Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 14: Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (Bollingen Series, 20, Band 14) - Hardcover

Jung, C. G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691097666 ISBN 13: 9780691097664

Verlag: PRINCETON UNIV PR, 1970

Inhaltsangabe

Jung's last major work, completed in his 81st year, on the synthesis of the opposites in alchemy and psychology.

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'What Jung has to convey is so truly original and so far-ranging in its implications that I suspect that this book will be a real challenge even to those most psychologically sophisticated. What he here presents in rich and documented detail can perhaps best be described as an anatomy of the objective psyche... Broadly speaking it is a treasury of images pertaining to the individual's discovery of the self... Mysterium Coniunctionis is a splendid capstone to the life work of a master spirit.' - Edward F. Edinger, Journal of Analytical Psychology.

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MYSTERIUM CONIUNCTIONIS

AN INQUIRY INTO THE SEPARATION AND SYNTHESIS OF PSYCHIC OPPOSITES IN ALCHEMY

By C. G. JUNG, GERHARD ADLER, R. F. C. HULL

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1970 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-09766-4

Contents

EDITORIAL NOTE, v, 
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE, viii, 
LIST OF PLATES, xii, 
FOREWORD xiii, 
I. The Components of the Coniunctio, 
II. The Paradoxa, 
III. The Personification of the Opposites, 
IV. Rex and Regina, 
V. Adam and Eve, 
VI. The Conjunction, 
Epilogue, 554, 
APPENDIX: LATIN AND GREEK TEXTS, 557, 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 601, 
INDEX, 649, 
TABLE OF PARAGRAPH CORRELATIONS, 697, 

CHAPTER 1

THE COMPONENTS OF THE CONIUNCTIO

1. THE OPPOSITES

The factors which come together in the coniunctio are conceived as opposites, either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another in love. To begin with they form a dualism; for instance the opposites are humidum (moist) / siccum (dry), frigidum (cold) / calidum (warm), superiora (upper, higher) / inferiora (lower), spiritus-anima (spirit-soul) / corpus (body), coelum (heaven) / terra (earth), ignis (fire) / aqua (water), bright / dark, agens (active) / patiens (passive), volatile (volatile, gaseous) / fixum (solid), pretiosum (precious, costly; also carum, dear) / vile (cheap, common), bonum (good) / malum (evil), manifestum (open) / occultum (occult; also celatum, hidden), oriens (East) / occidens (West), vivum (living) / mortuum (dead, inert), masculus (masculine) / foemina (feminine), Sol / Luna. Often the polarity is arranged as a quaternio (quaternity), with the two opposites crossing one another, as for instance the four elements or the four qualities (moist, dry, cold, warm), or the four directions and seasons, thus producing the cross as an emblem of the four elements and symbol of the sublunary physical world. This fourfold Physis, the cross, also appears in the signs for earth [??], Venus [??], Mercury [??], Saturn [??], and Jupiter [??].

2 The opposites and their symbols are so common in the texts that it is superfluous to cite evidence from the sources. On the other hand, in view of the ambiguity of the alchemists' language, which is "tam ethice quam physice" (as much ethical as physical), it is worth while to go rather more closely into the manner in which the texts treat of the opposites. Very often the masculine-feminine opposition is personified as King and Queen (in the Rosarium philosophorum also as Emperor and Empress), or as servus (slave) or vir rubeus (red man) and mulier Candida (white woman); in the "Visio Arislei" they appear as Gabricus (or Thabritius) and Beya, the King's son and daughter. Theriomorphic symbols are equally common and are often found in the illustrations. I would mention the eagle and toad ("the eagle flying through the air and the toad crawling on the ground"), which are the "emblem" of Avicenna in Michael Maier, the eagle representing Luna "or Juno, Venus, Beya, who is fugitive and winged like the eagle, which flies up to the clouds and receives the rays of the sun in his eyes." The toad "is the opposite of air, it is a contrary element, namely earth, whereon alone it moves by slow steps, and does not trust itself to another element. Its head is very heavy and gazes at the earth. For this reason it denotes the philosophic earth, which cannot fly [i.e., cannot be sublimated], as it is firm and solid. Upon it as a foundation the golden house is to be built. Were it not for the earth in our work the air would fly away, neither would the fire have its nourishment, nor the water its vessel."

3 Another favourite theriomorphic image is that of the two birds or two dragons, one of them winged, the other wingless. This allegory comes from an ancient text, De Chemia Senioris antiquissimi philosophi libellus. The wingless bird or dragon prevents the other from flying. They stand for Sol and Luna, brother and sister, who are united by means of the art. In Lambspringk's "Symbols" they appear as the astrological Fishes which, swimming in opposite directions, symbolize the spirit / soul polarity. The water they swim in is mare nostrum (our sea) and is interpreted as the body. The fishes are "without bones and cortex." 15 From them is produced a mare immensum, which is the aqua permanens (permanent water). Another symbol is the stag and unicorn meeting in the "forest." The stag signifies the soul, the unicorn spirit, and the forest the body. The next two pictures in Lambspringk's "Symbols" show the lion and lioness, or the wolf and dog, the latter two fighting; they too symbolize soul and spirit. In Figure VII the opposites are symbolized by two birds in a wood, one fledged, the other unfledged. Whereas in the earlier pictures the conflict seems to be between spirit and soul, the two birds signify the conflict between spirit and body, and in Figure VIII the two birds fighting do in fact represent that conflict, as the caption shows. The opposition between spirit and soul is due to the latter having a very fine substance. It is more akin to the "hylical" body and is densior et crassior (denser and grosser) than the spirit.

4 The elevation of the human figure to a king or a divinity, and on the other hand its representation in subhuman, theriomorphic form, are indications of the transconscious character of the pairs of opposites. They do not belong to the ego-personality but are supraordinate to it. The ego-personality occupies an intermediate position, like the "anima inter bona et mala sita" (soul placed between good and evil). The pairs of opposites constitute the phenomenology of the paradoxical self, man's totality. That is why their symbolism makes use of cosmic expressions like coelum / terra. The intensity of the conflict is expressed in symbols like fire and water, height and depth, life and death.

2. THE QUATERNIO AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERCURIUS

5 The arrangement of the opposites in a quaternity is shown in an interesting illustration in Stolcenberg's Viridarium chymicum (Fig. XLII), which can also be found in the Philosophia reformata of Mylius (1622, p. 117). The goddesses represent the four seasons of the sun in the circle of the Zodiac (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) and at the same time the four degrees of heating, as well as the four elements "combined" around the circular table. The synthesis of the elements is effected by means of the circular movement in time (circulatio, rota) of the sun through the houses of the Zodiac. As I have shown elsewhere, the aim of the circulatio is the production (or rather, reproduction) of the Original Man, who was a sphere. Perhaps I may mention in this connection a remarkable quotation from Ostanes in Abu'l-Qasim, describing the intermediate position between two pairs of opposites constituting a quaternio:

Ostanes said, Save me, O my God, for I stand between two exalted brilliancies known for their wickedness, and between two dim lights; each of them has reached me and I know not how to save myself from them. And it was said to me, Go up to Agathodaimon the Great and ask aid of him, and know that there is in thee somewhat of his nature, which will never be corrupted.... And when I ascended into the air he said to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PRINCETON UNIV PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1970
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691097666
• ISBN 13: 9780691097664
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 744
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
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