Alchemy of Transformation: Coagulatio, Trial by Earth

By Bob Bongiovanni, MA

Behold the mystery of the earth: as that brings forth so must thou bring forth. The earth is not that body which is brought forth, but is the mother of that body; as also thy flesh is not the spirit but is the mother of the spirit.

And in both of them, in the earth and in thy flesh, the Light of the clear Deity is hidden, and it breaks through and gathers to itself a body for each after its kind.

As the mother is, so also is the child: man's child is the soul which is born in the astral moving from the flesh; and the earth's child is the grass, the herbs, the trees, silver, gold, and all mineral ores.

Out of the earth sprang grass, herbs and trees; and in the earth silver, gold, and all manner of ore came to be. In the deep above the earth, sprang the wonderful forming of power and virtue.

--Jacob Boehme, 16^th Century German

mystic strongly influenced by alchemy

One of the brilliant insights of Carl Jung involved alchemy. For centuries, the works of the alchemists had lain neglected in the dustbin of history, dismissed as childish attempts at chemistry. But Jung rediscovered alchemy as something of immense value. To Jung, the alchemists had laid out, perhaps inadvertently, the basic psychological and spiritual processes of transformation, paralleling his own insights, but at a much greater level of sophistication and detail. In particular, the alchemists had used powerful symbolism to capture the essence of each phase of transformation, distilled through many thousands of experiments. The alchemists talked about transformation of physical matter, taking it from a rough and unrefined substance – prima materia, first substance – to the most sublime essence – gold or the philosopher’s stone. But, in their observations and descriptions, the alchemists actually described taking fixed, stagnant aspects of personality – shadow – and transforming it through the process of individuation, thereby releasing humans to achieve the highest potential. We are, at our essence, aspects of the transcendent and eternal Self, and alchemy describes the means by which we live out that truth.

The alchemists described many different transformational processes. In the next few weeks, we will explore four of the main ones – trials associated with earth, air, fire, and water. This week, we discuss trial by earth.

In the alchemist’s laboratory, certain experiments involved taking liquids and gases and solidifying them. For instance, water solidifies into ice when cooled. A material that is liquefied in a solvent will become solid once the solvent is evaporated. It is this process that inspired alchemical texts on coagulatio – the process of coagulating, or turning something into earth, meaning something solid.

What does coagulation mean, psychologically and spiritually? In essence, coagulatio means attaching contents of the psyche to an ego. That’s it, plain and simple. The rest is just elaboration on this theme.

Action coagulates

The alchemists noted that some substances cannot become solidified until they have been stirred or churned. There are many creation myths along these same lines – that the universe started as a vast ocean and the creator needed to churn it up, to bring the solid material to the surface, in order for the earth to be ready for human habitation.

What might this mean psychologically, in Jungian terms? Edinger notes: “Action and activity promote ego development. Exposing oneself to the storm and stress of action, the churn of reality, solidifies the personality.” (p. 85)

In alchemy, the substance that needs to be solidified is mercury or quicksilver. The alchemists were fascinated with quicksilver – a metal that is also a liquid – and saw it as a physical manifestation of the spirit that lives hidden in matter. In other words, mercury is the autonomous spirit of the archetypal psyche. It goes where it will, independent of the ego’s will. It is the spirit of archetype as well as complex. At times, it seems to undermine the intentions of the ego. To coagulate quicksilver is to align it with ego, and that is nothing less than the ultimate fulfillment of individuation. Ego connected to, in intimate relationship with, transcendent Self.

Coagulatio is not a passive process. It means taking action, particularly difficult action. What might we call someone who resists coagulatio? Jung termed them “puer eternis” – the perpetual child. Rather than endure the struggle and messiness of actually coming down to earth and living in a world limited by time and space, the puer flies above it all, flitting from one whim to another, exiting when complexities and limitations arise, oblivious to the resulting harm. It is all well and good to have grand ideas, but it is quite another matter to bring those grand ideas to life in the world of time and space.

There is a popular saying – “the devil is in the details.” Jungians might translate this as, “the shadow is in the details.” We can imagine perfect projects and perfect projects on the abstract level. It’s not until we actually try to make them happen that we discover the complexities and unexpected consequences of what we are proposing. Since individuation inevitably involves confrontation with the shadow, we might go so far as to say, “individuation is in the details.”

Desire coagulates

The Judeo Christian tradition tends to demonize fleshly desire. We are advised to overcome desire through strength of will and self-discipline. But the body is coagulated psyche – the solidified part of our identity. To completely ignore bodily desire is to thwart embodiment which means resisting coagulatio.

No doubt, we live among people who compulsively seek to fill every desire. For them, coagulatio is not the issue – we will discuss the issues of compulsivity in future lectures. But for many, many others, discomfort with desire is the core issue. Edinger explains,

Psychotherapeutic experience verifies the idea that desire promotes coagulatio. For those who are already driven by desirousness, coagulatio is not the operation needed. However, many patients have an inadequate libido investment, a weakness of desire sometimes bordering on anhedonia. Such people don't know what they want and are afraid of their own desires. They are like unborn souls in heaven shrinking from the fall into concrete reality. These people need to cultivate their desires, to seek them, nourish them, and act on them. Only thus will psychic energy be mobilized that will promote life experience and ego development. In psychotherapy, the emergence of transference desires will often indicate the beginning of a coagulatio process and therefore should be treated with care. (p. 91)

What is the object of desire? Of course, that varies from one person to another. For many, it is sexual desire – to experience the ultimate pleasure of sexual ecstasy with an ideal partner. For others, it might be food. The alchemical literature is full of food analogies. Honey, in particular, is described as the supreme example of sweetness and therefore an agent of coagulatio. Many alchemical recipes call for honey as a key ingredient. What might it mean to fully and completely satisfied? To experience the full sweetness that is possible for human embodiment? Of course, we all know that being fully and supremely satisfied by any transient human experience is impossible. But, does that mean we should shun desire, to label it as evil and attempt to extinguish it? Alchemy and Jungian work say “no.” Behind the desire is a healthy human longing for coagulatio, for full engagement in human experience, with all its trials, victories, and disappointments. Moderation is necessary, but not full extinguishment of the underlying desire. To quote from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: “The purpose of the world is to provide us with experience and thus to lead us to liberation” (2.18)

Relationship coagulates

In part, coagulatio means the process of getting real, of recognizing your personal strengths and weaknesses, of doing the often tough work of ascertaining what is realistic rather than just pining away for what’s theoretically possible. What better way of doing this than through our relationships? And, of course, that’s why so many of us avoid relationships. They are messy and they often end in disillusionment. But think of that word—disillusionment. The dispelling of an illusion. That is getting real.

In the biggest sense, archetypes exist only as abstract possibilities until they come into the human realm through relationships. This is particularly true of the parental archetypes. How do we know the archetypal Mother? Because we begin with a real-life relationship with a flesh and blood person who mothers us. How do we know the archetypal Father? Because we begin with a real-life relationship with a flesh and blood person who fathers us. And we spend much of our life, particular the first half, discovering that we were only partially mothered and partially fathered. No flesh and blood person can ever fully embody an archetype. So we spend much of the rest of our lives unearthing the rest of the story, the part our flesh and blood parents didn’t know and couldn’t tell us. We coagulate the archetypes through further relationships.

A critical aspect of psychotherapy – perhaps THE critical aspect – is the formation of relationship between the analyst and the analysand, the therapist and the client. Through that primary relationship, the client can come into relationship with complexes, archetypes, and even the transcendent Self. The therapeutic relationship becomes the model for all the relationships that follow, both internal and external.

Analogy coagulates

Outer world experiences – taking action, giving expression to desire, engaging in relationship – are critical for coagulatio. But there are also some inner experiences that serve the process of coagulatio. Chief among them is the experience of analogy – to compare two things that are similar, and through this comparison better understand or explain something previously not understood or explained. That is why myths and folktales are powerful devices for coagulatio. If I read this simplified story, perhaps I will see aspects of my own life story, maybe even some aspects I have been unable or unwilling to recognize. If my life unfolds like the folktale, what is the underlying meaning? The underlying meaning coagulates – it becomes real for me – through the analogy of the myth.

Jung teaches that the unconscious provides us with a constant stream of analogies, if only we will pay attention. We dream, and the dreams supply us with analogies. But the ego must engage in the coagulatio process. We must discipline ourselves to remember our dreams and exert the effort to analyze what the dream symbols are showing us. Relationships with a dream group or therapists are often critical, as well, to coagulate the analogies of our dreams so that we can learn and grow from them. Active imagination – Jung’s meditative methods to dream while still awake – also supply powerful, and potentially coagulating, analogies.

It’s important to distinguish between abstractions and analogies. Edinger explains:

Concepts and abstractions don't coagulate. They make air, not earth. They are agents of sublimatio. The images of dreams and active imagination do coagulate. They connect the outer world with the inner work by means of proportional or analogous images and thus coagulate soul-stuff. Moods and affects toss us about wildly until they coagulate into something visible and tangible; then we can relate to them objectively. Jung says in his memoirs: "To the extent that I managed to translate the emotions into images-that is to say, to find the images which were concealed in the emotions-I was inwardly calmed and reassured." (p. 100)

Coagulation may be experienced as bondage or imprisonment

One of the reasons that people often struggle with the experience of coagulatio is that it feels like bondage or imprisonment. There is a long religious and philosophical tradition along these lines. Plato wrote of the soul as being “enshrined in the living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell.” The Gnostics, the spiritual forefathers of the alchemists, also imagined spirit imprisoned in matter, awaiting liberation.

But without this imprisonment, there could be no transformation. This is the special status that Jung places on embodiment, on limitation in time and space. That’s what makes human life so precious in the grand design. There is a famous passage from one of Jung’s letters:

God wants to be born in the flame of consciousness,

leaping ever higher.

What if we have no roots in the earth?

If we are not a house of stone where the fire of God can dwell,

but a wretched straw hut that flares up and vanishes?

Could God then be born?

One must be able to suffer God.

That is the supreme task for the seeker of ideas.

He must be the advocate of the earth.

God will take care of himself.

My principle is: deus et homo.

God needs man in order to become conscious,

just as he needs limitation in time and space.

Let us therefore be for him limitation in time and space,

an earthly tabernacle.

The Incarnation is the ultimate Christian symbol for coagulatio

As we are about to enter the Easter season, it’s good to remember that, for Christians, the incarnation is the ultimate symbol for coagulatio. God became man and dwelt among us – or, in other words, the Great Spirit coagulated into human form to discover, in person, what it means to be limited in time and space and the suffering that ensues from that limitation. Edinger points out some aspects of the incarnation story that have alchemical significance:

Born of a virgin	Incarnated in purified earth. Alchemists refer to the Virgin Mary as “white foliated earth” meaning a purified attitude toward materiality. “The black earth of ego desirousness becomes the white foliated earth that incarnates the Self.”
The crucifixion	Carrying the cross symbolizes the realization of the burden of carrying one’s being. Being nailed to a cross symbolizes being nailed to matter, with the four arms symbolizing the four elements from which all visible matter arises. The uncoagulated spirit is free, it can entertain any image without consequences. But to be a concretely realized ego means one is nailed to the cross of the created world.
The Last Supper and the food symbolism in the Mass	To eat something means to incorporate it – literally, to turn it into body. Jung called it “the rite of the individuation process.” To partake of the Eucharistic meal signifies the ego’s incorporation of a relation to the Self.
Redemption of humankind	Incarnation occurs for purposes of rescue. Egohood serves a redemptive function for a lost value. What needs to be redeemed is an aspect of the deity itself. The godhead is internally conflicted – into dark and light halves – and only the limited ego can supply the consciousness necessary to heal this split in the godhead.

I would like to end with a poem by 16^th century mystical and alchemical poet, Henry Vaughn:

Lord! When thou didst they selfe undresse

Laying by thy robes of glory,

To make us more, thou wouldst be lesse,

And becam'st wofull story.

To put on Clouds instead of light,

And cloath the morning-starre with dust

Was a translation of such height

As, but in thee, 'Was ne'r exprest;

Brave wormes, and Earth! that thus could have

A God Enclosed within vour Cell.

Your maker pent up in a grave,

Life lockt in death, heaven in a shell;

Ah, my deare Lord! what couldst thou spye

In this impure, rebellious clay,

That made thee thus resolve to dye

For those that kill thee every day?

O what strange wonders could thee move

To slight thy precious bloud, and breath!

Sure it was Love, my Lord;

for Love Is only stronger far than death.

Alchemy of Transformation: Solutio, Trial by Water

The Odes of Solomon -- ODE 30

Drink deeply from the living fountain of the Lord. It is yours.

Come, all who are thirsty, and drink, and rest by the fountain of the Lord.

How beautiful and pure.

It rests the soul.

That water is sweeter than honey.

The combs of bees are nothing beside it.

It flows from the lips of the Lord.

Its name is from the Lord's heart.

It is invisible but has no borders

and was unknown until it was set in our midst.

They who drink are blessed and they rest.

Why study alchemy? What could we learn, in our modern age, from ancients who spent all their time in primitive laboratories, mixing substance, vainly trying to turn lead into gold? Even if you accept that alchemists came up with interesting parallels to and analogies for psychological and spiritual transformation – the conclusion come to by Carl Jung – why bother digging into arcane alchemical language and symbolism? What matters most is immediate experience, right? What I am experiencing in this moment, for good or for ill.

If you take that position, you are in good company. Most of modern psychology would agree with you, with its emphasis on relieving symptoms and returning people to functional normalcy. The Jungian approach is certainly not for everyone. The Jungian approach says that human life – individual and collective – is a vast alchemical experiment. Human beings are born into certain circumstances, with certain challenges and gifts, and go about living their lives and destinies, either consciously or unconsciously. If we live consciously, everything we experience – good or bad, comforting or frightening – is lived and experienced as an unfolding of the experiment of our lives. We turn the leaden parts of our lives into the gold of consciousness. What is leaden? Whatever has become entrenched and one-sided and has ceased to be of use, particularly our attitudes and perceptions, our sense of who we are and what is possible for us. If we are to grow – if the experiment is to go on – transformation must occur, and transformation may be distressing. The alchemists made it their business to describe, in minute detail, the processes of transformation, using vivid imagery and symbolic language. The emphasis is not on relieving symptoms and returning to functional normalcy. The emphasis is on participation in the ultimate experiment.

Contrast this with the medical model that so predominates in modern psychology. If you are experiencing distressing psychological symptoms, the focus is on making these symptoms go away, returning you to functional normalcy. You may or may not see some deeper pattern of meaning. If you are in distress, particularly severe distress, it’s a symptom of an illness, and the duty of the psychologist is to cure mental illness. That approach is certainly more accessible and straightforward, but it is also very limited and limiting.

So, last week we discussed one of the core alchemical processes, the process called “coagulatio.” This process typically manifests in the life of someone who is relatively diffused and abstract, who may know a lot of things intellectually, but has yet to transform that knowledge into action, to subject theory to the tests of daily reality. Those abstractions and theories need to be solidified, turned to earth, forced to be enacted in the world of time and space. In Jungian terms, they must be integrated by an ego, must become part of a person’s identity and seen for their possibilities in a more practical sense. What insight does alchemy provide for such a coagulating process? Last week, we discussed how action is a critical element. Desire is also important – embracing desire, learning from it, finding appropriate ways to live it out. Our relationships are very important, because it is through relationships that we live out and discover deeper insights. Analogies can be similarly important, particularly those that come through dreams and active imagination. Finally, coagulatio is often experienced as bondage or imprisonment. Such feelings are not pathological, but are to be expected. Some egos just don’t like to be brought down to earth, and they feel trapped when it happens. But, in their efforts to avoid coagulatio, egotistical people sacrifice the thing of highest possible value – a meaningfully transformed life, which equate to the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone.

With that brief summary, we now move to another alchemical process, the trial by water, called solutio. These first two alchemical processes – coagulatio and solutio – are often cited as complementary in alchemical literature. Some alchemists went so far to say that these two are the core of the entire alchemical opus. Solve et coagula – dissolve and coagulate. That is what we do over and over and over in the vast alchemical experiment that is human life.

The process of solutio typically manifests when attitudes and perceptions have become too fixed and rigid. The ego is in stasis – a person feels very comfortable and sure of her or his rightness. So, what’s wrong with that? Modern psychology would typically describe that as the ultimate aim, to feel confident and contented. Well, there’s two problems with that. First, it cannot last. To live is to transform, whether you like it or not. Second, excessive certainty and contentment is deadly if you believe, like Jung, that human destiny is to turn lead into gold, to participate fully in the grand experiment, for oneself and for all of humanity.

There is a beautiful scene from a motion picture that comes to mind for me when I think of solutio. It is in the film Immortal Beloved, about the life of Beethoven, and it occurs early in the film, when the young composer is feeling stifled by his provincial life, unsatisfied with home life, surrounded by people who have no imagination. One warm summer evening, he slips out of his home and walks to a placid lake. It is a moonless night, perfectly calm, and the brilliant stars are perfectly mirrored in the waters. Above and below are one, stars above and stars below. He strips naked and slips into the warm waters. As he floats effortlessly, he lets loose of his ego boundaries. He is merged with the star field, his identity is the vast universe. That is solutio, in its most positive and pleasant sense.

Unfortunately, like all alchemical processes, solutio also brings unpleasant experiences. A rigidly structured ego cannot give up control. It’s about giving up autonomy, dissolving into oblivion, returning to the womb. There is justifiable fear associated with this process – you simply cannot crawl back into the womb and stay there permanently. It feels like death, abandoning hard-won identity, being swallowed up. But it is also necessary at certain stages in the experiment.

In alchemical text and imagery, solutio often involves a king being submerged in water. He can be flailing about, drowning. Or, he can be so thirsty that he drinks too much and drowns internally. Jung comments: “The king personifies a hypertrophy of the ego which calls for compensation … his thirst is due to his boundless concupiscence and egotism. But when he drinks he is overwhelmed by the water – that is, by the unconscious.” (CW 14, para. 365) So, in a Jungian, sense, the king symbolizes the dominant or ruling principle according to which the ego is structured. Sometimes, a swollen, inflated ego is dissolved by its own excesses. It gets too much of what it wants, is dissolved, and is set for rejuvenation.

What is this water that dissolves the ego? In the most basic sense, the water represents something that is much bigger and more expansive than the ego. The ego encounters this bigger thing, and it relinquishes its smaller boundaries, though often with a struggle. For example, a student may surrender to the larger consciousness of his teacher or guru. A person may encounter a new belief system, and see that this new belief system better explains basic life questions than the one it is replacing. That was my own experience with the writings of Jung. At first, I struggled with them – they seemed so difficult to grasp, and I wondered if it was worth it. Couldn’t I just be a simple Christian or a Freudian? But I kept being drawn back to Jung because his ideas were expansive enough to assist me in the big explorations I was drawn to. In the middle of these studies, I had a powerful solutio dream, which echoes the symbolism of the dream from the Beethoven movie:

I’m walking along the shore of a lake, where I see children playing on the rocks. A voice says, “Those are Jung’s grandchildren, they’ve come to his funeral.” I see a house with one side open to the lake. A group of Vikings are carrying the body of Jung to a waiting boat, which will be launched into the lake, a Viking funeral. They walked past me silently and I watch them load the body onto the boat and push it out. Suddenly, I am lying on the boat, staring up at the sky. I feel the waters begin to close around me. I feel terror, and then I realize that I can breath the waters of the lake. They close over my face and I feel oddly calm.

That dream, along with others, confirmed in me that Jungian studies were a core part of my destiny. But, there was a danger that I could be dissolved completely into Jung, lose my own identity, and sink into the unconscious. It was, at the same time, an inviting dream and a cautionary dream.

This dream also carried a feeling tone that is typical of solutio. Solutio involves dissolving into the water of feeling, particularly the type of feeling that makes you forget who you have been. For example, feelings of erotic attraction or love can break open the rigid ego, allowing other influences to penetrate and transform. These waters can also be the orgiastic waters of Dionysus. A lonely and alienated ego can long to sink into the waters of sexual pleasure, particularly group or collective sexuality. There is a scene from the 1970s cult classic film Rocky Horror Picture Show that captures this feeling perfectly. The lead character is a sexually provocative, charismatic transgender man who lures the other characters, male and female, into explorations of their sexual longings. In a final scene, all are floating in a clear pool, caressing one another. The main character sings:

Give yourself over to absolute pleasure

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever

Can't you just see it?

Don't dream it, be it

Closely related to this are Dionysian longings for oblivion through alcohol and other drugs, particularly those substances that dissolve one’s sense of identity. Edward Edinger comments:

In general, the Dionysian is daimonic and ecstatic, promoting intensity of experience rather than clear, structured meaning. It is a dissolver of limits and boundaries, bringing life without measure. In its extreme form it is wild, irrational, mad, ecstatic, boundless. It is the enemy of all conventional laws, rules, and established forms. It is in the service, no1 of safety, but of life and rejuvenation. The weak and immature may bt destroyed by its onslaughts; the healthy will be fertilized and enlivens the land by the flooding of the Nile (see figure 3-11).

Many clinical syndromes are due to a concretistic identification with the Dionysian principle. Alcoholism and drug addiction are obvious Don Juanism can also be considered an identification with Dionysus, in which the individual surrounds himself with an entourage of women in various stages of love or frenzy (Maenads). This situation threatens to bring about his own psychological dismemberment by conflicts, obligations, and entanglements. The Dionysian takes on a compulsive quality when it exists in a dissociated personality. Put another way, the Dionysian destroys the Pentheus-like ego that is not related to wholeness. In favorable circumstances it promotes harmony and dissolves differences. (Anatomy of the Psyche, pp. 64-65)

Another symbolic enactment of solutio – on the surface, a complete contrast – is the act of baptism. Early baptisms were symbolic drownings. A person was fully immersed and held under water until anxiety became almost unbearable. Again quoting Edinger, baptism “signifies a cleansing, rejuvenating immersion in an energy and viewpoint transcending the ego, a veritable death and rebirth . . . it signified a total converstion, a death of the old life and rebirth of a new person into the community of religious believers. The ritual was considered quite literalluy to bring about the creation of a new personality … In Christian baptism the individual is united with Christ, that is, the ego is linked with the Self.” (p. 58)

So, solution can mean dissolving all separateness and individual distinctness in the face of something larger than oneself, like Christ, the Self, the community of believers. That can be quite liberating to a rigidly separated ego, but it can descend further into dissociation, to loss of identity. Solutio is not without its perils.

It’s no accident that English applies the word “solve” when it comes to a problem. Solutio is also the process of breaking down problems, coming to deeper insights or resolutions. In particular, solutio often entails solving a problem by bringing it to the realm of feeling. Libido, psychic energy, has gotten stuck, and no amount of intellectualization or abstraction will unstick it. Openness to feeling is necessary, and for some people, opening to feeling requires a fundamental softening of rigid ego attitudes and habits.

Alchemists were particularly fascinated by metals, seeing them as the most sublime and noble of all substances. In particular, they admired the quality of metals to readily melt, to liquefy when heated, then to re-solidify almost instantly. This is also the attribute of a personality open to the Jungian process of individuation. When needed, the rigid forms are liquefied, with minimal struggle, ridding themselves of contaminants in the process. But they readily resolidify, in new shapes, more purified, with more essential integrity.

Sometimes, even the Philosopher’s Stone, the endpoint of the work, and even the entirety of the opus is described in watery terms. For instance, another name for the Philosopher’s Stone is “elixir vitae,” the living elixir. In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung comments:

[The philosophers] say that the whole work and the substance of the whole work are nothing but the water; and that the treatment of the same also takes place in nothing but the water.... And by whatever names the philosophers have called their stone they always mean and refer to this one substance, i.e., to the water from which everything [originates] and in which everything [is contained], which rules everything, in which errors are made and in which the error is itself corrected. I call it "philosophical" water, not ordinary water but aqua mercurialis. (para 336)

I will end with a quote from Chapter 8 of the Tao Te Ching, as translated by Ralph Alan Dale:

The highest good is like water

nourishing life effortlessly

flowing without prejudice

to the lowliest places.

It springs from all who

nourish their community

with a benevolent heart as deep as an abyss

who are incapable of lies and injustices

who are rooted in the earth

and whose natural rhythms of action

play midwife to the highest good

of each pregnant moment.

Alchemy of Transformation: Calcinatio, Trial by Fire

“Fire Hazard” by Dorsha Hayes

Filled with a clutter of unsorted stuff

a spark can set a man ablaze. What's there

heaped high among stored rubbish at a puff

will burst in flame.

No man can be aware

of how inflammable he is, how prone

what can rage beyond control, unless

the piled up litter of his life is known

to him, and he is able to assess

what hazard he is in, what could ignite.

A man, disordered and undisciplined,

lives in the peril of a panic flight

before the onrush of a flaming wind.

Does it now seem I seek to be profound?

I stand on smoking ash and blackened ground!

Up until now, we have talked about two very familiar processes of transformation as identified by the ancient alchemists, who described these processes using vivid symbology and colorful medieval language. Jung recognized that the alchemists appreciated these processes in much the same way that he appreciated these processes as they unfolded in psychotherapy and in the broader community. Sometimes, there are attitudes or perceptions that we’ve never really made part of our lives. They need to be brought down to earth – coagulatio. Other times, there are attitudes or perceptions that have become too fixed and solid, needing to be softened up, to be made more fluid – solutio.

This week, we move to another alchemical process in which contaminants are burned off. The alchemists called it “calcinatio.”

What does fire symbolize?

· Libido

· Desirousness, especially frustrated desire

· Instinctual energies

· Hunger

We all encounter fire in our lives. We have to learn how to deal with our desires, to manage our instincts, to satisfy our hunger at least partially. Sometimes, people encounter such energies and become compulsive and consumed. Or, they alternate between repressing their desires and occasionally giving in to them, with accompanying shame and even self-loathing. But that does not mean that we should avoid or demonize the fire. Instead, we should examine those who survive, even grow from, the fire.

Edinger tells us that there are healthy ego attitudes during calcinatio:

· First, the ego is open to feeling but does not identify with it.

· Second, the ego feels deeply related to a transcendent source, the Self.

· Third, the ego is willing to experience the sometimes fiery discomfort of not acting on desire, not out of a sense of duty or self hatred, but motivated by self-discovery.

What are some examples of a trial by fire?

Sexuality

Some choose to act on every sexual impulse, even to the point of compulsivity. Nothing is wrong with sexual feelings themselves; indeed, as we talked about several weeks ago, desire and relationship are essential components of another alchemical process, coagulatio. However, there is a different type of insight and power that come from voluntarily holding back from literal action on sexual feelings and impulses. The alchemical process of calcinatio can come into full expression.

It’s unfortunate that the choice to refrain from sexual expression is so associated in our culture with guilt and shame. It’s almost impossible to imagine voluntary sexual restraint or abstinence free from guilt and shame. But that is what we must try to imagine if we are to understand calcinatio.

The choice of when to give expression to sexual feelings and when to refrain from expression is the critical aspect of calcinatio, and the motivation for the choice is particularly significant. Consider the following quote from Edward Edinger:

The necessary frustration of desirousness or concupiscence is the chief feature of the calcinatio stage. First the substance must be located; that is , the unconscious, unacknowledged desire, demand, expectation must be recognized and affirmed. The instinctual urge that says “I want,” and “I am entitled to this” must be fully accepted by the ego. (Anatomy of the Psyche, p. 42)

For some people, the number of sexual partners is the critical question. Why do some of us choose monogamy, even when we crave other partners? Some are monogamous out of a sense of guilt or duty, which often leads to resentment and acting out. But others are committed to the integrity of a monogamous relationship because of the power of such an intimate container. What can be gained by focusing sexual expression on only one partner? Almost certainly, whatever has not been resolved in the relationship, and in the partners, will be burned in the fires that arise from monogamous commitment. For instance, feelings of jealousy are almost inevitable – what if I am being monogamous, but my partner is not? In the fires of monogamy, the deeper aspects of jealousy may come into consciousness. Jealousy is often rooted in deeper feelings of unworthiness, wanting to have absolute control, and in never being made to look naïve and foolish. Those are the unfinished, static thoughts that must be burned away in calcinatio.

Similarly, have feelings of deep infatuation, and not acting on it, can ignite a fire that builds consciousness and burns away complex-laden contents. Infatuation is almost always about projection. We project our unlived life onto an idealized sexual partner. If we take action on the infatuation, we typically discover that our perfect partner is just another human, and that discovery is often painful and disappointing. If we refrain from taking action on the infatuation, it may leads to a different, and deeper, withdrawal of projection. The feelings heat up, sometimes to levels we can hardly bear. In the midst of this heat, we learn more about the parts of ourselves that we are projecting, which may allow us to own and integrate these parts. We encounter other people as unique individuals, not just screens that accept our projections.

Addiction

We live in an addictive culture. Much of our economy is built on a hunger for substances that can bring pleasure and satisfaction. If a little bit is good, a lot will be great. Right? Unfortunately, we also see the effects of addiction all around us. Our crumbling economy is the crash that follows overuse.

Usually, when we think of addiction, we think about dependence on alcohol and other drugs. I’m sure we can all bring to mind friends and family members who have plunged into chemical addiction, and some who lost their lives. To face an addiction means stepping into the fire of calcinatio, and not everyone is up to the task.

Dr. Jung was instrumental in the birth of the so-called 12 step movement. In 1961, Dr. Jung wrote the founder of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. Here are some excerpts from Jung’s letter:

Craving for alcohol is the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language, the union with God.

How could one formulate such an insight in a language that is not misunderstood in our days?

The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is, that it happens to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path, which leads you to higher understanding. You might be led to that goal by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalities.

I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by a real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil. But the use of such words around so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible.

You see, alcohol in Latin is “spiritual” and you se the same for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison. The helpful formula therefore is: spiritus contra spiritum.

There are elements of calcinatio insight in Jung’s comments. We have a deeper craving for wholeness, but this craving becomes shunted into a lower process. This lower process either kills us or leads us to more profound understanding.

Not surprisingly, the 12-step movement also mirrors some calcinatio insights. Some of the language is laden with religious terminology, but the messages are calcinatio, nonetheless. Consider, for instance, the concept that one must admit that one is powerless over the addictive substance, that one’s life has become unmanageable, and that a reliance on a higher power is necessary for restoration of sanity. Those are the essence of the first three of the twelve steps. In a Jungian alchemical sense, these words assert that the ego cannot survive the fire of addiction unless it is in relationship with a deeper source. The twelve steps also assert that one must recognize one’s “defects of character” and “shortcomings.” In alchemical language, these are the contaminants that must be burned off in the fires of calcinatio, the unhealed complexes that led us into the addiction and continue to fuel the addiction. Ultimately, the twelve steps say that the addict may be led to “improvement in conscious contact with God as we understand him” and that life may be brought more into alignment with divine will, along with the power to carry that out. That is also the end point of the calcinatio process.

Fiery ordeals

Sexuality and addiction are very contemporary issues with which our culture struggles. Other examples of calcinatio come from the world of theology, which have deep roots in our cultural history, and which still resonate today. In particular, calcinatio is mirrored in the concepts of purgatory, hell, and Biblical descriptions of a fiery apocalypse.

Referring back to Jung’s letter to Bill W., he makes a direct reference along these lines when he says, “the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition.”

Superficially understood, purgatory and hell are merely punishments for those who disobey God. On a more sophisticated level, these are fiery ordeals that purify, that burn away those aspects of personality that lead one away from our transcendent core. Origen, the 3^rd century Christian theologian and scholar, notes that the source of these purging fires lie within each of us:

Let us now see what is the meaning of threatened "eternal fire." Now we find in the prophet Isaiah that the fire by which each man is punished is described as belonging to himself. For it says, "Walk in the light of your fire and in the flame which you have kindled for yourselves" (Isaiah 50: II). These words seem to indicate that every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not plunged into a fire which has been previously kindled by someone else or which existed before him. Of this fire the food and material are our sins, which are called by the apostle Paul wood and hay and stubble... in the very essence of the soul certain torments are produced from the harmful desires themselves that lead us to sin.

Consider the effect of those faults of passion which often occur in men, as when the soul is burnt up with the flames of love, or tormented by the fires of jealousy or envy, or tossed about with furious anger, or consumed with intense sadness; remembering how some men, finding the excess of these ills too heavy to bear, have deemed it more tolerable to submit to death than endure such tortures. (Quoted in Edinger, p. 29)

Fire that dries out whatever is water-logged

In its most basic sense, calcinatio is a drying-out process, which shows its relationship with solution. Something that has been water-logged needs to be subjected to fire. What does this mean psychologically? In Jungian terms, it means the waters of the unconscious, and particularly the complexes that so often drown us in feeling. Again, quoting Edinger (p. 42):

Calcinatio is also associated with the creative fire of the artist. Therefore, I would like to finish with a sonnet by the artist Michelangelo:

Only through fire can the smith pull and stretch Metal into the shape of his design.

Only through fire can the artist reach

Pure gold which only furnaces refine.

Nor can the phoenix rare itself remake

Unless it first be burnt. For my part, 1

Hope to ascend triumphantly on high

Where death fulfills, where time itself must break.

The fire of which 1 speak has brought salvation, 1 find in

it new powers and restoration

Although 1 seemed already with the dead.

Since by fire nature reaches up to heaven

1 may, through it, be reconciled, forgiven,

For it must surely bear me overhead.

(Quoted in Edinger, p. 37)

Alchemy of Transformation: Sublimatio, Trial by Air

A dream retold by J. B. Priestley, 20^th century English novelist, playwright and broadcaster:

I dreamt that I was standing at the top of a very high tower, alone. looking down upon myriads of birds all flying in one direction; every kind of bird was there, all the birds in the world. It was a noble sight, this vast aerial river of birds. But now in some mysterious fashion the gear was changed, and time speeded up. so that I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter, and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek and then, in a flash, bled and shriveled; and death struck everywhere at every second. What was the use of all this blind struggle towards life, this eager trying of wings, this hurried mating, this flight and surge, all this gigantic meaningless biological effort? As I stared down, seeming to see every creature's ignoble little history almost at a glance. I felt sick at heart. It would be better if not one of them, if not one of us all, had been born, if the struggle ceased forever. I stood on my tower, still alone, desperately unhappy. But now the gear was changed again, and time went faster still, and it was rushing by at such a rate, that the birds could not show any movement, but were like an enormous plain sown with feathers. But along this plain, flickering through the bodies themselves, there now passed a sort ol white flame, trembling, dancing, then hurrying on; and as soon as I saw it I knew that this white flame was life itself, the very quintessence of being; and then it came to me in a rocketburst of ecstasy, that nothing mattered, nothing could ever matter, because nothing else was real, but this quivering and hurrying lambency of being. Birds, men or creatures not yet shaped and colored, all were of no account except so far as this flame of life traveled through them. It left nothing to mourn over behind it; what I had thought was tragedy was mere emptiness or a shadow show; for now all real feeling was caught and purified and danced on ecstatically with the white flame of life (quoted in Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche, pp 129 – 130)

This week is the final in the four sessions devoted to four of the basic alchemical processes. As we have discussed, to fully appreciate alchemy, you must see yourself involved in, and part of, a vast alchemical experiment. On the individual level, the unfinished parts of yourself – your unhealed traumas, your unresolved conflicts, your limiting self perceptions – are the basic stuff that is being experimented on. On the collective level, it is the unspoken trauma and shadow of our culture and our community. How do you take this muck, this dross, this lead, and transform it into something of ultimate value – what the alchemists called gold, or the philosophers stone? There are processes involved, and we have been talking about these processes. So far we have talked about processes involved with fire, water, and earth – calcinatio, solution, and coagulatio. This week, we talk about the process involved with air, the process of sublimatio.

Basically, sublimatio means taking something that is solid or liquid and transforming it into a gas. So, for instance, when water is distilled, it is evaporated, usually by heating and boiling. The water vapor rises, leaving the minerals and sediments behind. The water that condenses is thus purified. That is the physical process that the alchemists observed in the laboratory. What might this same process symbolize, on the psychological and spiritual levels?

The key experience associated with sublimatio is viewing reality from above, particularly from a great height. It is as if you could suddenly be freed from gravity, from confinement to the mundane, and see everything and everyone from a higher, more objective, perspective.

Have you been to the web site “Google Earth”? It is basically a satellite picture of the entire earth. You start from many miles above, and you can zoom closer and closer on objects of your choice, like the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Kremlin, or even your own house. It gives you a sense of absolute freedom and omniscience. You can view anywhere at a whim, then rise back up above it all. That is an experience of sublimatio. In contrast, if you had to walk every destination, and feel every footstep in between, that would be coagulatio.

Psychologically, sublimatio is associated with dissociation. This word has many negative connotations, and can be considered pathological when it goes out of control. Dissociation means the sense that you can disentangle from your identity and personal entanglements and view it all objectively, like it is happening to someone else. This is not always pathological, however. At times, it is very healthy. Edward Edinger argues that it is the core of self-reflection and consciousness. You are able to set aside your unconscious identification with complexes and aspects of your life that are overwhelming and see that you have an underlying identity that is far more expansive. You are, if you are open to it, both engaged and above it all.

In alchemy, sublimatio was also associated with the idea that spirit could be freed from matter. In alchemical imagery, this was often depicted as a bird escaping from a person who was undergoing an ordeal. For instance, in the alchemical text Splendor Solis, a man is shown in a tub, being boiled in the fires of calcinatio. A white dove is shown emerging from his head, ascending to the heavens. The spirit that has been trapped in the body is able to escape the ordeal by rising above it.

Again, let’s discuss what this might mean psychologically. In my own life, I have found myself in the middle of a conflict or of a fear that begins to feel unbearable. Will I survive the pain? Then, something shifts. It is as if I suddenly rose out of the immediate situation and could see it for what it is. Perhaps I see that it is just a recurrence of an old complex that has yet to heal. Or I see that it is part of a much larger process and therefore completely survivable and necessary.

The very act of making a diagnosis is an act of sublimatio. Even though it may feel limiting to be labeled, it is also paradoxically liberating. To be in the midst of agony, with no word for its source, is often much worse. This is true of physical as well as psychological challenges. Once you name the experience – it is a mother complex, it is depression, it is mania – you can hold it at a bit of a distance, and you can begin to move out from beneath it and even find meaning in it. Edinger explains that part of the experience of sublimatio is “extraction of meaning from heavy moods, from concrete events, or from the factuality of nature.”

As this is true of individual experience, it is also true at the collective and historical level. Edinger adds, “The whole history of cultural evolution can be seen as a great sublimatio process in which human beings learn how to see themselves and their world objectively.” So, when the world is in the middle of war, it seems as if the war will go on forever, and when it ends, people are prone to say, “that is the war to end all wars.” It takes a vast collective sublimatio for people to rise above it all, see the deeper roots of human history, and recognize the collective work that remains undone.

To be open to sublimatio means living as both a fully engaged person and also a reflective spectator of one’s own life. The philosopher Schopenhauer describes this in his book, The World as Will and Determination:

[It is] indeed wonderful to see, how man, besides his life in the concrete, always lives a second life in the abstract. In the former he is abandoned to all the storms of reality and to the influence of the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the animal. But his life in the abstract, as it stands before his rational consciousness, is the calm reflection of his life in the concrete, and of the world in which he lives .... Here in the sphere of calm deliberation, what previously possessed him completely and moved him intensely appears to him cold, colorless, and, for the moment, foreign and strange; he is a mere spectator and observer. In respect of this withdrawal into reflection, he is like an actor who has played his part in one scene, and takes his place in the audience until he must appear again. In the audience he quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though it be the preparation for his own death [in the play]; but then he goes on the stage, and acts and suffers as he must. (p. 152)

That is sublimatio at its most positive. But, like any other alchemical process, it can go on for too long and become problematically one-sided, creating a need for compensation by a different process. We have already mentioned the problems of dissociation. Unhealthy dissociation is a splintering of the personality, so-called multiple personality disorder. From a Jungian point of view, sublimatio means rising above this mundane world up to the realm of the archetypes. Such an experience can be exhilarating, life changing, but it is also prone to make someone distant, aloof, unsympathetic to the point of narcissism and psychopathy. Those are the curses of sublimatio taken to the extreme.

There are few more symbols that appear in alchemical literature as well as in dreams and synchronicities that are associated with sublimatio. The symbol of a tower, particularly a very tall tower, is a common sublimatio symbol. As you’ll recall, the tower card in the Tarot deck carries sublimatio meanings – someone who has isolated herself from the outside world, looking down on the mere mortals with some disdain. But along comes calcinatio – a fiery lightning bolt – to send him crashing back to earth, to coagulate like the rest of us.

The mountaintop is another sublimatio symbol. When Jehovah wanted to impart something to his human creations, he would summon a prophet to the mountaintop. Revelation occurs on mountaintops. In addition, think of Mount Olympus. The gods – the archetypes – reside in this rarified place that is so inhospitable to human beings.

Another sublimatio symbol is the ladder. There is a passage from Genesis that is full of sublmatio imagery:

Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it [or "beside him"] and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

Rising to heaven is another symbol for sublimatio. It is a common mythological motif that a human is taken up to heaven to meet the angels and even God himself. For instance, there is a Moslem legend that the prophet Muhammad was taken through the seven realms of heaven to the presence of Allah where his revelation occurred. There is a particularly fascinating example from the Secrets of Enoch, an apocryphal Jewish Christian text from the First Century CE, concerning a man who is taken to heaven. Here is a quote:

There appeared to me two men, exceeding big, so that I never saw such on earth; their faces were shining like the sun, their eyes too were like a burning light, and from their lips was fire coming forth with clothing and singing of various kinds in appearance purple, their wings were brighter than gold, their hands whiter than snow.

They were standing at the head of my bed and began to call me by my name.

And I arose from my sleep and saw clearly those two men standing in front of me.

And I saluted them and was seized with fear and the appearance of my face was changed from terror, and those men said to me:

Have courage, Enoch, do not fear; the eternal God sent us to you, and lo! You shalt to-day ascend with us into heaven, and you shall tell your sons and all your household all that they shall do without you on earth in your house, and let no one seek you till the Lord return you to them.

The angels take Enoch to seven heavens, each of which held a lesson and revelation for him. The first heaven was a revelation of the course of the stars and of nature, the second heaven was a place of shadowy darkness, the third heaven was the abode of the tree of life, the fourth heaven held the secrets of astronomy, the fifth heaven was reserved for giants, the sixth heaven was of the angels who rule the various places on earth, and the seventh heaven was for the magnificent archangels and other higher beings of heaven. Enoch returned to earth with 366 books he wrote about all he had learned in the heavens, obeying the command of an archangel: “Sit and write for all souls of humanity, however many are born, and address the places prepared for them for eternity, even before the formation of the world.”

The Enoch myth reveals another profound insight about sublimatio – it is a circulation, not a one way journey. Typically, one experiences sublimatio and then returns to earth, a coagulatio process, to live out and integrate what has been learned from the archetypes. The Emerald Tablet says, “ascend with great intelligence from earth to heave and again return to earth and unite together the powers of higher things an lower things. Thus you will receive the glory of the whole world and darkness will fly away from you.” Edinger describes this as a whole series of lesser sublimatio experiences, punctuated by a rare greater sublimatio. What is a lesser sublimatio? Rising out of some immediate challenge and getting a glimpse of deeper meaning or a larger pattern behind it all, which allows one to go on despite terrible hardship. What, then, is a greater sublimatio? A revelation like the one received by Enoch, from which one never returns to a comfortable earthly existence. The world never seems the same way again.

Of course, the ultimate sublimatio is death. The soul leaves the body and goes to its next level. Of course, if you believe in reincarnation, of course, this is just a bigger circulation, when the soul comes back into another body, for another lifetime of lessons and alchemical experimentation. Jung had an experience of this final sublimatio, on which Edinger made the following commentary:

What does it mean psychologically to translate into eternity that which has been created in time? Individual consciousness or realization of wholeness is the psychological product of the temporal process of individuation. For that to be made eternal is a mysterious idea. It seems to imply that consciousness achieved by individuals becomes a permanent addition to the archetypal psyche. (Anatomy of the Psyche, p. 141)

I would like end with Jung’s description of his greater sublimatio, which occurred when he was near death in 1944:

I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence fell away or was stripped from me-an extremely painful process. Nevertheless something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history, and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. "I am this bundle of what has been, and what has been accomplished."

This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form; I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated, of having been stripped or pillaged; but suddenly that became of no consequence. Everything seemed to be past; what remained was alail accompli, without any reference back to what had been. There was no longer any regret that anything had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary: I had everything that I was, and that was everything. (MDR, p. 290ff).