1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self

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XIV

THE STRUCTURE AND
DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

347 The examples given in the previous chapter should be suf-
ficient to describe the progressive assimilation and amplifica-
tion of the archetype that underlies ego-consciousness. Rather
than add to their number unnecessarily, I will try to summarize
them so that an over-all picture results. From various hints
dropped by Hippolytus, it is clear beyond a doubt that many of
the Gnostics were nothing other than psychologists. Thus he
reports them as saying that "the soul is very hard to find and to
comprehend," x and that knowledge of the whole man is just as
difficult. "For knowledge of man is the beginning of wholeness
(TeAeiWis), but knowledge of God is perfect wholeness {atrqprurfiivq
TeAetWts)." Clement of Alexandria says in the Paedagogus (III,
1): "Therefore, as it seems, it is the greatest of all disciplines to
know oneself; for when a man knows himself, he knows God."
And Monoi'mos, in his letter to Theophrastus, writes: "Seek him
from out thyself, and learn who it is that taketh possession of
everything in thee, saying: my god, my spirit, my understanding,
my soul, my body; and learn whence is sorrow and joy, and love
and hate, and waking though one would not, and sleeping
though one would not, and getting angry though one would not,
and falling in love though one would not. And if thou shouldst
closely investigate these things, thou wilt find Him in thyself,
the One and the Many, like to that little point [fcepata], for it is
in thee that he hath his origin and his deliverance." 2

34 8 One cannot help being reminded, in reading this text, of the
Indian idea of the Self as brahman and atman, for instance in

1 Elenchos, V, 7, 8 (Legge trans., I, p. 123).

2 Elenchos, VIII, 15, iff. Cf. Legge trans., II, p. 10.

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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

the Kena Upanishad: "By whom willed and directed does the
mind fly forth? By whom commanded does the first breath move?
Who sends forth the speech we utter here? What god is it that
stirs the eye and ear? The hearing of the ear, the thinking of the
mind, the speaking of the speech . . . That which speech can-
not express, by which speech is expressed . . . which the mind
cannot think, by which the mind thinks, know that as Brah-
man." 3

349 Yajnyavalkya defines it in indirect form in the Brihadaran-
yaka Upanishad: "He who dwells in all beings, yet is apart from
all beings, whom no beings know, whose body is all beings, who
controls all beings from within, he is your Self, the inner con-
troller, the immortal. . . . There is no other seer but he, no
other hearer but he, no other perceiver but he, no other knower
but he. He is your Self, the inner controller, the immortal. All
else is of sorrow. 4

35 In Monoi'mos, who was called "the Arab," Indian influences
are not impossible. His statement is significant because it shows
that even in the second century 5 the ego was considered the
exponent of an all-embracing totality, the self- a thought that
by no means all psychologists are familiar with even today.
These insights, in the Near East as in India, are the product of
intense introspective observation that can only be psychological.
Gnosis is undoubtedly a psychological knowledge whose con-
tents derive from the unconscious. It reached its insights by
concentrating on the "subjective factor," 6 which consists empiri-
cally in the demonstrable influence that the collective uncon-
scious exerts on the conscious mind. This would explain the
astonishing parallelism between Gnostic symbolism and the
findings of the psychology of the unconscious.

35i I would like to illustrate this parallelism by summarizing the
symbols previously discussed. For this purpose we must first of
all review the facts that led psychologists to conjecture an arche-
type of wholeness, i.e., the self. These are in the first place
dreams and visions; in the second place, products of active
imagination in which symbols of wholeness appear. The most

3 Based on Radhakrishnan, The Principal Upanishads, pp. 58if.

4 Ibid., pp. 228f.

5 Hippolytus lived c. a.d. 230. Monoimos must therefore antedate him.

6 Psychological Types (1923 edn., pp. 471ft".).

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important of these are geometrical structures containing ele-
ments of the circle and quaternity; 7 namely, circular and spheri-
cal forms on the one hand, which can be represented either
purely geometrically or as objects; and, on the other hand,
quadratic figures divided into four or in the form of a cross.
They can also be four objects or persons related to one another
in meaning or by the way they are arranged. Eight, as a multiple
of four, has the same significance. A special variant of the qua-
ternity motif is the dilemma of 3 -f- i- Twelve (3 X 4) seems to
belong here as a solution of the dilemma and as a symbol of
wholeness (zodiac, year). Three can be regarded as a relative
totality, since it usually represents either a spiritual totality that
is a product of thought, like the Trinity, 8 or else an instinctual,
chthonic one, like the triadic nature of the gods of the under-
world-the "lower triad." Psychologically, however, three- if the
context indicates that it refers to the self- should be understood
as a defective quaternity or as a stepping-stone towards it. 9
Empirically, a triad has a trinity opposed to it as its comple-
ment. The complement of the quaternity is unity. 10
352 From the circle and quaternity motif is derived the symbol
of the geometrically formed crystal and the wonder-working
stone. From here analogy formation leads on to the city, 11 castle,
church, 12 house, 13 and vessel. 14 Another variant is the wheel
(rota). The former motif emphasizes the ego's containment in
the greater dimension of the self; the latter emphasizes the rota-
tion which also appears as a ritual circumambulation. Psycho-
logically, it denotes concentration on and preoccupation with
a centre, conceived as the centre of a circle and thus formulated
as a point. This leads easily enough to a relationship to the
heavenly Pole and the starry bowl of heaven rotating round it.
A parallel is the horoscope as the "wheel of birth."

7 The circle has the character of wholeness because of its "perfect" form; the
quaternity, because four is the minimum number of parts into which the circle
may naturally be divided.

8 Cf. "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," pars. i82ff.

9 Cf. "Spirit in Fairytales" pars. 425^, 436ft., and "Trinity," pars. 243ff.

10 Five corresponds to the indistinguishability of quaternity and unity.

11 [Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 138L, fig. 31.]

12 Church built of living stones in the Shepherd of Hennas. [Psychological Types,
ch. V, 4a.]

13 Golden Flower (1962 edn.), pp. 22, 36. 14 Psychology and Alchemy, par. 338.

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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

The image of the city, house, and vessel brings us to their
content - the inhabitant of the city or house, and the water con-
tained in the vessel. The inhabitant, in his turn, has a relation-
ship to the quaternity, and to the fifth as the unity of the four.
The water appears in modern dreams and visions as a blue ex-
panse reflecting the sky, as a lake, as four rivers (e.g., Switzer-
land as the heart of Europe with the Rhine, Ticino, Rhone, and
Inn, or the Garden of Eden with the Gihon, Pison, Hiddekel,
and Euphrates), as healing water and consecrated water, etc.
Sometimes the water is associated with fire, or even combined
with it as fire-water (wine, alcohol).

The inhabitant of the quadratic space leads to the human
figure. Apart from the geometrical and arithmetical symbols,
this is the commonest symbol of the self. It is either a god or a
godlike human being, a prince, a priest, a great man, an his-
torical personality, a dearly loved father, an admired example,
the successful elder brother- in short, a figure that transcends
the ego personality of the dreamer. There are corresponding
feminine figures in a woman's psychology.

Just as the circle is contrasted with the square, so the qua-
ternity is contrasted with the 3 -f- 1 motif, and the positive,
beautiful, good, admirable, and lovable human figure with a
daemonic, misbegotten creature who is negative, ugly, evil,
despicable and an object of fear. Like all archetypes, the self has
a paradoxical, antinomial character. It is male and female, old
man and child, powerful and helpless, large and small. The self
is a true "complexio oppositorum," 15 though this does not
mean that it is anything like as contradictory in itself. It is
quite possible that the seeming paradox is nothing but a reflec-
tion of the enantiodromian changes of the conscious attitude
which can have a favourable or an unfavourable effect on the
whole. The same is true of the unconscious in general, for its
frightening figures may be called forth by the fear which the
conscious mind has of the unconscious. The importance of con-
sciousness should not be underrated; hence it is advisable to re-
late the contradictory manifestations of the unconscious causally
to the conscious attitude, at least in some degree. But conscious-
ness should not be overrated either, for experience provides too

15 A definition of God in Nicholas of Cusa. Cf. "The Psychology of the Trans-
ference," par. 537.

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many incontrovertible proofs of the autonomy of unconscious
compensatory processes for us to seek the origin of these an-
tinomies only in the conscious mind. Between the conscious and
the unconscious there is a kind of "uncertainty relationship,"
because the observer is inseparable from the observed and al-
ways disturbs it by the act of observation. In other words, exact
observation of the unconscious prejudices observation of the
conscious and vice versa.

356 Thus the self can appear in all shapes from the highest to the
lowest, inasmuch as these transcend the scope of the ego person-
ality in the manner of a daimonion. It goes without saying that
the self also has its theriomorphic symbolism. The commonest
of these images in modern dreams are, in my experience, the
elephant, horse, bull, bear, white and black birds, fishes, and
snakes. Occasionally one comes across tortoises, snails, spiders,
and beetles. The principal plant symbols are the flower and the
tree. Of the inorganic products, the commonest are the moun-
tain and lake.

357 Where there is an undervaluation of sexuality the self is
symbolized as a phallus. Undervaluation can consist in an
ordinary repression or in overt devaluation. In certain differ-
entiated persons a purely biological interpretation and evalua-
tion of sexuality can also have this effect. Any such conception
overlooks the spiritual and "mystical" implications of the sexual
instinct. 16 These have existed from time immemorial as psychic
facts, but are devalued and repressed on rationalistic and
philosophical grounds. In all such cases one can expect an un-
conscious phallicism by way of compensation. A good example
of this is the mainly sexualistic approach to the psyche that is
to be found in Freud.

358 Coming now to the Gnostic symbols of the self, we find that
the Naassenes of Hippolytus lay most emphasis on the human
images; of the geometrical and arithmetical symbols the most
important are the quaternity, the ogdoad, the trinity, and unity.
Here we shall give our attention mainly to the totality symbol
of the quaternity, and above all to the symbol mentioned in

16 Cf. Hurwitz, "Archetypische Motive in der chassidischen Mystik," ch. VI.

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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

section 6 of the last chapter, which I would like to call, for short,
the Moses Quaternio. We shall then consider the second Naas-
sene Quaternio, the one with the four rivers of Paradise, which
I shall call the Paradise Quaternio. Though differently consti-
tuted, the two quaternios express roughly the same idea, and in
what follows I shall try not only to relate them to one another
psychologically, but also to bring out their connection with
later (alchemical) quaternary structures. In the course of these
investigations, we shall see how far the two quaternios are char-
acteristic of the Gnostic age, and how far they can be correlated
with the archetypal history of the mind in the Christian aeon.
359 The quaternity in the Moses Quaternio 17 is evidently con-
structed according to the following schema:

The Higher Adam

Miriam, Mother-
Sister-Anima

Jethro, physical
and spiritual father

Zipporah, wife of Moses
and daughter of Jethro

Moms

The Lower Adam

The Moses Quaternio

s 6 The "lower Adam" corresponds to the ordinary mortal man,
Moses to the culture-hero and lawgiver, and thus, on a person-
alistic level, to the "father"; Zipporah, as the daughter of a king

17 Elenchos, V, 8, 2.

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and priest, to the "higher mother." For the ordinary man, these
two represent the "royal pair," 18 which for Moses corresponds
on the one hand to his "higher man," and on the other hand to
his anima, Miriam. The "higher" man is synonymous with the
"spiritual, inner" man, who is represented in the quaternio by
Jethro. Such is the meaning of the quaternio when seen from
the standpoint of Moses. But since Moses is related to Jethro as
the lower Adam, or ordinary man, is to Moses, the quaternio
cannot be understood merely as the structure of Moses' per-
sonality, but must be looked at from the standpoint of the lower
Adam as well. We then get the following quaternio:

MOSES ZIPPORAH

as culture-hero as higher mother

THE LOWER ADAM EVE

as ordinary man as ordinary woman

361 From this we can see that the Naassene quaternio is in a
sense unsymmetrical, since it leads to a senarius (hexad) with an
exclusively upward tendency: Jethro and Miriam have to be
added to the above four as a kind of third storey, as the higher
counterparts of Moses and Zipporah. We thus get a gradual pro-
gression, or series of steps leading from the lower to the higher
Adam. This psychology evidently underlies the elaborate lists of
Valentinian syzygies. The lower Adam or somatic man conse-
quently appears as the lowest stage of all, from which there can
be only an ascent. But, as we have seen, the four persons in the
Naassene quaternio are chosen so skilfully that it leaves room
not only for the incest motif [Jethro-Miriam], which is never
lacking in the marriage quaternio, but also for the extension of
the ordinary man's psychic structure downwards, towards the
sub-human, the dark and evil side represented by the shadow.
That is to say, Moses marries the "Ethiopian woman," and
Miriam, the prophetess and mother-sister, becomes "leprous,"
which is clear proof that her relation to Moses has taken a nega-
tive turn. This is further confirmed by the fact that Miriam
"spoke against" Moses and even stirred up his brother Aaron
against him. Accordingly, we get the following senarius:

18 Cf. "The Psychology of the Transference," pars. 4ioff.

2*8

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

THE LOWER ADAM EVE

MOSES ETHIOPIAN WOMAN

jethro, the hea then priest miriam, the "white" leper

Though nothing is said against Jethro, "the great wise one,"
in the Bible story, yet as a Midianite priest he did not serve
Yahweh and did not belong to the chosen people, but departs
from them to his own country. 19 He seems also to have borne
the name Reguel ("friend of God") and to have helped Moses
with his superior wisdom. He is, accordingly, a numinous per-
sonality, the embodiment of an archetype, obviously that of the
"wise old man" who personifies the spirit in myth and folklore.
The spirit, as I have shown elsewhere, 20 has a dichotomous
nature. Just as Moses in this case represents his own shadow by
taking to wife the black daughter of the earth, so Jethro, in his
capacity as hea then priest and stranger, has to be included in the
quaternio as the "lower" aspect of himself, with a magical and
nefarious significance (though this is not vouched for in the
text). 21

As I have already explained, the Moses Quaternio is an indi-
vidual variant of the common marriage quaternio found in folk-
lore. 22 It could therefore be designated just as well with other
mythical names. The basic schema of the cross-cousin marriage:

HUSBAND COUSIN AS WIFE

I I

husband's sister wife's brother

has numerous variants; for instance the sister can be replaced
by the mother or the wife's brother by a fatherlike figure. But
the incest motif remains a characteristic feature. Since the
schema is a primary one characterizing the psychology of love
relationships and also of the transference, it will, like all char-
acterological schemata, obviously manifest itself in a "favour-
able" and an "unfavourable" form, for the relationships in ques-
tion also exhibit the same ambivalence: everything a man does
has a positive and a negative aspect.

19 Exodus 18 : 27.

20 "Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales," pars. 400ft.

21 Since the whole Shadow Quaternio is a symmetrical construction, the "good
Wise Man" must here be contrasted with a correspondingly dark, chthonic figure.

22 Ci. "Psychology of the Transference," pars. 425ft.

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3 6 4 The reader, therefore, should not let himself be put off by
the somewhat scurrilous Gnostic nomenclature. The names are
accidental, whereas the schema itself is universally valid. The
same is true of the "Shadow Quaternio," for which I have kept
the same names because the biography of Moses offers certain
features that are well suited to illustrate the shadow.

3 6 5 The lower senarius reaches its nadir not in the "lower
Adam" but in his dark, theriomorphic prefiguration- the ser-
pent who was created before man, or the Gnostic Naas. Accord-
ingly we have the structures shown on the facing page.

366 This schema is no idle parlour game, because the texts make
it abundantly clear that the Gnostics were quite familiar with
the dark aspect of their metaphysical figures, so much so that
they caused the greatest offence on that account. (One has only
to think of the identification of the good God with Priapus, 23 or
of the Anthropos with the ithyphallic Hermes.) It was, more-
over, the Gnostics- e.g., Basilides- who exhaustively discussed
the problem of evil {vbOev rb kokSv; - 'whence comes evil?'). The
serpentine form of the Nous and the Agathodaimon does not
mean that the serpent has only a good aspect. Just as the
Apophis-serpent was the traditional enemy of the Egyptian sun-
god, so the devil, "that ancient serpent," 24 is the enemy of
Christ, the "novus Sol." The good, perfect, spiritual God was
opposed by an imperfect, vain, ignorant, and incompetent
demiurge. There were archontic Powers that gave to mankind
a corrupt "chirographum" (handwriting) from which Christ
had to redeem them. 25

367 With the dawn of the second millennium the accent shifted

23 In the gnosis of Justin. See Hippolytus, Elenchos, V, 26, 32 (Legge trans., I,
p. 178): 6 de ayados kan Uptavos (But the Good One is Priapus).
24&ev. 12 : 9.

25 Coloss. 2 : 14: "Blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us,
which was contrary to us. And he hath taken the same out of the way, fastening it
to the cross" (DV). The handwriting is imprinted on the body. This view is con-
firmed by Orosius ("Ad Aurelium Augustum commonitorium de errore Priscil-
lianistarum et Origenistarum," p. 153), who says that in the opinion of Pris-
cillian the soul, on descending through the spheres into birth, was caught by the
powers of evil, and at the behest of the victor ("victoris principis") was cast into
separate bodies, upon which a "handwriting" was written. The parts of the soul
receive a divine chirographum, but the parts of the body are imprinted with
the signs of the zodiac icaeli signa).

230

Anthtopot (the higher Adam)

The higher Jethro

The higher Moses

The positive Miriam

The wise Zippor/sh

Man (the lower Adam)

A. The Anthropos Quaternio

The lower Jethro

The negative Miriam

The Ethiopian

Serpent

B. The Shadow Quaternio
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more and more towards the dark side. The demiurge became
the devil who had created the world, and, a little later, alchemy
began to develop its conception of Mercurius as the partly ma-
terial, partly immaterial spirit that penetrates and sustains all
things, from stones and metals to the highest living organisms.
In the form of a snake he dwells inside the earth, has a body,
soul, and spirit, was believed to have a human shape as the
homunculus or homo altus, and was regarded as the chthonic
God. 26 From this we can see clearly that the serpent was either
a forerunner of man or a distant copy of the Anthropos, and
how justified is the equation Naas = Nous = Logos r= Christ
= Higher Adam. The medieval extension of this equation to-
wards the dark side had, as I have said, already been prepared
by Gnostic phallicism. This appears as early as the fifteenth cen-
tury in the alchemical Codex Ashburnham 1166, 27 and in the
sixteenth century Mercurius was identified with Hermes Kyl-
lenios. 28

It is significant that Gnostic philosophy found its continua-
tion in alchemy. 29 "Mater Alchimia" is one of the mothers of
modern science, and modern science has given us an unparal-
leled knowledge of the "dark" side of matter. It has also pene-
trated into the secrets of physiology and evolution, and made
the very roots of life itself an object of investigation. In this
way the human mind has sunk deep into the sublunary world

26 "The Spirit Mercurius," esp. pars. 271, 282, 289.

27 See Psychology and Alchemy, fig. 131.

28 in "Chrysopoeia" (in Gratarolus, Verae alchemiae artisque metallicae, 1561,
pp. 269ft - .), which Augurellus dedicated to Pope Leo X. It contains an invocation
of the alma soror of Phoebus:

"Tu quoque, nee coeptis Cylleni audacibus usquam

Defueris, tibi nam puro de fonte perennis

Rivulus argentum, vulgo quod vivere dicunt,

Sufficit, et tantis praestat primordia rebus."
(You too, Cyllenian, this bold enterprise
Fail not, the stream from whose pure spring supplies
The silver men call "quick," the primal state
And first beginning of a work so great. [Trans, by A. S. B. Glover.])

29 In the Western Roman Empire there is a gap in this development, extending
from the 3rd to about the nth cent., that is, to the time of the first translations
from the Arabic.

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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

of matter, thus repeating the Gnostic myth of the Nous, who,
beholding his reflection in the depths below, plunged down and
was swallowed in the embrace of Physis. The climax of this de-
velopment was marked in the eighteenth century by the French
Revolution, in the nineteenth century by scientific materialism,
and in the twentieth century by political and social "realism,"
which has turned the wheel of history back a full two thousand
years and seen the recrudescence of the despotism, the lack of
individual rights, the cruelty, indignity, and slavery of the pre-
Christian world, whose "labour problem" was solved by the
"ergastulum" (convict-camp). The "transvaluation of all values"
is being enacted before our eyes.

3 6 9 The development briefly outlined here seems to have been
anticipated in medieval and Gnostic symbolism, just as the
Antichrist was in the New Testament. How this occurred I will
endeavour to describe in what follows. We have seen that, as
the higher Adam corresponds to the lower, so the lower Adam
corresponds to the serpent. For the mentality of the Middle
Ages and of late antiquity, the first of the two double pyramids,
the Anthropos Quaternio, represents the world of the spirit, or
metaphysics, while the second, the Shadow Quaternio, repre-
sents sublunary nature and in particular man's instinctual dis-
position, the "flesh"- to use a Gnostic-Christian term- which has
its roots in the animal kingdom or, to be more precise, in the
realm of warm-blooded animals. The nadir of this system is
the cold-blooded vertebrate, the snake, 30 for with the snake the
psychic rapport that can be established with practically all warm-
blooded animals comes to an end. That the snake, contrary to
expectation, should be a counterpart of the Anthropos is cor-
roborated by the fact- of especial significance for the Middle
Ages- that it is on the one hand a well-known allegory of Christ,
and on the other hand appears to be equipped with the gift of
wisdom and of supreme spirituality. 31 As Hippolytus says, the
Gnostics identified the serpent with the spinal cord and the
medulla. These are synonymous with the reflex functions.

37 The second of these quaternios is the negative of the first;
it is its shadow. By "shadow" I mean the inferior personality, the
lowest levels of which are indistinguishable from the instinctu-

3( > Synonymous with the dragon, since draco also means snake.
31 $&ov irvevmaTLKwrardv, 'the most spiritual animal.'

233

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ality of an animal. This is a view that can be found at a very
early date, in the idea of the Trpoo-^s i/o^, the 'excrescent
soul' 32 of Isidorus. 33 We also meet it in Origen, who speaks of
the animals contained in man. 34 Since the shadow, in itself, is
unconscious for most people, the snake would correspond to
what is totally unconscious and incapable of becoming con-
scious, but which, as the collective unconscious and as instinct,
seems to possess a peculiar wisdom of its own and a knowledge
that is often felt to be supernatural. This is the treasure which
the snake (or dragon) guards, and also the reason why the snake
signifies evil and darkness on the one hand and wisdom on the
other. Its unrelatedness, coldness, and dangerousness express
the instinctuality that with ruthless cruelty rides roughshod
over all moral and any other human wishes and considerations
and is therefore just as terrifying and fascinating in its effects as

37 1 In alchemy the snake is the symbol of Mercurius non vulgi,
who was bracketed with the god of revelation, Hermes. Both
have a pneumatic nature. The serpens Mercurii is a chthonic
spirit who dwells in matter, more especially in the bit of original
chaos hidden in creation, the massa confusa or globosa. The
snake-symbol in alchemy points back to historically earlier
images. Since the opus was understood by the alchemists as a
recapitulation or imitation of the creation of the world, the
serpent of Mercurius, that crafty and deceitful god, reminded
them of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and therefore of the
devil, the tempter, who on their own admission played all sorts
of tricks on them during their work. Mephistopheles, whose
"aunt is the snake," is Goethe's version of the alchemical famil-
iar, Mercurius. Like the dragon, Mercurius is the slippery,
evasive, poisonous, dangerous forerunner of the hermaphrodite,
and for that reason he has to be overcome.

372 For the Naassenes Paradise was a quaternity parallel with

32 In Valentinus the "appendages" are spirits indwelling in man. Clement of
Alexandria, Stromata, II, 20, 112 and 114 (trans. Wilson, II, pp. 641".).

33 Isidorus was the son of Basilides. See Clement of Alexandria, ibid., II, 20, 113
(Wilson, II, p. 65). The "outgrowths" are animal souls, as of wolves, monkeys,
lions, etc.

34 in Levit. hom. V, 2 (Migne, P.G., vol. 12, col. 450): "So when thou seest that
thou hast all the things the world has, doubt not that thou hast within thee
even the animals which are offered in sacrifice."

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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

the Moses quaternio and of similar meaning. Its fourfold nature
consisted in the four rivers, Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Phrat. 35
The serpent in Genesis is an illustration of the personified tree-
numen; hence it is traditionally represented in or coiled round
the tree. It is the tree's voice, which persuades Eve- in Luther's
version- that "it would be good to eat of the tree, and pleasant
to behold that it is a lusty tree." In the fairytale of "The Spirit
in the Bottle," Mercurius can likewise be interpreted as a tree-
numen. 36 In the Ripley "Scrowle" Mercurius appears as a snake
in the shape of a Melusina descending from the top of the Philo-
sophical Tree ("tree of knowledge"). 37 The tree stands for the
development and phases of the transformation process, 38 and its
fruits or flowers signify the consummation of the work. 39 In the
fairytale Mercurius is hidden in the roots of a great oak-tree,
i.e., in the earth. For it is in the interior of the earth that the
Mercurial serpent dwells.

For the alchemists Paradise was a favourite symbol of the
albedo* the regained state of innocence, and the source of its
rivers is a symbol of the aqua permanens* 1 For the Church
Fathers Christ is this source, 42 and Paradise means the ground
of the soul from which the fourfold river of the Logos bubbles
forth. 43 We find the same symbol in the alchemist and mystic
John Pordage: divine Wisdom is a "New Earth, the heavenly
Land. . . . For from this Earth grew all the Trees of Life. . . .
Thus did Paradise . . . rise up from the Heart and Centre of
this New Earth, and thus did the lost Garden of Eden flourish in
greenness." 44

85 Euphrates. 36 "The Spirit Mercurius," Part I.

87 See Psychology and Alchemy, fig. 257. 88 Ibid., par. 357.

89 Ibid., fig. 122, and "The Philosophical Tree," pars. 402ff.

40 Ripley, Cantilena, verse 28 [cf. Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 317], and Chym-
ische Schrifften, p. 51; also Mylius, Phil, ref., p. 124.

41 "A land to be watered with the clear water of paradise" (Hollandus, "Frag-
mentum de lapide," Theatr. chem., II, p. 142). The "Tractatus Aristotelis ad
Alexandrum Magnum (conscriptus et collectus a quodam Christiano Philoso-
pho)," Theatr. chem., V, p. 885, compares the "practica Aristotelis" with the
water of paradise, which makes man "whole" (incolumem) and immortal: "From
this water all true Philosophers have had life and infinite riches."

42 Didymus of Alexandria, De trinitate (Migne, P.G., vol. 39, col. 456).

43 St Ambrose, Explanationes in Psalmos, Ps. 45, 12 (Corp. Script. Eccl. Lat.,
LXIV, p. 337). Cf. Rahner, "Flumina de ventre Christi," pp. 269^.

44 Sophia (1699), p. 9.

235

AION

374 The snake symbol brings us to the images of Paradise, tree,
and earth. This amounts to an evolutionary regression from the
animal kingdom back to plants and inorganic nature, epitomized
in alchemy by the secret of matter, the lapis. Here the lapis is
not to be understood as the end product of the opus but rather
as its initial material. This arcane substance was also called lapis
by the alchemists. The symbolism here described can be repre-
sented diagrammatically as another quaternio or double pyra-
mid:

Serpent

Gihon

Hiddekel

Euphrates

Pison

Lapis

C. The Paradise Quaternio

375 The lapis was thought of as a unity and therefore often
stands for the prima materia in general. But just as the latter
is a bit of the original chaos which was believed to be hidden
somewhere in metals, particularly in mercury, or in other sub-
stances, and is not in itself a simple thing (as the name "massa
confusa" shows), so too the lapis consists of the four elements or

236

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

has to be put together from them. 45 In the chaos the elements
are not united, they are merely coexistent and have to be com-
bined through the alchemical procedure. They are even hostile
to one another and will not unite of their own accord. They
represent, therefore, an original state of conflict and mutual
repulsion. This image serves to illustrate the splitting up or
unfolding of the original unity into the multiplicity of the
visible world. Out of the split-up quaternity the opus puts to-
gether the unity of the lapis in the realm of the inorganic. As
the filius macrocosmi and a living being, the lapis is not just an
allegory but is a direct parallel of Christ 46 and the higher Adam,
of the heavenly Original Man, of the second Adam (Christ), and
of the serpent. The nadir of this third quaternio is therefore a
further counterpart of the Anthropos.

As already mentioned, the constitution of the lapis rests on
the union of the four elements, 47 which in their turn represent
an unfolding of the unknowable inchoate state, or chaos. This is
the prima materia, the arcanum, the primary substance, which
in Paracelsus and his followers is called the increatum and is
regarded as coeternal with God- a correct interpretation of the
Tehom in Genesis 1:2: "And the [uncreated] earth was with-
out form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep;
and the Spirit of God [brooded] over the face of the waters."
This primary substance is round (massa globosa, rotundum,
aroixdov oTpoyyvXov), like the world and the world-soul; it is in
fact the world-soul and the world-substance in one. It is the
"stone that has a spirit," 48 in modern parlance the most elemen-
tary building-stone in the architecture of matter, the atom,
which is an intellectual model. The alchemists describe the

45 The lapis is made of the four elements, like Adam. The centre of the squared
circle is the "mediator, making peace between the enemies or elements, so that
they may love one another in a meet embrace" ("Tractatus aureus," Theatr.
chem., IV, p. 691).

46 Cf. the evidence for this in Psychology and Alchemy, "The Lapis-Christ
Parallel."

47 Mylius (Phil, ref., p. 15) identifies the elements that constitute the lapis with
corpus, spiritus, and anima: corpus is matter, earth, and spiritus is the nodus
(bond) animae et corporis, and therefore corresponds to fire. Water and air, which
would properly characterize the anima, are also "spirit." Three of the elements
are "moving," one (earth) "unmoving." Cf. n. 89, infra.

48 Quotation from Ostanes in Zosimos, "Sur l'art" (Berthelot, Alch. grecs, III,
vi, 5)-

237

377

AION

"round element" now as primal water, now as primal fire, or as
pneuma, primal earth, or "corpusculum nostrae sapientiae,"
the little body of our wisdom. 49 As water or fire it is the uni-
versal solvent; as stone and metal it is something that has to be
dissolved and changed into air (pneuma, spirit).

This lapis symbolism can once more be visualized diagram-
matically as a double pyramid:

Lapis

Earth

Rotundum

D. The Lapis Quaternio

Zosimos calls the rotundum the omega element (fi), which
probably signifies the head. 50 The skull is mentioned as the ves-
sel of transformation in the Sabaean treatise "Platonis liber
quartorum," 51 and the "Philosophers" styled themselves "chil-
dren of the golden head," 52 which is probably synonymous with
"filii sapientiae." The vas is often synonymous with the lapis,
so that there is no difference between the vessel and its content;

49 "Aurora consurgens," Art. aurif., I, p. 208.

50 Cf. my remarks on the significance of the head in "Transformation Symbolism
in the Mass," pars. 3653. "Head" also means "beginning," e.g., "head of the Nile,"
etc. 51 Theatr. chem., V, p. 151. 52 Berthelot, III, x, 1.

238

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

in other words, it is the same arcanum. 53 According to the old
view the soul is round 54 and the vessel must be round too, like
the heavens or the world. 55 The form of the Original Man is
round. Accordingly Dorn says that the vessel "should be made
from a kind of squaring of the circle, so that the spirit and the
soul of our material, separated from its body, may raise the body
with them to the height of their own heaven." 50 The anony-
mous author of the scholia to the "Tractatus aureus" also writes
about the squaring of the circle and shows a square whose cor-
ners are formed by the four elements. In the centre there is a
small circle. The author says: "Reduce your stone to the four
elements, rectify and combine them into one, and you will have
the whole magistery. This One, to which the elements must be
reduced, is that little circle in the centre of this squared figure. It
is the mediator, making peace between the enemies or ele-
ments." 57 In a later chapter he depicts the vessel, "the true
philosophical Pelican," 58 as shown on the next page. 59

53 "There is one stone, one medicine, one vessel, one method, one disposition"
(Rosarium philosophorum, Art. aurif., II, 206). "In our water all modes of things
are brought about. ... In the said water they are made as in an artificial vessel,
which is a mighty secret" (Mylius, Phil, ref., p. 245). "The Philosophical vessel is
their water" (ibid., p. 33). This saying comes from de Hoghelande's treatise in
Theatr. chem., I, p. 199. There we find: "Sulphur also is called by Lully the vessel
of Nature," and Haly's description of the vessel as "ovum." The egg is content and
container at once. The vas naturale is the aqua permanens and the "vinegar" of
the Philosophers. ("Aurora consurgens," Part II, Art. aurif., I, p. 203.)

54 Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles, trans. Scott and Bland, Dist. I,
chs. XXXII and XXXIV.

55 in Olympiodorus the transforming vessel is the "spherical phial" or Spyavov
kvkXikop (circular apparatus). (Berthelot, II, iv, 44.) "The spagiric vessel is to be
made after the likeness of the natural vessel. For we see that all heaven and the
elements have the likeness of a spherical body" (Dorn, Theatr. chem., I, p. 430).
"The end of all this master-work is, that the Philosophic Mercury be placed in the
heavenly sphere" (ibid, p. 499). Trevisanus calls the vessel the rotundum cubile,
"round bridal bed" ("Liber de alchemia," Theatr. chem., I, p. 790).

66 "Congeries," Theatr. chem., I, pp. 574L 57 Ibid., IV, p. 691.

58 "Nor is any other to be sought after in all the world." The Pelican is a dis-
tilling vessel, but the distillate, instead of dripping into the receiver, runs back
into the belly of the retort. We could take this as illustrating the process of con-
scious realization and the reapplication of conscious insights to the unconscious.
"It restored their former security of life to those once near to death," the author
says of the Pelican, which, as we know, is an allegory of Christ.

59 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 167, n. 44. [Also "Paracelsus as a Spiritual
Phenomenon," fig. B7.]

239

AION

37 8 He comments: "A is the inside, as it were the origin and
source from which the other letters flow, and likewise the final
goal to which all the others flow back, as rivers flow into the
ocean or into the great sea." This explanation is enough to show
that the vessel is nothing else but a mandala, symbolizing the
self or the higher Adam with his four emanations (like Horus
with his four sons). The author calls it the "Septenarius magicus
occultus" (the hidden magic number, seven). 60 Likewise Maria

the Prophetess says: "The Philosophers teach everything except
the Hermetic vessel, because that is divine and is hidden from the
Gentiles by the Lord's wisdom; and they who know it not,
know not the true method, because of their ignorance of the
vessel of Hermes." Theobald de Hoghelande adds: "Senior says
that the vision thereof is more to be sought after than [knowl-
edge of] the Scriptures." Maria the Prophetess says: "This is the
vessel of Hermes, which the Stoics hid, and it is no nigromantic
vessel, but is the measure of thy fire [mensura ignis tui]." 61

60 That is, counting the letters F and G (not included in the diagram), which
signify Above and Below.

61 Art. aurif., I, p. 324; Theatr. chem., I, p. 199; Art. aurif., I, p. 323.

240

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

379 It is clear from these quotations that the vessel had a great
and unusual significance. 62 Philale thes, summing up the innu-
merable synonyms for Mercurius, says that Mercurius is not
only the key to the alchemical art, and "that two-edged sword
in the hand of the cherub who guards the way to the tree of
life," but also "our true, hidden vessel, the Philosophic garden,
wherein our Sun rises and sets." 63 This helps us to understand,
more or less, the strange advice given by Johannes de Rupescissa:
"Have a vessel made after the manner of a cherub, which is the
figure of God, and have six wings, after the fashion of six arms,
turning back on themselves; and above, a round head . . . and
put within this vessel the said burning water," etc. 64 The defini-
tion of the cherub as "the figure of God" suggests that Ru-
pescissa is referring here to the vision of Ezekiel, which was
arranged in such a way that a horizontal section through it
would produce a mandala divided into four parts. This, as I
have already mentioned, is equivalent to the squaring of the
circle, from which, according to one alchemical recipe, the ves-
sel should be constructed. The mandala signifies the human or
divine self, the totality or vision of God, as in this case is quite
clear. Naturally a recipe of this sort can only be understood
"philosophically," that is psychologically. It then reads: make
the Hermetic vessel out of your psychic wholeness and pour into
it the aqua permanens, or aqua doctrinae, one of whose syno-
nyms is the vinum ardens (cf. Rupescissa's "burning water").
This would be a hint that the adept should "inwardly digest"
and transform himself through the alchemical doctrine.

3 8 In this connection we can also understand what the Aurora
consurgens (Part II) means when it speaks of the vas naturale
as the matrix: it is the "One in which there are three things,
namely water, air, and fire. They are three glass alembics, in
which the son of the Philosophers is begotten. Therefore they
have named it tincture, blood, and egg.*' 65 The three alembics
are an allusion to the Trinity. That this is in fact so can be seen
from the illustration on page 249 of the 1588 edition of Pandora,
where, beside the three alembics immersed in a great cooking-
pot, there stands the figure of Christ, with blood pouring from

62 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, par. 338. 63 Mus. herm., p. 770.

64 La Vertu et la propriete de la quinte essence (1581), p. 26.

65 Art. aurif., I, p. 203.

841

AION

the lance wound in his breast ("flumina de ventre Christi"!). 66
The round Hermetic vessel in which the mysterious transforma-
tion is accomplished is God himself, the (Platonic) world-soul
and man's own wholeness. It is, therefore, another counterpart
of the Anthropos, and at the same time the universe in its
smallest and most material form. So it is easy to see why the first
attempts to construct a model of the atom took the planetary
system as a prototype.

381 The quaternity is an organizing schema par excellence,
something like the crossed threads in a telescope. It is a system
of co-ordinates that is used almost instinctively for dividing up
and arranging a chaotic multiplicity, as when we divide up the
visible surface of the earth, the course of the year, or a collec-
tion of individuals into groups, 67 the phases of the moon, the
temperaments, elements, alchemical colours, and so on. Thus,
when we come upon a quaternio among the Gnostics, we find in
it an attempt, more or less conscious, to organize the chaotic
medley of numinous images that poured in upon them. As we
have seen, the arrangement took a form that derives from the
primitive cross-cousin marriage, namely the marriage quater-
nio. 68 This differs from the primitive form in that the sister-
exchange marriage has sloughed off its biological character, the
sister's husb and no longer being the wife's brother but another
close relative (such as the wife's father in the Moses Quaternio),
or even a stranger. The loss of the cousin- and brother-attri bute
is compensated as a rule by magical qualities, such as more
exalted rank, magical powers, and the like, both in the case of
the husband's sister and the wife's brother. That is to say, an
anima-animus projection takes place. This modification brings
with it a great cultural advance, for the very fact of projection
points to a constellation of the unconscious in the husband-wife
relationship, which means that the marriage has become psy-
chologically complicated. It is no longer a state of mere bio-

66 "Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon," fig. B4.

67 Marriage classes and settlements.

68 "Psychology of the Transference," pars. 433ff. [Cf. Layard, Stone Men of
Malekula, chs. 5 and 6, and "The Incest Taboo and the Virgin Archetype," pp.
266ff.- Editors.]

84*

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

logical and social coexistence, but is beginning to turn into a
conscious relationship. This happens when the original cross-
cousin marriage becomes obsolete as a result of the further dif-
ferentiation of marriage classes into a six-, eight-, or twelve-class
system. The cause of the activation of the unconscious that goes
hand in hand with this development is the regression of the
endogamous tendency- the "kinship libido"- which can no
longer find adequate satisfaction owing to the increasing
strangeness of the marriage partner. 69

Besides the marriage quaternio, the Gnostics also used the
quaternity of the rivers of Paradise as a means of organizing
their numerous symbols. There are thus two (compensatory)
attempts, in the symbols we have listed, to organize the appar-
ently disconnected images. This accords with our experience of
the series of pictures produced during active imagination and in
chaotic psychic states. In both cases quaternity symbols appear
from time to time. 70 They signify stabilization through order as
opposed to the instability caused by chaos, and have a compensa-
tory meaning.

The four quaternios depicted above are first and foremost an
attempt to arrange systematically the almost limitless wealth of
symbols in Gnosticism and its continuation, alchemy. But such
an arrangement of principles also proves useful for understand-
ing the individual symbolism of modern dreams. The images we
encounter in this field are even more varied, and so confusing
in their complexity that some kind of organizing schema is abso-
lutely essential. As it is advisable to proceed historically, I have
taken the Moses Quaternio as a starting point, because it derives
directly from the primitive schema of the cross-cousin marriage.
Naturally this quaternio has only a paradigmatic significance.
One could base the system just as easily on any other marriage
quaternio, but not on any other quaternity, such as, for instance,
Horus and his four sons. This quaternity is not aboriginal
enough, for it misses out the antagonistic, feminine element. 71

69 "Psychology of the Transference," par. 438.

70 Case material in Psychology and Alchemy, part II. Triadic symbols also occur,
but they are rarer.

71 The Gnostic quaternio is naturally later than the Horus quaternity in point of
time, but psychologically it is older, because in it the feminine element reassumes
its rightful place, as is not the case with the patriarchal Horus quaternio.

243

AION

It is most important that just the extreme opposites, masculine-
feminine and so on, should appear linked together. That is why
the alchemical pairs of opposites are linked together in qua-
ternities, e.g., warm-cold, dry-moist. Applied to the Moses
Quaternio, the following schema of relationships would result:

JETHRO

Father

MOSES

Brother

MIRIAM

Sister

ZIPPORAH

Daughter

384 Whereas the first double pyramid, the Anthropos Quaternio,
corresponds to the Gnostic model, the second one is a construc-
tion derived psychologically from the first, but based on the data
contained in the Biblical text used by the Gnostics. The psycho-
logical reasons for constructing a second quaternio have already
been discussed. That the second must be the "shadow" of the
first is due to the fact that the lower Adam, the mortal man,
possesses a chthonic psyche and is therefore not adequately ex-
pressed by a quaternity supraordinate to him. If he were, he
would be an unsymmetrical figure, just as the higher Adam is
unsymmetrical and has to be complemented by a subordinate
quaternity related to him like his shadow or his darker reflection.

3 8 5 Now just as the Anthropos Quaternio finds its symmetrical
complement in the lower Adam, so the lower Adam is balanced
by the subordinate Shadow Quaternio, constructed after the
pattern of the upper one. The symmetrical complement of the
lower Adam is the serpent. The choice of this symbol is justified
firstly by the well-known association of Adam with the snake:
it is his chthonic daemon, his familiar spirit. Secondly, the snake
is the commonest symbol for the dark, chthonic world of in-
stinct. It may- as frequently happens- be replaced by an equiv-
alent cold-blooded animal, such as a dragon, crocodile, or fish.

244

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

But the snake is not just a nefarious, chthonic being; it is also,
as we have already mentioned, a symbol of wisdom, and hence
of light, goodness, and healing. 72 Even in the New Testament
it is simultaneously an allegory of Christ and of the devil, just
as we have seen that the fish was. Similarly the dragon, which
for us has only a negative meaning, has a positive significance
in China, and sometimes in Western alchemy too. The inner
polarity of the snake-symbol far exceeds that of man. It is overt,
whereas man's is partly latent or potential. The serpent sur-
passes Adam in cleverness and knowledge and can outwit him.
She is older than he, and is evidently equipped by God with a
superhuman intelligence, like that son of God who took over
the role of Satan. 73

Just as man culminates above in the idea of a "light" and
good God, so he rests below on a dark and evil principle, tradi-
tionally described as the devil or as the serpent that personifies
Adam's disobedience. And just as we symmetrized man by the
serpent, so the serpent has its complement in the second Naas-
sene quaternio, or Paradise Quaternio. Paradise takes us into
the world of plants and animals. It is, in fact, a plantation or
garden enlivened by animals, the epitome of all the growing
things that sprout out of the earth. As serpens raercurialis, the
snake is not only related to the god of revelation, Hermes, but,
as a vegetation numen, calls forth the "blessed greenness," all
the budding and blossoming of plant life. 74 Indeed, this serpent
actually dwells in the interior of the earth and is the pneuma
that lies hidden in the stone. 75

The symmetrical complement of the serpent, then, is the
stone as representative of the earth. Here we enter a later de-
velopmental stage of the symbolism, the alchemical stage, whose
central idea is the lapis. Just as the serpent forms the lower
opposite of man, so the lapis complements the serpent. It corre-
sponds, on the other hand, to man, for it is not only represented

72 Like, for instance, the Aesculapian and Agathodaimon serpent.

73 Scharf, "Die Gestalt des Satans im Alten Testament," p. 151.

74 "O blessed greenness, which givest birth to all things, whence know that no
vegetable and no fruit appears in the bud but that it hath a green colour. Like-
wise know that the generation of this thing is green, for which reason the
Philosophers have called it a bud." (Ros. phil., Art. aurif., II, p. 220.)

75 Cf. the Ostanes quotation in Zosimos, Psychology and Alchemy, par. 405.

*45

AION

in human form but even has "body, soul, and spirit," is an
homunculus and, as the texts show, a symbol of the self. It is,
however, not a human ego but a collective entity, a collective
soul, like the Indian hiranyagarbha, 'golden seed.' The stone is
the "father-mother" of the metals, an hermaphrodite. Though
it is an ultimate unity, it is not an elementary but a composite
unity that has evolved. For the stone we could substitute all
those "thousand names" which the alchemists devised for their
central symbol, but nothing different or more fitting would have
been said.

388 This choice of symbol, too, is not arbitrary, but is docu-
mented by alchemical literature from the first to the eighteenth
century. The lapis is produced, as we have already seen, from
the splitting and putting together of the four elements, from
the rotundum. The rotundum is a highly abstract, transcendent
idea, which by reason of its roundness 76 and wholeness refers to
the Original Man, the Anthropos.

3 8 9 Accordingly our four double pyramids would arrange them-
selves in a circle and form the well-known uroboros. As the
fifth stage, the rotundum would then be identical with the first;
that is to say, the heavy darkness of the earth, metal, has a secret
relationship to the Anthropos. That is obvious in alchemy, but
occurs also in the history of religion, where the metals grow
from Gayomart's blood. 77 This curious relationship is explained
by the identity of the lowest, most material thing with the high-
est and most spiritual, which we have already met in the inter-
pretation of the serpent as a chthonic and at the same time the
"most spiritual" animal. In Plato the rotundum is the world-
soul and a "blessed God." 78

76 A hint that rotation may be a principle of matter.

77 According to the report of the Damdad-Nashk (Reitzenstein and Schader,
Studien zum antiken Syncretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, p. 18). Gayomart
is the Original Man in the theosophical version of Zarathustra's system. Yima, on
the other hand, is the Original Man of ancient Aryan legend. His name is Yimo
kshaito, 'the shining Yima.' According to the Mainyo-i-Khard, the metals were
created from his body. (Kohut, "Die talmudisch-midraschische Adamssage," pp. 68,
70.) In the Bundahish, Gayomart's body consisted of metals. (Christensen, "Le
Premier Homme et le premier roi dans l'histoire legendaire des Iraniens," p. 21.)
W [Cf. "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma of the Trinity," par. 185. -
Editors.]

246

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

39 We shall now try to condense the argument of the previous
chapter and represent it graphically. Vertically arranged, our
schema looks like this:

Anthropot

Christus (J D D Diabolut

Rotundum

In the diagram I have emphasized the point of greatest ten-
sion between the opposites, namely the double significance of
the serpent, which occupies the centre of the system. Being an
allegory of Christ as well as of the devil, it contains and sym-
bolizes the strongest polarity into which the Anthropos falls
when he descends into Physis. The ordinary man has not
reached this point of tension: he has it merely in the uncon-
scious, i.e., in the serpent. 79 In the lapis, the counterpart of man,

79 Most people do not have sufficient range of consciousness to become aware of
the opposites inherent in human nature. The tensions they generate remain for
the most part unconscious, but can appear in dreams. Traditionally, the snake
stands for the vulnerable spot in man: it personifies his shadow, i.e., his weakness
and unconsciousness. The greatest danger about unconsciousness is proneness to
suggestion. The effect of suggestion is due to the release of an unconscious

247

AION

the opposites are so to speak united, but with a visible seam or
suture as in the symbol of the hermaphrodite. This mars the
idea of the lapis just as much as the all-too-human element mars
Homo sapiens. In the higher Adam and in the rotundum the
opposition is invisible. But presumably the one stands in abso-
lute opposition to the other, and if both are identical as in-
distinguishable transcendental entities, this is one of those
paradoxes that are the rule: a statement about something meta-
physical can only be antinomial.
39 1 The arrangement in the uroboros gives the following
picture:

Anthropos-Rotundum

Lapis

Homo

Serpens

This arrangement shows the stronger tension between an-
thropos-rotundum and serpens on the one hand, and the lesser

dynamic, and the more unconscious this is, the more effective it will be. Hence
the ever-widening split between conscious and unconscious increases the danger
of psychic infection and mass psychosis. With the loss of symbolic ideas the bridge
to the unconscious has broken down. Instinct no longer affords protection against
unsound ideas and empty slogans. Rationality without tradition and without a
basis in instinct is proof against no absurdity.

X48

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

tension between homo and lapis on the other, expressed by
the distance of the points in question from one another. The
arrows indicate the descent into Physis and the ascent towards
the spiritual. The lowest point is the serpent. The lapis, how-
ever, though of decidedly material nature, is also a spiritual
symbol, while the rotundum connotes a transcendent entity sym-
bolized by the secret of matter and thus comparable to the con-
cept of the atom. The antinomial development of the concepts
is in keeping with the paradoxical nature of alchemy.

The lapis quaternity, which is a product of alchemical
gnosis, brings us to the interesting physical speculations of
alchemy. In the Scrutinium chymicum (1687) of Michael Maier
(1568-1622), there is a picture 80 of the four elements as four
different stages of fire (Plate I).

As the picture shows, the four spheres are filled with fire.
The author comments with the following verses:

Naturae qui imitaris opus, tibi quattuor orbes
Quaerendi, interius quos levis ignis agat.

Imus Vulcanum referat, bene monstret at alter
Mercurium, Lunam tertius orbis habet:

Quartus, Apollo, tuus, naturae auditur et ignis,
Ducat in arte manus ilia catena tuas.

From this we learn that the lowest sphere corresponds to
Vulcan, the earthly (?) fire; the second to Mercurius, the vegeta-
tive life-spirit; the third to the moon, the female, psychic prin-
ciple; and the fourth to the sun, the male, spiritual principle. It
is evident from Maier's commentary that he is concerned on the
one hand with the four elements and on the other with the four
kinds of fire which are responsible for producing different states
of aggregation. His ignis elementalis re et nomine would,
according to its place in the sequence, correspond to Vulcan;
the fire of Mercurius to air; the third fire to water and the
moon; and the fourth, which would correspond to the sun, he
calls "terreus" (earthly). According to Ripley, whom Maier
quotes, the ignis elementalis is the fire "which lights wood"; it
must therefore be the ordinary fire. The sun-fire, on the other
hand, seems to be the fire in the earth, which today we would

80 Emblema XVII, p. 49.

249

AION

call "volcanic," and corresponds to the solid state of aggrega-
tion ("terreus"). We thus get the following series:

VIGENERE SERIES 81 RIPLEY SERIES

ignis mundi intelligibilis = ignis naturalis 82 =

ignis caelestis - ignis innaturalis 83 =

ignis elementaris - ignis contra naturam M =

ignis infernalis 81 = ignis elementalis =

MAIER SERIES

ignis terreus = Sulfura et Mercurii = Sun (Apollo) = earth
ignis aqueus = aquae = Moon (Luna) = water

ignis aerius = dracones = Mercurius = air

ignis elementalis = ignis elementalis = Ordinary fire - fire
re et nomine (Vulcan)

STATES OF AGGREGATION

= solid
= liquid
= gas
= flame

394 The remarkable thing about this paralleling of states of
aggregation with different kinds of fire is that it amounts to a
kind of phlogiston theory - not, of course, explicit, but clearly
hinted at: fire is peculiar to all the states of aggregation and is
therefore responsible for their constitution. This idea is old 85
and can be found as early as the Turba, where Dardaris says:
"The sulphurs are four souls [animae] which were hidden in
the four elements." 86 Here the active principle (anima) is not
fire, but sulphur. The idea, however, is the same, namely that
the elements or states of aggregation can be reduced to a com-
mon denominator. Today we know that the factor common to
antagonistic elements is molecular movement, and that the states

81 Vigenere comments: "The intelligible fire of the world: is all light. The heavenly
fire: partakes of heat and light. The elemental fire: less in light, heat, and glow.
The infernal fire: opposed to the intelligible, of heat and burning without any
light." ("De igne et sale," Theatr. chem., VI, p. 39.) [Cf. supra, par. 203.]

82 "Is present in everything." 83 "The heat of ashes and baths."

84 "Tortures bodies, is the dragon." 85 The oldest source is Heraclitus.

86 Turba, ed. by Ruska, Sermo XLIII, p. 149.

250

I. The Four Elements
From Michael Maier, Scrutinium chymicum (1687)

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

of aggregation correspond to different degrees of this move-
ment. Molecular movement in its turn corresponds to a certain
quantum of energy, so that the common denominator of the
elements is energy. One of the stepping-stones to the modern
concept of energy is Stahl's phlogiston theory, 87 which is based
on the alchemical premises discussed above. We can see in them,
therefore, the earliest beginnings of a theory of energy. 88

The phlogiston theory adumbrated by the alchemists did
not get as far as that, but it points unmistakably in that direc-
tion. Moreover, all the mathematical and physical elements
from which a theory of energy could have been constructed were
known in the seventeenth century. Energy is an abstract con-
cept which is indispensable for exact description of the be-
haviour of bodies in motion. In the same way bodies in motion
can only be apprehended with the help of the system of space-
time co-ordinates. Wherever movement is established, it is done
by means of the space-time quaternio, which can be expressed
either by the axiom of Maria, 3 -f- 1, or by the sesquitertian pro-
portion, 3 : 4. This quaternio could therefore replace that of the
four elements, where the unit that corresponds to the time-co-
ordinate, or the fourth in the alchemical series of elements, is
characterized by the fact that one element has an exceptional
position, like fire or earth. 89

The exceptional position of one of the factors in a quater-
nity can also be expressed by its duplex nature. For instance,
the fourth of the rivers of Paradise, the Euphrates, signifies the
mouth through which food goes in and prayers go out, as well
as the Logos. In the Moses Quaternio, the wife of Moses plays
the double role of Zipporah and of the Ethiopian woman. If
we construct a quaternity from the divine equivalents of Maier's

87 G. E. Stahl (1660-1734) supposed that all combustible (i.e., oxidizable) sub-
stances contain an igneous principle. It was assumed to be weightless, or even to
possess a negative weight. Cf. H. E. Fierz-David, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der
Chemie, pp. 1481".

88 Psychologically, of course, the primitive idea of mana is very much older, but
here we are talking of scientific concepts. The sulphur = anima equation still con-
tains a trace of the original mana theory. Earlier, mana was characteristically mis-
understood as animism.

89 Fire as spiritual, the other elements material; earth unmoving, the others
moving.

251

AION

four elements- Apollo, Luna, Mercurius, Vulcan- we get a mar-
riage quaternio with a brother-sister relationship:

Apollo

Luna

Vulcan

Mercurius duplex

In alchemy Mercurius is male-female and frequently appears
as a virgin too. This characteristic (3 + l > or 3 : 4) * s a ^ so appar-
ent in the space-time quaternio:

Height

Depth

Time

397

If we look at this quaternio from the standpoint of the
three-dimensionality of space, then time can be conceived as a
fourth dimension. But if we look at it in terms of the three
qualities of time- past, present, future- then static space, in
which changes of state occur, must be added as a fourth term.
In both cases, the fourth represents an incommensurable Other
that is needed for their mutual determination. Thus we measure
space by time and time by space. The Other, the fourth, corre-
sponds in the Gnostic quaternities to the fiery god, "the fourth
by number," to the dual wife of Moses (Zipporah and the Ethi-
opian woman), to the dual Euphrates (river and Logos), to the
fire 90 in the alchemical quaternio of elements, to Mercurius
duplex in Maier's quaternio of gods, and in the "Christian

90 Bohme calls the "fire of Nature" the "fourth form.
De signatura rerum (1682), p. 279.

252

'Tabula principiorum,"

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

Quaternity"- if such an expression be permitted 91 - to Mary or
the devil. These two incompatible figures are united in the
Mercurius duplex of alchemy. 92

The space-time quaternio is the archetypal sine qua non for
any apprehension of the physical world- indeed, the very pos-
sibility of apprehending it. It is the organizing schema par excel-
lence among the psychic quaternities. In its structure it cor-
responds to the psychological schema of the functions. 93 The
3 : 1 proportion frequently occurs in dreams and in spontaneous
mandala-drawings.

A modern parallel to the diagram of quaternities arranged
on top of one another (cf. par. 390), coupled with the idea of
ascent and descent, can be found among the illustrations to my
paper on mandala pictures. 94 The same idea also appears in
the pictures relating to a case described there at some length,
and dealing with vibrations that formed "nodes." 95 Each of
these nodes signified an outstanding personality, as was true
also of the picture in the first case. A similar motif may well
underlie the representation of the Trinity here appended
(Plate II), from the manuscript of a treatise by Joachim of
Flora. 96

91 The doctrine of Sabellius (beginning of the 2nd cent.) concerning the preworldly
Monad, the "silent and unacting God" and its three prosopa (modes of manifesta-
tion), calls for further investigation, as it bequea thed to posterity the first begin-
nings of a quaternary view of the Deity. Thus Joachim of Flora makes the follow-
ing accusation against Peter Lombard: "Quod in suis dixit Sententiis, quoniam
quaedam suraraa res est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus et ilia non est generans,
neque genita, neque procedens: unde asserit quod ille non tarn Trinitatem, quam
quaternitatem astruebat in Deo, videlicet tres personas, et illam communem
essentiam quasi quartam." (As he [Peter] says in his Book of Sentences, For a cer-
tain supreme Something is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and It neither begets, nor
is begotten, nor proceeds. On this basis Joachim asserts that the Lombard ascribed
not Trinity, but Quaternity to God, that is to say, three Persons, and that common
Something as a fourth). (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215. Decrees, Cap. 2; Denzinger
and Bannwart, Enchiridion, p. 190.) Cf. "A Psychological Approach to the Dogma
of the Trinity," pars. 243ff.

92 cf <

93 The three relatively differentiated functions and one undifferentiated, "inferior"
function. Cf. Psychological Types, and the diagrams in Jacobi, The Psychology of
C. G. Jung.

94 "A Study in the Process of Individuation," fig. 2, p. 309.

95 Ibid., Picture 3 and accompanying text.

96 Zurich Central Library, Graphics Collection, B x 606.

253

AION

400 1 would like, in conclusion, to mention the peculiar theory
of world creation in the Clementine Homilies. In God, pneuma
and soma are one. When they separate, pneuma appears as the
Son and "archon of the future Aeon," but soma, actual sub-
stance (ovma) or matter (vkrj), divides into four, corresponding to
the four elements (wh;ch were always solemnly invoked at
initiations). From the mixing of the four parts there arose the
devil, the "archon of this Aeon," and the psyche of this world.
Soma had become psychized {liixpvxov): "God rules this world
as much through the devil as through the Son, for both are in his
hands." 97 God unfolds himself in the world in the form of
syzygies (paired opposites), such as heaven/earth, day/night,
male /female, etc. The last term of the first series is the Adam/
Eve syzygy. At the end of this fragmentation process there fol-
lows the return to the beginning, the consummation of the
universe (rtkev-rq tw iravruv) through purification and annihila-
tion. 98

i 01 Anyone who knows alchemy can hardly avoid being struck

by the likeness which pseudo-Clement's theory bears to the basic
conceptions of the alchemists, if we disregard its moral aspects.
Thus we have the "hostile brothers," Christ and the devil, who
were regarded as brothers in the Jewish-Christian tradition; the
tetrameria into four parts or elements; the paired opposites and
their ultimate unity; the parallel of the lapis and Mercurius
with Christ and, because of the snake or dragon symbolism, also
with the devil; and finally, the figure of Mercurius duplex and
of the lapis, which unites the opposites indivisibly in itself.

42 If we look back over the course our argument has taken, we
see at the beginning of it two Gnostic quaternities, one of which
is supraordinate, and the other subordinate, to man, namely the
"Positive Moses" or Anthropos Quaternio, and the Paradise
Quaternio. 99 It is probably no accident that Hippolytus men-

97 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte , I, p. 334.

98 Condensed from the reconstruction by Uhlhorn, in Realencyklopddie fur
Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. by Hauck, IV, pp. 173ft.

99 To avoid misunderstandings I would like to emphasize that "Paradise" is used
here not in the metaphorical sense, as "future heaven" or the Abode of the
Blessed, but in the sense of the earthly Garden of Eden.

254

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II. The Trinity
From a manuscript by Joachim of Flora

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

tions precisely these two quaternities, or that the Naassenes
knew only these, for the position of man is, in their system,
closely connected with the higher Adam but is separated from
the chthonic world of plants and animals, namely Paradise. Only
through his shadow has he a relationship to the serpent with its
dual meaning. This situation is altogether characteristic of the
age of Gnosticism and early Christianity. Man in those days was
close to the "kingless [i.e., independent] race," that is, to the
upper quaternity, the kingdom of heaven, and looked upward.
But what begins above does not rise higher, but ends below.
Thus we felt impelled to symmetrize the lower Adam of the
Naassenes by a Shadow Quaternio, for just as he cannot ascend
direct to the higher Adam- since the Moses Quaternio lies in
between- so we have to assume a lower, shadowy quaternity
corresponding to the upper one, lying between him and the
lower principle, the serpent. This operation was obviously un-
known in the Gnostic age, because the unsymmetrical upward
trend seemed to disturb nobody, but rather to be the very thing
desired and "on the programme." If, therefore, we insert be-
tween Man and Serpent a quaternity not mentioned in the
texts, we do so because we can no longer conceive of a psyche
that is oriented exclusively upwards and that is not balanced by
an equally strong consciousness of the lower man. This is a
specifically modern state of affairs and, in the context of Gnostic
thinking, an obnoxious anachronism that puts man in the centre
of the field of consciousness where he had never consciously
stood before. Only through Christ could he actually see this
consciousness mediating between God and the world, and by
making the person of Christ the object of his devotions he gradu-
ally came to acquire Christ's position as mediator. Through the
Christ crucified between the two thieves man gradually attained
knowledge of his shadow and its duality. This duality had al-
ready been anticipated by the double meaning of the serpent.
Just as the serpent stands for the power that heals as well as
corrupts, so one of the thieves is destined upwards, the other
downwards, and so likewise the shadow is on one side regrettable
and reprehensible weakness, on the other side healthy instinc-
tivity and the prerequisite for higher consciousness.

Thus the Shadow Quaternio that counterbalances man's

255

AION

position as mediator only falls into place when that position has
become sufficiently real for him to feel his consciousness of him-
self or his own existence more strongly than his dependence on
and governance by God. Therefore, if we complement the up-
ward-tending pneumatic attitude that characterizes the early
Christian and Gnostic mentality by adding its opposite counter-
part, this is in line with the historical development. Man's
original dependence on a pneumatic sphere, to which he clung
like a child to its mother, was threatened by the kingdom of
Satan. From him the pneumatic man was delivered by the Re-
deemer, who broke the gates of hell and deceived the archons;
but he was bound to the kingdom of heaven in exactly the
same degree. He was separated from evil by an abyss. This
attitude was powerfully reinforced by the immediate expecta-
tion of the Second Coming. But when Christ did not reappear,
a regression was only to be expected. When such a great hope is
dashed and such great expectations are not fulfilled, then the
libido perforce flows back into man and heightens his conscious-
ness of himself by accentuating his personal psychic processes;
in other words, he gradually moves into the centre of his field
of consciousness. This leads to separation from the pneumatic
sphere and an approach to the realm of the shadow. Accordingly,
man's moral consciousness is sharpened, and, as a parallel to this,
his feeling of redemption becomes relativized. The Church has
to exalt the significance and power of her ritual in order to put
limits to the inrush of reality. In this way she inevitably becomes
a "kingdom of this world." The transition from the Anthropos
to the Shadow Quaternio illustrates an historical development
which led, in the eleventh century, to a widespread recognition
of the evil principle as the world creator.

404 The serpent and its chthonic wisdom form the turning-point
of the great drama. The Paradise Quaternio with the lapis, that
comes next, brings us to the beginnings of natural science
(Roger Bacon, 1214-94; Albertus Magnus, 1193-1280; and the
alchemists), whose main trend differs from the pneumatic not by
180 but only by 90 - that is to say, it cuts across the spiritual
attitude of the Church and is more an embarrassment for faith
than a contradiction of it.

45 From the lapis, i.e., from alchemy, the line leads direct to

256

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

the quaternio of alchemical states of aggregation, which, as we
have seen, is ultimately based on the space-time quaternio. The
latter comes into the category of archetypal quaternities and
proves, like these, to be an indispensable principle for organiz-
ing the sense-impressions which the psyche receives from bodies
in motion. Space and time form a psychological a priori, an
aspect of the archetypal quaternity which is altogether indis-
pensable for acquiring knowledge of physical processes.

The development from the Shadow to the Lapis Quaternio
illustrates the change in man's picture of the world during the
course of the second millennium. The series ends with the con-
cept of the rotundum, or of rotation as contrasted with the static
quality of the quaternity, which, as we have said, proves to be
of prime importance for apprehending reality. The rise of scien-
tific materialism connected with this development appears on
the one hand as a logical consequence, on the other hand as a
deification of matter. This latter aspect is based, psychologically,
on the fact that the rotundum coincides with the archetype of
the Anthropos.

With this insight the ring of the uroboros closes, that symbol
of the opus circulare of Nature as well as of the "Art."

Our quaternio series could also be expressed in the form of
an equation, where A stands for the initial state (in this case the
Anthropos) and for the end state, and BCD for intermediate
states. The formations that split off from them are denoted in
each case by the small letters abed. With regard to the con-
struction of the formula, we must bear in mind that we are con-
cerned with the continual process of transformation of one and
the same substance. This substance, and its respective state of
transformation, will always bring forth its like; thus A will pro-
duce a and B b; equally, b produces B and c C. It is also assumed
that a is followed by b and that the formula runs from left to
right. These assumptions are legitimate in a psychological
formula.

Naturally the formula cannot be arranged in linear fashion

257

AION

but only in a circle, which for that reason moves to the right.
A produces its like, a. From a the process advances by contin-
gence to b, which in turn produces B. The transformation turns
rightwards with the sun; that is, it is a process of becoming con-
scious, as is already indicated by the splitting (discrimination)
of A B C D each time into four qualitatively discrete units. 100
Our scientific understanding today is not based on a quaternity
but on a trinity of principles (space, time, causality). 101 Here,
however, we are moving not in the sphere of modern scientific
thinking, but in that of the classical and medieval view of the
world, which up to the time of Leibniz recognized the principle
of correspondence and applied it naively and unreflectingly.
In order to give our judgment on ^-expressed by abc- the char-
acter of wholeness, we must supplement our time-conditioned
thinking by the principle of correspondence or, as I have called
it, synchronicity. 102 The reason for this is that our description
of Nature is in certain respects incomplete and accordingly ex-
cludes observable facts from our understanding or else formu-
lates them in an unjustifiably negative way, as for instance in
the paradox of "an effect without a cause." 103 Our Gnostic
quaternity is a naive product of the unconscious and therefore
represents a psychic fact which can be brought into relationship
with the four orienting functions of consciousness; for the
rightward movement of the process is, as I have said, the expres-
sion of conscious discrimination 104 and hence an application of
the four functions that constitute the essence of a conscious
process.
410 The whole cycle necessarily returns to its beginning, and
does so at the moment when D, in point of contingence the
state furthest removed from A, changes into a 3 by a kind of
enantiodromia. We thus have:

100 Corresponding to the phylokrinesis. [Cf. supra, pars. 118, 133.]
101 1 am not counting the space-time continuum of modern physics.

102 Cf. "Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle."

103 [Jeans, Physics and Philosophy, pp. 127, 151.- Editors.]

104 The immediate cause is the rightward movement of our writing. The right, so
to speak, is ruled by conscious reason: the right is "right" in all senses (upright,
downright, forthright, etc.). The left is the side of the heart, the emotions, where
one is affected by the unconscious.

*58

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

63 d

c 8 a 3 = A = a c

\ / \ /

d 3 b

II II

D B

II II

d>2 b\

/ \ / \

2 C2 = C = Ci i

\ / \ /

The formula reproduces exactly the essential features of the
symbolic process of transformation. It shows the rotation of the
mandala, 105 the antithetical play of complementary (or com-
pensatory) processes, then the apocatastasis, i.e., the restoration
of an original state of wholeness, which the alchemists expressed
through the symbol of the uroboros, and finally the formula
repeats the ancient alchemical tetrameria, 106 which is implicit

d

/ \

in the fourfold structure of unity: A = a c. What the for-

\ /

b

mula can only hint at, however, is the higher plane that is
reached through the process of transformation and integration.
The "sublimation" or progress or qualitative change consists in
an unfolding of totality into four parts four times, which means
nothing less than its becoming conscious. When psychic con-
tents are split up into four aspects, it means that they have been
subjected to discrimination by the four orienting functions of
consciousness. Only the production of these four aspects makes
a total description possible. The process depicted by our for-
mula changes the originally unconscious totality into a conscious
one. The Anthropos A descends from above through his Shadow
B into Physis C ( = serpent), and, through a kind of crystalliza-
tion process D ( = lapis) that reduces chaos to order, rises again

105 Cf. "On Mandala Symbolism," figs. 19, 21, 37, 60.

106 Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, pars. 189 and sogf., in relation to the four

regimina and dispositiones.

259

AION

to the original state, which in the meantime has been trans-
formed from an unconscious into a conscious one. Consciousness
and understanding arise from discrimination, that is, through
analysis (dissolution) followed by synthesis, as stated in sym-
bolical terms by the alchemical dictum: "Solve et coagula" (dis-
solve and coagulate). The correspondence is represented by the
identity of the letters a, a 1} a 2 , a z , and so on. That is to say, we
are dealing all the time with the same factor, which in the for-
mula merely changes its place, whereas psychologically its name
and quality change too. At the same time it becomes clear that
the change of place is always an enantiodromian change of situa-
tion, corresponding to the complementary or compensatory
changes in the psyche as a whole. It was in this way that the
changing of the hexagrams in the / Ching was understood by
the classical Chinese commentators. Every archetypal arrange-
ment has its own numinosity, as is apparent from the very
names given to it. Thus a to d is the "kingless race," i to d x
is the Shadow Quaternio, which is annoying, because it stands
for the all-too-human human being (Nietzsche's "Ugliest
Man"), 107 a 2 to d 2 is "Paradise," which speaks for itself, and
finally a 3 to d 3 is the world of matter, whose numinosity in the
shape of materialism threatens to suffocate our world. What
changes these correspond to in the history of the human mind
over the last two thousand years I need hardly specify in detail.
411 The formula presents a symbol of the self, for the self is not
just a static quantity or constant form, but is also a dynamic
process. In the same way, the ancients saw the imago Dei in man
not as a mere imprint, as a sort of lifeless, stereotyped impres-
sion, but as an active force. The four transformations represent
a process of restoration or rejuvenation taking place, as it were,
inside the self, and comparable to the carbon-nitrogen cycle in
the sun, when a carbon nucleus captures four protons (two of
which immediately become neutrons) and releases them at the
end of the cycle in the form of an alpha particle. The carbon
nucleus itself comes out of the reaction unchanged, "like the
Phoenix from the ashes." 108 The secret of existence, i.e., the
existence of the atom and its components, may well consist in a
continually repeated process of rejuvenation, and one comes to

107 [Cf. Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans, by Common, pp. 303^.- Editors.]

108 Gamow, Atomic Energy, p. 72.

260

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

similar conclusions in trying to account for the numinosity of
the archetypes.

4>2 I am fully aware of the extremely hypothetical nature of this
comparison, but I deem it appropriate to entertain such reflec-
tions even at the risk of being deceived by appearances. Sooner
or later nuclear physics and the psychology of the unconscious
will draw closer together as both of them, independently of one
another and from opposite directions, push forward into tran-
scendental territory, the one with the concept of the atom, the
other with that of the archetype.

4!3 The analogy with physics is not a digression since the sym-
bolical schema itself represents the descent into matter and
requires the identity of the outside with the inside. Psyche can-
not 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 one
and 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 ulti-
mate agreement between physical and psychological concepts.
Our present attempts may be bold, but I believe they are on the
right lines. Mathematics, for instance, has more than once
proved that its purely logical constructions which transcend all
experience subsequently coincided with the behaviour of things.
This, like the events I call synchronistic, points to a profound
harmony between all forms of existence.

44 Since analogy formation is a law which to a large extent gov-
erns the life of the psyche, we may fairly conjecture that our-
to all appearances- purely speculative construction is not a new
invention, but is prefigured on earlier levels of thought. Gen-
erally speaking, these prefigurations can be found in the multi-
farious stages of the mystic transformation process, as well as in
the different degrees of initiation into the mysteries. We also
find them in the classical as well as Christian trichotomy con-
sisting of the pneumatic, the psychic, and the hylic. One of the
most comprehensive attempts of this kind is the sixteenfold
schema in the Book of Platonic Tetralogies. 109 I have dealt with

109 An anonymous Harranite treatise entitled "Platonis liber quartorum," printed
in Theatr. chem., V (1622), pp. 1 i4ff.; conjectured to have been translated from the
Arabic in the 12 th cent.

26l

AION

this in detail in Psychology and Alchemy and can therefore limit
myself here to the basic points. The schematization and analogy-
formation start from four first principles: 1. the work of nature,
2. water, 3. composite natures, 4. the senses. Each of these four
starting-points has three stages of transformation, which to-
gether with the first stage make sixteen parts in all. But besides
this fourfold horizontal division of each of the principles, each
stage has its correspondence in the vertical series:

I

II

III

IV

1.

Opus naturalium

Aqua

Naturae compositae

Sensus

2.

Divisio naturae

Terra

Naturae discretae

Discretio intellectualis

3-

Anima

Aer

Simplicia

Ratio

4-

Intellectus

Ignis

Aetheris simplicioris

Arcanum

45 This table of correspondences shows the various aspects of
the opus alchemicum, which was also bound up with astrology
and the so-called necromantic arts. This is evident from the use
of significant numbers and the invocation or conjuring up of the
familiar spirit. Similarly, the age-old art of geomancy no is based
on a sixteen-part schema: four central figures (consisting of Sub-
or Superiudex, Iudex, and two Testes), four nepotes (grand-
sons), four sons, four mothers. (The series is written from right
to left.) These figures are arranged in a schema of astrological
houses, but the centre that is empty in the horoscope is replaced
by a square containing the four central figures.

416 Athanasius Kircher 111 produced a quaternity system that is
worth mentioning in this connection:

I. Unum = Monas monadike = Deus = Radix omnium = Mens sim-
plicissima = Divina essentia = Exemplar divinum.

(The One = First Monad r= God = Root of all things = Simplest
understanding = Divine Essence = Divine Exemplar.)

II. 10 (1 + 2 + 3+4 = I0 ) - Secunda Monas = dekadike = Dyas =:
Mundus intellectualis = Angelica intelligentia = Compositio ab uno et
altero = i.e., ex oppositis.

no Fludd, "De animae intellectualis scientia seu Geomantia," Fasciculus geoman-
ticus (1687), pp. 35f.

in Arithmologia, sive De abditis numerorum mysteriis (1665), PP- 26off. I have
to thank Dr. M.-L. von Franz for calling my attention to this.

262

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

(. . . Second Monad = tenth = duality = spiritual world = intel-
ligence of the angels = composition of the One and the Other = i.e., from
opposites.)

III. io 2 = ioo = Tertia Monas = hekatontadike = Anima = Intelli-
gentia.

(. . . Third Monad =z hundredth = soul = intelligence.)

IV. 10 s = 1000 = Quarta Monas = chiliadike = Omnia sensibilia =
Corpus = ultima et sensibilis Unionum explicatio.

(. . . Fourth Monad = thousandth = all concrete things = body =
final and concrete unfolding of unities.)

Kircher comments that whereas the senses affect only the
body, the first three unities are objects of understanding. So if
one wants to understand what is perceived by the senses (sensi-
bilia), this can only be done through the mind. "Everything
perceived by the senses must therefore be elevated to reason or to
the intelligence or to absolute unity. When in this way we shall
have brought the absolute unity back to the infinitely simple
from all perceptible, rational or intellectual multiplicity, then
nothing more remains to be said, and then the Stone too is not
so much a Stone as no Stone, but everything is the simplest unity.
And even as the absolute unity of that concrete and rational
Stone has God for an exemplar, so likewise its intellectual unity
is the intelligence. You can see from these unities how the per-
ceiving senses go back to reason, and reason to intelligence, and
intelligence to God, where in a perfect cycle is found the begin-
ning and the consummation." 112 That Kircher should choose
the lapis as an example of concrete things and of God's unity is
obvious enough in terms of alchemy, because the lapis is the ar-
canum that contains God or that part of God which is hidden in
matter.

Kircher's system shows certain affinities with our series of
quaternios. Thus the Second Monad is a duality consisting of
opposites, corresponding to the angelic world that was split by
Lucifer's fall. Another significant analogy is that Kircher con-
ceives his schema as a cycle set in motion by God as the prime
cause, and unfolding out of itself, but brought back to God
again through the activity of human understanding, so that the
end returns once more to the beginning. This, too, is an analogy

112 ibid., p. 266. [The next sentence is revised and transposed from par. 418. (2nd
edn.)]

263

AION

of our formula. The alchemists were fond of picturing their
opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the
uroboros, the snake biting its own tail, and they made innumer-
able pictures of this process. Just as the central idea of the lapis
Philosophorum plainly signifies the self, so the opus with its
countless symbols illustrates the process of individuation, the
step-by-step development of the self from an unconscious state
to a conscious one. That is why the lapis, as prima materia,
stands at the beginning of the process as well as at the end. 113
According to Michael Maier, the gold, another synonym for the
self, comes from the opius circulatorium of the sun. This circle is
"the line that runs back upon itself (like the serpent that with
its head bites its own tail), wherein that eternal painter and
potter, God, may be discerned." 114 In this circle, Nature "has
related the four qualities to one another and drawn, as it were,
an equilateral square, since contraries are bound together by
contraries, and enemies by enemies, with the same everlasting
bonds." Maier compares this squaring of the circle to the "homo
quadratus," the four-square man, who "remains himself" come
weal come woe. 115 He calls it the "golden house, the twice-
bisected circle, the four-cornered phalanx, the rampart, the city
wall, the four-sided line of battle." 116 This circle is a magic
circle consisting of the union of opposites, "immune to all
injury."

4*9 Independently of Western tradition, the same idea of the
circular opus can be found in Chinese alchemy: "When the
light is made to move in a circle, all the energies of heaven and
earth, of the light and the dark, are crystallized," says the text
of the Golden Flower. 117

420 The opyavov kvk\lk6v, the circular apparatus that assists the cir-
cular process, is mentioned as early as Olympiodorus. 118 Dorn is
of the opinion that the "circular movement of the Physio-
chemists" comes from the earth, the lowest element. For the fire
originates in the earth and transforms the finer minerals and
water into air, which, rising up to the heavens, condenses there

113 Documentation in Psychology and Alchemy, esp. pars. 427, n. 4, and 431.

114 De circulo physico quadrato, p. 16. H5 Ibid., p. 17.
lie Ibid., p. 19.

117 Wilhelm, The Secret of the Golden Flower (1962 edn.), p. 30.

118 Berthelot, Alch. grecs, II, iv, 44.

264

THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF

and falls down again. But during their ascent the volatilized ele-
ments take "from the higher stars male seeds, which they bring
down into the four matrices, the elements, in order to fertilize
them spagyrically." This is the "circular distillation" 119 which
Rupescissa says must be repeated a thousand times. 120
4* 1 The basic idea of ascent and descent can be found in the
Tabula smaragdina, and the stages of transformation have been
depicted over and over again, above all in the Ripley "Scrowle"
and its variants. These should be understood as indirect at-
tempts to apprehend the unconscious processes of individuation
in the form of pictures.

119 "Physica genesis," Theatr. chem., I, p. 391.

120 La Vertu et la propriiti de la quinte essence, p. s6.

265

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Aria the OVA: Arietta -- -- Hal Film Maker -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Slice of Life Fantasy Shounen -- Aria the OVA: Arietta Aria the OVA: Arietta -- Akari Mizunashi dreams of life after attaining her goal of becoming a Prima Undine, but upon waking realizes that she might not actually have the confidence to run Aria Company on her own. Wary of the future, she seeks advice from her mentor Alicia Florence—one of the three great "Water Fairies" of Neo-Venezia. -- -- Much to Akari's surprise, Alicia reveals her own struggles of the past, but also shares the steps she took in overcoming her self-doubt of running the company and taking on an apprentice. Finding solace in her teacher's words, Akari prepares to embrace whatever trials she must overcome on her path toward achieving her dreams. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- OVA - Sep 21, 2007 -- 31,683 8.02

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