Psychology
Jungian
&
Alchemy
Caption : Alchemist | AI generated image Source : Freepik
Jung spent the last ten years of his life studying alchemy and found that the alchemical process in search of gold corresponded to a psychic process, ie while they performed their chemical experiments in laboratories, Alchemists went through certain psychic experiences that seemed to them to be proper of chemical substances and processes. In fact, as it was a projection, the alchemist experienced these psychic experiences as a special quality of matter, but what he attributed to be the particular behavior of the chemical process was actually his own unconscious.
The culmination of the alchemical procedure, the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, remains the most mysterious and complex stage. In a more direct sense, both the individuation process and alchemical symbolism focus their ultimate efforts on the moment of coniunctio (conjunction), that is, concomitantly on the conscious encounter of the ego with the Self and on the final production of the Philosopher's Stone. Thus, the alchemical operation of the coniunctio was the ultimate goal, where the alchemist hoped to achieve the goal of the work, the true gold. In this way, the entire Opus alchymicum corresponded, from a Jungian perspective, to man's efforts to reach the center of the individuation process.
And it was in an attempt to map out these psychic processes that occur in the mishaps along the way in search of the center in the individuation process that the present author entered the Postgraduate program at PUC/SP, because although there is a complexity to each psyche and a unique individuality in each human being, Jung, through alchemy, pointed out a way to establish a typical sequence of phases, at least in a generic way. We can cite the fact that the three phases known in alchemy, nigredo, albedo and rubedo, were studied by Jung in the light of depth psychology. However, there is no coherent analysis of the process of these three phases put together and, consequently, no understanding of this alchemical process as a whole, as well as the corresponding unconscious processes, since Jung's comments on the symbolism of these phases were distributed randomly in his works. That the encounter with the chaos of the prima materia, in the nigredo phase, is, in a Jungian analysis, the theme of the encounter with the shadow, has become almost common sense in academic circles. However, from a Jungian perspective, what is the meaning of the theme of the ascent and descent of the volatile, formerly developed by philosophers of art in the riddle: make the fixed volatile, and again, make the volatile fixed, and also in the well-known alchemical axiom, solve et coagula - dissolve and coagulate - both of which describe the process of purification and regeneration of matter, through successive distillations, in the albedo phase?
By assigning phases to alchemical processes, alchemy demonstrates to analytical psychology that symbolic forms follow one another. Consequently, a study of the three main alchemical phases together, which follow the sequence nigredo, albedo and rubedo, which promotes an understanding of the alchemical process as a whole and also the relationship they establish with the corresponding psychic processes, was necessary. Therefore, the simple possibility of ordering these symbolisms present in the alchemical phases, among the chaotic mass of symbolisms that alchemy encompasses, and the establishment of appropriate analogies, such as those proposed in the study, although does not represent the general scheme of the phenomenon, with all the particularities and singularities of each individual, it was justified. This gave rise to the work “The Self and the Philosopher's Stone”, the result of the master's thesis in Sciences of Religion.
Through this alchemical symbolic mapping and, consequently, the establishment of the appropriate relationships with the process of individuation, as pointed out by Jung himself, the author has found solid foundations to help guide patients through the process of individuation, being able to point out, through the corresponding symbolism, which stage most closely relates to their current moment in life. Remembering that the encounter between the ego and the Self is an eternal cyclical process that runs throughout the individual's life, whose psychological goal lies in the fact that we work incessantly in search of the encounter with the Self. In this process, it is always necessary to go back and continually re-establish relations with the Self, allowing the conflict to be overcome and elaborating a synthesis on a higher level. As a result, consciousness expands in stages and cycles, gradually integrating unconscious contents into consciousness.