After completing the Orphan Stone, Jung told Maud Oakes, “I need not have written any books; it is all on the stone.” He placed it outside the tower, as a monument to the place. From Mystical Emergence: An Architectural Journey Through Jung’s Tower Inscribed on the Stone: I am an orphan, alone; nevertheless…
On the Stone at Bollingen “I am an orphan, alone: nevertheless I am found everywhere. I am one, but opposed to myself. I am youth and old man at one and the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, because I have had to be fetched out of the deep like a…
The Rejected Stone The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. Psalm 118: 22 From Memories, Dreams, Reflections The story of how this stone came to me is a curious one. I needed stones for building the enclosing wall for the so-called garden, and ordered them from the quarry near Bollingen….
“It is required that the vessel be not only round but egg-shaped.” From Psychology and Alchemy: “For the alchemists the vessel is something truly marvellous: a vas mirabile. Maria Prophetissa says that the whole secret lies in knowing about the Hermetic vessel. “Unum est vas” (the vessel is one) is emphasized…
Carl Jung: The Diamond as a Symbol of the Philosopher’s Stone From Psychology and Alchemy: “The diamond is an excellent symbol because it is hard, fiery, and translucent. Orthelius tells us that the Philosophers have never found a better medicament than that which they called the noble and blessed Stone of the Philosophers, on…
The Alcyhmist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, by Joseph Wright of Darby (1771) The Philosophers’ Stone From: Atalanta fugiens (1618): Music-Image-Text In keeping with the intellectual pursuits of many of his contemporaries, Maier strove to produce the philosophers’ stone. But what exactly did this mean? The early modern alchemist understood himself as being a…
Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem XXI. Make of the man and woman a Circle, of that a Quadrangle, of this a Triangle, of the same a Circle and you will have the Stone of the Philosophers. The Discourse: Plato that most Excellent Philosopher was of the Opinion that those notions or Ideas which are the…
“Now, one of the concepts that plays the greatest role in alchemy is that of the prima materia, the prime or basic matter, the one stuff from which everything else is made. People felt that if they could find out about that and it is still a topic in modern physics they could find…
Ophic Egg (Jacob Bryant, 1774) The Philosophical Egg “The egg is a germ of life with a lofty symbolical significance. It is not just a cosmogonic symbol — it is also a “philosophical one”. As the former it is the Orphic Egg, the world’s beginning; as the latter, the philosophical egg of the medieval…