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Jung offers the nigredo, in all its chaos and horror, as an experience of the surfacing of unconscious elements: the adaptation of the conscious mind is no longer appropriate, and previously repressed contents must come to the fore: What the regression brings to the surface certainly seems at first sight to be slime from the depths; but if one does not stop short at a superficial evaluation and refrains from passing judgement on the basis of a preconceived dogma, it will be found that this "slime" contains…also germs of new life and vital possibilities for the future. (Jung, 1998: 61-2) The prima materia is also often used to denote this "slime from the depths": inasmuch as it is the undifferentiated contents of the psyche (and it is many things besides, in the alchemical texts) it is both the nigrum nigrius nigro (black blacker than black) and the pleroma, the godly fullness of undifferentiated being. On a less dramatic scale, this is the experience of a user unfamiliar with hypertext fiction. Unable to find an "overview" of the text or the "right" order in which to read it, unable to know what a link will lead one to, unable to cover all potential paths, unable to read all the pages in one path, the user finds that none of her preconceived dogma will guide her. She experiences confusion, frustration, bewilderment and a sense of loss of control. The latter is ironic: we have more control in a hypertext fiction than with a movie or book. (Even the prepositions "in" and "with" indicate how we perceive our degree of involvement.) Accustomed to reading books and watching movies that depend on our moving through them in entirety, she is nervous to choose a path and deny other paths, anxious about leaving something out. This is fear born not of constraint but greater freedom: the loss of god. The Author-God has created this world and turned Her back; in the text, the user feels unguided, at a loss. At the same time, however, "God" is very present: all the choices the user has, and what those choices lead to, have been pre-ordained. |
 
‘Cleanse our minds of this
horrible darkness!’ exlaims an alchemist... |