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Alchemical Studies (Collected Works of C.G. Jung Vol.13)

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"The really important psychic facts can neither be measured, weighed, nor seen in a test tube or under a microscope. They are therefore supposedly indeterminable, in other words, they must be left to people who have an inner sense of them, just as colours must be shown to the seeing and not to the blind." (Jung p. 238) This sentence reflects much of what this book is about. It highlights the drive behind Jung's attempt to make the invisible visible through an analysis of alchemical thought; it shows his complicated sentence structure and presents some of the hurdles one will have to jump in order to comprehend Jung's work on Alchemy. The preceding volume 12, "Psychology and Alchemy," would serve as a good introduction to this volume, and volume 14, "Mysterium Coniunctionis," might make Jung's thesis easier to comprehend.

This volume of collected works contains his commentary to "The Secret of The Golden Flower" which is almost useless without the actual Golden Flower text. It also contains Jung's analysis and commentary on some of the major metaphors of Alchemy.

According to Jung, Alchemy was the precursor of Western psychology, and that alchemists projected their mental/spiritual states unto the inanimate objects and processes of Alchemy. This work examines these projections in the light of modern consciousness and with the process of individuation in mind. `

Stripped to its essence, Jung's psychological theory states that humans have an unknown meta-consciousness that some will discover through a process he called individuation. This is a recapitulation of the ideas found in all religions, but is here represented by Jung in the terms of modern Western Culture as a scientific analysis of the Soul through an analysis of Alchemy.

Several years ago I read through this text without a clue as to what Jung was talking about, but found some of his observations noteworthy. About two years ago I had some experiences that made the insights contained in this book valuable, and I found that my previous reading allowed me to understand what I had read retrospectively. It also helped me in understanding aspects of Chinese Alchemy as metaphor. It is not recommended to casual readers.

Jung explored alchemy as if it were a mystery novel--relishing every clue, interpreting (nominally) each symbol as it arose. His conclusion that it paralleled his psychological observations & model satisfied his incredible yearning to know that he wasn't crazy or a voice crying in the wilderness--yeah, verily, the alchemists pursued the same goal though in a slightly different way--vindicating Jung's quest for individuation=personal salvation. Thus, Jung's love for alchemy. It's unfortunate that even so-called scientists have ego's so wounded that they disavow their roots: chemists tend to downplay alchemy as astronomers downplay astrology--denigrating their roots. This shows an appalling lack of courage--something Jung had no lack of. Just think of what courage it must have taken for Jung to write about alchemy as having psychological truth embedded in its very heart. Yet he wrote 3 books worth on it CW12 (Psychology & Alchemy), CW13 (Alchemical Studies), & CW14 (Mysterium Coniunctionis). I'm in awe of his courage, let alone of his genius. Try reading some alchemy works yourself--if you think Jung is hard to read, think twice. Alchemical works are far more difficult. It took Jung's supreme effort to decipher them. So, if this work seems obtuse to you (& it is), consider how obtuse it was to Jung. Having studied some alchemy independently (e.g. Mutis Liber, Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, etc.) it seems only natural that the universal symbology should be reflected in transcendental alchemy, kabbalah, Jungian psychology, Campbell's mythology, & (amazingly enough) Tibetan Buddhism--mandalas. Thus, an incredible multiplicity of sources support Jung's model of the collective unconscious. A true scientist is a "walking question mark." Despite Thomas Kuhn's difference in definition, the essence remains the same--true scientists follow the KID (knowledge, information, & data) not the dying paradigm. Jung's new paradigm of universality has yet to be seriously challenged.

...into the world of alchemy made the world aware of how rich a symbol-system had been lost from time out of mind. It was Jung who discovered that alchemy, a "chymical" art compensatory to the Christian emphasis on spirit over matter, also represented a projected psychology of the unconscious; it was, in fact, a forerunner of depth psychology itself.

Three things suffice for the work: a white smoke, which is water; a green Lion, which is the ore of Hermes, and a fetid water... The stone, known from the chapters of books, is white smoke and water.

Michael Maier
Atalanta Fugiens

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Of this self-same body, which is the matter of the Stone, three things are chiefly said; that it is a green Lion, a stinking Gum, and a white Fume. Having twelve pounds of Green Lion thus brought into gum, thou mayst believe...

St. Dunstan (pseudo)
Philosophia Maturata

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A green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou not burn his Flowers nor destroy his greenness.

Sir George Ripley
The Bosome-Book of Sir George Ripley

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You will see marvelous signs of this Green Lion, such as could be bought by no treasures of the Roman Leo. Happy he who has found it and learned to use it as a treasure!

Paracelsus
The Treasure of Treasures
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Perfect bodies we naturally calcine with the first, without adding any impure body but one commonly called by philosophers the green lion, and this is the medium for perfectly combining the tinctures of the Sun and Moon.

The Golden Tract
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Then the sowing of the field can take place, and you obtain the Mineral Stone, and the Green Lion that imbibes so much of its own spirit.

The Glory of the World

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Beware therefore of many, and hold thee to one thing. This one thing is naught else but the lyon greene...

Bloomfield's Blossoms
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Green Lion, Bird of Hermes, Goose of Hermogenes, two-edged sword in the hand of the Cherub the Tree of Life, etc.; it is our true, secret vessel, and the Garden of the Sages in which our Sun rises and sets.

The Three Treatises of Philalethes

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You have then nourished and dissolved the true lion with the blood of the green lion.

The Golden Tripod

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I know well this Lyon Greene...

Hunting of the Greene Lyon

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Upon the delicate leaves thereof it retaineth for our use that sweet heavenly honey which is called the manna, and, although it be of a gummy, oily, fat, and greasy substance, it is, notwithstanding, unconsumable by any fire.

Rabelais
Gargantua and Pantagruel

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This is called the blessed stone; this earth is white and foliated, wherein the Philosophers do sow their gold... The fourth color is Ruddy and Sanguine, which is extracted from the white fire only.

Jean dEspagnet
The Hermetic Arcanum

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O how many are the seekers after this gum, and how few there are who find it! Know ye that our gum is stronger than gold, and all those who know it do hold it more honorable than gold... Our gum, therefore, is for Philosophers more precious and more sublime than pearls...

Turba Philosophorum

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Therefore I affirm that the Universal Medicine for bodies is the philosophic gold, after it has been separated and drawn to the highest state of perfection. Our common gold has absolutely nothing in common with the philosophic gold we use to begin our task. In that respect common gold is dead and clearly useless.

Philip a Gabella
Consideratio Brevis

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By gold I mean our green gold- not the adored lump, which is dead and ineffectual.

Thomas Vaughan
Aula Lucis

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Take the fire, or quicklime, of which the philosophers speak, which grows on trees, for in that God himself burns with divine love.

Gloria Mundi

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It appears then that this Stone is a Vegetable, as it were, the sweet Spirit that proceeds from the Bud of the Vine...

Count Bernard Trevisan
Verbum Dismissum

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Trust my word, seek the grass that is trefiol. Thou knowest the name, and art wise and cunning if thou findest it.

The Sophic Hydrolith

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You ought to know concerning the Quintessence, that it is a matter little and small, lodged and harbored in some Tree, Herb, Stone, or the like...

The Tomb of Semiramis

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It contains the fire of Nature, or the Universal Spirit; with Air as its vehicle it contains Water, which must be separated in the beginning of the work, and also earth which remains behind in the form of caput mortuum, where the fire has left it, and is the true Red Earth wherein the fire dwelt for a while. The subject, duly collected, should not be less than eight nor more than sixteen ounces: place it in a china or glazed basin and cover it loosely to keep the dust out.

Sigismond Bacstrom
Rosicrucian Aphorisms and Process

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Long have I had in my nostrils the scent of the herb moly which became so celebrated thanks to the poets of old... this herb is entirely chemical. It is said that Odysseus used it to protect himself against the poisons of Circe and the perilous singing of the Sirens. It is also related that Mercury himself found it and that it is an effective antidote to all poisons. It grows plentifully on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia...

Michael Maier
Septimana Philosophica

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Our secret fire, that is, our fiery and sulfurous water, which is called Balneum Mariae... This water is a white vapor.

The Secret Book of Artephius

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Know the secret fire of the wise, which is the one and sole agent efficient for the opening, subliming, purifying, and disposing of the material.

Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes

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Study, then, this fire, for had I myself found it at the first, I should not have erred two hundred times upon the veritable material.

John Pontanus
The Secret Fire

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No philosopher has ever openly Revealed this secret fire, and this powerful Agent, which works all the Wonders of the Art.

The Hermetic Triumph

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Mercury, i.e. the white flower, can be used and applied to the tinctures of all planets.

The Little Peasant

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Our true and real Matter is only a vapor... This Green Dragon is the natural Gold of the Philosophers, exceedingly different from the vulgar, which is corporeal and dead... but ours is spiritual, and living... Our Gold is called Natural, because it is not to be made by Art, and since it is known to none, but the true Disciples of Hermes, who understand how to separate it from its original Lump, tis also called Philosophical; and if God had not been so gracious, as to create this first Chaos to our hand, all our Skill and Art in the Construction of the great Elixir would be in vain.

Baron Urbigerus
Aphorismi Urbigerani

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This stone is of delicate touch, and there is more mildness in its touch than in its substance. Of sweet taste, and its proper nature is aerial.

Khalid said: Tell me of its odor, before and after its confection.

Morienus answered: Before confectioning, its odor is very heavy and foul. I know of no other stone like it nor having its powers. While the four elements are contained in this stone, it being thus like the world in composition, yet no other stone like it in power or nature is to be found in the world, nor has any of the authorities ever performed the operation other than by means of it. And the compositions attempted by those using anything else in this composition will fail utterly and come to nothing. The thing in which the entire accomplishment of this operation consists of the red vapor, the yellow vapor, the white vapor, the green lion, ocher, the impurities of the dead and of the stones, blood, eudica, and foul earth.

Begin in the Creators name, and with his vapor take the whiteness from the white vapor. The whole key to accomplishment of this operation is in the fire, with which the minerals are prepared and the bad spirits held back, and with which the spirit and body are joined.

In answer to you question about the white vapor, or virgins milk, you may know that it is a tincture and spirit of those bodies already dissolved and dead, from which the spirits have been withdrawn. It is the white vapor that flows in the body and removes its darkness, or earthiness, and impurity, uniting the bodies into one and augmenting their waters.

Without the white vapor, there could have been no pure gold nor any profit in it.

The Book of Morienus

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Let it be sublimed in an high body and head...

Geber
Search of Perfection

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Our Subject cannot be called the fiery Serpent of the Philosophers, nor have the power of overcoming any created thing, before it has received such Virtue and Quality from our Green-Dragon...

Baron Urbigerus
Aphorismi Urbigerani

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The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, chapter 12, "The Pilgrim Examines Alchemy":

Another burned his eyes out, and was thus unable to supervise the calcination and the fixation: or bleared his sight with smoke to such an extent that before he cleared his eyes the nitrogen escaped. Some died of asphyxiation from the smoke. But for the greatest part they did not have enough coal in their bags and were obliged to run about to borrow it elsewhere, while in the meantime their concoction cooled off and was utterly ruined. This was of very frequent, in fact of almost constant, occurrence. Although they did not tolerate anyone among themselves save such as possessed full bags, yet these seemed to have a way of drying up very rapidly, and soon grew empty: they were obliged either to suspend their operations or to run away to borrow.

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I have cast fire upon the earth, and see, I watch until it blazes.
Gospel of Thomas
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See also Shakespeare sonnet 76, Knights Templar cannabis recipe in Villard Folio: [...]

I love the idea of transforming human conciousness. It's all new to me, but also sounds very profound and real.

Jung wrote extensively on the subject of alchemy; see also his book Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works of C.G. Jung). Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Misled by the devil, (Faust) contemptuously turns his back on science and, carried away by Eastern occultism, takes over yoga practices word for word and becomes a pitiable imitator. (Theosophy is our best example of this.)" (Pg. 7)
"The lack of comprehension goes so far that even learned sinologists have not understood the practical use of the I Ching and consider the book to be nor more than a collection of abstruse magic spells." (Pg. 10)
"Our time has committed a fatal error; we believe we can criticize the facts of religion intellectually. Like Laplace we think God is a hypothesis that can be subjected to intellectual treatment, to be affirmed or denied. We completely forget that the reason mankind believes in the 'daemon' has nothing whatever to do with external factors, but is simply due to a naive awareness of the tremendous inner effect of autonomous fragmentary systems." (Pg. 36)
"My admiration for the great philosophers of the East is as genuine as my attitude towards their metaphysics is irreverent." (Pg. 50)
"Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter." (Pg. 128)
"Curiously enough, I have critics who think that I of all people want to replace the living psyche by intellectual concepts. I do not understand how they have managed to overlook the fact that my concepts are based on empirical findings and are nothing but names for certain areas of experience." (Pg. 328)