Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.12)

3. Psychological treatment may come to an end at any stage in the development without one’s always or necessarily having the feeling that a goal has also been reached. Typical and temporary terminations may occur (1) after receiving a piece of good advice; (2) after making a fairly complete but nevertheless adequate confession; …

(from here on I am citing the location on the ebook text because the page numbers seemed to be off)

795.Nobody can meddle with fire or poison without being affected in some vulnerable spot; for the true physician does not stand outside his work but is always in the thick of it.

 

831. Christ can indeed be imitated even to the point of stigmatization without the imitator coming anywhere near the ideal or its meaning. For it is not a question of an imitation that leaves a man unchanged and makes him into a mere artifact, but of realizing the ideal on one’s own account—Deo concedente—in one’s own individual life.

 

831.8. Western man is held in thrall by the “ten thousand things”; he sees only particulars, he is ego-bound and thing-bound, and unaware of the deep root of all being. Eastern man, on the other hand, experiences the world of particulars, and even his own ego, like a dream; he is rooted essentially in the “Ground,” which attracts him so powerfully that his relations with the world are relativized to a degree that is often incomprehensible to us. The Western attitude, with its emphasis on the object, tends to fix the ideal—Christ—in its outward aspect and thus to rob it of its mysterious relation to the inner man.

 

843. I for my part prefer the precious gift of doubt, for the reason that it does not violate the virginity of things beyond our ken.

 

868. An exclusively religious projection may rob the soul of its values so that through sheer inanition it becomes incapable of further development and gets stuck in an unconscious state. At the same time it falls victim to the delusion that the cause of all misfortune lies outside, and people no longer stop to ask themselves how far it is their own doing.

 

868. Even if it were only the relationship of a drop of water to the sea, that sea would not exist but for the multitude of drops.

 

881. As the eye to the sun, so the soul corresponds to God.

 

895.12 Every archetype is capable of endless development and differentiation. It is therefore possible for it to be more developed or less.

 

906. Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched and therefore unchanged.

 

917. So long as religion is only faith and outward form, and the religious function is not experienced in our own souls, nothing of any importance has happened.

 

929. With a truly tragic delusion these theologians fail to see that it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know what their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing. For it is obvious that far too many people are incapable of establishing a connection between the sacred figures and their own psyche: they cannot see to what extent the equivalent images are lying dormant in their own unconscious.

 

942. If a blind man can gradually be helped to see it is not to be expected that he will at once discern new truths with an eagle eye. One must be glad if he sees anything at all, and if he begins to understand what he sees.

 

977. Oddly enough the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness. Hence a religion becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or waters down its paradoxes; but their multiplication enriches because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Non-ambiguity and non-contradiction are one-sided and thus unsuited to express the incomprehensible.

 

1000. It is precisely the spontaneity of archetypal contents that convinces, whereas any prejudiced intervention is a bar to the genuine experience.

 

1000.20 What the unconscious expresses is far from being merely arbitrary or opinionated; it is something that happens to be “just-so,” as is the case with every other natural being. It stands to reason that the expressions of the unconscious are natural and not formulated dogmatically; they are exactly like the patristic allegories which draw the whole of nature into the orbit of their amplifications… the psychic archetype is simply itself and can therefore be interpreted according to time, place, and milieu.

 

1023. It is altogether inconceivable that there could be any definite figure capable of expressing archetypal indefiniteness. For this reason I have found myself obliged to give the corresponding archetype the psychological name of the “self”—a term on the one hand definite enough to convey the essence of human wholeness and on the other hand indefinite enough to express the indescribable and indeterminable nature of this wholeness. The paradoxical qualities of the term are a reflection of the fact that wholeness consists partly of the conscious man and partly of the unconscious man. But we cannot define the latter or indicate his boundaries. Hence in its scientific usage the term “self” refers neither to Christ nor to the Buddha but to the totality of the figures that are its equivalent, and each of these figures is a symbol of the self.

 

1046. Not only is the self indefinite but—paradoxically enough—it also includes the quality of definiteness and even of uniqueness.

 

1067. Once the exploration if the unconscious has led the conscious mind to an experience of the archetype, the individual is confronted with the abysmal contradictions of human nature, and this confrontation in turn leads to the possibility of a direct experience of light and darkness, of Christ and the devil. For better or worse there is only a bare possibility of this, and not a guarantee; for experiences of this kind cannot of necessity be induced by any human means. There are factors to be considered which are not under our control. Experience of the opposites has nothing whatever to do with intellectual insight or with empathy. It is more of what we would call fate.

 

1067.24 Without the experience of the opposites there is no experience of wholeness and hence no inner approach to the sacred figures.

 

1069. The reality of evil and its incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives.

 

1081. The confessional proceeds like life itself, which successfully struggles against being engulfed in an irreconcilable contradiction.

 

1115. The importance of alchemy for the historical development of chemistry is obvious, but its cultural importance is still so little known that it seems almost impossible to say in a few words wherein that consisted. In this introduction, however, I have attempted to outline the religious and psychological problems which are germane to the theme of alchemy. The point is that alchemy is rather like an undercurrent to the Christianity that ruled on the surface. It is to this surface as the dream is to consciousness, and just as the dream compensates the conflicts of the conscious mind, so alchemy endeavours to fill in the gaps left open by the Christian tension of opposites.

 

1138. Myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythical imagery.

 

1163. But as soon as the unconscious begins to manifest itself they split asunder, as at the Creation; for every act of dawning consciousness is a creative act, and it is from this psychological experience that all out cosmogonic symbols are derived.

 

1163.31 The number three is not a natural expression of wholeness, since four represents the minimum number of determinants in a whole judgement.

 

1175. There are always four elements, but often three of them are grouped together, with the fourth in a special position—sometimes earth, sometimes fire.

 

1200. As a doctor it is my task to help the patient cope with life… The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation.

 

1200.33 Something in them clings, often with the strength of despair, as if they or the thing they cling to would drop off into the void the moment they relaxed their hold. They are seeking firm grounding on which to stand. Since no outward support is of any use to them they must finally discover it in themselves

 

1211. The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles. More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals: the dream-motifs always return after certain intervals to definite forms, whose characteristic it is to define a centre. And as a matter of fact the whole process revolves around a central point or some arrangement round a centre, which may in certain circumstances appear even in the initial dreams. As manifestations of unconscious processes the dreams rotate or circumambulate round the centre, drawing closer to it as the amplifications increase in distinctness and in scope. Owing to the diversity of the symbolical material it is difficult at first to perceive any kind of order at all.

 

1223. People have dwelt far too long on the fundamentally sterile question of whether the assertions of faith are true or not. Quite apart from the impossibility of ever proving or refuting the truth of a metaphysical assertion, the very existence of the assertion is a self-evident fact that needs no further proof, and when a consensus gentium allies itself thereto the validity of the statement is proved to just that extent.

 

1248. Wholeness is in fact a charisma which one can manufacture neither by art nor by cunning; one can only grow into it and endure whatever its advent may bring.

 

1248. On paper the moral code looks clear and near enough; but the same document written on the “living tables of the heart” is often a sorry tatter, particularly in the mouths of those who talk the loudest.

 

1259. In the last resort there is no good that cannot produce evil and no evil that cannot produce good.

 

1259.37 I do nothing; there is nothing I can do except wait, with a certain trust in God, until, out of a conflict borne with patience and fortitude, there emerges the solution destined—although I cannot foresee it—for that particular person.

 

1282. But superstition in the truest sense only appears in such people if they are pathological, not if they can keep their balance. It then takes the form of the fear of “going mad”—for everything that the modern mind cannot define it regards as insane. It must be admitted that the archetypal contents of the collective unconscious can often assume grotesque and horrible forms in dreams and fantasies, so that even the most hard-boiled rationalist is not immune from shattering nightmares and haunting fears.

 

1317. Whereas in the Church the increasing differentiation of ritual and dogma alienated consciousness from its natural roots in the unconscious, alchemy and astrology were ceaselessly engaged in preserving the bridge to nature, i.e., to the unconscious psyche, from decay. Astrology led the conscious mind back again and again to the knowledge of Heimarmene, that is, the dependence of character and destiny on certain moments in time; and alchemy afforded numerous “hooks” for the projection of those archetypes which could not be fitted smoothly into the Christian process.

 

1362.

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178. We know that lapis is not just a “stone” since it is expressly stated to be composed “de re animali, vegetabili et minerali,: and to consist of body, soul, and spirit; moreover, it grows from flesh and blood… #crystals

 

182. everything that can be grouped together under the general concept “mandala” expresses the essence of a certain kind of attitude. The known attitudes of the conscious mind have definable aims and purposes. But a man’s attitude towards the self is the only one that has no definable aim and no visible purpose.

 

182. The totality can only be experienced in its parts and then only in so far as these are contents of consciousness; but qua totality it necessarily transcends consciousness… Since we cannot possibly know the boundaries of something unknown to us, it follows that we are not in a position to set any bounds to the self.

 

183. when we attempt to give these numina the slip and angrily reject the alchemical gold which the unconscious offers, things do in fact go badly with us, we may even develop symptoms in defiance of all reason, but the moment we face up to the stumbling-block and make it—if only hypothetically—the cornerstone, the symptoms vanish and we feel “unaccountably” well. In this dilemma we can at least comfort ourselves with the reflection that the unconscious is a necessary evil which must be reckoned with, and that it would therefore be wiser to accompany it on some of its strange symbolic wanderings, even though their meaning be exceedingly questionable.

 

186. The self is made manifest in the opposites and in the conflict between them… Hence the way to the self begins with conflict.

 

190. Lions

 

191. Place and time are the most general and necessary elements in any definition… A definite location in place and time is part of a man’s reality.

 

199. The “solstice” indicates a turning point. In alchemy the work is completed in the autumn.

 

201. Birds are thoughts and the flight of thought. #birdsaren’treal

 

202. In alchemy the egg stands for the chaos apprehended by the Artifex, the prima materia containing the captive world soul.

 

217.  Or perhaps we could put it the other way around and say that the centre—itself virtually unknowable—acts like a magnet on the disparate materials and processes of the unconscious and gradually captures them as in a crystal lattice.

 

221. To the best of my experience we are dealing here with very important “nuclear processes” in the objective psyche—images of the goal, as it were, which the psychic process, being goal-directed, apparently sets up of its own accord, without any external stimulus.

 

222. sense and nonsense, destiny

 

223. “The most natural and perfect work is to generate its like.”

 

228. Everything unknown and empty is filled with psychological projection; it is as if the investigator’s own psychic background were mirrored in the darkness.

 

255. This seems to point to active imagination as the thing that sets the process really going.

 

267. Because of the intimate connection between man and the secret of matter… he must accomplish in his own self the same process that he attributes to matter, “for things are perfected by their like.”

 

270. Virtues

 

278. Imagination is therefore a concentrated extract of the life forces, both physical and psychic.

 

313. The substance that harbours the divine secret is everywhere, including the human body. It can be had for the asking and can be found anywhere, even in the most loathsome filth.

 

314. Each worked in the laboratory for himself and suffered from loneliness.

 

315. When reading the literature, one must not be content with just one book but must possess many books, for “one book opens another.”

 

316. The art has no enemies except the ignorant.

 

316. Good books can always be recognized by the industry, care, and visible mental struggles of the author.

 

323. the alchemists came to project even the highest value—God—into matter. #pirsig #quality

 

329. the hidden state is one of latency and potentiality.

 

329. there is always an attraction between conscious mind and projected content. Generally it takes the form of fascination.

 

333. the fear of ghosts

 

336. dread and resistance

 

338. So long as the consciousness refrains from acting, the opposites will remain dormant in the unconscious.

 

339. The heat there (the belly of the whale or dragon) is usually so intense that the hero loses his hair, i.e., he is reborn bald as a babe.

 

344. Ripley is of the opinion that the fire must be extracted from the chaos and made visible. This fire is the Holy Ghost, who unites father and son. He is often represented as a winged old man, i.e., Mercurius in the form of the god of revelation… and, together with the King and the King’s Son, forms the alchemical trinity.

 

346. active imagination. This method enables us to get a grasp of contents that also find expression in dream life.

 

353. cornerstone

 

374. “Alexander says that there are two categories: seeing through the eye and understanding through the heart.”

 

374. “The whole difficulty of the art lies in this stone. The intellect cannot comprehend it, so must believe it, like the divine miracles”

 

392. “Therefore what is composed of simple and pure essense, remaineth for ever.”

 

392.  “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”

 

393. (picture) symbol of hermetic transformation

 

401. “The whole awful and marvelous secret is hidden in thee.”

 

404. “The full moon is the philosophical water and the root of the science, for she is the mistress of the moisture the perfect round stone and the sea, wherefore I know that the moon is the root of this hidden science.”

 

426. “Rather than become notorious he preferred to remain unknown to everyone.”

 

428. diamond

 

430. if a man refuses to accept what he has spurned, it will recoil upon him the moment he wants to go higher.