6.05 - THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PROCEDURE

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object:6.05 - THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PROCEDURE
book class:Mysterium Coniunctionis
author class:Carl Jung
subject class:Psychology
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter

5. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE PROCEDURE
[694] The answer to this question concerns us very closely, because here we come upon something that is of particular interest to modern psychology: the adept produces a system of fantasies that has a special meaning for him. Although he keeps within the general framework of alchemical ideas, he does not repeat a prescribed pattern, but, following his own fancy, devises an individual series of ideas and corresponding actions which it is evident have a symbolic character. He starts with the production of the medicine that will unite the unio mentalis, his spiritual position, with the body. The ambiguity already begins here: is the corpus his human body or the chemical substance? Apparently it is, to start off with, his living body, which as everyone knows has different desires from the spirit. But hardly has the chemical process got under way than the body is what remains behind in the retort from the distillation of the wine, and this phlegm is then treated like the subtle body of the soul in the purgatorial fire. Like it, the residue from the wine must pass through many subliming fires until it is so purified that the air-coloured quintessence can be extracted from it.
[695] This singular identity, simply postulated and never taken as a problem, is an example of that participation mystique which Lvy-Bruhl very rightly stressed as being characteristic of the primitive mentality.106 The same is true of the unquestionably psychic unio mentalis, which is at the same time a substance-like truth hidden in the body, which in turn coincides with the quintessence sublimed from the phlegm. It never occurred to the mind of the alchemists to cast any doubt whatsoever on this intellectual monstrosity. We naturally think that such a thing could happen only in the dark Middle Ages. As against this I must emphasize that we too have not quite got out of the woods in this respect, for a philosopher once assured me in all seriousness that thought could not err, and a very famous professor, whose assertions I had ventured to criticize, came out with the magisterial dictum: It must be right because I have thought it.
[696] All projections are unconscious identifications with the object. Every projection is simply there as an uncriticized datum of experience, and is recognized for what it is only very much later, if ever. Everything that we today would call mind and insight was, in earlier centuries, projected into things, and even today individual idiosyncrasies are presupposed by many people to be generally valid. The original, half-animal state of unconsciousness was known to the adept as the nigredo, the chaos, the massa confusa, an inextricable interweaving of the soul with the body, which together formed a dark unity (the unio naturalis). From this enchainment he had to free the soul by means of the separatio, and establish a spiritual-psychic counter-positionconscious and rational insightwhich would prove immune to the influences of the body. But such insight, as we have seen, is possible only if the delusory projections that veil the reality of things can be withdrawn. The unconscious identity with the object then ceases and the soul is freed from its fetters in the things of sense. The psychologist is well acquainted with this process, for a very important part of his psycho therapeutic work consists in making conscious and dissolving the projections that falsify the patients view of the world and impede his self-knowledge. He does this in order to bring anomalous psychic states of an affective nature, i.e., neurotic symptoms, under the control of consciousness. The declared aim of the treatment is to set up a rational, spiritual-psychic position over against the turbulence of the emotions.
[697] Projections can be withdrawn only when they come within the possible scope of consciousness. Outside that, nothing can be corrected. Thus, in spite of all his efforts, Dorn was unable to recognize the for usblatant projection of psychic contents into chemical substances and thereby dissolve it. Evidently his understanding in this respect still moved within the confines of the contemporary consciousness, even though in other respects it plumbed to greater depths than did the collective consciousness of that age. Thus it is that the psychic sphere representing the body miraculously appeared to the adept to be identical with chemical preparation in the retort. Hence he could believe that any changes he effected in the latter would happen to the former as well. Significantly enough, one seldom hears of the panacea or lapis being applied to the human body. As a rule the carrying out of the chemical procedure seemed sufficient in itself. At any rate it was for Dorn, and that is why his chemical caelum coincided with the heavenly substance in the body, the truth. For him this was not a duality but an identity; for us they are incommensurables that cannot be reconciled because, owing to our knowledge of chemical processes, we are able to distinguish them from psychic ones. In other words, our consciousness enables us to withdraw this projection.
[698] The list of ingredients to be mixed with the caelum gives us a glimpse into the nature of the psychic contents that were projected. In the honey, the sweetness of the earths,107 we can easily recognize the balsam of life that permeates all living, budding, and growing things. It expresses, psychologically, the joy of life and the life urge which overcome and eliminate everything dark and inhibiting. Where spring-like joy and expectation reign, spirit can embrace nature and nature spirit. The Chelidonia, a synonym for the philosophical gold, corresponds to Paracelsuss magic herb Cheyri (Cheiranthus cheiri). Like this, it has four-petalled yellow flowers. Cheyri, too, was related to the gold, since it was called aurum potabile. It therefore comes into the category of the Paracelsan Aniada, perfectors from below upwardmagical plants which are collected in the spring and grant long life.108 Dorn himself, in his Congeries Paracelsicae chemicae de transmutatione metallorum, commented on Paracelsuss De vita longa, where this information can be found. Celandine was one of the most popular curative and magical herbs in the Middle Ages, chiefly on account of its yellow, milky juicea remedy for non-lactation. It was also called enchanters nightshade.109 Like the Cheyri, it owes its singular significance to the quaternity of its gold-coloured flowers, as Paracelsus points out.110 The analogy with gold always signifies an accentuation of value: the addition of Chelidonia projects the highest value, which is identical with the quaternity of the self, into the mixture. If it draws out the soul of Mercurius, this means psychologically that the image of the self (the golden quaternity) draws a quintessence out of the chthonic spirit.
[699] I must agree with Dorn, and no doubt with the reader too, that this statement is vix intelligibilis. I can explain this only as a result of the extraordinary intellectual difficulties we get into when we have to wrestle seriously with a mind that could make no proper distinction between psyche and matter. The underlying idea here is that of Mercurius, a dual being who was as much spiritual as material. In my special study of that subject I have pointed out that outwardly Mercurius corresponds to quicksilver but inwardly he is a deus terrenus and an anima mundi in other words, that part of God which, when he imagined the world, was as it were left behind in his Creation111 or, like the Sophia of the Gnostics, got lost in Physis. Mercurius has the character which Dorn ascribes to the soul. He is good with the good, evil with the evil, and thus occupies a middle position morally. Just as the soul inclines to earthly bodies, so Mercurius frequently appears as the spirit in matter, in chthonic or even

(underworldly) form, as in our text. He is then the (non-human) spirit who holds the soul captive in Physis, for which reason it must be liberated from him.
[700] In a psychological sense Mercurius represents the unconscious, for this is to all appearances that spirit which comes closest to organic matter and has all the paradoxical qualities attri buted to Mercurius. In the unconscious are hidden those sparks of light (scintillae), the archetypes, from which a higher meaning can be extracted.112 The magnet that attracts the hidden thing is the self, or in this case the theoria or the symbol representing it, which the adept uses as an instrument.113 The extractio is depicted figuratively in an illustration in Reusners Pandora: a crowned figure, with a halo, raising a winged, fish-tailed, snake-armed creature (the spirit), likewise crowned with a halo, out of a lump of earth.114 This monster represents the spiritus mercurialis, the soul of the world or of matter freed from its fetters; the filius macrocosmi, the child of sun and moon born in the earth, the hermaphroditic homunculus, etc. Basically all these synonyms describe the inner man as a parallel or complement of Christ. The reader who seeks further information on this figure should refer to Psychology and Alchemy115 and Aion.116
[701] Let us now turn to another ingredient of the mixture, namely the rosemary flowers (flores rosis marini). In the old pharmacopeia, rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) was regarded as an antitoxin, presumably on symbolic grounds which may be connected with its curious name. Ros marinus (sea-dew) was for the alchemist a welcome analogy for the aqua permanens, which in its turn was Mercurius.117 But what lends rosemary its special significance is its sweet smell and taste. The sweet odour of the Holy Ghost occurs not only in Gnosticism but also in ecclesiastical language,118 and of course in alchemythough here there are more frequent references to the characteristic stench of the underworld, the odor sepulchrorum. Rosemary was often used in marriage customs and as a love philtre, and therefore had for the alchemista binding power, which was of course particularly favourable for the purpose of conjunction.119 Thus the Holy Ghost is the spiration binding Father and Son, just as, in alchemy, he occasionally appears as the ligament of body and soul. These different aspects of rosemary signify so many qualities which are imparted to the mixture.
[702] Mercurialis is a magic herb too, but unlike rosemary it is connected not with love but with sexuality, and is another binding power which, as we have mentioned, can even determine the sex of the child. The red lily, as the quintessence of sulphur (n. 85), represents the male partner in the alchemical marriage, the servus rubeus who unites with the foemina candida. With this figure the adept mixed himself into the potion, so to speak, and, to make the bond inviolable, he added human blood as a further ingredient. Being a special juice with which pacts with the devil are signed, it would magically consolidate the bond of marriage.
[703] This peculiar mixture was then to be united with the heaven of the red or white wine or of Tartarus. The caelum or blue tincture, as we have seen, was concocted from the phlegm of the wine or sublimated from the wine-stone. Just as the phlegm is the residue, in the bottom of the vessel, of the evaporated wine, so Tartarus, the underworld and realm of the dead, is the sediment or precipitate of a once living world. In Khunrath, Sal tartar mundi maioris is identical with sal Saturni and sal Veneris.120 It containsor is the scintilla Animae Mundi.121 Tartar is the sal sapientiae.122 Sal saturni refers to Kronos enchained in Tartarus. Plutarch identifies Typhon with Tartarus.123 This is in agreement with the malefic nature of Saturn. Sal tartari therefore has a sinister, underworldly nuance reminiscent of death and hell. Saturn (lead) is one of the best known synonyms for the prima materia, and hence is the matrix of the filius Philosophorum. This is the sought-for celestial substance, the caelum, etc.
[704] What are we to think of this most peculiar philtre? Did Dorn really mean that these magic herbs should be mixed together and that the air-coloured quintessence should be distilled from the Tartarus, or was he using these secret names and procedures to express a moral meaning? My conjecture is that he meant both, for it is clear that the alchemists did in fact operate with such substances and thought-processes, just as, in particular, the Paracelsist physicians used these remedies and reflections in their practical work. But if the adept really concocted such potions in his retort, he must surely have chosen his ingredients on account of their magical significance. He worked, accordingly, with ideas, with psychic processes and states, but referred to them under the name of the corresponding substances. With the honey the pleasure of the senses and the joy of life went into the mixture, as well as the secret fear of the poison, the deadly danger of worldly entanglements. With the Chelidonia the highest meaning and value, the self as the total personality, the healing and whole-making medicine which is recognized even by modern psycho therapy, was combined with spiritual and conjugal love, symbolized by rosemary; and, lest the lower, chthonic element be lacking, Mercurialis added sexuality, together with the red slave moved by passion,124 symbolized by the red lily, and the addition of blood threw in the whole soul. All this was united with the azure quintessence, the anima mundi extracted from inert matter, or the God-image imprinted on the worlda mandala produced by rotation;125 that is to say the whole of the conscious man is surrendered to the self, to the new centre of personality which replaces the former ego. Just as, for the mystic, Christ takes over the leadership of consciousness and puts an end to a merely ego-bound existence, so the filius macrocosmi, the son of the great luminaries and of the dark womb of the earth, enters the realm of the psyche and seizes the human personality, not only in the shining heights of consciousness but in the dark depths which have not yet comprehended the light that appeared in Christ. The alchemist was well aware of the great shadow which Christianity obviously had not assimilated, and he therefore felt impelled to create a saviour from the womb of the earth as an analogy and complement of Gods son who came down from above.
[705] The production of the caelum is a symbolic rite performed in the laboratory. Its purpose was to create, in the form of a substance, that truth, the celestial balsam or life principle, which is identical with the God-image. Psychologically, it was a representation of the individuation process by means of chemical substances and procedures, or what we today call active imagination. This is a method which is used spontaneously by nature herself or can be taught to the patient by the analyst. As a rule it occurs when the analysis has constellated the opposites so powerfully that a union or synthesis of the personality becomes an imperative necessity. Such a situation is bound to arise when the analysis of the psychic contents, of the patients attitude and particularly of his dreams, has brought the compensatory or complementary images from the unconscious so insistently before his mind that the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious personality becomes open and critical. When this confrontation is confined to partial aspects of the unconscious the conflict is limited and the solution simple: the patient, with insight and some resignation or a feeling of resentment, places himself on the side of reason and convention. Though the unconscious motifs are repressed again, as before, the unconscious is satisfied to a certain extent, because the patient must now make a conscious effort to live according to its principles and, in addition, is constantly reminded of the existence of the repressed by annoying resentments. But if his recognition of the shadow is as complete as he can make it, then conflict and disorientation ensue, an equally strong Yes and No which he can no longer keep apart by a rational decision. He cannot transform his clinical neurosis into the less conspicuous neurosis of cynicism; in other words, he can no longer hide the conflict behind a mask. It requires a real solution and necessitates a third thing in which the opposites can unite. Here the logic of the intellect usually fails, for in a logical antithesis there is no third. The solvent can only be of an irrational nature. In nature the resolution of opposites is always an energic process: she acts symbolically in the truest sense of the word,126 doing something that expresses both sides, just as a waterfall visibly mediates between above and below. The waterfall itself is then the incommensurable third. In an open and unresolved conflict dreams and fantasies occur which, like the waterfall, illustrate the tension and nature of the opposites, and thus prepare the synthesis.
[706] This process can, as I have said, take place spontaneously or be artificially induced. In the latter case you choose a dream, or some other fantasy-image, and concentrate on it by simply catching hold of it and looking at it. You can also use a bad mood as a starting-point, and then try to find out what sort of fantasy-image it will produce, or what image expresses this mood. You then fix this image in the mind by concentrating your attention. Usually it will alter, as the mere fact of contemplating it animates it. The alterations must be carefully noted down all the time, for they reflect the psychic processes in the unconscious background, which appear in the form of images consisting of conscious memory material. In this way conscious and unconscious are united, just as a waterfall connects above and below. A chain of fantasy ideas develops and gradually takes on a dramatic character: the passive process becomes an action. At first it consists of projected figures, and these images are observed like scenes in the theatre. In other words, you dream with open eyes. As a rule there is a marked tendency simply to enjoy this interior entertainment and to leave it at that. Then, of course, there is no real progress but only endless variations on the same theme, which is not the point of the exercise at all. What is enacted on the stage still remains a background process; it does not move the observer in any way, and the less it moves him the smaller will be the cathartic effect of this private theatre. The piece that is being played does not want merely to be watched impartially, it wants to compel his participation. If the observer understands that his own drama is being performed on this inner stage, he cannot remain indifferent to the plot and its dnouement. He will notice, as the actors appear one by one and the plot thickens, that they all have some purposeful relationship to his conscious situation, that he is being addressed by the unconscious, and that it causes these fantasy-images to appear before him. He therefore feels compelled, or is encouraged by his analyst, to take part in the play and, instead of just sitting in a theatre, really have it out with his alter ego. For nothing in us ever remains quite uncontradicted, and consciousness can take up no position which will not call up, somewhere in the dark corners of the psyche, a negation or a compensatory effect, approval or resentment. This process of coming to terms with the Other in us is well worth while, because in this way we get to know aspects of our nature which we would not allow anybody else to show us and which we ourselves would never have admitted.127 It is very important to fix this whole procedure in writing at the time of its occurrence, for you then have ocular evidence that will effectively counteract the ever-ready tendency to self-deception. A running commentary is absolutely necessary in dealing with the shadow, because otherwise its actuality cannot be fixed. Only in this painful way is it possible to gain a positive insight into the complex nature of ones own personality.

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