The Three Stages of the Alchemical Coniunctio and their Relation to the Individuation Process in Analytical Psychology
In 1934 Jung began his serious research on medieval and early modern Latin alchemy. The beginnings of this work are quite interesting and I have posted a note which covers this (see enclosed link A). In time, after much hard work, Jung came to two fundamental conclusions: that alchemy was the bridge which connected his Analytical Psychology to the ancient Gnostics and that the alchemical opus was a parallel to his process of individuation. With respect to the latter conclusion, it is interesting to see how Jung understood the ways of expression the alchemists used in their texts. To the modern individual, the expressions are practically undecipherable and, perhaps if the individual has a background in the hard sciences, complete gibberish. However, Jung's view was that the “free-ranging psyche of the adept used chemical substances and processes as a painter uses colours to shape out the images of his fancy.”
In the culmination of his magnum opus Mysterium Coniunctionis (CW 14), Jung goes into significant detail into what the coniunctio was and what its three stages were, the latter according to the writings of the 16th century alchemist Gerhard Dorn (1535 - 1584 A.D.), translator of Paracelsian texts from German into Latin and an alchemist whom Jung greatly admired and respected. And he interprets the alchemists’ writings on this through the theoretical lens of his Analytical Psychology. What is established here is that the three stages of the coniunctio, for the most part, largely constitutes a parallel to the process of individuation.
It is the purpose of this note to give an overview of Dorn's stages of the coniunctio using the language and perspectives of Analytical Psychology. My interest in this is that, as we will discuss later, though there is a parallel between the stages of the coniunctio and the process of individuation, Jung’s Analytical Psychology has been alleged to only support its first two stages. This leaves open the possibility that the third stage of the coniunctio might provide ways in which Analytical Psychology can be extended and improved.
Preliminaries: The Alchemical Coniunctio (Conjunction) and the The Unio Mentalis
In what follows, the discussion will include two important alchemical concepts: the coniunctio and the unio mentalis. It should be noted early on that the alchemical coniunctio is a deep mystery. Jung held that it was a primordial image of what we now call chemical combination. Associated with it are archetypal images, one of the main ones being the hierosgamos. Others include the “dragon embracing the woman in the grave,” “two animals fighting,” “the king dissolving in water,” etc. He also wrote that, due to its primordial nature, “very different if not contradictory symbolisms were needed to give an adequate description of the paradoxical nature of the conjunction.”
The unio mentalis (unity of the mind) is also a deep mystery. The unio mentalis, according to Dr. Stanton Marlan, is an abstract and ideal state. It is "purity of thought" which lacks differentiation. Dr. Wolfgang Giegerich considers it to be an "interiorized general form of consciousness," "the consciousness of imaginal psychology that has really advanced beyond the unio naturalis." Jung considers the unio mentalis as "the attainment of full knowledge of the heights and depths of one's own character" which gives the person an "inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance."
The First Stage of the Coniunctio
The first stage of the coniunctio is the conjunction between soul and spirit and their separation from the body. The purpose of this was to “free the mind from the influence of the ‘bodily appetites and the heart's affections,' and to establish a spiritual position which is supraordinate to the turbulent sphere of the body,” the goal being to achieve the unio mentalis. In the language of Analytical Psychology, this step entails “withdrawing the soul and her projections from the bodily sphere and from all environmental conditions relating to the body. In modern terms it would be a turning away from sensuous reality, a withdrawal of the fantasy-projections that give 'the ten thousand things' their attractive and deceptive glamour. In other words, it means introversion, introspection, meditation, and the careful investigation of desires and their motives.”
Jung wrote that the psychologist is very well acquainted with this process and that an important part of depth psychotherapy involves “making conscious and dissolving the projections that falsify the patient's view of the world and impede his self knowledge. He does this in order to bring anomalous psychic states of an affective nature, i.e., neurotic symptoms, under the control of consciousness.” Generally, what, is involved in this stage is listening to the unconscious, working with dreams, and engaging the transcendent function through active imagination.
Of this stage, Dr. Jeffrey Raff wrote “The first level is a period in which the opposites are held in tension for the purpose of engaging the transcendent function. During this phase, an individual experiences the self from time to time, but is unable to sustain the experience.” Thus, the achievement of stage one is relatively unstable and, as we will see, the purpose of the next stage is to bring stability to the process. Gerhard Dorn writes "We conclude that meditative philosophy consists in the overcoming of the body by mental union [unio mentalis]," but that "this first union does not as yet make the wise man, but only the mental disciple of wisdom."
The Second Stage of the Coniunctio
The second stage of the coniunctio involves the conjunction (and reuniting) of the unio mentalis (united soul and spirit) achieved in stage one with the body. Jung wrote that this stage involves making real the insights gained in stage one and can be looked at as a sort of solidification. Raff writes of this stage “the self progresses to such a degree that it takes on a life and reality of its own within the psyche. The self comes alive and begins to function in its own right. At the same time, the ego experiences a profound transformation and comes to realize itself as part of the manifest self. At the second level, all the work performed at the first level comes to fruition in a deep inner revolution that binds together the unconscious and the ego in an indissoluble union.” He adds “The second level is an interval in which a more profound experience of the self, the manifest self, is achieved, one which is stable and consistent.” Of this stage, Dorn wrote "The second union of the mind with the body shows forth the wise man,, hoping for and expecting that blessed third union with the first unity [i.e., the unus mundus, the latent unity of the world]."
The Third Stage of the Coniunctio
The third stage of the coniunctio is the conjunction of the unity of mind, spirit, and body achieved in stage two with the unus mundus. Dorn's notion of the unus mundus was that it stood for “the original, non-differentiated unity of the world or of Being." He saw the unus mundus as “the potential world of the first day of creation, when there was as yet ‘no second,' " before God separated the heavens and the Earth. Dorn wrote “Also, as there is only one God and not many, so he willed at first in his mind to create from nothing one world, and then to bring it about that all things which he created should be contained in it, that God in all things might be one." It is from the unus mundus that all was created. In Analytical Psychology, this is the psychoid world located beyond the psyche (i.e., beyond the individual's consciousness, his/her personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious), a world that Jung held could never be directly perceived by consciousness. It is the world in (or analogous to) the psychoid unconscious whose unity underlies the realm of the psyche and the realm of matter (physis); a world that Jung speculated was facilitated by the psychoid archetypes.
Raff writes of this stage “In this coniunctio, the individual self that has been formed comes into union with a level of reality that transcends it, with the divine world that Dorn called the unus mundus. … Union with the unus mundus joins the individual self with the world in which matter and spirit are one. This is the psychoid world … The third level then ushers in a union between the individual self and the transcendent psychoidal world.” Such a conjunction presents a challenge for Analytical Psychology. It was Jung's position that while the individual can work toward achieving wholeness, actually achieving it was impossible. He wrote “no one knows how the paradoxical wholeness of man can ever be realized” and “Just as a lapis Philosophorum, with its miraculous powers, was never produced, so psychic wholeness will never be attained empirically, as consciousness is too narrow and too one-sided to comprehend the full inventory of the psyche.”
Another challenge for Analytical Psychology is that what this stage represents is a complete synthesis of the conscious with the unconscious, the result of this, according to Jung, being “theoretically inconceivable, since a known quantity is combined with an unknown one.” Analytical Psychology can only approach this by using analogies such as “the relation or identity of the personal with the suprapersonal atman, and of the individual tao with the universal tao.” As mentioned earlier, it has been alleged that Jung's Analytical Psychology, in its support of the individuation process, only reached the second stage of the alchemical coniunctio. This was alleged by Dr. Raff in a personal communication with Dr. Stanton Marlon.
Final Thoughts
I have a few thoughts with which to end this note. First, having worked through some of the challenging sections of the medieval and early modern Latin alchemical texts Jung was working with and through some of the Corpus Arabicum Alchemicum, this experience has given me an appreciation of the tremendous help that a given theoretical lens such as Analytical Psychology is in developing a suitable hermeneutics for them. But, it should not be a surprise that when one uses a theoretical lens with which to view a given approach (e.g., the alchemical opus), what will often be highlighted are those areas of commonality - where there is a certain amount of correspondence between the two approaches. In those areas where such correspondence is missing, the original theoretical lens can often come up short. We see this, for example, in Jung's seminar on Kundalini Yoga where he, again, applied the theoretical lens of his Analytical Psychology. For the fifth, sixth, and seventh chakras, Jung could not say much about them. Another example, one which was covered in this note, may be the third stage of the coniunctio.
The second thought I had was that Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz opined that the third stage of the coniunctio might be death, or take place after death. This reminds me of what Jung wrote concerning the solution posed in Goethe's Faust. He wrote regarding Faust’s death that it “is hardly a satisfactory answer. The rebirth and transformation that follow the coniunctio take place in the hereafter, i.e., in the unconscious—which leaves the problem hanging in the air.” Jung desired a solution which could be achieved in life. But, Dr. Edward Edinger is more positive about the solution in Faust. Noting that the Faust myth originally arose in the fifteenth century and that Goethe’s version was published much later (i.e., in the nineteenth century), he wrote “Traditional legends end with Faust being dragged into hell … Goethe’s Faust ends with his elevation to heaven. With more complete individuation, the split between heaven and hell is healed and a third position achieved beyond the antithesis of damnation and salvation.”
Finally, the psychoid world, which according to Jung lies beyond the psyche, is unimaginable to us. However, Dr. Raff, in his book listed in the references section, has written about the imagery of the unus mundus based upon the Book of Lambspring or De Lapide Philosophico Libellus, which was written by an unknown alchemist and published a number of times during the latter part of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries. I have written a four-part note on this entitled The Alchemical Book of Lambspring as a Spiritual Path for the West.
Dr. von Franz said in an interview that the alchemists were attempting to build the diamond body, a subtle body which could house consciousness and would survive death. It strikes me that such a possibility might address some or all of the challenges presented in the third stage of the coniunctio.
References
Goethe's Faust: Notes for a Jungian Commentary by Edward Edinger
Mysterium Lectures : A Journey Through C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis by Edward Edinger
The Soul's Logical Life by Wolfgang Giegerich
The Soul Always Thinks, The Collected Papers of Wolfgang Giegerich, Volume 4
Psychology and Alchemy, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 12
Mysterium Coniunctionis, Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 14
Jung’s Alchemical Philosophy: Psyche and the Mercurial Play of Image and Idea by Stanton Marlan
“Alchemy” by Stanton Marlon in Handbook of Jungian Psychology
Jung and the Alchemical Imagination by Jeffrey Raff
Alchemical Active Imagination by Marie-Louise von Franz
“The Star in Man: C. G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz on the Alchemical Philosophy of Gerard Dorn” by Dr. Thomas Willard in Gutes Leben und Guter Tod von Spätantike bis zur Gegenwart
Additional Resources
A. Jung and the Challenging Beginnings of his Research on Alchemy
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