The transformation of Mercurius, as prima materia, in the heated, sealed vessel is comparable to cooking the basic instinctive drives in their own affect until their essential fantasy content becomes conscious. “Instead of arguing with the drives which carry us away, we prefer to cook them and . ask then what they want. . ….
from Basil Valentine’s Azoth When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver (mercury), but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eater, in…
Illustration 2 Rosarium Philosophorum From the Four Stages of Alchemical Work Jo Hedesan Mixing other substances in the flask, the blackness of the matter eventually disappeared to make room for a whiteness called albedo. This sudden inversion of colors was a sign that the work was going in the right direction. Albedo was usually portrayed…
One of the Nigredo images from alchemy is the “Caput Corvi.” Somehow the phrase Caput Corvi makes me laugh. (Literally, it means “Decapitation of the Crow.” That doesn’t sound so funny, actually. Let’s stick with the Latin.) Out of all these serious works on the stages alchemy, I have yet to come across the the…
(Continuing on the theme that “The way out is through“, that depression after a trauma is not something that can be easily denied or medicated away…) Ravens from Heart Attack and Soul On the mythological level, nigredo signifies the difficulties man has to overcome on his journey through the underworld. Nigredo is sometimes called…
Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a process, and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious. In individual cases that transformation can be read from dreams and fantasies. In collective life it has left…
Michelle Frantom is an artist, a surfer, an Australian, a blogger. Although her blog is not specifically about Jungian topics, she is well-versed in Jung and writes thoughtful and passionate posts covering a wide variety of topics. She also frequently draws her dreams; there is something quite archetypal about her drawings…. Excerpt for July 17,…
In alchemy the lion, the “royal” beast, is a synonym for Mercurius, or, to be more accurate, for a stage in his transformation. He is the warm-blooded form of the devouring, predatory monster who first appears as the dragon. Usually the lion-form succeeds the dragon’s death and eventual dismemberment. … The lion has among other…