whatever names the philosophers have called their stone they always mean and refer to this one substance, i.e., to the water from which everything originates and in which everything is contained, which rules everything, in which errors are made and which the error is itself corrected. I call it "philosophical" water, not ordinary water but aqua mercurialis.' " ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, page 224
The Inner light of the Divine Child.
In alchemy the child often represents the inner Stone. Once developed and manifested into inner birth, the child represents the stage of life when the old man is transformed and reborn
through the alchemical process. The child here represents the inner guiding light of the new spirituality and consciousness. The nurturing of this new born light matures into that most
wonderful presence known as the light of the "Master Within".
In alchemy the child often represents the inner Stone. Once developed and manifested into inner birth, the child represents the stage of life when the old man is transformed and reborn
through the alchemical process. The child here represents the inner guiding light of the new spirituality and consciousness. The nurturing of this new born light matures into that most
wonderful presence known as the light of the "Master Within".
INTRODUCTION TO ALCHEMY
IN JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY
by Iona Miller, 1985
IN JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY
by Iona Miller, 1985
Field Body, Io 2011
The ancient art of alchemy was the search for the God-head in matter. The alchemical task was to unify spirit and soul in the body. Psychic reality means to be in soul, esse in anima, as Jung put it. It means an enlarged experience of concrete reality, a dialogue with events, situations and circumstances.
Psychic reality means to be in soul, through embodiment (soma) or enlivenment (psyche)--perceiving images viscerally and mentally. Acknowledgement of this force does not constitute Goddess worship--only recognition of the archetypal nature of reality, and the archetypal reality of nature, and our own nature. She is a way of reclaiming the divinity of body, matter, and world. This notion is part of the cultural return of the Feminine.
Jungian analyst, James Hillman invites us into this world: Let us imagine the anima mundi neither above the world encircling it as a divine and remote emanation of spirit, a world of powers, archetypes, and principles transcendent to things, nor within the material world as its unifying panpsychic life-principle. Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, the seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form. Then anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each event as it is, its sensuous presentation as face bespeaking its interior image--in short, its availability to imagination, its presence as a psychic reality. Not only animals and plants ensouled as in the Romantic vision, but soul is given with each thing; God-given things of nature and man-made things of the street.
This resurrection of the soul of the world means a raising of consciousness of created things, the world's psychic reality. Physical reality becomes psychic, and psyche becomes real--it "matters." The difference between soul and external things no longer matters. Inner and outer world are both real and in fact One World. Image, metaphor and symbol bridge the abyss between matter and spirit. Images are the subtle net that unites symbols. They are integrated with feeling, mind and imagination. We can see soul in all natural objects. We can notice our fantasies constantly conditioning our experience of reality. Knowledge of spirit doesn't come from ideas, even revelations, but through a reflective process.
Jung spent the better part of the end of his life studying the subject of alchemy. In typical "Jungian" style, his interest in alchemy developed from a vivid dream. Jung was amazed to find that the images and operations he encountered in the old alchemy texts related strongly to his theories of psychoanalysis and the unconscious. Therefore, his main research project at the culmination of his career was around this topic of alchemy and how it related to the process of consciousness. Jung saw in alchemy a metaphor of the process of individuation.
Jung elaborated most of his alchemical analysis of the psyche in three major volumes of his Collected Works. They include Alchemical Studies, Psychology and Alchemy, and the final volume Mysterium Coniunctionis. Since the publication of these there have been other works of interest produced by notable Jungian analysts. Among these are the following:
1). Foremost are the works of Marie-Louise vonFranz. Her works include Alchemical Active Imagination, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, Number and Time, and Alchemy; An Introduction to the Symbolism and its Psychology, to name but a few.
2). Edward Edinger has given us the classical text, Ego and Archetype plus Anatomy of the Psyche.
Other contributors include Henry Corbin with Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, on Arabic alchemy, M. Esther Harding's Psychic Energy, Robert Grinnell's Alchemy in a Modern Woman, and Edward Whitmont's Psyche and Substance. Some of the most recent work has been done by avante garde psychologist James Hillman. He is director of the Dallas Institute which specializes in Jungian Studies. His works appear in Spring, the Journal for Archetypal Psychology, and include pieces on the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World, and articles such as "Silver and the White Earth." As its title suggests, Spring originated as a voice for archetypal psychology, but now most articles are in the perspective of Imaginal Psychology.
Then there are the classical texts of alchemy, themselves. Among these number such as The Book of Lambspring, Aurora Consurgens, Codicillus (by Raymond Lully), Splendor Solis, Theatrum Chemicum, and The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly. Liber Azoth and De Natura Rerum (among others) by Paracelsus. Other classics include The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkrutz and Rosarium Philosophorum which Jung used to illustrate his work The Psychology of the Transference. Finally, there are the modern translations of older works by A. E. Waite which include Turba Philosophorum, The Hermetic Museum, Lexicon of Alchemy, and The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus.
Even newer are the compendiums such as The Secret Art of Alchemy by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola and Alchemist's Handbook by Frater Albertus. Another Jungian contribution is Mircea Eliade's The Forge & the Crucible. For the lesser known treatises, Jung's bibliographies are a gold mine. Jung also wrote the forward to the Taoist classic on alchemy, The Secret of the Golden Flower.
Most of us, unfamiliar with the subtle nuances of alchemical practice, view it as the historical predecessor of some of our modern sciences, like medicine, chemistry, metallurgy, etc. But, according to Jung's research, it seems to be much, much more. It is a curious fact that there is no single alchemy for us to examine. It is a cross-cultural phenomena which has been practiced in various forms by ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Christian Europeans, and the Islamic, Hindu and Taoist faiths. All of these use symbols to depict a process of transformation, whether this process is thought to occur inside (introverted) or outside (extroverted) of the human body. Although there are many types of alchemy, the main split seems to be between material (extroverted) and spiritual (introverted) alchemies. The deciding factor is the direction of the practitioner's creativity.
In his book, The Alchemical Tradition in the Late Twentieth Century, Richard Grossinger summarizes the basic components of the different alchemies, which he dubs 'planet science.' These include the following:
1. A theory of nature as made up of primary elements.
2. A belief in the gradual evolution and transformation of substance.
3. A system for inducing transmutation.
4. The imitation of nature by a gentle technology.
5. The faith that one's inner being is changed by participation in external chemical experiments.
6. A general system of synchronistic correspondences between planets, herbs, minerals, species of animals, signs and symbols, parts of the body, etc., known as the Doctrine of Signatures.
7. Gold as the completed and perfected form of the metals, in specific, and substance in general (Alchemy is the attempt to transmute other substances into gold, however that attempt is understood and carried out).
8. The existence of a paradoxical form of matter, sometimes called The Philosopher's Stone (the lapis), which can be used in making gold or in brewing elixirs and medicines that have universal curative powers.
9. A method of symbolism working on the simultaneity of a series of complementary pairs: Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, etc.
10. The search for magical texts that come from a time when the human race was closer to the source of things or are handed down from higher intelligences, extra-terrestrials, guardians, or their immediate familiars during some Golden Age. These texts deal with the creation or synthesis of matter and are a blueprint for physical experimentation in a cosmic context (as well as for personal development). They have been reinterpreted in terms of the Earth's different epochs and nationalities.
11. In the Occident, alchemy is early inductive experimental science and is closely allied with metallurgy, pharmacy, industrial chemistry, and coinage.
12. In the Orient, alchemy is a system of meditation in which one's body is understood as elementally and harmonically equivalent to the field of creation. (Between East and West, the body may be thought of as a microcosm of nature, with its own deposits of seeds, elixirs, and mineral substances).
13. Alchemy is joined to astrology in a set of meanings that arise from the correspondences of planets, metals, and parts of the body, and the overall belief in a cosmic timing that permeates nature.
Thus, alchemy deals fundamentally with the basic mysteries of life as well as with transcendental mysticism. But its approach is neither abstract nor theoretical, but experimental, in nature.
Just who were the alchemists, and why are their contributions important to us today? The alchemists were the leading explorers of consciousness in medieval times, and their research led to a vast improvement in the conditions of human life. Among the more famous are Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, Nicholas Flammel, and Sir Isaac Newton. Their contributions not only improved the lives of their contemporaries, but influenced the thought of many philosophers if the same and later eras, such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas a Kempis, John Dee, Johannes Kepler, Thomas Vaughn, Bishop Berkeley, Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, and Geothe.
The contributions of these eminent alchemists are staggering: Albertus Magnus, alone, wrote eight books on physics, six on psychology, eight on astronomy, twenty-six on zoology, five on minerals, one on geography, and three on life in general from an Aristotelian point-of-view. He was a Dominican friar who was canonized a saint in 1931.
Paracelsus was a Swiss born in 1493. His accomplishments were many and include being the first modern medical scientist. He fathered the sciences of microchemistry, antisepsis, modern wound surgery, and homeopathy. He wrote the first medical literature on the causes and treatment of syphilis and epilepsy, as well as books on illness derived from adverse working conditions.
Notwithstanding this accurate scientific bent, his work is in close accord with the mystical alchemical tradition. He wrote on furies in sleep, on ghosts appearing after death, on gnomes in mines and underground, of nymphs, pygmies, and magical salamanders. His word view was animistic.
Invisible forces were always at work and the physician had to constantly be aware of this fourth dimension in which he was moving. He utilized various techniques for divination and astrology as well as magical amulets, talismans, and incantations. He believed in a vital force which radiated around every man like a luminous sphere and which could be made to act at a distance. He is also credited with the early use of what we now know as hypnotism. He believed that there was a star in each man. (Mishlove). This sentiment was echoed by 19th century magician and alchemist, Aleister Crowley, who said, "Every man and every woman is a star." This alludes to the essential Self.
Kepler developed the laws of planetary motion. But he developed his theories on the basis of explorations into the dimly lit archetypal regions of man's mind as surely as on his mathematical observations of the planetary motions. He was clearly a student in the tradition of earlier mystic-scientist such as Pythagoras and Paracelsus. Thomas Vaughn, Robert Fludd and Sir Frances Bacon number among the 17th century Rosicrucians, who practiced not only alchemy, but also other hermetic arts and the qabala.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a mathematical genius, as well as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He discovered the binomial theorem, invented differential calculus, made the first calculations of the moon's attraction by the earth and described the laws of motion of classical mechanics, and formulated the theory of universal gravitation. He was very careful not to publish anything which was not firmly supported by experimental proofs or geometrical demonstration thus he exemplified and ushered in the Age of Reason.
However, if we look at Newton's own personal notes and diaries, over a million works in his own handwriting, a startlingly different picture of the man emerges. Newton was an alchemist. He devoted himself to such endeavors as the transmutation of metals, the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life. He was intensely introspective and had great mental endurance. He solved problems intuitively and dressed them up in logical proofs afterwards. He, himself, was astounded by the startling nature of his own theories. Gravity is a problem that still hasn't been dealt with satisfactorily by scientists.
His followers, however, emphasized his mechanistic view of the universe to the exclusion of his religious and alchemical views. In a sense, their action ushered in a controversy in psychical research which has existed ever since. Since Newton's time, all discoveries suggesting the presence of a spiritual force which transcended time or space were ironically considered to be a violation of Newton's Laws--even though Newton himself held these very beliefs!
It is interesting to note, that today scientists actually can turn small amounts of lead into gold through particle acceleration, since they are only one atomic weight apart. Despite the advances in science, the "unknown" is still projected into the realm of matter, and the alchemical quest continues. Science is still debating over what is physical, what is psychic and what is metapsychic. VonFranz, in Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, states that "In Western cultural history the transpsychic has been described sometimes as "spirit" sometimes as "matter."
Theologians and philosophers are more concerned with the former, physicists with the later."
Von Franz points out that "what was once regarded as the opposition between spirit and matter turns up again in contemporary physics as a discussion of the relation between consciousness (or "Mind") and matter." It bears on such questions as the bias of the observer, and the theories of relativity, probability, synchronicity, not to mention the whole field of parapsychology. Jung really returned us to the alchemistic viewpoint when he said, in Aion:
Sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closely together as both of them independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory. ...Psyche cannot be totally different from matter for how otherwise could it move matter?
And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we should arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts. Our present attempts may be bold, but I believe they are on the right lines.
As VonFranz notes, "There is therefore no concept fundamental to modern physics that is not in one degree or another a differentiated form of some primordial archetypal idea." These include our concepts of time, space, energy, the field of force, particle theory, and chemical affinity.
Laws in physics are subject to scientific revolutions and there has been a major breakthrough in paradigm shifts about every 20 years, or each generation. VonFranz says, "As soon as an archetypal idea that has been serving as a model no longer coincides with the observed facts of the external world, it is dropped or its origin in the psyche is recognized. This process always coincides...with the upward thrust of a new thought-model from the unconscious to the threshold of consciousness."
This is basically the process of weeding out "scientific errors." "...scarcely a thought is given to what they might mean, psychologically, once they are no longer fit to serve as a model in describing the outer world." This certainly happened to alchemy, until Jung revived an interest in it. "It is only today, when we know that the assumptions of the observer decisively precondition the total results, that the question is becoming acute." Physicists have become increasingly conscious of the extent to which psychological circumstances influence their results.
Other experimental-minded persons have sought the mysteries of life and divinity within their own bodies, since ancient times. Whether known as Yogis or Adepts, their goal was basically the same, as we shall see.
Some modern schools of the Hermetic Arts see an identity between medieval European alchemy and the eastern practice of Yoga. They see a metaphysical or symbol correspondence between the planetary and metallurgical attributions of alchemy and the chakras. Yoga is also experimental in nature. The qualities of the metals correspond to the planets and chakras as follows:
Lead Saturn Sacral Plexus
Iron Mars Prostatic Ganglion
Tin Jupiter Solar Plexus
Gold Sun Cardiac Plexus
Copper Venus Pharyngeal Plexus
Silver Moon Pituitary Body
Quicksilver Mercury Pineal Gland
Alchemy is not concerned exclusively with consciousness, but also seeds the subtle transformation of the body, so that the physical level is also brought into perfect equilibrium. Thus, the alchemical metals may be considered analogous to the chakras of the yogis. We can draw another parallel among the three major principles of Alchemy and those of Yoga, which are known as the Gunas.
Mercury..........Sattva
Sulphur............Rajas
Salt.................Tamas
The quality of Mercury is vital and reflective; it equates with the spiritual principles of goodness and intelligence; Sattva guna is illuminative. The quality of Sulphur is fiery and passionate like the principle of Rajas, which incites desire, attachment, and action. The quality of Salt is arrestive and binding, and reflects the gross inertia of matter, which is much like Tamas. These gunas and the three alchemical substances symbolize spirit, soul and body. Another "alchemical" way the gunas were applied concerns food: sattvic foods incline one toward meditation and the spiritual life (fruits, vegetables, and grains); rajasic foods are stimulating (i.e. spicy food); tamasic food incites the baser instincts (animal flesh).
The concept of four basic elements, harmonized in a fifth, is also common to both alchemy and yoga doctrine. The Indian elements are known as Tattvas. They are: Akasha (quintessence; Tejas or Agni (fire); Apas (water); Vayu (air); Prithivi (earth). Furthermore, the preparation for the practice of both alchemy and yoga requires a moral or ethical preparation. Both stress that evil tendencies should be overcome while positive virtues are developed. This includes both behavior and the purification of the various body centers. The objective is not wealth, but health or wholeness.
Alchemy also speaks of a "secret fire", which is often compared to a serpent or dragon. Here again, we find the correspondence to Kundalini, the serpent-power. Alchemy is performed by the aid of Mercury, the illuminative principle, and the powers of the sun and moon. The yogic system works in three channels in the subtle body of man. One equates with the sun, another with the moon. They are called ida and pingala. The third, or harmonizing channel, is known as sushumna, and is associated with illumination.
The yogi seeks to arouse the latent power of the Kundalini serpent so it rises up the chakra centers until it opens the third eye of mystical vision and illumination. Alchemists apply slow heat to their alchemical vessel to sublimate and refine the contents therein. The yogis use breath control, the alchemist bellows to control the fire.
Interestingly, yogis have breath exercises called "breath of fire" and "the bellows."
In summary, the points of correspondence resulting in the alchemical production of a new kind of human being (one made hale or whole) are as follows:
1. Both systems agree that all things are expressions of one fundamental energy.
2. Both affirm that all things combine three qualities: a. Wisdom, Sattva, superconsciousness or Mercury; b. Desire, Rajas, compulsion or Sulpher; c. Inertia, Tamas, darkness, or Salt.
3. Both recognize five modes of expression: Akasha, Spirit or the quintessence; Tejas or Agni (fire); Apas (water); Vayu (air); Prithivi (earth).
4. Both systems mention seven principle vehicles of activity, called chakras by yogis, and metals by alchemists.
5. Both say there is a secret force, fiery in quality, which is to be raised from one chakra or metal to another, until the power of all seven is sublimated in the higher.
6. Yoga says 1) Prana or Surya, sun, 2) Rayim, moon, and 3) Sattva, wisdom are the three main agencies in the work (or ida, pingala and sushumna). Alchemy says the whole operation is a work of the sun and moon, aided by Mercury.
7. Both systems stress preparation by establishing physical purity and ethical freedom from lust, avarice, vanity, attachment, anger and other anti-social tendencies.
8. Both allege that success enables the adepts to exercise extraordinary powers, to heal all diseases, and to control all the forces of nature so as to exert a determining influence on circumstances.
In short, what both alchemist and yogi do is 1). to recognize what goes on in his body, and 2). to use his knowledge of the control exerted over subconscious processed by self-consciousness to form a definite intention that this body-building function shall act with maximum efficiency creating increased vitality. This supercharge of libido then wakens the spiritual vision of the pineal gland to full activity. The Great Work of alchemy consists of stabilizing the vision of Light into a full realization. The by-product is that the body-building power of the subconscious changes the alchemist himself into a new creature.
Jung asserted that the medieval alchemists were unaware of the natural process of psychological transformation which went on in their subconscious. Therefore, they projected this process into their experiments. In other words, they projected an inner process outside of themselves. Had they been more conscious in their intent, or more sophisticated in their psychology like the yogis, they would have been more consistently successful.
But why is a study of alchemy relevant to our modern lives? We are not daily occupied in pseudo-alchemical experiments like the alchemists, or are we? In many metaphorical ways we are thinking like alchemists all the time. Also, Jung observed that the dreams of his clients repeatedly stressed the main alchemical themes, especially the conflict and union of opposites. The alchemical symbolism is widespread in dreams if modern individuals, and can shed light on these more primitive aspects of our subconscious life. It is important for our understanding of our own unconscious.
In Alchemical Active Imagination, VonFranz states:
True knowledge of oneself is the knowledge of the objective psyche as it manifests in dreams and in the manifestations of the unconscious. Only by looking at dreams, for instance, can one see who one truly is; they tell us who we really are, that is something which is objectively there. To meditate on that is an effort towards self-knowledge, because that is scientific and objective and not in the interest of the ego but in the interest of "what I am" objectively. It is knowledge of the Self, of the wider, objective personality.
We could view alchemy as an antique form of therapy, which originally had the meaning 'to heal,' and the implication of 'service to the gods.' Psychotherapy basically means service to the psyche, and offers us a way to reconnect with our unconscious, thus experiencing wholeness. It also opens an avenue to increased physical health, since those ailments which remain unconscious often manifest as psychosomatic diseases. If we become conscious of the source of the dis-ease, it dissipates. Knowledge of alchemy's symbolism can lead us to psychological insight in terms of our own condition, especially that reflected in dreams.
Alchemy may be carried out as either a physical or mental operation. The Jungian orientation is primarily mental, though it might take a physical form. For example, you might choose to ritually "act out" certain aspects of the Great Work in active imagination.
The Jungian interpretation that alchemy is a passive and unconscious process comes from a basically mental, or Greek orientation. The type of alchemy that aims at rejuvenating or preserving the physical body is descended from the physically-oriented Egyptian alchemy. The main traditions of conscious, inner spiritual alchemy come mainly from the Islamic and Oriental philosophies.
Jung's original interest in alchemy came from a dream he had of a library filled with arcane tomes from medieval times and the Renaissance. During the next 15 years he spent collecting this library, he learned to recognize the major symbols of the unconscious. He was reading about them in alchemy books and hearing about them in his patients' dreams and fantasies. Their projections told him of an inner quest, a sealed vessel, the conflict of opposites, a philosophical tree, a fountain of eternity, a golden flower, a Stone, a sacred wedding, etc.
Slowly Jung familiarized himself with their alchemical meaning. Then he, himself, became a living symbol of the healing power of the Philosopher's Stone. In his case this power manifested as the ability to heal on the mental level--in other words, to release any blocks hindering the natural process of growth and transformation. When proceeding in the direction of their individuation with self-realization. We should be careful here not to dichotomize between "mental" and "physical" too much or we will lose our proper alchemical perspective. Alchemy cannot be reduced to a metaphor of psychological or philosophical transformation--it requires first-hand experimentation.
Grossinger says that "what Carl Jung recognized was that the stages if the alchemists also corresponded to a process of psychological individuation. The psychic stages were as precise and rigorous as the chemical ones by which they became imaginal. Furthermore, they generated a physical and even quantitative terminology for an undiagnosed tension of opposites in the human psyche arising from male and female archetypes, a struggle they sought to resolve by the creative unity of the chemicals in the Stone. " Alchemy sought to unite Spirit (male), and Matter (female) through a Royal Union (coniunctio) to create their synthesis in the homunculus, hermaphrodite, or lapis. This is an alchemical metaphor of the process of spiritual rebirth.
The entire body of alchemical literature covers many variations on the theme of the Great Work. No single person will ever express all of the operations and symbols described in alchemy, just as no single person ever embodies the totality of the Self.
We each have unique experiences of the common roots of humanity or the collective unconscious. Thus, the various operations of alchemy come in different order for the various practitioners. The alchemical writings seem to contradict one another about the evolution of the process. Likewise, in dreams, we sometimes find the symbols of the end-product (like a mandala, or flower, or child) appearing at the beginning of the process. They symbolize what is latent and seeks manifestation.
Nevertheless in both alchemy and Jungian psychology there are classic stages in the process of individuation or personal experience of the unconscious. One major recurrent theme in modern dreams is the symbolism of the planets, which correspond with the alchemical metals. These metals, or planets (astrology), or Spheres (QBL) can be understood psychologically as the building blocks of the ego, which forms itself from fragments of these divine, archetypal qualities. These spiritual principles seek concretization through the unique experience of an individual ego. This links spirit and matter.
The sacredness of the Opus, or Great Work, is the central idea behind alchemy. One must be self-oriented, rather than ego-oriented. The adept is also diligent, patient and virtuous. In other words, in order to create the Stone, you must have the potential within yourself for self-realization--for becoming whole or 'holy.' It requires an inward seeking, just like the process of individuation. It is a solitary talk for no one may follow where you go. But there may be guides who will help inspire your faith and dedication to the task. Others have been to the territory you will explore, but none will accompany you.
The secret of alchemy is that it is a personal journey of transformation, and cannot be explained but only experienced. It is "eating the dish", not just reading about it in an alchemical cookbook. Its effects must be channeled into spiritual growth, for if alchemy is used to gratify personal desire the work is lost. This means the ego gets inflated with its own importance when the real power source lies within the Self. This naturally produces a regression back into an unconscious state, back to the prima materia. The instinctual urge for growth and transformation lies within us. For this urge to be considered evolutional requires that the ego must cooperate quite deliberately and consciously with the Self. This leads toward self-realization.
The main purpose of the Opus is "to create a transcendent, miraculous substance which is variously symbolized as the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, or the universal medicine (panacea). The procedure is, first, to find the suitable material, the so-called prima materia, and then to subject it to a series of operations which will turn it into the Philosopher's Stone." (Edinger, 1978).
The First Matter is a homogenous unity of Mercury, Sulpher and Salt. It is therefore 'three,' but can also be expressed as 'four' elements, which are again essentially 'one.' Jung felt that the secret of the psyche was contained in this question of the 'three' and the 'four.' In alchemy it is expressed as the axiom of Maria Prophetissa: "Therefore the Hebrew prophetess cried without restraint: 'one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the One as the fourth.'" Today, physicists echo this statement when they call 'plasma' both the fourth and first state of matter (the others being liquid, gas and solid).
In Jungian psychology, the prima materia is the original undifferentiated condition of ordinary consciousness, which is really unconsciousness. Mystics of all times have repeated that in the ordinary state we are all asleep or even "dead" to the true Reality. In psychology the four-fold nature of the prima materia is expressed by the four functions which correspond with the alchemical elements: intuition (fire), thinking (air), feeling (water), and sensation (earth). In Jungian theory we have a dominant function and limited access to one or two others, but the fourth function is inaccessible, maladapted or hard to integrate. It is what keeps us from "getting it all together." Thus, we are out-of-balance.
Balancing the four functions means achieving an integrated personality, balance, and high well-being. This requires undergoing a symbolic process of the union of opposites, which is what both alchemy and Jungian analysis are all about. Both alchemy and Jungian psychology require a period of depth analysis (solutio) to distinguish the original, undifferentiated contents.
The ego learns what part of the personality comes from itself and which parts from the Self. It reflects on its own components parts (subpersonalities) and learns to see itself as a small part of a greater whole, the larger unity of the Self. Edinger says, "The fixed, settled aspects of the personality which are rigid and static are reduced or led back to their original, undifferentiated condition as part of the process of psychic transformation," i.e. back to a state of 'innocence.'
Further, Edinger compares the problem of discovering the prima materia to the problem of finding what to work on in psychotherapy. He gives some hints:
(1) It is ubiquitous, to be found everywhere, before the eyes of all. This means that psychotherapeutic material likewise is everywhere, in all the ordinary, everyday occurrences of life. Moods and petty personal reactions of all kinds are suitable matter to be worked on by the therapeutic process.
(2) Although of great inward value, the prima materia is vile in outer appearance and therefore despised, rejected and thrown on the dung heap. The prima materia is treated like the suffering servant in Isaiah. Psychologically, this means that the prima materia is found in the shadow, that part of the personality which is considered most despicable. Those aspects of ourselves most painful and most humiliating are the very ones to be brought forward and worked on.
(3) It appears as a multiplicity, "has as many names as there are things," but at the same time is one. This feature corresponds to the fact that initially psychotherapy makes one aware of his fragmented, disjointed condition. Very gradually these warring fragments are discovered to be differing aspects of ones underlying unity. It is as though one sees the fingers of a hand touching a table at first only in two dimensions, as separate unconnected fingers. With three-dimensional vision, the fingers are seen as part of a larger unity, the hand.
(4) The prima materia is undifferentiated, without definite boundaries, limits or form. This corresponds to a certain experience of the unconscious which exposes the ego to the infinite...It may evoke the terror of dissolution or the awe of eternity. It provides a glimpse of the pleroma,...the chaos prior to the operation of the World-creating Logos. It is the fear of the boundless that often leads one to be content with the ego-limits he has rather than risk falling into the infinite by attempting to enlarge them.
The different operations to transform the prima materia follow as the natural consequence of finding the material to work on. The imagery associated with these operations is profuse and draws from myth, religion, and folklore. The symbols for all these imagery-systems comes from the collective unconscious. There is no set number of alchemical operations, just as there is no set number or order to archetypes.
However, certain of the operations seem to recur more often in the literature and experience. We could consider these as the skeletal frame of the alchemical process. Their order switches around also. Edinger lists seven operations which seem to typify the major transformations of the alchemical process. These include: calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio, seperatio, and coniunctio. Other major operations include nigredo, albedo, rubedo, solificatio, multiplicatio, projectio, separatio, circulatio, and more.
We can detail the nature of each of these operations later. For now it is enough to grasp the overview, which is best stated by Jung, himself, in Mysterium Coniunctionis: "...the alchemist saw the essence of his art in separation and analysis [solve or solutio] on the one hand and synthesis and consolidation [coagula or coagulatio] on the other. For him there was first of all an initial state in which opposite tendencies or forces were in conflict; secondly there was the great question of a procedure which would be capable of bringing the hostile elements and qualities, once they were separated, back to unity again.
The initial state, named chaos, was not given from the start but had to be sought for as the prima materia. And just as at the beginning of the work was not self-evident, so to an even greater degree was its end. There are countless speculations on the nature of the end state, all of them reflected in it designations. The commonest are the ideas of its permanence (prolongation of life, immortality, incorruptibility), its androgyny, its spirituality and corporality, its divinity and its resemblance to man (homunculus)."
He goes on to point out what this might man psychologically. We could view it as conflicting drives originating on the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical levels creating splits in the personality.
Jung says that, "The obvious analogy, in the psychic sphere, to this problem of opposites is the dissociation of the personality brought about by the conflict of incompatible tendencies, resulting as a rule from an inharmonious disposition. The repression of one of the opposites leads only to a prolongation and extension of the conflict, in other words, to a neurosis. The therapist therefore confronts the opposites with one another and aims at uniting them permanently. The images of the goal which then appear in dreams often run parallel with the corresponding alchemical symbols."
He reiterates the value of accessing the alchemical symbolism for increasing insight. "Investigation of the alchemical symbolism, like a preoccupation with mythology, does not lead one away from life any more than a study of comparative anatomy leads away from the anatomy of the living man. On the contrary, alchemy affords us a veritable treasure-house of symbols, knowledge of which is extremely helpful for an understanding of neurotic and psychotic processes. This, in turn, enables us to apply the psychology of the unconscious to those regions in the history of the human mind which are concerned with symbolism."
Each of the operations of alchemy functions as the center of focus of an elaborate symbol-system. Other symbols which are related to the operation cluster around the theme of the operation--they share a common essence. These central symbols provide basic categories which we can use to understand our own personal psychic life, and even the transformation processes of others. Taken together, the alchemical operations illustrate almost all of the full range of experiences which are involved in the process of individuation.
As Grossinger points out, "Alchemy is thus a form of chemical research into which unresolved psychic elements were projected. The alchemical nigredo, the initial phase of the operation which produces 'black blacker than black,' is also an internal experience of melancholia, an encounter with the shadow." But this is also the necessary first stage in Jungian analysis--confronting that which has been rejected or repressed is essential to becoming whole.
This realm of the shadow can often provide more real substance for the spiritual quest than mimicking the teachings of a spiritual master without really changing oneself. Though stumbling around in the dark seems frustrating, if it is honest and heartfelt, and one really grapples with the shadow problem, the way is cleared for progress that will be sustained by a firm foundation gained in the early phases.
Throughout the alchemical process, the lapis functions as an inner guide by presenting itself in diverse symbolism. It symbolizes the growing manifestation of your latent potential for wholeness. It frequently manifests in mandala symbolism. This includes such forms as a revolving wheel or the zodiac, the petals of a magnificent flower, a diamond body, flower of life, or a serpent eating its tail. As a grand union of opposites, it symbolizes the unification of king and queen, man and wife, conscious and unconscious, personality and society, etc. in a royal union called the Marriage of the Sun and Moon in alchemy. Alchemy is a means of understanding our unconscious projections of archetypes into the world.
In "Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciples," Rudolf Bernoulli summarizes the basics of extroverted and introverted alchemy. He says, "There are two kinds of alchemy: one strives to know the cosmos as a whole and to recreate it; it is in a sense the precursor of modern natural science. It aspires to create gold as the supreme perfection in this sphere...The other alchemy strives higher; it strives for the great wonder, the wonder of all wonders, the magic crystal, the philosopher's stone."
This is not a substance susceptible of chemical analysis. It does not represent a spiritual or psychological state that can be reduced to a clear formula. It is something more than perfection, something through which perfection can be achieved. It is the universal instrument of magic. By it we can attain to the ultimate. By it we can completely possess the world. By it we can make ourselves free from the world, by soaring above it. this is alchemy in the mystical sense...The goal is reached only when a man succeeds in creating the...stone within himself, and this is made possible only by the intervention of the 'inner master.'" i.e. the Self. --von Franz, Psychic Energy, p. 452-3
Psychologically...the union of body and spirit or of conscious and unconscious can be safely attempted only when both have undergone a purification brought about by the earlier stages of analysis, in which the conscious character and the personal unconscious are reviewed and set in order.
In the alchemistic literature there is evidence that the mysterious coniunctio took place in three stages. The first is that of the union of opposites, the double conjuntion, which chiefly concerns us here. The second stage effects a triple union, that of body, soul, and spirit; or, as it is said elsewhere, "the Trinity is reduced to a Unity."
In the Book of Lambspring, published in 1625, this triple union is represented first by two fishes swimming in the sea, pictured with the legend, "The sea is the Body, the two fishes are the Soul and the Spirit", and later by a second picture showing a deer and a unicorn in a forest, with the following text:
In the Body [the forest] there is Soul [the deer] and Spirit [the unicorn]...He that knows how to tame and master them by art, and to couple them together, may justly be called a master, for we rightly judge that he has attained the golden flesh.
The literature offers far less material about this more advanced stage of the work than about the simple coniunctio, and still less about the third stage, the union of the four elements, from which the fifth element, the "quintessence," arises.
However, Jung's latest works are largely concerned with the problems of this fourfold coniunctio, through which not only are the personal parts of the psyche--ego and anima, or ego and animus--consummated, but these, in a further stage of development, are in turn united with their transpersonal correlates--wise man and prophetess, or great mother and magician (under whatever names these superordinate elements are conceived. ...The subject is by no means simple, but it amply repays careful study.
b. Alchemical Imagination: Making Psyche Matter
We should now proceed to find a neutral, or unitarian, language in which every concept we use is applicable as well to the unconscious as to matter, in order to overcome this wrong view that the unconscious psyche and matter are two things. --Professor Wolfgang Pauli
In the alchemical search for the God-head in matter (Kether in Malkuth), Paracelsus contended that matter was a living counterpart of the creating deity. A system of correspondences is the foundation of alchemy. The conception of a primal event manifested in different fields is fundamental to alchemy. The process in the retort vessel is analogous to the process of transformation of the psyche. Through alchemy, we can perceive the parallels between microcosm, universe, and man. Alchemy is based on the assumption that the equation world = man = God is Truth.
The metaphysical perception of alchemy grew in the Jungian school of psychology. It emphasizes the process of psychological transformation. This is the Opus, or Great Work of alchemy. It is given this appellation because that which "works" is that which has the power to transform. The experiments are performed on oneself. This renews the alchemical philosophy which is primarily concerned with the union of psyche and matter.
There is an indissoluble unity in alchemy between theory and practice. They are explicate aspects (which are experienced through a metaphorical sensory perception) of the Quest, or attainment of immortality through the union of opposites. Thus, the goal of the Opus is precisely this union, which is known as the Philosopher's Stone, Royal Marriage, or Unus Mundus (experience of one world view uniting psyche/body/spirit).
Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man", his intentions take on profound significance. They can now influence the destiny of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Diamond Body.
Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth via the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The sacred marriage is characterized as the union of the Sun (+0 and Moon (-). These polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative; male-female; god-devil; spirit-matter; father-mother; etc. The sacred marriage, or coniunctio, creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image (implicate order) of a magical or divine child.
There is an inherent paradox in alchemy: all the while stressing redemption of the physical body, or matter, alchemy is actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis (magical child = body of light).
This central problem in alchemy is the spiritual redemption of the physical body. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge one encounters is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values. This develops awareness of the ordering processes inherent in matter. The solution is to visualize the physical body as a metaphor for psychic transformation.
...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you. Instead of treating it like a dead object to be thrown into a vessel and then cooked in order to see what came out, you could just as well take a block of iron, for instance, and ask it what it was, what its kind of life was, what it was doing, how it felt when melted.
But since all these materials are within you, you can also contact them directly and in that way they contacted what we would now call the collective unconscious, which to them was also projected into the inner aspect of their own bodies. They consulted these powers directly through what they called meditation and therefore most of these introverted alchemists always stressed the fact that one should not only experiment outwardly but should always insert phases of introversion with prayer and meditation and a kind of yoga.
With yoga meditation you try to get the right hypothesis, or information, about what you are doing or about the materials. Or you can, for instance, talk to quicksilver, or to iron, and if you talk to quicksilver and iron then naturally the unconscious fills up the gap by a personification. Then Mercury appears to you and tells you who the sun God is. A power, the soul of Gold, appears and tells you who and what it is. (16)
So, we see that basically the dynamic impulses of the original alchemists and modern physicists is the same. Namely, to find out all that is possible about how God works.
This Opus, or Work, is understood as taking place in a sealed retort vessel. The nature of this vessel is the origin of the common-use term, "Hermetically sealed." This containment insures that none of the ingredients will be lost, and also provides a container in which the contents are slowly heated, or cooked (calcinatio). The initial material (prima materia) then goes through several stages of transformation, defined as operations. These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts. Most, however, include sublimatio (seperating), and coniunctio (uniting). There are also operations of circulating, multiplying, and reiterating.
The meditatio, or meditation, consists of inner dialogue with the alchemical figures: Saturn=lead; Luna=silver; Sol=gold; Mercury=quicksilver; Venus=copper; Mars=iron; Jupiter=tin. Because the process of alchemy does not extend into God-Realization. This does not exclude this from occurring through God's grace, however. Then Kether is in Malkuth, the beginning (prima materia) and end (ultima materia) are One. In alchemy, the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World acts as the soul-guide to the highest region. We experience An-imaginal (Anima-ginal) Reality.
[INSERT PICTURE; ULTIMA MATERIA]
Always remember that the body is of vital importance in any alchemical operation. To transcend somewhere out of the body is not alchemical practice; rather, imagine the body NOWHERE, or now-here. Alchemy is ...a physiological mythology juxtaposed with a cosmogonic mythology. In between is the psyche itself-the arcane substance, the subjective factor-which achieves a personified level in the divinities of mythology. It is the psyche's own image-making activity, its self-creation through symbols, that is central to this model. It represents a process of the "psychization of instinct," the transformation of instinctual and biophysical phenomena into psychic experience.
These phenomena can then to a certain extent be brought within the range of conscious will and reason. In this process instinct loses some of its primordial autonomy. It is an opus contra naturam, so to speak...Alchemy accordingly gives us a model for the psychology of projection; it points at once "upward" and "downward." It is radically symbolic in its insistence on the "arcanum." And finally, in the obligation it imposed for the careful elaboration of theoria, it included the formation of apperceptive concepts and symbols as a fundamental part of the opus.
Psychic reality means to be in soul, through embodiment (soma) or enlivenment (psyche)--perceiving images viscerally and mentally. Acknowledgement of this force does not constitute Goddess worship--only recognition of the archetypal nature of reality, and the archetypal reality of nature, and our own nature. She is a way of reclaiming the divinity of body, matter, and world. This notion is part of the cultural return of the Feminine.
Jungian analyst, James Hillman invites us into this world: Let us imagine the anima mundi neither above the world encircling it as a divine and remote emanation of spirit, a world of powers, archetypes, and principles transcendent to things, nor within the material world as its unifying panpsychic life-principle. Rather let us imagine the anima mundi as that particular soul-spark, the seminal image, which offers itself through each thing in its visible form. Then anima mundi indicates the animated possibilities presented by each event as it is, its sensuous presentation as face bespeaking its interior image--in short, its availability to imagination, its presence as a psychic reality. Not only animals and plants ensouled as in the Romantic vision, but soul is given with each thing; God-given things of nature and man-made things of the street.
This resurrection of the soul of the world means a raising of consciousness of created things, the world's psychic reality. Physical reality becomes psychic, and psyche becomes real--it "matters." The difference between soul and external things no longer matters. Inner and outer world are both real and in fact One World. Image, metaphor and symbol bridge the abyss between matter and spirit. Images are the subtle net that unites symbols. They are integrated with feeling, mind and imagination. We can see soul in all natural objects. We can notice our fantasies constantly conditioning our experience of reality. Knowledge of spirit doesn't come from ideas, even revelations, but through a reflective process.
Jung spent the better part of the end of his life studying the subject of alchemy. In typical "Jungian" style, his interest in alchemy developed from a vivid dream. Jung was amazed to find that the images and operations he encountered in the old alchemy texts related strongly to his theories of psychoanalysis and the unconscious. Therefore, his main research project at the culmination of his career was around this topic of alchemy and how it related to the process of consciousness. Jung saw in alchemy a metaphor of the process of individuation.
Jung elaborated most of his alchemical analysis of the psyche in three major volumes of his Collected Works. They include Alchemical Studies, Psychology and Alchemy, and the final volume Mysterium Coniunctionis. Since the publication of these there have been other works of interest produced by notable Jungian analysts. Among these are the following:
1). Foremost are the works of Marie-Louise vonFranz. Her works include Alchemical Active Imagination, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, Number and Time, and Alchemy; An Introduction to the Symbolism and its Psychology, to name but a few.
2). Edward Edinger has given us the classical text, Ego and Archetype plus Anatomy of the Psyche.
Other contributors include Henry Corbin with Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, on Arabic alchemy, M. Esther Harding's Psychic Energy, Robert Grinnell's Alchemy in a Modern Woman, and Edward Whitmont's Psyche and Substance. Some of the most recent work has been done by avante garde psychologist James Hillman. He is director of the Dallas Institute which specializes in Jungian Studies. His works appear in Spring, the Journal for Archetypal Psychology, and include pieces on the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World, and articles such as "Silver and the White Earth." As its title suggests, Spring originated as a voice for archetypal psychology, but now most articles are in the perspective of Imaginal Psychology.
Then there are the classical texts of alchemy, themselves. Among these number such as The Book of Lambspring, Aurora Consurgens, Codicillus (by Raymond Lully), Splendor Solis, Theatrum Chemicum, and The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly. Liber Azoth and De Natura Rerum (among others) by Paracelsus. Other classics include The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkrutz and Rosarium Philosophorum which Jung used to illustrate his work The Psychology of the Transference. Finally, there are the modern translations of older works by A. E. Waite which include Turba Philosophorum, The Hermetic Museum, Lexicon of Alchemy, and The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus.
Even newer are the compendiums such as The Secret Art of Alchemy by Stanislas Klossowski De Rola and Alchemist's Handbook by Frater Albertus. Another Jungian contribution is Mircea Eliade's The Forge & the Crucible. For the lesser known treatises, Jung's bibliographies are a gold mine. Jung also wrote the forward to the Taoist classic on alchemy, The Secret of the Golden Flower.
Most of us, unfamiliar with the subtle nuances of alchemical practice, view it as the historical predecessor of some of our modern sciences, like medicine, chemistry, metallurgy, etc. But, according to Jung's research, it seems to be much, much more. It is a curious fact that there is no single alchemy for us to examine. It is a cross-cultural phenomena which has been practiced in various forms by ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Christian Europeans, and the Islamic, Hindu and Taoist faiths. All of these use symbols to depict a process of transformation, whether this process is thought to occur inside (introverted) or outside (extroverted) of the human body. Although there are many types of alchemy, the main split seems to be between material (extroverted) and spiritual (introverted) alchemies. The deciding factor is the direction of the practitioner's creativity.
In his book, The Alchemical Tradition in the Late Twentieth Century, Richard Grossinger summarizes the basic components of the different alchemies, which he dubs 'planet science.' These include the following:
1. A theory of nature as made up of primary elements.
2. A belief in the gradual evolution and transformation of substance.
3. A system for inducing transmutation.
4. The imitation of nature by a gentle technology.
5. The faith that one's inner being is changed by participation in external chemical experiments.
6. A general system of synchronistic correspondences between planets, herbs, minerals, species of animals, signs and symbols, parts of the body, etc., known as the Doctrine of Signatures.
7. Gold as the completed and perfected form of the metals, in specific, and substance in general (Alchemy is the attempt to transmute other substances into gold, however that attempt is understood and carried out).
8. The existence of a paradoxical form of matter, sometimes called The Philosopher's Stone (the lapis), which can be used in making gold or in brewing elixirs and medicines that have universal curative powers.
9. A method of symbolism working on the simultaneity of a series of complementary pairs: Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, etc.
10. The search for magical texts that come from a time when the human race was closer to the source of things or are handed down from higher intelligences, extra-terrestrials, guardians, or their immediate familiars during some Golden Age. These texts deal with the creation or synthesis of matter and are a blueprint for physical experimentation in a cosmic context (as well as for personal development). They have been reinterpreted in terms of the Earth's different epochs and nationalities.
11. In the Occident, alchemy is early inductive experimental science and is closely allied with metallurgy, pharmacy, industrial chemistry, and coinage.
12. In the Orient, alchemy is a system of meditation in which one's body is understood as elementally and harmonically equivalent to the field of creation. (Between East and West, the body may be thought of as a microcosm of nature, with its own deposits of seeds, elixirs, and mineral substances).
13. Alchemy is joined to astrology in a set of meanings that arise from the correspondences of planets, metals, and parts of the body, and the overall belief in a cosmic timing that permeates nature.
Thus, alchemy deals fundamentally with the basic mysteries of life as well as with transcendental mysticism. But its approach is neither abstract nor theoretical, but experimental, in nature.
Just who were the alchemists, and why are their contributions important to us today? The alchemists were the leading explorers of consciousness in medieval times, and their research led to a vast improvement in the conditions of human life. Among the more famous are Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, Nicholas Flammel, and Sir Isaac Newton. Their contributions not only improved the lives of their contemporaries, but influenced the thought of many philosophers if the same and later eras, such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas a Kempis, John Dee, Johannes Kepler, Thomas Vaughn, Bishop Berkeley, Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, and Geothe.
The contributions of these eminent alchemists are staggering: Albertus Magnus, alone, wrote eight books on physics, six on psychology, eight on astronomy, twenty-six on zoology, five on minerals, one on geography, and three on life in general from an Aristotelian point-of-view. He was a Dominican friar who was canonized a saint in 1931.
Paracelsus was a Swiss born in 1493. His accomplishments were many and include being the first modern medical scientist. He fathered the sciences of microchemistry, antisepsis, modern wound surgery, and homeopathy. He wrote the first medical literature on the causes and treatment of syphilis and epilepsy, as well as books on illness derived from adverse working conditions.
Notwithstanding this accurate scientific bent, his work is in close accord with the mystical alchemical tradition. He wrote on furies in sleep, on ghosts appearing after death, on gnomes in mines and underground, of nymphs, pygmies, and magical salamanders. His word view was animistic.
Invisible forces were always at work and the physician had to constantly be aware of this fourth dimension in which he was moving. He utilized various techniques for divination and astrology as well as magical amulets, talismans, and incantations. He believed in a vital force which radiated around every man like a luminous sphere and which could be made to act at a distance. He is also credited with the early use of what we now know as hypnotism. He believed that there was a star in each man. (Mishlove). This sentiment was echoed by 19th century magician and alchemist, Aleister Crowley, who said, "Every man and every woman is a star." This alludes to the essential Self.
Kepler developed the laws of planetary motion. But he developed his theories on the basis of explorations into the dimly lit archetypal regions of man's mind as surely as on his mathematical observations of the planetary motions. He was clearly a student in the tradition of earlier mystic-scientist such as Pythagoras and Paracelsus. Thomas Vaughn, Robert Fludd and Sir Frances Bacon number among the 17th century Rosicrucians, who practiced not only alchemy, but also other hermetic arts and the qabala.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a mathematical genius, as well as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He discovered the binomial theorem, invented differential calculus, made the first calculations of the moon's attraction by the earth and described the laws of motion of classical mechanics, and formulated the theory of universal gravitation. He was very careful not to publish anything which was not firmly supported by experimental proofs or geometrical demonstration thus he exemplified and ushered in the Age of Reason.
However, if we look at Newton's own personal notes and diaries, over a million works in his own handwriting, a startlingly different picture of the man emerges. Newton was an alchemist. He devoted himself to such endeavors as the transmutation of metals, the philosopher's stone, and the elixir of life. He was intensely introspective and had great mental endurance. He solved problems intuitively and dressed them up in logical proofs afterwards. He, himself, was astounded by the startling nature of his own theories. Gravity is a problem that still hasn't been dealt with satisfactorily by scientists.
His followers, however, emphasized his mechanistic view of the universe to the exclusion of his religious and alchemical views. In a sense, their action ushered in a controversy in psychical research which has existed ever since. Since Newton's time, all discoveries suggesting the presence of a spiritual force which transcended time or space were ironically considered to be a violation of Newton's Laws--even though Newton himself held these very beliefs!
It is interesting to note, that today scientists actually can turn small amounts of lead into gold through particle acceleration, since they are only one atomic weight apart. Despite the advances in science, the "unknown" is still projected into the realm of matter, and the alchemical quest continues. Science is still debating over what is physical, what is psychic and what is metapsychic. VonFranz, in Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology, states that "In Western cultural history the transpsychic has been described sometimes as "spirit" sometimes as "matter."
Theologians and philosophers are more concerned with the former, physicists with the later."
Von Franz points out that "what was once regarded as the opposition between spirit and matter turns up again in contemporary physics as a discussion of the relation between consciousness (or "Mind") and matter." It bears on such questions as the bias of the observer, and the theories of relativity, probability, synchronicity, not to mention the whole field of parapsychology. Jung really returned us to the alchemistic viewpoint when he said, in Aion:
Sooner or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious will draw closely together as both of them independently of one another and from opposite directions, push forward into transcendental territory. ...Psyche cannot be totally different from matter for how otherwise could it move matter?
And matter cannot be alien to psyche, for how else could matter produce psyche? Psyche and matter exist in the same world, and each partakes of the other, otherwise any reciprocal action would be impossible. If research could only advance far enough, therefore, we should arrive at an ultimate agreement between physical and psychological concepts. Our present attempts may be bold, but I believe they are on the right lines.
As VonFranz notes, "There is therefore no concept fundamental to modern physics that is not in one degree or another a differentiated form of some primordial archetypal idea." These include our concepts of time, space, energy, the field of force, particle theory, and chemical affinity.
Laws in physics are subject to scientific revolutions and there has been a major breakthrough in paradigm shifts about every 20 years, or each generation. VonFranz says, "As soon as an archetypal idea that has been serving as a model no longer coincides with the observed facts of the external world, it is dropped or its origin in the psyche is recognized. This process always coincides...with the upward thrust of a new thought-model from the unconscious to the threshold of consciousness."
This is basically the process of weeding out "scientific errors." "...scarcely a thought is given to what they might mean, psychologically, once they are no longer fit to serve as a model in describing the outer world." This certainly happened to alchemy, until Jung revived an interest in it. "It is only today, when we know that the assumptions of the observer decisively precondition the total results, that the question is becoming acute." Physicists have become increasingly conscious of the extent to which psychological circumstances influence their results.
Other experimental-minded persons have sought the mysteries of life and divinity within their own bodies, since ancient times. Whether known as Yogis or Adepts, their goal was basically the same, as we shall see.
Some modern schools of the Hermetic Arts see an identity between medieval European alchemy and the eastern practice of Yoga. They see a metaphysical or symbol correspondence between the planetary and metallurgical attributions of alchemy and the chakras. Yoga is also experimental in nature. The qualities of the metals correspond to the planets and chakras as follows:
Lead Saturn Sacral Plexus
Iron Mars Prostatic Ganglion
Tin Jupiter Solar Plexus
Gold Sun Cardiac Plexus
Copper Venus Pharyngeal Plexus
Silver Moon Pituitary Body
Quicksilver Mercury Pineal Gland
Alchemy is not concerned exclusively with consciousness, but also seeds the subtle transformation of the body, so that the physical level is also brought into perfect equilibrium. Thus, the alchemical metals may be considered analogous to the chakras of the yogis. We can draw another parallel among the three major principles of Alchemy and those of Yoga, which are known as the Gunas.
Mercury..........Sattva
Sulphur............Rajas
Salt.................Tamas
The quality of Mercury is vital and reflective; it equates with the spiritual principles of goodness and intelligence; Sattva guna is illuminative. The quality of Sulphur is fiery and passionate like the principle of Rajas, which incites desire, attachment, and action. The quality of Salt is arrestive and binding, and reflects the gross inertia of matter, which is much like Tamas. These gunas and the three alchemical substances symbolize spirit, soul and body. Another "alchemical" way the gunas were applied concerns food: sattvic foods incline one toward meditation and the spiritual life (fruits, vegetables, and grains); rajasic foods are stimulating (i.e. spicy food); tamasic food incites the baser instincts (animal flesh).
The concept of four basic elements, harmonized in a fifth, is also common to both alchemy and yoga doctrine. The Indian elements are known as Tattvas. They are: Akasha (quintessence; Tejas or Agni (fire); Apas (water); Vayu (air); Prithivi (earth). Furthermore, the preparation for the practice of both alchemy and yoga requires a moral or ethical preparation. Both stress that evil tendencies should be overcome while positive virtues are developed. This includes both behavior and the purification of the various body centers. The objective is not wealth, but health or wholeness.
Alchemy also speaks of a "secret fire", which is often compared to a serpent or dragon. Here again, we find the correspondence to Kundalini, the serpent-power. Alchemy is performed by the aid of Mercury, the illuminative principle, and the powers of the sun and moon. The yogic system works in three channels in the subtle body of man. One equates with the sun, another with the moon. They are called ida and pingala. The third, or harmonizing channel, is known as sushumna, and is associated with illumination.
The yogi seeks to arouse the latent power of the Kundalini serpent so it rises up the chakra centers until it opens the third eye of mystical vision and illumination. Alchemists apply slow heat to their alchemical vessel to sublimate and refine the contents therein. The yogis use breath control, the alchemist bellows to control the fire.
Interestingly, yogis have breath exercises called "breath of fire" and "the bellows."
In summary, the points of correspondence resulting in the alchemical production of a new kind of human being (one made hale or whole) are as follows:
1. Both systems agree that all things are expressions of one fundamental energy.
2. Both affirm that all things combine three qualities: a. Wisdom, Sattva, superconsciousness or Mercury; b. Desire, Rajas, compulsion or Sulpher; c. Inertia, Tamas, darkness, or Salt.
3. Both recognize five modes of expression: Akasha, Spirit or the quintessence; Tejas or Agni (fire); Apas (water); Vayu (air); Prithivi (earth).
4. Both systems mention seven principle vehicles of activity, called chakras by yogis, and metals by alchemists.
5. Both say there is a secret force, fiery in quality, which is to be raised from one chakra or metal to another, until the power of all seven is sublimated in the higher.
6. Yoga says 1) Prana or Surya, sun, 2) Rayim, moon, and 3) Sattva, wisdom are the three main agencies in the work (or ida, pingala and sushumna). Alchemy says the whole operation is a work of the sun and moon, aided by Mercury.
7. Both systems stress preparation by establishing physical purity and ethical freedom from lust, avarice, vanity, attachment, anger and other anti-social tendencies.
8. Both allege that success enables the adepts to exercise extraordinary powers, to heal all diseases, and to control all the forces of nature so as to exert a determining influence on circumstances.
In short, what both alchemist and yogi do is 1). to recognize what goes on in his body, and 2). to use his knowledge of the control exerted over subconscious processed by self-consciousness to form a definite intention that this body-building function shall act with maximum efficiency creating increased vitality. This supercharge of libido then wakens the spiritual vision of the pineal gland to full activity. The Great Work of alchemy consists of stabilizing the vision of Light into a full realization. The by-product is that the body-building power of the subconscious changes the alchemist himself into a new creature.
Jung asserted that the medieval alchemists were unaware of the natural process of psychological transformation which went on in their subconscious. Therefore, they projected this process into their experiments. In other words, they projected an inner process outside of themselves. Had they been more conscious in their intent, or more sophisticated in their psychology like the yogis, they would have been more consistently successful.
But why is a study of alchemy relevant to our modern lives? We are not daily occupied in pseudo-alchemical experiments like the alchemists, or are we? In many metaphorical ways we are thinking like alchemists all the time. Also, Jung observed that the dreams of his clients repeatedly stressed the main alchemical themes, especially the conflict and union of opposites. The alchemical symbolism is widespread in dreams if modern individuals, and can shed light on these more primitive aspects of our subconscious life. It is important for our understanding of our own unconscious.
In Alchemical Active Imagination, VonFranz states:
True knowledge of oneself is the knowledge of the objective psyche as it manifests in dreams and in the manifestations of the unconscious. Only by looking at dreams, for instance, can one see who one truly is; they tell us who we really are, that is something which is objectively there. To meditate on that is an effort towards self-knowledge, because that is scientific and objective and not in the interest of the ego but in the interest of "what I am" objectively. It is knowledge of the Self, of the wider, objective personality.
We could view alchemy as an antique form of therapy, which originally had the meaning 'to heal,' and the implication of 'service to the gods.' Psychotherapy basically means service to the psyche, and offers us a way to reconnect with our unconscious, thus experiencing wholeness. It also opens an avenue to increased physical health, since those ailments which remain unconscious often manifest as psychosomatic diseases. If we become conscious of the source of the dis-ease, it dissipates. Knowledge of alchemy's symbolism can lead us to psychological insight in terms of our own condition, especially that reflected in dreams.
Alchemy may be carried out as either a physical or mental operation. The Jungian orientation is primarily mental, though it might take a physical form. For example, you might choose to ritually "act out" certain aspects of the Great Work in active imagination.
The Jungian interpretation that alchemy is a passive and unconscious process comes from a basically mental, or Greek orientation. The type of alchemy that aims at rejuvenating or preserving the physical body is descended from the physically-oriented Egyptian alchemy. The main traditions of conscious, inner spiritual alchemy come mainly from the Islamic and Oriental philosophies.
Jung's original interest in alchemy came from a dream he had of a library filled with arcane tomes from medieval times and the Renaissance. During the next 15 years he spent collecting this library, he learned to recognize the major symbols of the unconscious. He was reading about them in alchemy books and hearing about them in his patients' dreams and fantasies. Their projections told him of an inner quest, a sealed vessel, the conflict of opposites, a philosophical tree, a fountain of eternity, a golden flower, a Stone, a sacred wedding, etc.
Slowly Jung familiarized himself with their alchemical meaning. Then he, himself, became a living symbol of the healing power of the Philosopher's Stone. In his case this power manifested as the ability to heal on the mental level--in other words, to release any blocks hindering the natural process of growth and transformation. When proceeding in the direction of their individuation with self-realization. We should be careful here not to dichotomize between "mental" and "physical" too much or we will lose our proper alchemical perspective. Alchemy cannot be reduced to a metaphor of psychological or philosophical transformation--it requires first-hand experimentation.
Grossinger says that "what Carl Jung recognized was that the stages if the alchemists also corresponded to a process of psychological individuation. The psychic stages were as precise and rigorous as the chemical ones by which they became imaginal. Furthermore, they generated a physical and even quantitative terminology for an undiagnosed tension of opposites in the human psyche arising from male and female archetypes, a struggle they sought to resolve by the creative unity of the chemicals in the Stone. " Alchemy sought to unite Spirit (male), and Matter (female) through a Royal Union (coniunctio) to create their synthesis in the homunculus, hermaphrodite, or lapis. This is an alchemical metaphor of the process of spiritual rebirth.
The entire body of alchemical literature covers many variations on the theme of the Great Work. No single person will ever express all of the operations and symbols described in alchemy, just as no single person ever embodies the totality of the Self.
We each have unique experiences of the common roots of humanity or the collective unconscious. Thus, the various operations of alchemy come in different order for the various practitioners. The alchemical writings seem to contradict one another about the evolution of the process. Likewise, in dreams, we sometimes find the symbols of the end-product (like a mandala, or flower, or child) appearing at the beginning of the process. They symbolize what is latent and seeks manifestation.
Nevertheless in both alchemy and Jungian psychology there are classic stages in the process of individuation or personal experience of the unconscious. One major recurrent theme in modern dreams is the symbolism of the planets, which correspond with the alchemical metals. These metals, or planets (astrology), or Spheres (QBL) can be understood psychologically as the building blocks of the ego, which forms itself from fragments of these divine, archetypal qualities. These spiritual principles seek concretization through the unique experience of an individual ego. This links spirit and matter.
The sacredness of the Opus, or Great Work, is the central idea behind alchemy. One must be self-oriented, rather than ego-oriented. The adept is also diligent, patient and virtuous. In other words, in order to create the Stone, you must have the potential within yourself for self-realization--for becoming whole or 'holy.' It requires an inward seeking, just like the process of individuation. It is a solitary talk for no one may follow where you go. But there may be guides who will help inspire your faith and dedication to the task. Others have been to the territory you will explore, but none will accompany you.
The secret of alchemy is that it is a personal journey of transformation, and cannot be explained but only experienced. It is "eating the dish", not just reading about it in an alchemical cookbook. Its effects must be channeled into spiritual growth, for if alchemy is used to gratify personal desire the work is lost. This means the ego gets inflated with its own importance when the real power source lies within the Self. This naturally produces a regression back into an unconscious state, back to the prima materia. The instinctual urge for growth and transformation lies within us. For this urge to be considered evolutional requires that the ego must cooperate quite deliberately and consciously with the Self. This leads toward self-realization.
The main purpose of the Opus is "to create a transcendent, miraculous substance which is variously symbolized as the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, or the universal medicine (panacea). The procedure is, first, to find the suitable material, the so-called prima materia, and then to subject it to a series of operations which will turn it into the Philosopher's Stone." (Edinger, 1978).
The First Matter is a homogenous unity of Mercury, Sulpher and Salt. It is therefore 'three,' but can also be expressed as 'four' elements, which are again essentially 'one.' Jung felt that the secret of the psyche was contained in this question of the 'three' and the 'four.' In alchemy it is expressed as the axiom of Maria Prophetissa: "Therefore the Hebrew prophetess cried without restraint: 'one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the One as the fourth.'" Today, physicists echo this statement when they call 'plasma' both the fourth and first state of matter (the others being liquid, gas and solid).
In Jungian psychology, the prima materia is the original undifferentiated condition of ordinary consciousness, which is really unconsciousness. Mystics of all times have repeated that in the ordinary state we are all asleep or even "dead" to the true Reality. In psychology the four-fold nature of the prima materia is expressed by the four functions which correspond with the alchemical elements: intuition (fire), thinking (air), feeling (water), and sensation (earth). In Jungian theory we have a dominant function and limited access to one or two others, but the fourth function is inaccessible, maladapted or hard to integrate. It is what keeps us from "getting it all together." Thus, we are out-of-balance.
Balancing the four functions means achieving an integrated personality, balance, and high well-being. This requires undergoing a symbolic process of the union of opposites, which is what both alchemy and Jungian analysis are all about. Both alchemy and Jungian psychology require a period of depth analysis (solutio) to distinguish the original, undifferentiated contents.
The ego learns what part of the personality comes from itself and which parts from the Self. It reflects on its own components parts (subpersonalities) and learns to see itself as a small part of a greater whole, the larger unity of the Self. Edinger says, "The fixed, settled aspects of the personality which are rigid and static are reduced or led back to their original, undifferentiated condition as part of the process of psychic transformation," i.e. back to a state of 'innocence.'
Further, Edinger compares the problem of discovering the prima materia to the problem of finding what to work on in psychotherapy. He gives some hints:
(1) It is ubiquitous, to be found everywhere, before the eyes of all. This means that psychotherapeutic material likewise is everywhere, in all the ordinary, everyday occurrences of life. Moods and petty personal reactions of all kinds are suitable matter to be worked on by the therapeutic process.
(2) Although of great inward value, the prima materia is vile in outer appearance and therefore despised, rejected and thrown on the dung heap. The prima materia is treated like the suffering servant in Isaiah. Psychologically, this means that the prima materia is found in the shadow, that part of the personality which is considered most despicable. Those aspects of ourselves most painful and most humiliating are the very ones to be brought forward and worked on.
(3) It appears as a multiplicity, "has as many names as there are things," but at the same time is one. This feature corresponds to the fact that initially psychotherapy makes one aware of his fragmented, disjointed condition. Very gradually these warring fragments are discovered to be differing aspects of ones underlying unity. It is as though one sees the fingers of a hand touching a table at first only in two dimensions, as separate unconnected fingers. With three-dimensional vision, the fingers are seen as part of a larger unity, the hand.
(4) The prima materia is undifferentiated, without definite boundaries, limits or form. This corresponds to a certain experience of the unconscious which exposes the ego to the infinite...It may evoke the terror of dissolution or the awe of eternity. It provides a glimpse of the pleroma,...the chaos prior to the operation of the World-creating Logos. It is the fear of the boundless that often leads one to be content with the ego-limits he has rather than risk falling into the infinite by attempting to enlarge them.
The different operations to transform the prima materia follow as the natural consequence of finding the material to work on. The imagery associated with these operations is profuse and draws from myth, religion, and folklore. The symbols for all these imagery-systems comes from the collective unconscious. There is no set number of alchemical operations, just as there is no set number or order to archetypes.
However, certain of the operations seem to recur more often in the literature and experience. We could consider these as the skeletal frame of the alchemical process. Their order switches around also. Edinger lists seven operations which seem to typify the major transformations of the alchemical process. These include: calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio, seperatio, and coniunctio. Other major operations include nigredo, albedo, rubedo, solificatio, multiplicatio, projectio, separatio, circulatio, and more.
We can detail the nature of each of these operations later. For now it is enough to grasp the overview, which is best stated by Jung, himself, in Mysterium Coniunctionis: "...the alchemist saw the essence of his art in separation and analysis [solve or solutio] on the one hand and synthesis and consolidation [coagula or coagulatio] on the other. For him there was first of all an initial state in which opposite tendencies or forces were in conflict; secondly there was the great question of a procedure which would be capable of bringing the hostile elements and qualities, once they were separated, back to unity again.
The initial state, named chaos, was not given from the start but had to be sought for as the prima materia. And just as at the beginning of the work was not self-evident, so to an even greater degree was its end. There are countless speculations on the nature of the end state, all of them reflected in it designations. The commonest are the ideas of its permanence (prolongation of life, immortality, incorruptibility), its androgyny, its spirituality and corporality, its divinity and its resemblance to man (homunculus)."
He goes on to point out what this might man psychologically. We could view it as conflicting drives originating on the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical levels creating splits in the personality.
Jung says that, "The obvious analogy, in the psychic sphere, to this problem of opposites is the dissociation of the personality brought about by the conflict of incompatible tendencies, resulting as a rule from an inharmonious disposition. The repression of one of the opposites leads only to a prolongation and extension of the conflict, in other words, to a neurosis. The therapist therefore confronts the opposites with one another and aims at uniting them permanently. The images of the goal which then appear in dreams often run parallel with the corresponding alchemical symbols."
He reiterates the value of accessing the alchemical symbolism for increasing insight. "Investigation of the alchemical symbolism, like a preoccupation with mythology, does not lead one away from life any more than a study of comparative anatomy leads away from the anatomy of the living man. On the contrary, alchemy affords us a veritable treasure-house of symbols, knowledge of which is extremely helpful for an understanding of neurotic and psychotic processes. This, in turn, enables us to apply the psychology of the unconscious to those regions in the history of the human mind which are concerned with symbolism."
Each of the operations of alchemy functions as the center of focus of an elaborate symbol-system. Other symbols which are related to the operation cluster around the theme of the operation--they share a common essence. These central symbols provide basic categories which we can use to understand our own personal psychic life, and even the transformation processes of others. Taken together, the alchemical operations illustrate almost all of the full range of experiences which are involved in the process of individuation.
As Grossinger points out, "Alchemy is thus a form of chemical research into which unresolved psychic elements were projected. The alchemical nigredo, the initial phase of the operation which produces 'black blacker than black,' is also an internal experience of melancholia, an encounter with the shadow." But this is also the necessary first stage in Jungian analysis--confronting that which has been rejected or repressed is essential to becoming whole.
This realm of the shadow can often provide more real substance for the spiritual quest than mimicking the teachings of a spiritual master without really changing oneself. Though stumbling around in the dark seems frustrating, if it is honest and heartfelt, and one really grapples with the shadow problem, the way is cleared for progress that will be sustained by a firm foundation gained in the early phases.
Throughout the alchemical process, the lapis functions as an inner guide by presenting itself in diverse symbolism. It symbolizes the growing manifestation of your latent potential for wholeness. It frequently manifests in mandala symbolism. This includes such forms as a revolving wheel or the zodiac, the petals of a magnificent flower, a diamond body, flower of life, or a serpent eating its tail. As a grand union of opposites, it symbolizes the unification of king and queen, man and wife, conscious and unconscious, personality and society, etc. in a royal union called the Marriage of the Sun and Moon in alchemy. Alchemy is a means of understanding our unconscious projections of archetypes into the world.
In "Spiritual Development as Reflected in Alchemy and Related Disciples," Rudolf Bernoulli summarizes the basics of extroverted and introverted alchemy. He says, "There are two kinds of alchemy: one strives to know the cosmos as a whole and to recreate it; it is in a sense the precursor of modern natural science. It aspires to create gold as the supreme perfection in this sphere...The other alchemy strives higher; it strives for the great wonder, the wonder of all wonders, the magic crystal, the philosopher's stone."
This is not a substance susceptible of chemical analysis. It does not represent a spiritual or psychological state that can be reduced to a clear formula. It is something more than perfection, something through which perfection can be achieved. It is the universal instrument of magic. By it we can attain to the ultimate. By it we can completely possess the world. By it we can make ourselves free from the world, by soaring above it. this is alchemy in the mystical sense...The goal is reached only when a man succeeds in creating the...stone within himself, and this is made possible only by the intervention of the 'inner master.'" i.e. the Self. --von Franz, Psychic Energy, p. 452-3
Psychologically...the union of body and spirit or of conscious and unconscious can be safely attempted only when both have undergone a purification brought about by the earlier stages of analysis, in which the conscious character and the personal unconscious are reviewed and set in order.
In the alchemistic literature there is evidence that the mysterious coniunctio took place in three stages. The first is that of the union of opposites, the double conjuntion, which chiefly concerns us here. The second stage effects a triple union, that of body, soul, and spirit; or, as it is said elsewhere, "the Trinity is reduced to a Unity."
In the Book of Lambspring, published in 1625, this triple union is represented first by two fishes swimming in the sea, pictured with the legend, "The sea is the Body, the two fishes are the Soul and the Spirit", and later by a second picture showing a deer and a unicorn in a forest, with the following text:
In the Body [the forest] there is Soul [the deer] and Spirit [the unicorn]...He that knows how to tame and master them by art, and to couple them together, may justly be called a master, for we rightly judge that he has attained the golden flesh.
The literature offers far less material about this more advanced stage of the work than about the simple coniunctio, and still less about the third stage, the union of the four elements, from which the fifth element, the "quintessence," arises.
However, Jung's latest works are largely concerned with the problems of this fourfold coniunctio, through which not only are the personal parts of the psyche--ego and anima, or ego and animus--consummated, but these, in a further stage of development, are in turn united with their transpersonal correlates--wise man and prophetess, or great mother and magician (under whatever names these superordinate elements are conceived. ...The subject is by no means simple, but it amply repays careful study.
b. Alchemical Imagination: Making Psyche Matter
We should now proceed to find a neutral, or unitarian, language in which every concept we use is applicable as well to the unconscious as to matter, in order to overcome this wrong view that the unconscious psyche and matter are two things. --Professor Wolfgang Pauli
In the alchemical search for the God-head in matter (Kether in Malkuth), Paracelsus contended that matter was a living counterpart of the creating deity. A system of correspondences is the foundation of alchemy. The conception of a primal event manifested in different fields is fundamental to alchemy. The process in the retort vessel is analogous to the process of transformation of the psyche. Through alchemy, we can perceive the parallels between microcosm, universe, and man. Alchemy is based on the assumption that the equation world = man = God is Truth.
The metaphysical perception of alchemy grew in the Jungian school of psychology. It emphasizes the process of psychological transformation. This is the Opus, or Great Work of alchemy. It is given this appellation because that which "works" is that which has the power to transform. The experiments are performed on oneself. This renews the alchemical philosophy which is primarily concerned with the union of psyche and matter.
There is an indissoluble unity in alchemy between theory and practice. They are explicate aspects (which are experienced through a metaphorical sensory perception) of the Quest, or attainment of immortality through the union of opposites. Thus, the goal of the Opus is precisely this union, which is known as the Philosopher's Stone, Royal Marriage, or Unus Mundus (experience of one world view uniting psyche/body/spirit).
Paracelsus described alchemy as the voluntary action of man in harmony with the involuntary action of nature. If the center of the creative process takes place in the "heart of man", his intentions take on profound significance. They can now influence the destiny of the cosmos. Attainment of this state is known as the production of the Diamond Body.
Alchemy strives for the experience of spiritual rebirth via the union of opposites, or the sacred marriage. The sacred marriage is characterized as the union of the Sun (+0 and Moon (-). These polarized positions may be symbolized variously as positive-negative; male-female; god-devil; spirit-matter; father-mother; etc. The sacred marriage, or coniunctio, creates a bond by which opposites are united in an image which transcends both original potentials. The whole art of alchemy is contained within the image (implicate order) of a magical or divine child.
There is an inherent paradox in alchemy: all the while stressing redemption of the physical body, or matter, alchemy is actively striving toward creation of a subtle, immortal body, which has no apparent physical basis (magical child = body of light).
This central problem in alchemy is the spiritual redemption of the physical body. Alchemy requires resurrection of the soul of body. The challenge one encounters is to "see through" to a unified vision of mundane physical processes with spiritual values. This develops awareness of the ordering processes inherent in matter. The solution is to visualize the physical body as a metaphor for psychic transformation.
...the mystery of the structure of the universe, was in themselves, in their own bodies and in that part of the personality which we call the unconscious, but they would say in the life of their own material existence...They thought that instead of taking outer materials you could just as well look inside and get information directly from that mystery because you were it. After all, you too were a part of the mystery of cosmic existence, so you could just as well watch it directly. Even further, you could ask matter, the mystery of which you consist, to tell you what it is, to reveal itself to you. Instead of treating it like a dead object to be thrown into a vessel and then cooked in order to see what came out, you could just as well take a block of iron, for instance, and ask it what it was, what its kind of life was, what it was doing, how it felt when melted.
But since all these materials are within you, you can also contact them directly and in that way they contacted what we would now call the collective unconscious, which to them was also projected into the inner aspect of their own bodies. They consulted these powers directly through what they called meditation and therefore most of these introverted alchemists always stressed the fact that one should not only experiment outwardly but should always insert phases of introversion with prayer and meditation and a kind of yoga.
With yoga meditation you try to get the right hypothesis, or information, about what you are doing or about the materials. Or you can, for instance, talk to quicksilver, or to iron, and if you talk to quicksilver and iron then naturally the unconscious fills up the gap by a personification. Then Mercury appears to you and tells you who the sun God is. A power, the soul of Gold, appears and tells you who and what it is. (16)
So, we see that basically the dynamic impulses of the original alchemists and modern physicists is the same. Namely, to find out all that is possible about how God works.
This Opus, or Work, is understood as taking place in a sealed retort vessel. The nature of this vessel is the origin of the common-use term, "Hermetically sealed." This containment insures that none of the ingredients will be lost, and also provides a container in which the contents are slowly heated, or cooked (calcinatio). The initial material (prima materia) then goes through several stages of transformation, defined as operations. These are not always presented in the same sequence in alchemical texts. Most, however, include sublimatio (seperating), and coniunctio (uniting). There are also operations of circulating, multiplying, and reiterating.
The meditatio, or meditation, consists of inner dialogue with the alchemical figures: Saturn=lead; Luna=silver; Sol=gold; Mercury=quicksilver; Venus=copper; Mars=iron; Jupiter=tin. Because the process of alchemy does not extend into God-Realization. This does not exclude this from occurring through God's grace, however. Then Kether is in Malkuth, the beginning (prima materia) and end (ultima materia) are One. In alchemy, the Anima Mundi, or Soul of the World acts as the soul-guide to the highest region. We experience An-imaginal (Anima-ginal) Reality.
[INSERT PICTURE; ULTIMA MATERIA]
Always remember that the body is of vital importance in any alchemical operation. To transcend somewhere out of the body is not alchemical practice; rather, imagine the body NOWHERE, or now-here. Alchemy is ...a physiological mythology juxtaposed with a cosmogonic mythology. In between is the psyche itself-the arcane substance, the subjective factor-which achieves a personified level in the divinities of mythology. It is the psyche's own image-making activity, its self-creation through symbols, that is central to this model. It represents a process of the "psychization of instinct," the transformation of instinctual and biophysical phenomena into psychic experience.
These phenomena can then to a certain extent be brought within the range of conscious will and reason. In this process instinct loses some of its primordial autonomy. It is an opus contra naturam, so to speak...Alchemy accordingly gives us a model for the psychology of projection; it points at once "upward" and "downward." It is radically symbolic in its insistence on the "arcanum." And finally, in the obligation it imposed for the careful elaboration of theoria, it included the formation of apperceptive concepts and symbols as a fundamental part of the opus.
Alchemy 15th century Forma Speculi Trinitae- in the center two men crown a woman, beneath is a shield on which a woman supports the crucified body of Christ; at the four corners are the symbols of the Evangelists, Rhymed explanations in red & black; some also in Latin.
Continuing with the alchemical stage of "Nigredo":
Inferno Canto I:1-60 The Dark Wood and the Hill
In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.
I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer.
And as a man, who, with panting breath, has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns back towards the perilous waters and stares, so my mind, still fugitive, turned back to see that pass again, that no living person ever left.
After I had rested my tired body a while, I made my way again over empty ground, always bearing upwards to the right. And, behold, almost at the start of the slope, a light swift leopard with spotted coat. It would not turn from before my face, and so obstructed my path, that I often turned, in order to return.
The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with all those stars, that were with him when Divine Love first moved all delightful things, so that the hour of day, and the sweet season, gave me fair hopes of that creature with the bright pelt. But not so fair that I could avoid fear at the sight of a lion, that appeared, and seemed to come at me, with raised head and rabid hunger, so that it seemed the air itself was afraid; and a she-wolf that looked full of craving in its leanness, and, before now, has made many men live in sadness.
She brought me such heaviness of fear, from the aspect of her face, that I lost all hope of ascending. And as one who is eager for gain, weeps, and is afflicted in his thoughts, if the moment arrives when he loses, so that creature, without rest, made me like him: and coming at me, little by little, drove me back to where the sun is silent.
Inferno Canto I:1-60 The Dark Wood and the Hill
In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.
I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer.
And as a man, who, with panting breath, has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns back towards the perilous waters and stares, so my mind, still fugitive, turned back to see that pass again, that no living person ever left.
After I had rested my tired body a while, I made my way again over empty ground, always bearing upwards to the right. And, behold, almost at the start of the slope, a light swift leopard with spotted coat. It would not turn from before my face, and so obstructed my path, that I often turned, in order to return.
The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with all those stars, that were with him when Divine Love first moved all delightful things, so that the hour of day, and the sweet season, gave me fair hopes of that creature with the bright pelt. But not so fair that I could avoid fear at the sight of a lion, that appeared, and seemed to come at me, with raised head and rabid hunger, so that it seemed the air itself was afraid; and a she-wolf that looked full of craving in its leanness, and, before now, has made many men live in sadness.
She brought me such heaviness of fear, from the aspect of her face, that I lost all hope of ascending. And as one who is eager for gain, weeps, and is afflicted in his thoughts, if the moment arrives when he loses, so that creature, without rest, made me like him: and coming at me, little by little, drove me back to where the sun is silent.
Jung on the history of the “Hermetic Vessel.”
Lecture I X 17th January, 1941
In the last lecture we spoke of the miraculous substance which the alchemists strove to produce.
I can only define it as an optimum of life.
It seems to me, that this definition is, in a sense, further justified by the fact that most of the alchemists were doctors, at any rate in the Middle Ages.
The professions of doctor and apothecary had not yet been separated, so the doctor prepared his medicaments in his own laboratory.
In this way he naturally became well acquainted with the components then used and interested in their nature, working of course from the standpoint of the well-being of the human species and the curing of
illness.
This is the reason why we are often confronted with the fact that the theoria of alchemy, or Hermetic philosophy, is really a medical philosophy, in that the healing quality of the substance,
which the alchemists were searching for, is frequently emphasised.
It is called an elixir of life, a wonderful aurum potabile (drinkable gold), a panacea, a healing drink, and so on, and it is capable of curing all diseases, not only of the body, but more especially of the mind.
In the last lecture I read you a poem from the "Rosarium Philosophorum", but I did not finish my explanation of it.
We find the peculiar statement in the last line, that the sun and moon are subject to this hermaphrodite.
Who could be the Lord of sun and moon? Obviously only the Deity.
There is an interesting piece of alchemistic thought in the last part of the poem, which I should like to point out to you, and at the same time to draw your attention to the things which we should
observe in such texts.
"A fountain rises from my earth", that is from the body, from the tangible and firm.
A fountain springs from the body of this hermaphrodite and divides into two streams.
Two eagles rise from these streams, they fly up into the heights and fall down again.
The streams flow East and West; the sun rises in the East, and the second stage in the alchemistic process of transformation is often represented as the dawn, the sol oriens, the stage of the albedo,
which follows the dark night of the chaos.
I will draw a diagram to make this process clearer.
Below is the dark night and above the light of day.
We have the vertical movement of the birds and the horizontal movement of the streams and a suggestion of rotation.
We must ask ourselves where the alchemists got this idea; it is the image of the cross, surrounded by a circle.
The image of the sphere was always suggested to the alchemists by the vas Hermeticum.
The Hermetic vessel had to be round, because the process was founded on the idea of the creation, and so the container must resemble the universe, in order that the creation might take place
in it.
Were I to show this diagram to an alchemist, he would immediately think of the round retort.
I will give you another diagram of the process in the retort.
There is a solution in the retort (1) in which all the substances are dissolved.
They correspond to the earth and remain at the bottom.
A fire (2) is needed, of course, below the retort, in order to develop the steam.
The hot water rises and descends as two streams (3).
The non-substantial or half substantial vapours (4) rise above the level of the solution, and are called spiritus or in Greek pneumata.
The original meaning is breath, Pneuma is moving air.
These steams and vapours as they rise are often called birds, the eagles in our poem for instance.
They fly up, lose their feathers in the cooler regions of the air, are unable to fly without feathers, and so descend again into the solution (5).
If you watch such a vessel over the fire, you will see that the steam moves outwards towards the walls of the retort, which causes the circular movement that we saw in Diagram I.
The steam is forced down by the top of the retort.
The image of the retort, where matter is cooked and turned into steam, is the basic image of alchemy.
The alchemist watched the cooking of his solutions innumerable times and was completely fascinated by it, and returned to it again and again in his writings.
It was all the unknown to him, and each time he hoped that the miracle would happen.
The idea is, of course, to purify and refine the steam to such an extent that the pneuma or spiritus would reach the highest degree of subtlety.
For this it required distilling many times - a thousand times it was said - so that the spirit should reach the state of the purest substance.
Retorts were placed one over the other for this purpose, and the uppermost one was called the head.
It was hoped that, in this uppermost retort, the quinta essentia would appear, the finest of all spirits, in the form of a sky blue fluid.
This is the right substance, for which the alchemist was seeking, and is in a way an extract of heaven.
This coelum philosophicum, this most subtle of all spirits, is produced in the head retort, where it could also be caught.
This fluid is no ordinary water, of course, but the most refined and spiritual of substances, the alchemists call it the "aqua permanens" or "aqua aeterna" (eternal water).
The Greeks called it "hydor theion" (divine water), but the Arab transmitters of Greek alchemy did not reproduce the word "theio" (divine), because it was forbidden in the Koran.
They therefore translated the "hydor theion" of the Greek alchemists as "aqua permanens".
I have already pointed out to you, that this water is really a baptismal water, if we like to use Christian phraseology.
The alchemists often did so themselves, in that they spoke of the application of their miraculous water as if it were a sort of baptism, by which man was changed psychically.
A hylikos became a psychikos or even a pneumatikos.
For this water contains the Holy Spirit, so the man to whom it is applied is impregnated by the water, so to speak, in that first he is purified, and then the Holy Spirit is imparted to him, through the purified
substance, and he is reborn in a new form.
The Catholic Church still uses this rite today in the form of the Benedictio fontis (the blessing of the baptismal water), and the following text is read, in which the Holy Ghost is invoked:
"Who by a secret mixture of his divine virtue may render this water fruitful for the regeneration of men, to the end that those who have been sanctified in the immaculate womb of this divine font, being born again
a new creature, may come forth a heavenly offspring: and that all that are distinguished either by sex in body, or by age in time, may be brought forth to the same infancy by Grace, their spiritual Mother."
In the Latin text it is "divini fontis uterus", so the baptismal font is conceived of as the immaculate womb of the Church.
The alchemists also sometimes called their creative retort a uterus; so you see that the Christian conception of the baptismal water almost exactly corresponds to the alchemistic.
It is very remarkable that this conception of the divine water should have existed in Greek philosophy before the days of John the Baptist.
So it is by no means impossible that this idea found its way into the early Church through Alexandrian philosophical syncretism, perhaps through the congregation of "Baptists", of which John the
Baptist was the teacher or director.
These people were Sabians; a Mandaean, are really a Gnostic, sect which is still in existence round Basra and Kut el Amara in Mesopotamia.
Its members have the peculiarity of only eating the flesh of drowned animals, on account of their teaching: everything needs to be purified and renewed by water.
There is another short poem from the "Rosarium Philosophorum", to which I should like to draw your attention.
This poem speaks of the emperor instead of the empress, that is, of the male side of the hermaphrodite, again of course the philosophers' stone:
"Here is born the emperor of all honour,
There cannot be above him born a higher,
Born through the art, or by the means of nature,
88 But not through the womb of any living creature. (A)
The philosophers speak of him as their son,
And everything they do, by him is done. (B)
From him it can be had what man desires,
He gives good health which lasts and never tires,
All precious jewels, he gives, silver and gold,
Full strength and youth, pure, beautiful and bold.
Wrath, sickness, grief and want are all transformed,
Blessed is the man who is by God informed. "
(A) The "stone" is not produced by an ordinary birth but only through the art or through nature.
(B) This means that it is thanks to him or to his help that the philosophers can accomplish what they achieve.
You can see from this poem also, that the panacea is thought of as something which can free mankind from those three great evils, illness, poverty and death.
It is extremely peculiar, that this substance should be thought of as something which resembles man, and as a bi-sexual being.
One searches the old texts in vain for the reason why it is called a hermaphrodite.
They give so-called explanations, they say, for instance, that it is because it is the child of the sun (male) and the moon (female).
But after all ordinary mortals are also born of male and female parents and are not hermaphrodites, so this is no explanation but a mere rationalisation.
We should expect a real explanation to give us some hints as to the history of the term, so we must turn to that side and follow other tracesin order to explain it.
We can find signposts to guide us in the alchemistic writings themselves.
They frequently quote the great authorities who lived in ancient times.
Hermes is the most often quoted, and after him Plato, particularly his "Timaeus".
This book is one of the main sources of their philosophy.
There are still older sources which are also occasionally, though seldom, quoted by the alchemists.
Such a source is Empedocles (circa 490-430 B. C.).
I will read you a passage:
"27. There (in Sphairos) , one did not distinguish the swift members of the Helios, nor the hairy strength of the earth, nor the sea. So preserved in the strong dungeon of harmony, lies the round Sphairos (Sphairos kykloteres), glad of the prevailing loneliness. 27a. No discord nor unseemly dispute prevails in its members.
28. But it was similar on all sides and endless everywhere, the round Sphairos (idem!).
29. For two branches do not arise from the back, nor feet, nor agile knees, nor pro-creating but a sphere it was and equal to itself on every side."
Evidently the Sphairos described here “a most blissful God” (eudai monestatos theos).
Sphaira means sphere, and Sphairos is the masculine form.
There is no doubt that Empedocles' conception influenced Plato in his Timaeus.
I will read you such a passage:
"Wherefore, for this cause and reason, he built a single whole",
(He speaks here of the creator of the world.)
"all whose parts were wholes, to be perfect, immune from age and disease."
(Perfect living beings.)
" For its figure he gave it that which was fitting and in keeping with its nature. Now, for the living creature which was to embrace in itself all living creatures, the fitting figure must be that which contains all figures in itself. Therefore he wrought it on his lathe spherical and round, with centre equidistant from extremity in every direction, the figure of all others most perfect and uniform, judging regularity beyond compare more comely than irregularity. Moreover he rounded its outer surface to a perfect smoothness, and that for many reasons . . . . It was contrived by art to feed itself on its own waste, to act wholly on itself and be acted on by itself alone. For he that contrived it thought it would be better self-sufficient than dependent on anything else . . . ."This, then, was the whole purpose of the God who is forever for the
god who was yet to be",
(Namely this Sphairos.)
"in accord wherewith he made it smooth, uniform throughout, equidistant from its centre, a body whole and perfect, with perfect bodies for its parts. Then he set a soul in its centre, stretched it throughout the Whole and further wrapped it about its body without. Thus he established a round revolving Heaven, one, sole, solitary, able, in its excellence, to be its own companion, needing nothing beyond itself, its own sufficient acquaintance and friend. In all these respects he begat it a blessed god."
This is a real son-god formed by the creator of the world, a "deuteros theos", a god beside the original and everlasting God. What Plato says in the Symposion about the original forms of man belongs also in this connection:
" . . . First, then, human beings were formerly not divided into two sexes, male and female; there was also a third, common to both the others, the name of which remains, though the sex itself has disappeared. The androgynous sex, both in appearance and in name, was common both to male and female; its name alone remains, which labors under a reproach.
"At the period to which I refer, the form of every human being was round, the back and the sides being circularly joined, and each had four arms and as many legs; two faces fixed up on a round neck, exactly like each other, one head between the two faces; four ears, and everything else as from such proportions it is easy to conjecture. Man walked upright as now, in whatever direction he pleased; but when he wished to go fast he made use of all his eight limbs, and proceeded in a rapid motion by rolling circularly round, - like tumblers, who, with their legs in the air, tumble round and round. We account for the production of three sexes by supposing that, at the beginning, the male was produced from the sun, the female from the earth; and that sex which participated in both sexes, from the moon, by reason of the androgynous nature of the moon. They were round, and their mode of proceeding was round, from the similarity which must needs subsist between them and their parent.
"They were strong also, and had aspiring thoughts. They it was who levied war against the Gods; and what Homer writes concerning Ephialtus and Otus, that they sought to ascend heaven and dethrone the Gods, In reality relates to this primitive people. Jupiter and the other Gods debated what was to be done in this emergency. For neither could they prevail on themselves to destroy them, as they had the giants, with thunder, so that the race should be abolished; for in that case they would be deprived of the honours of the sacrifices which they were in the custom of receiving from them; nor could they permit a continuance of their insolence and impiety. Jupiter, with some difficulty having desired silence, at length spoke. 'I think,' said he, 'I have contrived a method by which we may, by rendering the human race more feeble, quell the insolence which they exercise, without proceeding to their utter destruction. I will cut each of them in half; and so they will at once be weaker and more useful on account of their numbers. They shall walk upright on two legs. If they show any more insolence, and will not keep quiet, I will cut them up in half again, so they shall go hopping on one leg.' "So saying, he cut human beings in half . . . . . "
You see here, that the idea of this spherical being was extended to the primeval human beings.
Plato attributes a complete form to them, they were like God and, in Titanic recklessness, they levied war against the gods.
The alchemists' conception of a divine being, although it is based on Plato's, differs in an important respect from other conceptions, in that it is given into the hands of the doctor, chemist, philosopher or
artist to create this divine being.
In this connection, I cannot resist drawing your attention to something further.
We find the idea of the hermaphrodite connected with certain other religious ideas, with Dionysus, for instance, and JULIUS FIRMICUS MATERNUS, a Christian apologist of the fourth century,
quotes a mystic call belonging to the Bacchic mysteries: "euoidikeros dimorphe."
This "two-horned, two-figured" being, that is evoked, is a hermaphrodite.
These two horns are derived from the horns of the moon and were apparently a thorn in the flesh to Firmicus Maternus.
His book was dedicated to the three most Holy Emperors, the three sons of Constantine the Great, he tried to incite them to eradicate the heathen temples.
He writes:
"The horns mean nothing other than the venerable signs of the Cross. The one supports the world and holds the earth together, and through the connection of the two, which go sidewards, the East is
touched and the West held; so that the whole circle should be stabilised threefold",
(He counts the vertical beam as one, and the horizontal as two. One would expect the circle to be stabilised fourfold, but it had to be threefold.]
"and that the foundations of the united work should be made firm with immortal roots."
(The expression "roots" is a translation of the "rhizomata" of Empedocles, a way of expressing the four elements. You will remember the four in "our masterly stone" in the "Empress" poem from the "Rosarium".
These are the four roots of the stone, and the " immortal roots " are undoubtedly four.)
" . . . These are the venerable horns (or ends] of the Cross, here is the immortal trace of sacred virtue, here the divine structure of the glorious work, Thou, Christ, with outstretched hands, thou supportest
the universe and the earth, the heavenly kingdom, on thy immortal shoulders rests our salvation. Thou, Lord, bearest the signs of eternal life, with divine inspiration thou hast foretold it through the prophets:
Isaiah says : 'Behold, a son is born unto us, the government is upon his shoulders, and his name is called: Messenger of the great thought'."
(This is quoted from Isaiah IX. 6. but it is quite different in our Bible.)
"These are the horns of the cross through which the universe is uniformly supported and held together . . . "
Firmicus Maternus regards the horns as the arms of the cross, which the devil placed on the head of Dionysus.
He means that the two horns of Dionysus are a sort of devilish anticipation of the idea of the cross.
He also insists that the cross is threefold.
The Christian form of the cross does lend itself to a certain extent to the idea of three; and it must be three, on account of the Trinity being the support of the universe, for objectively a cross has four ends
and not three.
This question was taken up again by the medieval doctor and philosopher Gerardus Dorneus.
He was very much excited about it, and attributes not just two but four horns to the devil.
It was regarded as the invention of the devil, that the world should rest on a quaternity, for it must essentially rest on the Trinity.
This is one of the great mysteries in medieval psychology.
I dealt with the subject of the three and the four in my Terry Lectures.
Till about the sixteenth century, alchemy was founded on four roots, it was only then that the number three began to play a role and to compete with the four.
This basic quaternity goes far back into the history of alchemy, right back to Mary of Egypt, who is sometimes called the Jewess.
She had an axiom: One becomes two, two three, three four, and four one; and then it begins all over again from the beginning.
The alchemistic process is completed in four stages, the old Greek alchemists already discovered this.
The number four represents the four elements, and the process usually works up to the element of fire.
When the process reaches the nature of fire, the hottest, driest and most spiritual element, the goal is, so to speak, attained, in that fire comprises everything.
This idea of the eternal living fire goes back to Heraclitus (circa 540-475 B. C.); and corresponds also to the extra-canonical saying of Christ:
"Who is near me is near to the fire. He that is far from me is far from the Kingdom."
So the inmost nature of Christ is fire, that everlasting fire which is also the goal of alchemy.
The god Dionysus himself fits well into this connection, for his nature was also fire. Perhaps you have seen the famous antique head of Dionysus, where a lock of his hair is a flame?
We find the same idea in the New Testament, when the cloven tongues of fire came down from heaven and sat up on each of the apostles, filling them with the Holy Ghost, the fiery breath of the Pneuma. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Pages 73-80.
Lecture I X 17th January, 1941
In the last lecture we spoke of the miraculous substance which the alchemists strove to produce.
I can only define it as an optimum of life.
It seems to me, that this definition is, in a sense, further justified by the fact that most of the alchemists were doctors, at any rate in the Middle Ages.
The professions of doctor and apothecary had not yet been separated, so the doctor prepared his medicaments in his own laboratory.
In this way he naturally became well acquainted with the components then used and interested in their nature, working of course from the standpoint of the well-being of the human species and the curing of
illness.
This is the reason why we are often confronted with the fact that the theoria of alchemy, or Hermetic philosophy, is really a medical philosophy, in that the healing quality of the substance,
which the alchemists were searching for, is frequently emphasised.
It is called an elixir of life, a wonderful aurum potabile (drinkable gold), a panacea, a healing drink, and so on, and it is capable of curing all diseases, not only of the body, but more especially of the mind.
In the last lecture I read you a poem from the "Rosarium Philosophorum", but I did not finish my explanation of it.
We find the peculiar statement in the last line, that the sun and moon are subject to this hermaphrodite.
Who could be the Lord of sun and moon? Obviously only the Deity.
There is an interesting piece of alchemistic thought in the last part of the poem, which I should like to point out to you, and at the same time to draw your attention to the things which we should
observe in such texts.
"A fountain rises from my earth", that is from the body, from the tangible and firm.
A fountain springs from the body of this hermaphrodite and divides into two streams.
Two eagles rise from these streams, they fly up into the heights and fall down again.
The streams flow East and West; the sun rises in the East, and the second stage in the alchemistic process of transformation is often represented as the dawn, the sol oriens, the stage of the albedo,
which follows the dark night of the chaos.
I will draw a diagram to make this process clearer.
Below is the dark night and above the light of day.
We have the vertical movement of the birds and the horizontal movement of the streams and a suggestion of rotation.
We must ask ourselves where the alchemists got this idea; it is the image of the cross, surrounded by a circle.
The image of the sphere was always suggested to the alchemists by the vas Hermeticum.
The Hermetic vessel had to be round, because the process was founded on the idea of the creation, and so the container must resemble the universe, in order that the creation might take place
in it.
Were I to show this diagram to an alchemist, he would immediately think of the round retort.
I will give you another diagram of the process in the retort.
There is a solution in the retort (1) in which all the substances are dissolved.
They correspond to the earth and remain at the bottom.
A fire (2) is needed, of course, below the retort, in order to develop the steam.
The hot water rises and descends as two streams (3).
The non-substantial or half substantial vapours (4) rise above the level of the solution, and are called spiritus or in Greek pneumata.
The original meaning is breath, Pneuma is moving air.
These steams and vapours as they rise are often called birds, the eagles in our poem for instance.
They fly up, lose their feathers in the cooler regions of the air, are unable to fly without feathers, and so descend again into the solution (5).
If you watch such a vessel over the fire, you will see that the steam moves outwards towards the walls of the retort, which causes the circular movement that we saw in Diagram I.
The steam is forced down by the top of the retort.
The image of the retort, where matter is cooked and turned into steam, is the basic image of alchemy.
The alchemist watched the cooking of his solutions innumerable times and was completely fascinated by it, and returned to it again and again in his writings.
It was all the unknown to him, and each time he hoped that the miracle would happen.
The idea is, of course, to purify and refine the steam to such an extent that the pneuma or spiritus would reach the highest degree of subtlety.
For this it required distilling many times - a thousand times it was said - so that the spirit should reach the state of the purest substance.
Retorts were placed one over the other for this purpose, and the uppermost one was called the head.
It was hoped that, in this uppermost retort, the quinta essentia would appear, the finest of all spirits, in the form of a sky blue fluid.
This is the right substance, for which the alchemist was seeking, and is in a way an extract of heaven.
This coelum philosophicum, this most subtle of all spirits, is produced in the head retort, where it could also be caught.
This fluid is no ordinary water, of course, but the most refined and spiritual of substances, the alchemists call it the "aqua permanens" or "aqua aeterna" (eternal water).
The Greeks called it "hydor theion" (divine water), but the Arab transmitters of Greek alchemy did not reproduce the word "theio" (divine), because it was forbidden in the Koran.
They therefore translated the "hydor theion" of the Greek alchemists as "aqua permanens".
I have already pointed out to you, that this water is really a baptismal water, if we like to use Christian phraseology.
The alchemists often did so themselves, in that they spoke of the application of their miraculous water as if it were a sort of baptism, by which man was changed psychically.
A hylikos became a psychikos or even a pneumatikos.
For this water contains the Holy Spirit, so the man to whom it is applied is impregnated by the water, so to speak, in that first he is purified, and then the Holy Spirit is imparted to him, through the purified
substance, and he is reborn in a new form.
The Catholic Church still uses this rite today in the form of the Benedictio fontis (the blessing of the baptismal water), and the following text is read, in which the Holy Ghost is invoked:
"Who by a secret mixture of his divine virtue may render this water fruitful for the regeneration of men, to the end that those who have been sanctified in the immaculate womb of this divine font, being born again
a new creature, may come forth a heavenly offspring: and that all that are distinguished either by sex in body, or by age in time, may be brought forth to the same infancy by Grace, their spiritual Mother."
In the Latin text it is "divini fontis uterus", so the baptismal font is conceived of as the immaculate womb of the Church.
The alchemists also sometimes called their creative retort a uterus; so you see that the Christian conception of the baptismal water almost exactly corresponds to the alchemistic.
It is very remarkable that this conception of the divine water should have existed in Greek philosophy before the days of John the Baptist.
So it is by no means impossible that this idea found its way into the early Church through Alexandrian philosophical syncretism, perhaps through the congregation of "Baptists", of which John the
Baptist was the teacher or director.
These people were Sabians; a Mandaean, are really a Gnostic, sect which is still in existence round Basra and Kut el Amara in Mesopotamia.
Its members have the peculiarity of only eating the flesh of drowned animals, on account of their teaching: everything needs to be purified and renewed by water.
There is another short poem from the "Rosarium Philosophorum", to which I should like to draw your attention.
This poem speaks of the emperor instead of the empress, that is, of the male side of the hermaphrodite, again of course the philosophers' stone:
"Here is born the emperor of all honour,
There cannot be above him born a higher,
Born through the art, or by the means of nature,
88 But not through the womb of any living creature. (A)
The philosophers speak of him as their son,
And everything they do, by him is done. (B)
From him it can be had what man desires,
He gives good health which lasts and never tires,
All precious jewels, he gives, silver and gold,
Full strength and youth, pure, beautiful and bold.
Wrath, sickness, grief and want are all transformed,
Blessed is the man who is by God informed. "
(A) The "stone" is not produced by an ordinary birth but only through the art or through nature.
(B) This means that it is thanks to him or to his help that the philosophers can accomplish what they achieve.
You can see from this poem also, that the panacea is thought of as something which can free mankind from those three great evils, illness, poverty and death.
It is extremely peculiar, that this substance should be thought of as something which resembles man, and as a bi-sexual being.
One searches the old texts in vain for the reason why it is called a hermaphrodite.
They give so-called explanations, they say, for instance, that it is because it is the child of the sun (male) and the moon (female).
But after all ordinary mortals are also born of male and female parents and are not hermaphrodites, so this is no explanation but a mere rationalisation.
We should expect a real explanation to give us some hints as to the history of the term, so we must turn to that side and follow other tracesin order to explain it.
We can find signposts to guide us in the alchemistic writings themselves.
They frequently quote the great authorities who lived in ancient times.
Hermes is the most often quoted, and after him Plato, particularly his "Timaeus".
This book is one of the main sources of their philosophy.
There are still older sources which are also occasionally, though seldom, quoted by the alchemists.
Such a source is Empedocles (circa 490-430 B. C.).
I will read you a passage:
"27. There (in Sphairos) , one did not distinguish the swift members of the Helios, nor the hairy strength of the earth, nor the sea. So preserved in the strong dungeon of harmony, lies the round Sphairos (Sphairos kykloteres), glad of the prevailing loneliness. 27a. No discord nor unseemly dispute prevails in its members.
28. But it was similar on all sides and endless everywhere, the round Sphairos (idem!).
29. For two branches do not arise from the back, nor feet, nor agile knees, nor pro-creating but a sphere it was and equal to itself on every side."
Evidently the Sphairos described here “a most blissful God” (eudai monestatos theos).
Sphaira means sphere, and Sphairos is the masculine form.
There is no doubt that Empedocles' conception influenced Plato in his Timaeus.
I will read you such a passage:
"Wherefore, for this cause and reason, he built a single whole",
(He speaks here of the creator of the world.)
"all whose parts were wholes, to be perfect, immune from age and disease."
(Perfect living beings.)
" For its figure he gave it that which was fitting and in keeping with its nature. Now, for the living creature which was to embrace in itself all living creatures, the fitting figure must be that which contains all figures in itself. Therefore he wrought it on his lathe spherical and round, with centre equidistant from extremity in every direction, the figure of all others most perfect and uniform, judging regularity beyond compare more comely than irregularity. Moreover he rounded its outer surface to a perfect smoothness, and that for many reasons . . . . It was contrived by art to feed itself on its own waste, to act wholly on itself and be acted on by itself alone. For he that contrived it thought it would be better self-sufficient than dependent on anything else . . . ."This, then, was the whole purpose of the God who is forever for the
god who was yet to be",
(Namely this Sphairos.)
"in accord wherewith he made it smooth, uniform throughout, equidistant from its centre, a body whole and perfect, with perfect bodies for its parts. Then he set a soul in its centre, stretched it throughout the Whole and further wrapped it about its body without. Thus he established a round revolving Heaven, one, sole, solitary, able, in its excellence, to be its own companion, needing nothing beyond itself, its own sufficient acquaintance and friend. In all these respects he begat it a blessed god."
This is a real son-god formed by the creator of the world, a "deuteros theos", a god beside the original and everlasting God. What Plato says in the Symposion about the original forms of man belongs also in this connection:
" . . . First, then, human beings were formerly not divided into two sexes, male and female; there was also a third, common to both the others, the name of which remains, though the sex itself has disappeared. The androgynous sex, both in appearance and in name, was common both to male and female; its name alone remains, which labors under a reproach.
"At the period to which I refer, the form of every human being was round, the back and the sides being circularly joined, and each had four arms and as many legs; two faces fixed up on a round neck, exactly like each other, one head between the two faces; four ears, and everything else as from such proportions it is easy to conjecture. Man walked upright as now, in whatever direction he pleased; but when he wished to go fast he made use of all his eight limbs, and proceeded in a rapid motion by rolling circularly round, - like tumblers, who, with their legs in the air, tumble round and round. We account for the production of three sexes by supposing that, at the beginning, the male was produced from the sun, the female from the earth; and that sex which participated in both sexes, from the moon, by reason of the androgynous nature of the moon. They were round, and their mode of proceeding was round, from the similarity which must needs subsist between them and their parent.
"They were strong also, and had aspiring thoughts. They it was who levied war against the Gods; and what Homer writes concerning Ephialtus and Otus, that they sought to ascend heaven and dethrone the Gods, In reality relates to this primitive people. Jupiter and the other Gods debated what was to be done in this emergency. For neither could they prevail on themselves to destroy them, as they had the giants, with thunder, so that the race should be abolished; for in that case they would be deprived of the honours of the sacrifices which they were in the custom of receiving from them; nor could they permit a continuance of their insolence and impiety. Jupiter, with some difficulty having desired silence, at length spoke. 'I think,' said he, 'I have contrived a method by which we may, by rendering the human race more feeble, quell the insolence which they exercise, without proceeding to their utter destruction. I will cut each of them in half; and so they will at once be weaker and more useful on account of their numbers. They shall walk upright on two legs. If they show any more insolence, and will not keep quiet, I will cut them up in half again, so they shall go hopping on one leg.' "So saying, he cut human beings in half . . . . . "
You see here, that the idea of this spherical being was extended to the primeval human beings.
Plato attributes a complete form to them, they were like God and, in Titanic recklessness, they levied war against the gods.
The alchemists' conception of a divine being, although it is based on Plato's, differs in an important respect from other conceptions, in that it is given into the hands of the doctor, chemist, philosopher or
artist to create this divine being.
In this connection, I cannot resist drawing your attention to something further.
We find the idea of the hermaphrodite connected with certain other religious ideas, with Dionysus, for instance, and JULIUS FIRMICUS MATERNUS, a Christian apologist of the fourth century,
quotes a mystic call belonging to the Bacchic mysteries: "euoidikeros dimorphe."
This "two-horned, two-figured" being, that is evoked, is a hermaphrodite.
These two horns are derived from the horns of the moon and were apparently a thorn in the flesh to Firmicus Maternus.
His book was dedicated to the three most Holy Emperors, the three sons of Constantine the Great, he tried to incite them to eradicate the heathen temples.
He writes:
"The horns mean nothing other than the venerable signs of the Cross. The one supports the world and holds the earth together, and through the connection of the two, which go sidewards, the East is
touched and the West held; so that the whole circle should be stabilised threefold",
(He counts the vertical beam as one, and the horizontal as two. One would expect the circle to be stabilised fourfold, but it had to be threefold.]
"and that the foundations of the united work should be made firm with immortal roots."
(The expression "roots" is a translation of the "rhizomata" of Empedocles, a way of expressing the four elements. You will remember the four in "our masterly stone" in the "Empress" poem from the "Rosarium".
These are the four roots of the stone, and the " immortal roots " are undoubtedly four.)
" . . . These are the venerable horns (or ends] of the Cross, here is the immortal trace of sacred virtue, here the divine structure of the glorious work, Thou, Christ, with outstretched hands, thou supportest
the universe and the earth, the heavenly kingdom, on thy immortal shoulders rests our salvation. Thou, Lord, bearest the signs of eternal life, with divine inspiration thou hast foretold it through the prophets:
Isaiah says : 'Behold, a son is born unto us, the government is upon his shoulders, and his name is called: Messenger of the great thought'."
(This is quoted from Isaiah IX. 6. but it is quite different in our Bible.)
"These are the horns of the cross through which the universe is uniformly supported and held together . . . "
Firmicus Maternus regards the horns as the arms of the cross, which the devil placed on the head of Dionysus.
He means that the two horns of Dionysus are a sort of devilish anticipation of the idea of the cross.
He also insists that the cross is threefold.
The Christian form of the cross does lend itself to a certain extent to the idea of three; and it must be three, on account of the Trinity being the support of the universe, for objectively a cross has four ends
and not three.
This question was taken up again by the medieval doctor and philosopher Gerardus Dorneus.
He was very much excited about it, and attributes not just two but four horns to the devil.
It was regarded as the invention of the devil, that the world should rest on a quaternity, for it must essentially rest on the Trinity.
This is one of the great mysteries in medieval psychology.
I dealt with the subject of the three and the four in my Terry Lectures.
Till about the sixteenth century, alchemy was founded on four roots, it was only then that the number three began to play a role and to compete with the four.
This basic quaternity goes far back into the history of alchemy, right back to Mary of Egypt, who is sometimes called the Jewess.
She had an axiom: One becomes two, two three, three four, and four one; and then it begins all over again from the beginning.
The alchemistic process is completed in four stages, the old Greek alchemists already discovered this.
The number four represents the four elements, and the process usually works up to the element of fire.
When the process reaches the nature of fire, the hottest, driest and most spiritual element, the goal is, so to speak, attained, in that fire comprises everything.
This idea of the eternal living fire goes back to Heraclitus (circa 540-475 B. C.); and corresponds also to the extra-canonical saying of Christ:
"Who is near me is near to the fire. He that is far from me is far from the Kingdom."
So the inmost nature of Christ is fire, that everlasting fire which is also the goal of alchemy.
The god Dionysus himself fits well into this connection, for his nature was also fire. Perhaps you have seen the famous antique head of Dionysus, where a lock of his hair is a flame?
We find the same idea in the New Testament, when the cloven tongues of fire came down from heaven and sat up on each of the apostles, filling them with the Holy Ghost, the fiery breath of the Pneuma. ~Carl Jung, ETH, Alchemy, Pages 73-80.