uroboric incest

A state which corresponds to the alchemical condition of solutioa state which Neumann described as follows:

(a)

Uroboric incest is a form of entry into the mother, of union with her, and it stands in sharp contrast to other and later forms of incest. In uroboric incest, the emphasis upon pleasure and love is in no sense active, it is more a desire to be dissolved and absorbed; passively one lets oneself be taken, sinks into the pleroma, melts away in the ocean of pleasurea Liebestod. The Great Mother takes the little child back into herself, and always over uroboric incest there stand the insignia of death, signifying final dissolution in union with the Mother

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(b)

Many forms of nostalgia and longing signify no more than a return to uroboric incest and self-dissolution, from the unio mystica of the saint to the drunkard's craving for unconsciousness, and the death-romanticism of the Germanic races. The incest we term “uroboric” is self-surrender and regression. It is the form of incest taken by the infantile ego, which is still close to the mother and has not yet come to itself; but the sick ego of the neurotic can also take this form and so can a later, exhausted ego that creeps back to the mother after having found fulfillment ( Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness, p. 17 )

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(f)

Solutio constitutes one of seven major alchemical operations as distinguished by Edinger, each one a center of an elaborate symbol system making up the principle content of all culture-products. The author's cluster diagram (fig. 003.00) of solutio is shown below: