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object:4.02 - GOLD AND SPIRIT
book class:Mysterium Coniunctionis
author class:Carl Jung
subject class:Psychology
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter



2. GOLD AND SPIRIT
[353] The striking analogy between certain alchemical ideas and Christian dogma is not accidental but in accordance with tradition. A good part of the symbolism of the king derives from this source. Just as Christian dogma derives in part from Egypto-Hellenistic folklore, as well as from the Judaeo-Hellenistic philosophy of writers like Philo, so, too, does alchemy. Its origin is certainly not purely Christian, but is largely pagan or Gnostic. Its oldest treatises come from that sphere, among them the treatise of Komarios (1st cent.?) and the writings of Pseudo-Democritus (1st to 2nd cent.) and Zosimos (3rd cent.). The title of one of the latters treatises is The True Book of Sophe16 the Egyptian and Divine Lord of the Hebrews, [and] of the Powers of Sabaoth.17 Berthelot thinks that Zosimos really was the author, and this is quite possible. The treatise speaks of a knowledge or wisdom that comes from the Aeons:
Ungoverned (

) and autonomous is its origin; it is non-material (

) and it seeks none of the material and wholly corruptible18 bodies. For it acts without being acted upon (

) But, on their asking for a gift, the symbol of the chymic art comes forth from creation for those who rescue and purify the divine soul chained in the elements, that is, the divine Pneuma mingled with the flesh. For as the sun is the blossom of fire, and the heavenly sun is the right eye of the world, so also the copper, when purification makes it to blossom, is an earthly sun, a king upon earth, like the sun in heaven.19
[354] It is clear from this and from the text that follows that the symbol of the chymic art (

), the king, is none other than gold, the king of metals.20 But it is equally clear that the gold comes into being only through the liberation of the divine soul or pneuma from the chains of the flesh. No doubt it would have suited our rational expectations better if the text had said not flesh but ore or earth. Although the elements are mentioned as the prison of the divine psyche, the whole of nature is meant, Physis in general; not just ore and earth but water, air, and fire, and besides these the flesh, an expression that already in the third century meant the world in a moral sense as opposed to the spirit, and not simply the human body. Consequently, there can be no doubt that the chrysopoeia (gold-making) was thought of as a psychic operation running parallel to the physical process and, as it were, independent of it. The moral and spiritual transformation was not only independent of the physical procedure but actually seemed to be its causa efficiens. This explains the high-flown language, which would be somewhat out of place in a merely chemical recipe. The psyche previously imprisoned in the elements and the divine spirit hidden in the flesh overcome their physical imperfection and clo the themselves in the noblest of all bodies, the royal gold. Thus the philosophic gold is an embodiment of psyche and pneuma, both of which signify life-spirit. It is in fact an aurum non vulgi, a living gold, so to speak, which corresponds in every respect to the lapis. It, too, is a living being with a body, soul, and spirit, and it is easily personified as a divine being or a superior person like a king, who in olden times was considered to be God incarnate.21 In this connection Zosimos availed himself of a primordial image in the form of the divine Anthropos, who at that time had attained a crucial significance in philosophy and religion, not only in Christianity but also in Mithraism. The Bible as well as the Mithraic monuments and the Gnostic writings bear witness to this. Zosimos has, moreover, left us a long testimony on this theme.22 The thoughts of this writer, directly or indirectly, were of decisive importance for the whole philosophical and Gnostic trend of alchemy in the centuries that followed. As I have dealt with this subject in considerable detail in Psychology and Alchemy I need not go into it here. I mention it only because the above passage from Zosimos is, to my knowledge, the earliest reference to the king in alchemy. As an Egyptian, Zosimos would have been familiar with the mystique of kingship, which at that time was enjoying a new efflorescence under the Caesars, and so it was easy for him to carry over the identity of the divine pneuma with the king into alchemical practice, itself both physical and pneumatic, after the older writings of Pseudo-Democritus had paved the way with their views on

(divine nature).23
[355] The definition of the king as pneuma carried considerably more weight than his interpretation as gold. Rulands Lexicon defines Rex as follows: RexKing, Soul, Spiritual Water which gives Moisture to the Female and is restored to the Fountain whence it was derived. The Spirit is Water.24 Here Rex is still the divine soul, the moist Osiris,25 a life-giving, fertilizing pneuma and not primarily the physical gold. The mystique of the king comes out even more clearly in Khunrath: When at last, he says, the ash-colour, the whitening, and the yellowing are over, you will see the Philosophical Stone, our King and Lord of Lords, come forth from the couch and throne of his glassy sepulchre26 onto the stage of this world, in his glorified body, regenerated and more than perfect, shining like a carbuncle, and crying out, Behold, I make all things new.27 In his story of how the lapis is made, Khunrath describes the mystic birth of the king. Ruach Elohim (the spirit of God) penetrated to the lowest parts and to the centre (meditullium) of the virginal massa confusa, and scattered the sparks and rays of his fruitfulness. Thus the form impressed itself [forma informavit], and the purest soul quickened and impregnated the tohu-bohu, which was without form and void. This was a mysterium typicum (a symbolical mystery), the procreation of the Preserver and Saviour of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm. The Word is become flesh . . . and God has revealed himself in the flesh, the spirit of God has appeared in the body. This, the son of the Macrocosm . . . that, the son of God, the God-man . . . the one in the womb of the Macrocosm, the other in the womb of the Microcosm, and both times the womb was virginal. In the Book or Mirror of Nature, the Stone of the Wise, the Preserver of the Macrocosm, is the symbol of Christ Jesus Crucified, Saviour of the whole race of men, that is, of the Microcosm.28 The son of the Macrocosm begotten by the divine pneuma (the Egyptian ka-mutef) is of like kind and consubstantial with the Begetter. His soul is a spark of the world-soul. Our stone is three and one, which is to say triune, namely earthly, heavenly, and divine. This reminds us of the Egyptian sequence: Pharaoh, ka, God. The triune stone consists of three different and distinct substances: Sal-Mercurius-Sulphur.29




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