The examples given in the last chapter show that there is a spirit hidden in the prima materia, just as there was in the Nile stone of Ostanes:
This spirit was eventually interpreted as the Holy Ghost in accordance with the ancient tradition of the Nous swallowed up by the darkness while in the embrace of Physiswith this difference, however, that the devourer is not the supreme feminine principle, earth, but Nous in the form of Mercurius or the tail-eating Uroboros (fig. 147) . In other words, the devourer is a sort of material earth-spirit, an hermaphrodite possessing a masculine-spiritual and a feminine-corporeal aspect (fig. 183) ; cf. (fig. 054) , (fig. 125)
CW12 ¶ 447Uroboros
Codex Marcianus (11th cent.)
Androgynous Deity
The figure stands between the male serpent with sun, and the female serpent with moonLate Babylonian gem
Hermaphrodite with three serpents and one serpent
Below is the three-headed Mercurial dragon.Rosarium philosophorum, in Artis auriferae (1593)
Mercurius as the sun-moon hermaphrodite (rebis)
Mercurius standing on the (round) chaos.Mylius, Philosophia reformata (1622). Color transcription by Adam Mc Lean.
The original Gnostic myth has undergone a strange transformation: Nous and Physis are indistinguishably one in the prima materia and have become a natura abscondita
CW12 ¶ 447The psychological equivalent of this theme is the projection of a highly fascinating unconscious content which, like all such contents, exhibits a numinous“divine” or “sacred”quality. Alchemy set itself the task of acquiring this “treasure hard to attain” and of producing it in visible form, as the physical gold or the panacea or the transforming tincturein so far as the art still busied itself in the laboratory
CW12 ¶ 448ACTIVE IMAGINATION
But since the practical, chemical work was never quite free from the unconscious contents of the operator which found expression in it, it was at the same time a psychic activity which can best be compared with what we call active imagination. This method enables us to get an active grasp of things that also find expression in dream life. The process is in both cases an irrigation of the conscious mind by the unconscious, and it is related so closely to the world of alchemical ideas that we are probably justified in assuming that alchemy deals with the same, or very similar, processes as those involved in active imagination and in dreams, i.e., ultimately with the process of individuation
CW12 ¶ 448INTENSE HEAT OF THE
TRIPLE GLASS HOUSE
Earlier on, we left Arisleus and his companions, together with Beya and the dead Thabritius, in the triple glass house where they had been imprisoned by the Rex marinus. They suffer from intense heat like the three whom Nebuchadnezzar cast into the fiery furnace (fig. 184)
CW12 ¶ 449Three youths in the fiery furnace
Early Christian ornament on sarcophagus from Villa Carpegna, Rome
VISION OF A `FOURTH'
King Nebuchadnezzar had a vision of a fourth, like the “Son of God,” as we are told in Daniel 3 : 25. This vision is not without bearing on alchemy, since there are numerous passages in the literature stating that the Stone is Trinus et unus (fig. 185) ; (cf. fig. 001)
CW12 ¶ 449Triad and quaternity
In the lower part of the picture is the triad as unity. In the upper part, the quaternity stands on the binarius.Valentinus. “Duodecim claves,” in Mus. hermeticum (1678)
Creator as Ruler of the threefold and fourfold universe
Water and fire as the counterpart of heaven.“Liber patris sapientiae,” Theatrum chemicum Britannicum (1652)
Trinus et unus consists of the four elements with fire representing the spirit concealed in matter. This is the fourth, absent and yet present, who always appears in the fiery agony of the furnace and symbolizes the divine presencesuccour and completion of the work
CW12 ¶ 449ARISLEUS BEGS FOR HELP
And in their hour of need, Arisleus and his companions see their master Pythagoras in a dream and beg him for help. He sends them his disciple Harforetus, “the author of nourishment.” So the work is completed and Thabritius comes to life again
CW12 ¶ 449THE CHRISTIAN
The Christian receives the fruits of the Mass for himself personally and for the circumstances of his own life in the widest sense. The alchemist, on the other hand, receives the fructus arboris immortalis not merely for himself but first and foremost for the King or the King's Son, for the perfecting of the coveted substance. He may play a part in the perfectio, which brings him health, riches, illumination, and salvation; but since he is the redeemer of God and not the one to be redeemed, he is more concerned to perfect the substance than himself
CW12 ¶ 451THE ALCHEMIST
The alchemist always stresses his humility and begins his treatises with invocations to God. He does not dream of identifying himself with Christ; on the contrary, it is the coveted substance, the lapis, that alchemy likens to Christ. It is not really a question of identification at all, but of the hermeneutic sicut“as” or “like unto”which characterizes the analogy
CW12 ¶ 451THE MEDIEVAL MAN
For medieval man, however, analogy was not so much a logical figure as a secret identity, a remnant of primitive thinking which is still very much alive. An instructive example of this is the rite of hallowing the fire on the Saturday before Easter (fig. 191) . The fire is “like unto” Christ, an imago Christi. The stone from which the spark is struck is the “cornerstone”another imago; and the spark that leaps from the stone is yet again an imago Christi
CW12 ¶ 451Descent of the Holy Ghost
The Holy Ghost takes the form of cloven tongues.Munich Lectionary or Perikopenbuch (12th cent.)
OSTANES' EXTRACTION OF
THE PNEUMA FROM THE STONE
The analogy with the extraction of the pneuma from the stone in the saying of Ostanes forces itself upon us. We are already familiar with the idea of pneuma as fire, and with Christ as fire and fire as the earth's inner counter-element; but the stone from which the spark is struck is also analogous to the rocky sepulchre, or the stone before it. Here Christ lay as one asleep or in the fetters of death during the three days of his descent into hell, when he went down to the ignis gehennalis, from which he rises again as the New Fire (fig. 234)
CW12 ¶ 451Risen Christ as symbol of the filius philosophorum
Rosarium philosophorum (1550)
THE ALCHEMIST CONTINUES THE WORK OF
REDEMPTION IN THE DEPTHS OF HIS PSYCHE
Without knowing it, the alchemist carries the idea of the imitatio a stage further and reaches the conclusion we mentioned earlier, that complete assimilation to the Redeemer would enable him, the assimilated, to continue the work of redemption in the depths of his own psyche. This conclusion is unconscious, and consequently the alchemist never feels impelled to assume that Christ is doing the work in him
CW12 ¶ 452WORLD-CREATING NOUS OR LOGOS
It is by virtue of the wisdom and art which he himself has acquired, or which God has bestowed upon him, that he can liberate the world-creating Nous or Logos, lost in the world's materiality, for the benefit of mankind. The artifex himself bears no correspondence to Christ; rather he sees this correspondence to the Redeemer in his wonderful Stone
CW12 ¶ 452ALCHEMY AS A CONTINUATION
OF CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM
From this point of view, alchemy seems like a continuation of Christian mysticism carried on in the subterranean darkness of the unconsciousindeed some mystics pressed the materialization of the Christ figure even to the appearance of the stigmata. But this unconscious continuation never reached the surface, where the conscious mind could have dealt with it. All that appeared in consciousness were the symbolic symptoms of the unconscious process. Had the alchemist succeeded in forming any concrete idea of his unconscious contents, he would have been obliged to recognize that he had taken the place of Christor, to be more exact, that he, regarded not as ego but as Self, had taken over the work of redeeming not man but God. He would then have had to recognize not only himself as the equivalent of Christ, but Christ as a symbol of the Self. This tremendous conclusion failed to dawn on the medieval mind. What seems like a monstrous presumption to the Christian European would have been self-evident to the spirit of the Upanishads. Modern man must therefore consider himself fortunate not to have come up against Eastern ideas until his own spiritual impoverishment was so far gone that he did not even notice what he was coming up against. He can now deal with the East on the quite inadequate and therefore innocuous level of the intellect, or else leave the whole matter to Sanskrit specialists
CW12 ¶ 452