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 by the Christian tension of opposites.The historical shift in the world's consciousness towards the masculine is compensated by the chthonic femininity of the unconscious. In certain pre-Christian religions the male principle had already been differentiated in the father-son specification, a change which was to be of the utmost importance for Christianity. Were the unconscious merely complementary, this change of consciousness would have been accompanied by the production of a mother and daughter, for which the necessary material lay ready to hand in the myth of Demeter and Persephone
CW12 ¶ 26THE UNCONSCIOUS IS NOT
COMPLEMENTARY BUT COMPENSATORY
But, as alchemy shows, the unconscious chose rather the Cybele-Attis type in the form of the prima materia and the filius macrocosmi, thus proving that it is not complementary but compensatory. This goes to show that the unconscious does not simply act contrary to the conscious mind but modifies it more in the manner of an opponent or partner. The son type does not call up a daughter as a complementary image from the depths of the “chthonic” unconsciousit calls up another son. This remarkable fact would seem to be connected with the incarnation in our earthly human nature of a purely spiritual God, brought about by the Holy Ghost impregnating the womb of the Blessed Virgin
CW12 ¶ 26Thus the higher, the spiritual, the masculine inclines to the lower, the earthly, the feminine; and accordingly, the mother, who was anterior to the world of the father, accommodates herself to the male principle and, with the aid of the human spirit (alchemy or “the philosophy ”), produces a sonnot the antithesis of Christ but rather his chthonic counterpart, not a divine man but a fabulous being conforming to the nature of the primordial mother. And just as the redemption of man the microcosm is the task of the “upper” son, so the “lower” son has the function of a salvator macrocosmi
CW12 ¶ 26THE DRAMA WAS PLAYED OUT
IN THE OBSCURITIES OF ALCHEMY
This, in brief, is the drama that was played out in the obscurities of alchemy. It is superfluous to remark that these two sons were never united, except perhaps in the mind and innermost experience of a few particularly gifted alchemists. But it is not very difficult to see the “purpose” of this drama: in the Incarnation it looked as though the male principle of the father-world were approximating to the female principle of the mother-world, with the result that the latter felt impelled to approximate in turn to the father-world. What it evidently amounted to was an attempt to bridge the gulf separating the two worlds as compensation for the open conflict between them
CW12 ¶ 27THE MESSAGE OF THE
CHRISTIAN SYMBOL IS GNOSIS
I hope the reader will not be outraged if my exposition sounds like a Gnostic myth. We are moving here in those psychological regions where, as a matter of fact, the Gnosis is rooted. The message of the Christian symbol is Gnosis, and the compensation effected by the unconscious is Gnosis in an even higher degree. Myth is the primordial language natural to these psychic processes, and no intellectual formulation comes anywhere near the richness and expressiveness of mythical imagery. Such processes deal with the primordial images, and these are best and most succinctly reproduced by figurative speech
CW12 ¶ 28THE MASK OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IS NOT RIGID
The process described above displays all the characteristic features of psychological compensation. We know that the mask of the unconscious is not rigidit reflects the face we turn towards it. Hostility lends it a threatening aspect, friendliness softens its features. It is not a question of mere optical reflection but of an autonomous answer which reveals the self-sufficing nature of that which answers
CW12 ¶ 29THE FILIUS PHILOSOPHORUM IS MORE
THAN THE REFLECTED IMAGE OF THE SON OF GOD
Thus the filius philosophorum is not just the reflected image, in unsuitable material, of the son of God; on the contrary, this son of Tiamat reflects the features of the primordial maternal figure. Although he is decidedly hermaphroditic he has a masculine namea sign that the chthonic underworld, having been rejected by the spirit and identified with evil, has a tendency to compromise. There is no mistaking the fact that he is a concession to the spiritual and masculine principle, even though he carries in himself the weight of the earth and the whole fabulous nature of primordial animality
CW12 ¶ 29Alchemy is pre-eminently concerned with the seed of unity which lies hidden in the chaos of Tiamat and forms the counterpart to the divine unity. Like this, the seed has a trinitarian character in Christian alchemy and a triadic character in pagan alchemy. According to other authorities it corresponds to the unity of the four elements and is therefore a quaternity. The overwhelming majority of modern psychological findings speaks in favor of the latter view. The few cases I have observed which produced the number three were marked by a systematic deficiency in consciousness, that is to say, they were unconscious of the “inferior function.” The number three is not a natural expression for wholeness, since four represents the minimum number of determinants in a whole judgment. It must nevertheless be stressed that side by side with the distinct leanings of alchemy (and of the unconscious) towards quaternity there is always a vacillation between three and four which comes out over and over again. Even in the axiom of Maria Prophetissa the quaternity is muffled and alembicated
CW12 ¶ 31THERE ARE THREE AS WELL AS
FOUR PROCEDURES IN ALCHEMY
In alchemy there are three as well as four regimina or procedures, three as well as four colours. There are always four elements, but often three of them are grouped together, with the fourth in a special positionsometimes earth, sometimes fire. Mercurius is of course quadratus, but he is also a three-headed snake or simply a three in one. This uncertainty has a duplex characterin other words, the central ideas are ternary as well as quaternary. The psychologist cannot but mention the fact that a similar puzzle exists in the psychology of the unconscious: the least differentiated or “inferior” function is so much contaminated by the collective unconscious that, on becoming conscious, it brings up among others the archetype of the Self as wellas Maria Prophetissa says. Four signifies the feminine, motherly, physical; three the masculine, fatherly, spiritual. Thus the uncertainty as to three or four amounts to a wavering between the spiritual and the physicala striking example of how every human truth is a last truth but one
CW12 ¶ 31