JUNG'S ALCHEMY
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illuminate us
collective unconscious
alchemy illuminate
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If all myth-systems make use of the archetypes, why not choose a familiar system to illustrate the collective unconscious, rather than such an obscure, contradictory and often opaque mythology as alchemy?
Two qualities distinguish alchemy for our purposes. Firstly, it never became institutionalised, and secondly, it addressed the same problems we face from a different historical vantage point. (Jung, 1998: 17)
1. Alchemy wasn’t institutionalised
Alchemy benefitted from not being codified within an institution. In his
Introduction to the Qabalah,
Gerald del Campo speaks of how a religious system becomes fixed dogma
which remains rigidly in place after it is no longer appropriate. He cites
the Bible’s prohibition against homosexuality, which has carried over
despite our overpopulation, and the Torah’s prohibition against eating
pork, despite modern hygiene standards. He continues,
Like all living things, religion must be capable of adapting to new circumstances as man’s knowledge increases. The evolution of the human race depends on mythologies which are malleable and pragmatic. Dogma is an intoxicating, often fatal cocktail, composed mainly of a paradigm with a twist of tyrany and a splash of fanaticism.
Del Campo distinguishes between the ‘Truths’ that holy books contain, as "ALWAYS faithful... unchanging and omnipresent" and our understanding of these truths "which change as we evolve" (ibid). This is the ‘priestly’ level of understanding - an act of interpretation. This approach is significantly similar to Jung’s analysis of archetypes, which remain images until they are filled with specific, conscious content. If a religion is to have a wide following, however, it must be accessible and unified, and these general truths are invariably watered-down and codified, to allow for a literal following of ‘The Word’.
Rather than gaining a mass-following through codification (and the attendant simplification), alchemy remained an arcanum, protecting itself agains the uninitiated. The alchemical beliefs were passed from adept to adept via engimatic maxims and texts rich in imagery whose symbolism was often inscrutable. Le Livre des Figures Hieroglyphiques says of alchemical texts:
...these figures and explanations are not meant for those who have not seen the Books of the Philosophers; such people, ignorant of the Metallic Principles, cannot be called Children of Science. For, if they wish to understand these figures, yet ignore the first agent, they will doubtless make mistakes and never understand anything. ...The philosophers are very jealous and have written them only for those who know these Principles, which are never written in any book, because they leave them to God, who reveals them to whom He pleases, or else causes them to be taught viva voce by a master in the Cabalistic tradition, which does not happen often. (quoted by Nataf, 8)
This elitism allowed alchemy to escape the usual fate of codified religion, which Jung describes as a creed: "A creed gives expression to a definite, collective belief, whereas the word religion expresses a subjective relationship to certain metaphysical, extramundance factors." (Jung, 1998: 358) The disadvantage of such freedom is the ‘puffers’, pretending to revelations, who sought only status or easy wealth. The advantage is that the true alchemists constantly sought these "metaphysical, extramundane factors" with humility and absolute dedication, producing a body of symbolism with an intimate, non-prescriptive relationship to the collective unconscious. Furthermore, because these images and writings are not immediately accessible, they demand a similar process from whoever seeks to understand them. This emphasises understanding such symbols as a slow process of integration into the psyche, rather than just the tidy, easy work of assigning definitions.
Such ‘messiness’, opaque logic, and indefinability make alchemical symbolism well suited to an exploration of the contradictory, undifferentiated nature of the unconscious and collective unconscious.
2. Alchemy faced similar problems
Although alchemy’s earliest records stem from Egypt, and then Islamic
culture, since Medieaval times it has also held sway in Europe when the
Christian Church dominated. (Ramsay, 18-21) We live in the aftermath of
the Christian worldview and the Age of Enlightenment; that is, in the
dominance of ego-consciousness, with all its love of order, structure,
patriarchy, hierarchy, and self. By comparing how alchemy compensated
for Christianity’s one-sidedness, we can develop a framework for how postmodernism
and hypertext compensate for our dominant Western
world view.
collective unconscious alchemy illuminate us
Postmodernism
Jung's Alchemy
Western World & The Individual
Hypertext Fiction
Process of Transformation