Cluster Diagram

The alchemical opus has three stages: nigredo, albedo, and rubedo: the blackening, the whitening, and the reddening.the nigredo or blackening, belongs to the operation called mortificatio (fig. 006.01) . The two terms “mortificatio ” and “putrefactio” are overlapping ones and refer to different aspects of the same operation. Mortificatio has no chemical reference at all. Literally it means “killing” and hence will refer to the experience of death. As used in religious asceticism it means “subjection of the passions and appetites by penance, abstinence, or painful severities on the body” (Webster)

Skeleton as Mortificatio Image

PUTREFACTIO

AOP Pg 148 (b) FigNo006.02

Fresco by Francesco Traini, c. (1350). Pisa, Camposanto

Mortificatio is the most negative operation in alchemy. It has to do with darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death, and rotting. However, these dark images often lead over to highly positive onesgrowth, resurrection, rebirthbut the hallmark of mortificatio is the color black

Dream:

I am in Hades and trying repeatedly to escape without success. There is some sort of wild sexual orgy. Everyone is covered with black tar

This patient had exteriorized his personal need to accept blackness by engaging in social action to force society to accept blacks. This was done very self-righteously by projecting the shadow on all who did not agree with him. Although in his conscious life he was involved in demonstrations to overcome discrimination against blacks in white restaurants, he had dreams that he was in black restaurants that discriminated against whites

The blackness, when it is not the original condition, is brought about by the slaying of something. Most commonly it is the dragon that is to be killed (fig. 006.03) . The dragon is “a personification of the instinctual psyche” and is one of the synonyms for the prima materia. This image links the alchemical opus with the myth of the hero who slays the dragon. Just as the hero rescues the captive maiden from the dragon, so the alchemist redeems the anima mundi from her imprisonment in matter by mortificatio of the prima materia

Sol and Luna Kill the Dragon

Or, as Jung puts it: “the slaying of the dragon [is] the mortificatio of the first, dangerous, poisonous stage of the anima (= Mercurius), freed from her imprisonment in the prima materia ( CW14: par. 168 ).” The mortificatio of the first, dangerous, poisonous stage of the anima (women read “animus”) is an important part of the process of psychotherapy. Outbursts of affect, resentment, pleasure, and power demandsall these must undergo mortificatio if the libido trapped in primitive, infantile forms is to be transformed

Another frequent subject for mortificatio is the “king” (fig. 006.04) . For example, an alchemical picture shows a group of armed men slaying a king (fig. 006.05) . Instead of the king it may be Sol, the sun, who is to be killed. For instance, in this text Sol says, “Unless ye slay me, your understanding will not be perfect, and in my sister the moon the degree of your wisdom increases” ( CW14: par. 164 ). It may be the lion who undergoes mortificatiothe king of beasts and the theriomorphic aspect of the sun. In one version the lion has its paws cut off. Again, an eagle may have its wings clipped

Death Pours a Drink for the King

AOP Pg 150 (f) Fig No006.05

Stolcius, Viridarium Chymicum, (1624)

King, sun, and lion refer to the ruling principle of the conscious ego and to the power instinct. At a certain point these must be mortified in order for a new center to emerge. As Jung says: “Egocentricity is a necessary attribute of consciousness and is also its specific sin” ( CW14: par. 364 ). On the archetypal level the mortificatio of the king or the sun will refer to the death and transformation of a collective dominant or ruling principle. This is alluded to in an alchemical text, which, interestingly, equates the king as old man with the dragon:

INFIRM AND WEAK OLD MAN

We get an interesting picture of mortificatio and putrefactio in the so-called Vision of George Ripley: When busy at my book I was upon a certain night, This vision here expressed appeared unto my dimmed sight, A Toad full red I saw did drink the juice of grapes so fast, Till over charged with the broth, his bowels all to braast; And after that from poisoned bulk he cast his venom fell, For grief and pain whereof his members all began to swell, With drops of poisoned sweat approaching thus his secret den, His cave with blasts of fumous air he all be-whyted then; And from the which in space a golden humor did ensue, Whose falling drops from high did stain the soil with ruddy hue: And when this corpse the force of vital breath began to lack, This dying Toad became forthwith like coal for color black: Thus drowned in his proper veins of poisoned flood, For term of eighty days and four he rotting stood: By trial then this venom to expel I did desire, For which I did commit his carcass to a gentle fire: Which done, a wonder to the sight, but more to be rehearsed, The Toad with colors rare through every side was pierced, And white appeared when all the sundry hues were past, Which after being tincted Red, for evermore did last. Then of the venom handled thus a medicine I did make; Which venom kills and saves such as venom chance to take. Glory be to him the granter of such secret ways, Dominion, and honor, both with worship and with praise. Amen ( Ashmole, ed., Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, p. 374 )

The alchemist then enters the picture and subjects the poison-laden carcass to the fire of the alchemical process. This brings about a progressive color change from black to many colors to white to red. At the same time the poison is changed to a paradoxical medicine that can kill or save, the elixir

THE LESSER CONIUNCTIO

Just as coagulatio is followed sooner or later by mortificatio, so likewise does consummation of the lesser coniunctio lead to mortificatio. Examples are Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, and the sequence depicted in the Rosarium pictures. This fact helps to account for the reluctance sensitive people have to committing themselves to the individuation process. They sense in advance the suffering they are letting themselves in for

The poisonous toad was thought to have a jewel in its head, as does the dragon. Ruland says: “Draconites is a precious stoneto be found in the brain of serpents, but unless it is removed while they are alive, it will never become a precious stone, by the inbred malice of the animal who, conscious of death approaching, destroys the virtue of the stone. Therefore the head is removed from the dragons while asleep, and thus the gem is secured.The color of the Draconite is white; it drives away all poisonous animals and cures envenomed bites” ( Ruland, Lexicon, p. 128 )

DISSOLUTION OF THE

So far we have noted several possible subjects of mortificatio, namely, dragon, toad, king, sun, and lion. Another such subject is the figure of purity and innocence.This corresponds to the classic victim for sacrifice which must be pure and unblemished like the Paschal lamb ( Exod. 12 : 5 ). An alchemical drawing pictures Herod's massacre of the innocents as the “dissolution of the metallic seeds,” which are then poured into the alchemical vessel (fig. 006.06) . The psychological idea behind these images is that the childhood state of purity and innocence must be sacrificed. A woman who could not face this issue once dreamed that:

Massacre of the Innocents

Dream:

A lamb was to be sacrificed and she couldn't bear to watch

Dream:

A pure white turkey was being killed. In the process the dreamer is stained with blood

In these cases the nigredo is not the initial stage. A preliminary albedo must first be destroyed. When something white has been killed it putrefies and turns black. It enters the “gate of blackness”

Feces, excrement, and bad odors refer to the putrefactio. The common dreams of neglected or overflowing toilets which plague puritan-minded people belong to this symbolism. Odor sepulcrorum (the stench of the graves) is another synonym for the putrefactio. Since people today seldom smell a rotting corpse, this image does not appear often in dreams

One modern equivalent I have encountered is a dream of severe air pollution. Worms accompany putrefaction, and dreams of worms convey this image with powerful impact (fig. 006.07) . In the I Ching, Hexagram 18 is entitled, “Work on What has been Spoiled,” and the text tells us that “the Chinese character ku represents a bowl in whose contents the worms are breeding. This means decay” ( Wilhelm, trans., The I Ching or Book of Changes, p. 75 ). Typical of the paradoxical imagery of the unconscious, the despicable worm can turn into the supreme value. Thus the Messiah is equated with a worm in the messianic Psalm 22 : 6: “But I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (AV)

Death blowing the Worm Trumpet

SOWING OF GOLD

DEATH AND BURIAL

AOP Pg 161 (o) FigNo006.09

From a bas-relief at Philae

Dream:

The dreamer was attending a party for a dead friend and perhaps other departed spirits. The dead friend recounts a dream that he had before his death. Its major image was a great circle of grain standing 80 inches high. It grew out off a pit in the earth which contained dead bodies that were also buried treasure. The dreamer was trying to convey to his friend the importance of the dream (fig. 006.10)

Grain growing from the Grave, symbolizing Resurrection

DREAM COMMENTARY

MUMIA IDENTICAL

In a Gnostic text the perfect man, or Anthropos, is called a corpse because he is “buried in the body like a mummy in a tomb.” Jung points out that there is a parallel idea in Paracelsus, who says, “Life, verily, is naught but a kind of embalmed mummy, which preserves the mortal body from the mortal worms” ( CW9.2: par. 334 ). It turns out that this “mumia” is symbolically identical with the original man or Anthropos. This Gnostic corpse or Paracelsian mummy is thus the Self as the product of mortificatiothe incorruptible body that grows out of the death of the corruptible seed. It corresponds to the alchemical idea that death is the conception of the Philosophers' Stone

Germination and decay, light changing to darkness, death and rebirthall these belong to the symbolism of the moon, which dies and is reborn each month.The statement that the lion or lower sun grows corrupt through the flesh can be understood to mean that the ego, by incarnating, by daring to exist as an autonomous center of being, takes on substantial reality but also becomes subject to corruption and death (fig. 006.11) . The ego is eventually eclipsedfalls into the blackness of mortificatiobut from its death the “child of the Philosophers”the Philosophers' Stoneis born. Both sun and moon die and transfer their power to their offspringthe son of the Philosophers

Death and the Landsknecht

DEFEAT AND FAILURE

IMAGERY OF

Mortificatio leads us directly into the imagery of Christ's Passionhis mocking, flagellation, torture, and death (fig. 006.15) . The alchemists sometimes explicitly connected the treatment of the material in the vessel with the treatment Christ received. For instance, one text says, “It is not unfitly compared with Christ when the putrefied body of the Sun lies dead, inactive, like ashes in the bottom of the phial.So also did it happen to Christ himself, when at the Mount of Olives, and on the cross, he was roasted by the fire of the divine wrath ( Matt. 26, 27 ), and complained that he was utterly deserted by his heavenly Father” ( CW14: par. 485 )

The Scourging of Christ

I am reminded of a woman who, in the course of her life, had more than her fair share of suffering and frustration. She struggled in analysis for many years to accept her fate and to master her bitterness. Her efforts were eventually crowned with a dream that contained this image:

Tree Struck by Lightning

DREAM COMMENTARY

AOP Pg 178 (u) FigNo006.16

Author's Collection

TO THE CHRIST-IMAGE

Jung says: If the adept experiences his own Self, the “true man,” in his work, thenhe encounters the analogy of the true manChristin new and direct form, and he recognizes in the transformation in which he himself is involved a similarity to the Passion. It is not an “imitation of Christ” but its exact opposite: an assimilation of the Christ-image to his own Self, which is the “true man.” It is no longer an effort, an intentional striving after imitation, but rather an involuntary experience of the reality represented by the sacred legend.The Passion happens to the adept, not in its classic formbut in the form expressed by the alchemical myth. It is the arcane substance that suffers those physical and moral tortures.It is not the adept who suffers all this, rather it suffers in him, it is tortured, it passes through death and rises again. All this happens, not to the alchemist himself but to the “true man,” who he feels is near him and in him and at the same time in the retort ( CW14: par. 492 )

“EVENING KNOWLEDGE”

Morning knowledge is knowledge of the creator, evening knowledge is the knowledge of created things

Morning knowledge is religion, evening knowledge is science