This krater refers to the divine vessel of which Hermes tells Thoth in the treatise entitled:
After the creation of the world, God filled this vessel with Nous (= Pneuma) and sent it down to earth as a kind of baptismal font. By so doing God gave man, who wished to free himself from his natural, imperfect, sleeping state of(or, as we should say, insufficient consciousness), an opportunity to dip himself in the Nous and thus partake of the higher state of, i.e., enlightenment or higher consciousness (fig. 159)
CW12 ¶ 409Coniunctio of soul and body
An ecclesiastical version of the alchemical marriage bath.“Grandes heures du duc de Berry” (MS., 1413)
NOUS AS TINCTURE THAT
ENNOBLES BASE SUBSTANCES
The Nous is therefore a kind of dyestuff or tincture, that ennobles base substances. Its function is the exact equivalent of the tincturing stone-extract, which is also a Pneuma and, as Mercurius, possesses the Hermetic dual significance of redeeming psychopomp and quicksilver (fig. 152)
CW12 ¶ 409Saturn eating his children
Saturn is being sprinkled with Mercurial water (lac virginis, vinum ardens). Below, the regeneration in the bath.Thomas Aquinas (pseud.) “De alchimia” (MS., 16th cent.)
THE PNEUMA AS THE SON OF GOD
Nevertheless an unconscious event which eludes the conscious mind will portray itself somehow and somewhere, it may be in dreams, visions, or fantasies. The idea of the Pneuma as the Son of God, who descends into matter and then frees himself from it in order to bring healing and salvation to all souls, bears the traits of a projected unconscious content (fig. 153) . Such a content is an autonomous complex divorced from consciousness, leading a life of its own in the psychic non-ego and instantly projecting itself whenever it is constellated in any waythat is, whenever attracted by something analogous to it in the outside world
CW12 ¶ 410Artist lifting the homunculus out of the Hermetic vessel
The homunculus, the “son of the Philosophers,” is lifted out of the Hermetic vessel.Kelly, Tractatus de Lapide philosophorum (1676)
PSYCHIC AUTONOMY OF THE PNEUMA
The psychic autonomy of the pneuma is attested by the Neopythagoreans; in their view the soul was swallowed by matter and only mindnouswas left. But the nous is outside man: it is his daemon. One could hardly formulate its autonomy more aptly. Nous seems to be identical with the god Anthropos: he appears alongside the demiurge and is the adversary of the planetary spheres
CW12 ¶ 410PNEUMA PROJECTS HIMSELF
INTO THE ELEMENTS
He [Pneuma, or Anthropos], rends the circle of the spheres and leans down to earth and water (i.e., he is about to project himself into the elements). His shadow falls upon the earth, but his image is reflected in the water. This kindles the love of the elements, and he himself is so charmed with the reflected image of divine beauty that he would fain take up his abode within it
CW12 ¶ 410But scarcely has he [the Anthropos] set foot upon the earth when Physis locks him in a passionate embrace. From this embrace are born the seven first hermaphroditic beings. The seven are an obvious allusion to the seven planets and hence to the metals (fig. 154) , (fig. 155) ; (cf. fig. 021) , (fig. 079) which in the alchemical view spring from the hermaphrodite Mercurius
CW12 ¶ 410King with the six planets or metals
Kelley, Tractatus de Lapide philosophorum ( 1676)
Renewed king (filius philosophorum)
The renewed king is worshipped by the six planets.Kelley, Tractatus de Lapide philosophorum ( 1676). Color transcription by Adam McLean.
Seven gods of the planets in Hades
Mylius, Philosophia reformata ( 1622)
King Sol with his six planet-sons
Bonus, Pretiosa margarita novella ( 1546)
UNCONSCIOUS PROJECTION OF
AUTONOMOUS CONTENTS
In such visionary images as the Anthropos glimpsing his own reflection there is expressed the whole phenomenon of the unconscious projection of autonomous contents. These myth-pictures are like dreams, telling us that a projection has taken place and also what has been projected. This, as contemporary evidence shows, was Nous, the divine daemon, the god-man, Pneuma, etc. In so far as the standpoint of analytical psychology is realistic, i.e., based on the assumption that the contents of the psyche are realities, all these figures stand for an unconscious component of the personality which might well be endowed with a higher form of consciousness transcending that of the ordinary human being
CW12 ¶ 411SUPERIOR INSIGHT OR QUALITIES
NOT YET CONSCIOUS
Experience shows that such figures always express superior insight or qualities that are not yet conscious; indeed, it is extremely doubtful whether they can be attributed to the ego at all in the proper sense of the word. This problem of attribution may appear a captious one to the layman, but in practical work it is of great importance. A wrong attribution may bring about dangerous inflations which seem unimportant to the layman only because he has no idea of the inward and outward disasters that may result
CW12 ¶ 411CHRIST AS AN AVATAR OF THE DIVINE NOUS
As a matter of fact, we are dealing here with a content that up to the present has only very rarely been attributed to any human personality. The one great exception is Christ. As the Son of Man, and as the Son of God, he embodies the God-man; and as an incarnation of the Logos by “pneumatic” impregnation, Christ is an avatar of the divine Nous
CW12 ¶ 412CHRISTIAN PROJECTION ACTS UPON
THE UNKNOWN IN MAN
Thus the Christian projection acts upon the unknown in man, or upon the unknown man, who becomes the bearer of the “terrible and unheard-of secret.” The pagan projection, on the other hand, goes beyond man and acts upon the unknown in the material world, the unknown substance which, like the chosen man, is somehow filled with God. And just as, in Christianity, the Godhead conceals itself in the man of low degree, so in the “philosophy” it hides in the uncomely Stone. In the Christian projection the descensus spiritus sancti stops at the living body of the Chosen One, who is at once very man and very God, whereas in alchemy the descent goes right down into the darkness of inanimate matter whose nether regions, according to the Neopythagoreans, are ruled by evil
CW12 ¶ 413EVIL AND MATTER
TOGETHER FORM THE DYAD
Evil and matter together form the Dyad, the duality (fig. 156) . This is feminine in nature, an anima mundi, the feminine Physis who longs for the embrace of the One, the Monad, the good and perfect. The Justinian Gnosis depicts her as Edem, virgin above, serpent below (fig. 157) . Vengefully she strives against the Pneuma because, in the shape of the demiurge, the second form of God, he faithlessly abandoned her. She is “the divine soul imprisoned in the elements,” whom it is the task of alchemy to redeem
CW12 ¶ 413Dyad (day and night)
The Dyad (day and night) is a symbolical representation of the correspondence between zodiac and man.“Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry” (MS., Chantilly, 15th cent.)
Anima Mercurii
“Figurarum Aegyptiorum secretarum” (MS., 18th cent.). In author's collection, (C.G.J.)