The next material is a continuation of the imagery of the king's transformation. We have a text from Trismosin's Splendor solis that takes up this theme. I shall order all my remarks around it:
RECIPE FOR ALCHEMICAL PROCESS
I'll remind you once again that this is a recipe for an alchemical process going on in a flask; and the formula or scheme of the transformation process as it is described here can be outlined as follows:
ML p.2061. The Blackness
2. “His One Day”
3. The Dawn
4. The Apotheosis
“HIS ONE DAY”
In the beginning is the blackness, which has the synonyms of fog and stench and darkness and drowning. That's followed by a special term that shows up more clearly in parallel texts that Jung refers to, namely a reference to the One Day, “His One Day.” When that One Day arrives, it leads to number three, to the Dawn, in which sunlight, perfume and many colors break through. This is the phase of the emergence of the renewed king who appears first as a worm or a snake. That renewed king then experiences his apotheosis, takes on crowns, a scepter and seven starshe takes on celestial attributes as part of his apotheosis
ML p.206STAGES OF THE SCHEME
This scheme is essentially the same sequence we saw in Ripley's Cantilena where the king crawled back into the queen's womb and then was reborn and experienced an apotheosis. Now a few remarks about each of the stages of this scheme
ML p.207` THE BLACKNESS'
The initial term `blackness' is described as fog, darkness and drowning, indicating that the first stage of this sequence is the nigredo and of course it corresponds to the dark, depressed, distressing aspect of the analytic process: I don't think it can be emphasized too much how important symbolic images of darkness are for dealing practically with the darkness of the unconscious. Certainly, the experience of darkness is very widespread in analytic work, and for that reason we're particularly in need of images to symbolize and represent it
ML p.207DARK MOODS HEALED BY
IMAGES OF DARKNESS
We need to know these images in all their variety because dark moods are healed by images of darkness, not by images of light. You need only consider how you feel in a depressed state when you encounter images of lightness and good cheer; that is not what you're interested in when you are in that condition. What you're interested in are symbolic images that represent the condition you're experiencing, because they bring objectivity; they give you your bearings so you know what you're dealing with. It is therefore healing, when in a dark mood, to encounter images of darkness
ML p.207AMPLIFICATION OF DARKNESS
Of course they [the images] have to be the right ones, and best of all are those that come from within. With that in mind, let's consider some of the amplifications to this imageto the stage of darkness, fog and drowningremembering that the amplifications we talk about become part of our analytic tool kit to be used when we encounter the darkness they refer to
ML p.207There are a couple of excellent examples of this image of the initial state of darkness in that remarkable work Marie-Louise von Franz has made available to us, Aurora Consurgens, which we spoke of last time. I hope you all have that on your shelf and even look at it now and then. In the first parable of Aurora Consurgens (in other words, the beginning of the recipe) this same initial state of darkness is described in these words:
ML p.207CLOUD LOOMS BLACK OVER
THE WHOLE EARTH
Beholding from afar off I saw a great cloud looming black over the whole earth, which had absorbed the earth and covered my soul, (because) the waters had come in even unto her, wherefore they were putrefied and corrupted before the face of the lower hell and the shadow of death, for a tempest hath overwhelmed me; then before me shall the Ethiopians fall down and my enemies shall lick my earth. Therefore there is no health in my flesh and all my bones are troubled before the face of my iniquity. For this cause have I laboured night by night with crying, my jaws are become hoarse; who is the man that liveth, knowing and understanding, delivering my soul from the hand of hell? They that explain me shall have (eternal) life, and to him I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in paradise, and to sit with me on the throne of my kingdom ( Marie-Louise von Franz, ed., Aurora Consurgens, pp. 57, 59 )
WHO IS TALKING HERE?
Now the question is, who's talking here? It is Sapientia Dei in her aspect as prima materia, in her black, original state, and she corresponds here to the king who is drowning in the darkness and calling for rescue. This particular quotation could be thought of as an image of a depressed mood calling out to the ego, saying: “If you can find the meaning of the darkness you're experiencing, if you can find the significant images within this black cloud, then there is a reward and the reward is eternal life and `to him will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in paradise and to sit with me on the throne of my kingdom.' ” In other words, the reward is a connection with eternitythe transpersonaland when that connection has been made, one is then redeemed from one's banal, purely personal life
ML p.208Let me give you another example, from the seventh parable of Aurora Consurgens; the same personage is speaking but by this time she has identified herself more explicitly as the Shulamite in the Song of Songs. She says:
ML p.208Be turned to me with all your hear and do not cast me aside because I am black and swarthy, because the sun hath changed my colour and the waters have covered my face and the earth hath been polluted and defiled in my works; for there was darkness over it, because I stick fast in the mire of the deep and my substance is not disclosed. Wherefore out of the depths have I cried, and from the abyss of the earth with my voice to all you that pass by the way. Attend and see me, if any shall find one like unto me, I will give into his hand the morning star. ( Marie-Louise von Franz, ed., Aurora Consurgens, pp. 57, 59 )
Here is the same idea, you see: a calling from out of the darkness and abyss, and if the ego attends to that call it will be given a connection with the morning star. Jung refers to these passages and he also talks about their connection with the two major psalms that associate to the theme of the call from out of the depths. Those psalms are 69 and 130 and I'm going to read parts of them
ML p.208DISPENSE WITH PERSONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
This is all an amplification of the first phasethe blacknessand I could conceive of doing this very same thing if a dream were brought to me that alluded to this image of someone calling for rescue out of the darkness, out of the depths. I might very well dispense with personal associationsit all depends on the patient, of course, but I could imagine saying: “Well, that is a familiar theme, let me give you some examples of it.” And then for the next fifteen minutes I'd do just that. With the right patient that can be just the thing to do
ML p.208So, Psalm 69; I'll just read a few verses to give you the flavor of it:
Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul.
I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head
Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.
Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me
And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies ( Psalm 69, Versus 1-4, 14-15, 17-18, Authorized Version )
HINT OF THE
REDEMPTION MOTIF
The last verse [Ps. 69] gives us just a hint of the redemption motif. In this case the ego is asking to be redeemed, and in the alchemical passages the prima materia is asking to be redeemed by the ego. That is the kind of shift to and fro that frequently happens when the ego has dealings with the unconsciousthey hand a particular aspect back and forth to each other. Now the other one is Psalm 130, called De Profundis:
ML p.209Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope
Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. ( Psalm 130, Versus 1-2, 5, 7-8, Authorized Version )
Here again is the redemption theme, expressed in the same way as in Psalm 69. Jung talks about how these psalms are connected to the alchemical texts, and in CW14: par. 469 makes a very important observation about the double implication of the theme of the depths; he quotes Epiphanius, who says in Psalm 130, “Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord,” means: After the saints are so graced that the Holy Ghost dwells within them, he gives them, after having made his habitation in the saints, the gift to look into the deep things of God, that they may praise him from the depths. Do you get that? The idea is that when one is calling out of the depths one is praising God from the depths because one has been given the capacity to look into the deep things of God
DOUBLE MEANING OF
THE DEPTHS
So we have a double meaning of the depths: on the one side it means to fall into the fog and the darkness and to be inundated by the waters; and at the same time it means to be initiated into the deep things of God. Psychologically this means that an encounter with the unconscious brings first darkness, disorientation and distress; but if one persists in scrutinizing the experience, its consequence is to enlarge the personality and bring one closer to wholeness. That would be symbolized, then, by “the deep things of God”
ML p.209DOUBLE ASPECTS OF
THE DEPTHS
This double aspect of the depths is expressed very nicely in a Jewish legend concerning Jonah that I am particularly fond of. According to this legend, after Jonah was swallowed by the whale, the whale gave Jonah a kind of excursion through all the profound mysteries of the universe. The whale showed Jonah where Korah and his followers sank into the earth. He showed where the Jews crossed the Red Sea. He showed him the underwater entrance to Gehennato Hell; he showed Jonah the mouth of the river from which all the oceans flowed, and he showed him the river of youth at the gates of the Garden of Eden. So Jonah's sojourn in the belly of the whale became an initiation into the mysteries of the universe at the same time that it was experienced in its conventional form as a disasteras being swallowed up and lost to the upper world
ML p.210DOUBLE ASPECTS OF
THE OPPOSITES
Now this double, contradictory aspect of the depths leads to a very important paragraph ( CW14: par. 470 ). Jung uses this paradoxical double aspect of the depths to speak about the double aspect of the opposites in general
ML p.210Now number two is this term, “His One Day.” The texts indicatethat the transition from the state of darkness to the dawning sunlight is said to take place in “one day” or, according to another text, it takes place on “His One Day,” which refers to God. The idea here is that the Philosophers' Stone is born on the day chosen by God, on His One Day. It corresponds to the idea of the kairos, the right time
ML p.211`HIS ONE DAY'
This symbolic image, His One Day, has three major associations as Jung develops it in CW14: par. 475 and 476 :
ML p.211First, it's the first day of Creation, Day One
Second, it refers to Easter Day, the day of the resurrection of Christ
The third major association is that it refers to the day of Yahweh, which is on the one hand the day of the Last Judgment and on the other hand the day of the coming of the Messiah
TIMING FOR THE CRUCIAL
TRANSFORMATION
The idea behind this archetypal image is that the timing for the crucial transformation is chosen by the Self and not by the ego, even though it can be very helpful for the ego to have prepared itself for it so that it doesn't come as a complete surprise
ML p.211I'll give you a personal example. It was no small thing for me to reach the decision that I would pull up all the roots I had established on the East Coast and move to California. Some months before that decision came into full conscious realization, in other words before I'd even considered such a preposterous idea, I had a dream. The dream was very simple, it had just one single image to it
ML p.211Dream:
“First Day”
The image was that: I was looking at the front page of the New York Times and in headlines larger than any headlines I'd ever seen before, something like a six-inch headline running across the whole front page of the New York Times, were the words “ FIRST DAY ”
DREAM COMMENTARY
That's all. It was only some months later that I came to a fuller realization of what that meant but it was clear to me immediately that something big was cooking. My association to it was the first day of Creation. That dream would be an example of this archetypal image of His One Day, the second phase of this process
ML p.211Phase three brings the dawn and sunlight, and the play of many colorscorresponding to the peacock's tailand brings the fragrance, the perfume, all of which is quite to be expected and there's nothing unusual about it. But an unusual feature does creep into the symbolism because, as it shows up in the various subsidiary texts, the renewed king appears as a worm or a snake. That feature, the worm, doesn't show up in the original text; it shows up in some of the parallel versions and in an outstanding parallel that Jung talks about beginning with CW14: par. 472 the myth of the phoenix
ML p.212PHOENIX MYTH
According to the myth of the phoenix, the phoenix lived in Arabia and every five hundred years the young phoenix appeared at Heliopolis in Egyptthis is an Egyptian myth. And the phoenix built a nest of twigs on the altar of a temple; there it is consumed in fire, and out of the dead phoenix crawls a worm from which the new phoenix grows
This particular account of the phoenix comes from Funk and Wagnalls, ( Standard Dictionary, pp. 868f. ), where there's a very interesting addendum. The author of this item says that the phoenix appears in Job 29 : 18 where Job says, “I shall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the phoenix.” Now that's not quite what the Authorized Version says. The Authorized Version, verses 18-20, says: Then I said, I shall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the sand. My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch. My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand. But the term translated as “sand” here should in all likelihood be translated as “phoenix,” and if anybody's interested in this matter, it's discussed at length in a note to the Anchor's Bible's edition of Job, translated by Marvin Pope
ML p.212JOB STORY IS A
PHOENIX STORY
The reason I'm making such an issue of this is that it gives us a specific connection of this alchemical text and the phoenix myth with the Job storyit symbolically connects the Job story with this sequence. The Job story is, in fact, a phoenix story and, as Jung perceives it, Job went through the experience of the transformation of the king involving the experience of darkness and the reversal to worm state, followed by apotheosis. In addition, the phoenix myth clearly relates to Egyptian embalming symbolism. The basic idea of that symbolism is to create an immortal body and that is also the basic idea of alchemy. The transformation of the phoenix symbolizes the transformation process of individuation which creates a glorified, indestructible body, a kind of eternal fruit or product of a consciously lived life
PHOENIX MYTH RELATED TO
RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
As a number of texts state explicitly, the death and rebirth of the phoenix is equated with the death and resurrection of Christ, and the worm image of the new-born phoenix is also paralleled in the Christ symbolism. For instance in Psalm 22 : 6, which is generally considered by both Jewish and Christian scholars to refer to the Messiaha Messianic Psalmthe Messiah is quoted as saying, “I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people.” That amplification assimilates the passion of Christ also to this sequence
ML p.212TRANSFORMATION AS HIGHEST
CONSTELLATION OF OPPOSITES
What this material is pointing to is really the quite astonishing idea that the reborn king in alchemy, the reborn phoenix in the phoenix myth and the reborn Yahweh, the Messiah, in the myth of Christall three of these appear initially as a worm. That is what the material says. And it is astonishing when you look at it seriously. I think it has to do with the fact that the transformation process, in its crucial phase, takes place at a moment of the highest constellation of the opposites, and therefore one does not get just a beautiful sequence of celestial images. That is what the one-sided rational mind would expecta riding off into the celestial sunsetbut that is not what the living imagery does. The living imagery juxtaposes one right after the other: the worm, the lowliest form of life we can conceive of on the one hand, and the celestial apotheosis on the other. And they are right together, the most exalted and the most despicable
ML p.213WORM AS EXPERIENCE
OF HUMILIATION
According to the Christian symbolism, Christ went through the worm experience of humiliation in the process of death and rebirth of the God-image, which was then followed by his being crowned with glory just as in our text the king is crowned with glory. And according to the alchemical symbolism these images also pertain to Mercurius. But Mercurius is a duplex figurethere's an upper Mercurius and a lower Mercurius. The lower Mercurius is imprisoned in matter and the upper volatile Mercurius descends and suffers itself to be fixed and imprisonedcoagulatedwhich then helps in the rescue of the lower Mercurius, the worm. The outcome is that the worm, the serpent Mercurius, is crowned or glorified, just as Christ's resurrection and ascension was a crowning glorification of the worm. This sequence of events is indicated by the frequent image in alchemy of the crowned serpent. It indicates that the upper Mercurius and the lower Mercurius have been brought together ( CW14: par. 478ff. )
ML p.213WORM AND KING
ARE NOW ONE
The apotheosis is the state of crowning, when celestial attributes are applied to what had previously been a worm. Here the imagery indicates that divine eternal and cosmic qualities are being attached to the materia, to that which has undergone transformation. It comes as a consequence of the coniunctio. In other words, we can say that the worm and king are now onethe highest and lowest have been united; another way of putting it is that power and weakness have been transcended in a third thing
ML p.215This reminds me of a passage of Paul's in 2 Corinthians that I think is very relevant psychologically. In this passage he's been talking about the fact that he'd been granted special divine revelations, and then he [Paul] goes on to say:
ML p.215`A THORN IN THE FLESH'
As to the extraordinary revelations, in order that I might not become conceited I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and keep me from getting proud. Three times I begged the Lord that this might leave me. He said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for[power is completed (teleitai) in weakness].” And so I willingly boast of my weaknesses instead, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ. For when I am powerless it is then that I am strong. ( 2 Cor. 12 : 7-10, New American Bible, modified )
ML p.215POWER IS COMPLETED
IN WEAKNESS
Now if we were to translate this into psychological language he might say this: “I'm content with weakness, distress and failure of all kinds for the sake of wholeness, for when I am powerless then the Self has room to manifest.” I think the operative phrase here is “power is completed in weakness.” It is an image of the coniunctioweakness and power juxtaposed right together with each other
ML p.215