The Albedo

Being deep in nigredo, a white light appears. We have arrived at the second stage of the Great Work: albedo, or whiteness. The alchemist has discovered within himself the source from which his life comes forth. The fountain of life from which the water of life flows forth giving eternal youth.

(Dirk Gillabel)

Aargh! I really wanted to write on snake and child symbolism but more stuff came up in my dreams recently! Most of my dreams are pretty humdrum - probably having more to do with Fruedian, personal issues - but lately I've been getting more archetypal/collective dreams. Which is cool! And make me feel like I'm making some significant breakthroughs, especially this last one.

The dream focused on images of looking for a partner. I take that to be the search for the coniunctio; the union of the male and female halves, usually internally, i.e. with our animus/anima but occasionally externally with an actual partner or even both at the same time (i.e. sex! and romance!). I've obviously been doing a lot of animus work lately, both internally and externally, and something appears to have changed. While I'm "looking for a partner" suddenly I'm in a giant tree, like the World Tree and all of these images of nature come up.

I go up into the trees. It's precarious. I have to cling on a large bundle or rope of vines, many of which pull off as I pull myself up, but I trust the tree. I know the tree is helping me. All the land is one organism; the large tree, the water, and the rock below it. There is white (in the water). The white gathers. It's connected to the rock (the rock is a solidified whiteness?) I chop out a small slab of the rock and bring it back to the others...

While I was thinking about the dream the first thought in my head was that this was the "albedo" stage referred to in alchemy. Jung realized that alchemy was really a psychological/spiritual compensation for the excessively spiritual emphasis of the dominant Christian religion. In other words alchemy is a description of the path of individuation in symbolic language.

The Great Work (Latin: "Magnum Opus") is an alchemical term for the process of creating the philosopher's stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition... It originally had four stages:

Nigredo, a blackening or melanosis
Albedo, a whitening or leucosis
Citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis
Rubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosis 

...Other color stages are sometimes mentioned, most notably the cauda pavonis (peacock's tail) in which an array of colors appear. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_opus_%28alchemy)

The colors symbolize the various stages a person goes through in the individuation process. And there are four of them - shocker! - or not, as 4 is the number Jung found to represent wholeness in dreams, myths, etc. The four colors are associated with the four Jungian archetypes that characterize these stages; "In the Jungian archetypal schema, nigredo is the Shadow; albedo refers to the anima and animus (contrasexual soul images); citrinitas is the wise old man (or woman) archetype; and rubedo is the Self archetype which has achieved wholeness." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrinitas)

Nigredo ("Blackening")

Nigredo, or blackness, in alchemy means putrefaction or decomposition... In analytical psychology, the term became a metaphor 'for the dark night of the soul, when an individual confronts the shadow within'. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigredo

Albedo ("Whitening")

...Following the chaos or massa confusa of the nigredo stage, the alchemist undertakes a purification in albedo, which is literally referred to as ablutio – the washing away of impurities. In this process, the subject is divided into two opposing principles to be later coagulated to form a unity of opposites or coincidentia oppositorum during rubedo. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo_%28alchemy)

Citrinitas ("Yellowing")

[It is the] "transmutation of silver into gold" or "yellowing of the lunar consciousness." In alchemical philosophy, citrinitas stood for the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that the reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrinitas

Rubedo ("Reddening")

Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in the Magnum Opus. Both gold, and the philosopher's stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signalled alchemical success, and the end of the great work. Rubedo can be interpreted as achieving enlightened consciousness and the total fusion of spirit and matter... In the framework of psychological development (especially followers of Jungian psychology) these four alchemical steps are to be taken as analogous to the process of attaining individuation: In an archetypal schema, rubedo would represent the Self archetype, and would be the culmination of the four stages. The Self manifests itself in "wholeness," a point in which a person discovers his or her true nature. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubedo



Midnight Sun

There are many other symbols in alchemy for the second phase, or albedo: the white swan, the rose, the white queen, and so on. As lead is the metal of nigredo, silver is the metal of albedo, transmuted from lead. As silver is the metal of the moon, the moon was also a symbol for albedo. Alchemists also talk about the white stone or white tincture. They all means basically the same thing, although one has to understand them in the context in which they were written. 

So... It looks like the (*mumble mumble curse*) nigredo phase I've been going through is letting up. And it certainly feels that way; even when thinking about work, or G, I don't feel torn and angsty anymore, just peaceful. Jung said that we don't get rid of our problems, we outgrow them, and this certainly seems to be happening (yay!) Also, the bit about the albedo in the white stone or the tincture reminds me of the white in the water, and how it was in the stone. Will need to do more thinking (and living) on this as all this albedo stuff is really new for me - I'm sure lots more stuff will come up in the future!

At any rate, now that the albedo phase appears to be coming up I did a bit of searching around on it. This is what Dirk Gillabel of House of the Sun has to say about it (the quotes in the rest of this post come from him, too):

Albedo happens when the Sun rises at midnight. It is a symbolic expression for the rising of the light at the depth of darkness. It is the birth of Christ in the middle of the winter. In the depth of a psychological crises, a positive change happens. 

This reminds me of The Star and The Moon cards in the Tarot: The Star for obvious reasons (the light shining in the dark) but The Moon, too. The next stage, Citrinitas, talks about changing the white to yellow, the lunar consciousness to the sun. And both of these cards comes right before the Sun in the Tarot. This makes me think that this lunar awareness, which is what light is, comes before the solar; i.e., we become aware of things internally and then we live them in the world (?)



The Fountain

The source is one: male and female are united. In alchemical images we see a fountain from which two streams of water flow into one basin.

This brings me to the second apparent aspect of the albedo stage. I don't have as good a feel for this as I do for the "midnight sun," which I definitely feel in my own life and consciousness, but this is something that frequently comes up, that of the splitting into two, i.e., animus/anima work.

I feel like I was going through a bunch of animus work along with my nigredo/shadow phase... although that may have been because it was so much a part of my shadow. I think the concept is that once you deal with depression and darkness, then you're ready for working through issues of union. This makes a lot of sense to me even though I don't feel like I really know what this is talking about; until we deal with our shadow, all of our animus/anima work, whether internally or with others, will really be working on shadow issues. We'll either project our bright shadow onto our partner and be infatuated, or our dark shadow onto them and hate them. It's only after integrating our shadow that we can work on separating out the male/female.

The union of Hermes and Aphrodite. The moon is above the retort, indicating this is the stage of Albedo. The sun above is the next stage of Rubedo. At the same time sun and moon are again the opposites to be united. Aphrodite has two torches. One pointing down, representing the lower passions to be transmuted. The upside down torch is the purified energies. Aphrodite is standing on a tetrahedron, the perfect three dimensional body, as all corners are equally distant from each other, resulting in a lack of tension.

As we mentioned above, Aphrodite/Venus as the morning star is a central image for the albedo phase of the Great Work. Aphrodite was born from the foam that arose when the genitals of Uranus (cut of by Chronos, out of hate and jealousy) fell into the sea. The cutting of the genitals represents repressed and tormented love. The sea, symbol of the soul, however will bring forth the love goddess. Liberation will happen when we become conscious again of the contents of the soul. As Aphrodite is born from the sea, she is the guide through the fearful world of the unconscious (the sea, or the underworld). The alchemist descends into these depths to find the ‘prima materia’, also called the ‘green lion’. The color green refers to the primal life forces. Venus also has the green color. An important characteristic of Aphrodite is that she helps us in our human shortcomings. She gives ideals and dreams to fulfill. But she also gives frightening images in order to make man aware of his lower nature. "By her beauty Venus attracts the imperfect metals and gives rise to desire, and pushes them to perfection and ripeness." (Basilius Valentinus, 1679) Liberation can only happen by becoming conscious of the lower nature and how we transmute it.

In Jungian psychology Venus/Aphrodite is the archetype of the anima (in alchemy also the ‘soror’ or ‘wife’ of the alchemist). The anima is the collective image of the woman in a man. It is an image especially tainted by his first contact with his mother. The anima represents all the female tendencies in the psyche of a man, such as feelings, emotions, moods, intuition, receptivity for the irrational, personal love and a feeling for nature. She is the bearer for the spiritual. Depending on the development of the man she can also be the seductress who lures him away to love, hopelessness, demise, and even destruction.

Other alchemical images for albedo are baptism and the white dove, both derived from Christianity. Baptism symbolizes the purification of both body and soul by ‘living water’. ‘Living water’ was regarded as the creative force of the divine. It allowed the soul to be received into the community of the holy spirit. Thus baptism allows the purified soul to bring forth the resurrection of Christ in oneself. This is the ‘hieros gamos’, the ‘sacred marriage’ between the soul and Christ. Christ here represent our own inner divine essence. 

http://www.soul-guidance.com/houseofthesun/alchemy%202.htm

This union seems to be about many things; one's relationship with one's internal contrasexual partner, one's relationship with one's external partner, but also about body and spirit and other pairs in one's life. My dream specifically talked about "looking for a partner" so I assume this is going to continue to be an important part of my growth.

Not sure what else I have to say about this topic - this post is just a preliminary exploration of the Albedo. I'll write more as more comes up.


Edit

Something that occurred to me on re-reading this post; the coniunctio doesn't have to do with sex, even with the internal, contrasexual part of us (i.e., the animus, or anima.) It could be anything which is complex and split in our lives which we need to heal and bring into a higher union (very dialectical materialism-esqe.) For example, a couple oppositions/tensions in my life right now are:

• the internal world and the external
• play/rest and work
• youth and age

I think that the male/female opposition, while it can be about our relationship with the other sex, whether internal or external, is also a powerful symbol of all the oppositions in our lives. This albedo stage is where we're separating out the confused mass of the nigredo, like Psyche with the seeds. Then, during the rubedo stage, we can see where there is an underlying and higher unity.

Race and ethnicity in dreams

A lot of my dreams have included people of different ethnic groups and I've puzzled over what these mean. Asia, particularly Japan, frequently shows up, both as people and as objects, and I'm starting to think that, being an American of Japanese ancestry, it means the unconscious realm; the mysterious, foreign land but also something vaguely familiar. It's as if it's calling me home, back to that far-away land. It's of the "foreign" spirit realm but it's also my true home. This would be different, of course, for people who have no relationship to Japan; probably for them, it's just a foreign country as India or China are for me. In my own dreams, India is more foreign as in pure foreign; exotic, and with no feeling of "home." China, which has also occasionally shown up in my dreams, is halfway in between India and Japan; foreign but with a tinge of the familiar.

The other group that shows up a lot in my dream, almost as much as Japan, is black people (they seem to be African American black people, not black African people) and I've often puzzled over what they mean in my unconscious. Being progressive, black people carry the following conscious meanings for me: maybe rough around the edges but honest; real; although often pushed down, never give up. But our unconscious ideas about things often differ from our conscious. Last night, as I was re-listening to Marie-Louise von Franz's The Way of the Dream, this caught my attention:

It was a hot summer's day, and I was walking with a gorgeous black woman through rolling green country along the side of a jungle. We'd known each other for a long time, and I called her my goddess. It was my pet name for her.

Suddenly she stopped and said, "I have a problem." I didn't understand what she meant, but instead of telling me with words she pulled down the strap of her dress and bared her shoulder. Her black skin on the top of her shoulder was peeling where it had been exposed to the sun, and under the top skin, underneath the black, her skin was golden-white. She looked at me and said, "If I keep seeing you, it's going to happen all over my body. I've got to talk to my mother and get some advice from her about what to do..."

In the alchemical tradition, the transformation of the Shulamite, or the Queen of Sheba plays a tremendous role. One of the recurring fantasies of the alchemists was that the matter which they wanted to transform into gold was initially black. They compared it to a black woman who then takes off her skin or black garment and is transformed into pure gold. Notice that in this dream the woman's skin is golden white under the black.

The black garment represents a typical feature of the undeveloped inner anima figure. Just as we shall see that the animus in women is sometimes destructive and negative, the black anima is relatively negative in a man. The black anima indicates that his whole capacity to love is mostly autoerotic. When a man has not developed his anima, his feminine side, he is generally very narcissistic. That's what a woman painfully feels when a man is meowing under her window like a tomcat. He really loves his own fantasy. He loves his own being in love, but that's a long way from learning to love her and not merely enjoying his own being in love. And often in literature, a young man, when he first discovers the experience of love, is completely autoerotic. It is a fantasy out of which, through a painful development, he has to learn to love the woman, not as the object of his romantic fantasies, but as a human partner.

Just as in a man his anima is originally narcissistic and autoerotic, in women our feelings of "love" are also initially narcissistic and ultimately autoerotic: the partner is basically just a living, breathing blow up doll, a convenient hook for our projection. An example is when women "fall in love" with a famous figure, as many girls and women have done with the characters in Twilight. While projection can be a useful way seducing one into the hard work of building an actual relationship with the actual person it is by it's nature itself only a relationship with yourself: you project a part of yourself onto the recipient and then proceed to fall in love with that part of yourself. And just like men, we also project our bright shadow and/or our animus and/or our Self onto our "beloved" instead of having a human relationship with the human right in front of us.

All the same, I do feel as if some amount of projection is a necessary part of falling in love. I'm not sure but it seems to be the reason why we fall in love with some people but not others. Some questions to think about are how thick and obscuring the projection is, and whether or not there's a significant part of the beloved that matches our projection or if it's just pure fantasy, but in any case, the ultimate goal is to relate to the human being underneath all the projections.

There are also some further questions: occasionally, while interpreting fairy tales or dreams, von Franz talks about the animus of the anima, or vice versa; i.e. the evil troll who has bewitched the princess into murdering all of her husbands. Who is this animus? Or, in the case of women's psychology, who is this primitive anima of a woman's animus? Is it even the anima of the animus? If it is, is it actually an aspect of the Self? I've had some indications that suggest that that's exactly who this figure is; the black women appearing in my dream, and at the same time I dream of a mutilated female figure who must be confronted and saved. The readings referring to the coming of a Queen when I ask about love and romance. It's as if through our travails with love, we heal the anima behind our animus, which is really the part of the Goddess who needs healing and wholeness. Once She is made whole we ourselves become whole. It also suggests that the way to heal the part of our Self that is mutilated is by working through love issues, and also that it's only when we heal this wound that we can truly love another person; it's only when the Goddess is whole that her servant, the animus, becomes healthy and strong.

There's still more to explore in this subject, but this is a good start.

Too little earth

The trouble is not that the elephants are too big, but that the earth is not strong enough to carry them. The elephants are okay, but there is not enough space for them.

(von Franz, Marie-Louise, Puer Aeternus, pages 50-52.)


Another thing came up as I was reading Puer Aeternus was the need for psychological "earth" or the substance and strength to do the difficult work of psychology.

Some people have a lot [of earth] but are not in touch with it, while others have no earth, or not enough, even if they are in touch with it - which would mean that there is not enough vitality. It is naturally an irrational concept, an intuitive concept. You could call earth psychological substance. You see that again and again. One of the great problems in psychotherapy is: how much substance does that person have? How much can he or she carry?...

While the person with too little earth may be able to assimilate everything psychologically, he will have great difficulty realizing things in reality. Such people take everything in analysis with honesty and strength, but when you press them to do something about it in their outer reality, a terrific panic comes up. At the moment when the inner realization has to be put into life, strength collapses, and you are confronted with a trembling child, who exclaims, "Oh, no! That I cannot do!" This is an exaggerated illustration of the introvert's attitude in which there is great strength in accepting the inner turths but very little when it comes to real life. Then the trembling child appears.

The reason it stood out was because of a recent I-ching hexagram I threw which spoke of the earth, hexagram 7, "The Army". This is just a very preliminary musing but I wonder if the two have something to do with each other...

Water under earth; the ground water stored up in the earth. In the same way military strength is stored up in the mass of the people - invisible in times of peace but always ready for use as a source of power - water is stored in the earth. 

The army needs perseverance And a strong man. Good fortune without blame.

An army is a mass that needs organization in order to become a fighting force. Without strict discipline nothing can be accomplished, but this discipline must not be achieved by force. It requires a strong man who captures the hearts of the people and awakens their enthusiasm. In order that he may develop his abilities he needs the complete confidence of his ruler, who must entrust him with full responsibility as long as the war lasts. But war is always a dangerous thing and brings with it destruction and devastation. Therefore it should not be resorted to rashly but, like a poisonous drug, should be used as a last recourse.

In the middle of the earth is water: the image of The Army. The superior person increases her masses by generosity toward the people.

Ground water is invisibly present within the earth; in the same way the military power of a people is invisibly present in the masses. When danger threatens, every peasant becomes a soldier; when the war ends, they goes back to their plow. She who is generous toward the people wins their love, and a people living under a mild rule becomes strong and powerful. Only a people economically strong can be important in military power. Such power must therefore be cultivated by improving the economic condition of the people and by humane government. Only when there is this invisible bond between government and people, so that the people are sheltered by their government as ground water is sheltered by the earth, is it possible to wage a victorious war.

A few thoughts - I think that, although this topic isn't as strong in it's impact as the other recent work, it's still important, particularly in that it supports that work:

First off, here in "The Army" the earth is what contains and shelters power - the more earth you have, the more power you can hold. If you only have a tiny little asteroid, it is impossible to contain a lot of power, or groundwater.

The hexagram also speaks of how one makes use of power - through discipline tempered with generosity and the bonds of trust and love. But both discipline and generosity take strength, so here again, those with a small amount of earth have difficulty. But we must do our best.

One part of this section that I didn't include spoke about how many people are mixed types - some parts of them are strong, vibrant and full of power, and others are weak, and must be nurtured slowly and patiently. The trick is to figure out what kind of person you are and, if you have weak spots, be careful of them and patiently nurture them until they are strengthened. Even if you have a weak spot, or are overall a weak person, there is always something you can do - push on through where you're strong, and gently nurture where you're not.

Freud vs. Jung

Or, perhaps more accurately, Freudians vs. Jungians.

About a week ago I stumbled on a post about the the general unsexiness of Jungian women compared to the sexiness of Freudians and it's been rolling and rolling around my head ever since. I mean, I consider myself relatively sexy and I'm a Jungian. Well, not "sexy" per se but certainly not a "hippy-dippy-granola-town-goat’s-milk" AARP escapee. If I had to describe myself I'd say I was funky and playful with a dash of sexy. Too much "va-va-voom" and I feel uncomfortable and fake, like I'm dressed up in a Halloween costume. Personally, I feel the most comfortable when sexy is used as condiment - and with a fairly light hand - rather than drowning myself with the hot sauce. But then that's just me.

So, I know that I'm not particularly unsexy, and I never felt like sexiness of lack thereof had anything to do with being a Jungian, but this seems to have been an issue for the writer:

When I was working on my graduate thesis “The genesis of shame: The fig leaf of fashion and its place in psychotherapy” and I would tell women analysts in the Jungian community in which I trained that I was writing on the topic of clothing I received some pretty harsh judgements.  Clothing was looked at as immaterial to the field of psychology and judged as a surface interest and not one that should be given serious academic consideration. It’s interesting to note that five years after completing my thesis that the very same institute offered the course, “Clothes in the Analytic Relationship: Not For Women Only”. It was bittersweet to see that the topic was finally being considered. I attended the nearly sold out event and was somewhat pleased to see that the women who did the presentation had not approached the topic with the depth of analysis that I had. I was also amused and somewhat irritated by the participants cooing question to the presenters, “This is such a rich therapeutic topic. Why hasn’t anyone written on it before?” Grrr!!!!

Are Jungians less sexy? Are less sexy people drawn to Jungianism or does Jung make you unsexy (and vice versa with Freudianism)? Or is it just the issue of this particular writer? From the little I read of her blog it seems that she's very concerned with sexiness, and of expressing her sexiness - is there a general attitude in Jungian circles that focusing on such "earthy" topics is shallow and unworthy?

I've been reading a lot about Freud lately. I had prematurely dismissed him because his theories seemed so silly (and patently wrong - "penis envy"?? give me a break *rollseyes*), and because of his many well-known failures but had the feeling that there was something there that I was missing. So far, I have learned that I have to give him credit for basically laying the foundations for the entire field of depth psychology. It seems that his fault wasn't so much in coming up with the wrong ideas as stubbornly clinging to them, even in the face of all kinds of evidence to the contrary, but that doesn't negate what he did manage to accomplish.

But is Freud (or are Freudians) sexier? Mmmmmmaybe. My tentative conclusion is that it's very possible that they are. If I had to put the difference between Freud and Jung in a nutshell, I'd have to say that where for Freud everything, including religion, has to do with sex, for Jung everything, including sex, has to do with religion. So maybe Freudians are sexier than Jungians. Certainly it's likely that they're more interested in sex. And it's indisputible that anyone uncomfortable in their sexuality would have a hard time remaining a Freudian for very long!


Edit 4/4/12:

I just had another brainwave as I was re-reading this post - maybe Freudian's are "sexier" because they're more focused on "first half of life" issues, i.e. on building up the ego, making it stronger. First half of life stuff includes success in the social realm of which sexual attractiveness is an important part, obviously. Jungianism, on the other hand, is more focused on "second half of life" issues and often calls for a breaking down - or, at the very least, a dethronement - of the ego.

I always felt that Jungianism could be profitably applied to first half of life problems despite the fact the Jung himself would often refer his patients to others when he felt that their issues fell outside his purview. I still do (although who knows, that may change) but there is no denying the fact that there is an "other worldly" aspect to Jungianism, and this doubtless contributes to people feeling that earthly matters don't fit with what we're doing. I can't think of anything further from the truth - anyone who's followed this blog for any length of time will know that I deal with the most earthy, embodied problems we can encounter; love in particular but also family and work.

The way I see it, Jung just went deeper than Freud. Freud focused on what Jung called the "personal unconscious" (all of the things of our personal lives that have dropped into the unconscious) but Jung felt there was something of vital importance that lay beyond the personal unconscious. We need to work on and pass through the Freudian problems of childhood, not just for their own sake but in order to contact this thing "beyond," and from which exerience we come back to humanity with the understanding of our special mission in this life.

Jungianism encompasses Freudianism. If the thing you need to work on right now is being sexy and wearing high heels, then you're doing exactly what you need to be doing. And if that's not what you need to be doing, then do whatever it is that you should be doing. The hardest thing about Jung - and the thing that keeps it so honest and true - is that there are no rules. There is only you, and your god or daimon, and whether or not you are living the life you should be living.

The son of chaos

In a primeval forest. An elephant looms up menacingly. Then a large ape-man, bear, or cave-man threatens to attack the dreamer with a club. Suddenly the "man with the pointed beard" appears and stares at the aggressor so that he is spellbound. But the dreamer is terrified. The voice says, "Everything must be ruled by the light."


This is another post about the role of "satan" in the psyche. Earlier, I'd explored his role as the instigator; the problem that breaks the false peace and opens the door to further growth. Here he shows another face, that of the double natured intellect which can both possess us and cut us off from living, but can also be the most powerful weapon we have in facing and illuminating the chaotic contents of the unconscious.

In an earlier dream we meet the "man with a pointed beard," the demonic Mephistopheles who guided Faust in his journeys. As long as we identify the conscious intellect as the supreme, or even the only, aspect worth anything we are possessed. In the following dream (which occurred before the dream about the ape man), the Mercurian intellect is separated out as an independent identity, which allows us to begin to understand it.

The dreamer is in America looking for an employee with a pointed beard. They say that everybody has such an employee.

America is the land of practical, straightforward thinking, uncontaminated by our European sophistication. The intellect would there be kept, quite sensibly, as an employee. This naturally sounds like lese majeste and might therefore be a serious matter. So it is consoling to know that everyone (as is always the case in America) does the same. The "man with a pointed beard" is our time-honored Mephisto whom Faust "employed" and who was not permitted to triumph over him in the end, despite the fact that Faust had dared to descend into the dark chaos of the historical psyche and steep himself in the ever-changing, seamy side of life that rose up out of that bubbling cauldron.

From subsequent questions it was discovered that the dreamer himself had recognized the figure of Mephistopheles in the "man with the pointed beard." Versatility of mind as well as the inventive gift and scientific leanings are attributes of the astrological Mercurius. Hence the man with the pointed beard represents the intellect, which is introduced by the dream as a real familiaris, an obliging if somewhat dangerous spirit. The intellect is thus degraded from the supreme position it once occupied and is put in the second rank, and at the same time is branded as daemonic. Not that it had ever been anything but daemonic - only the dreamer had not noticed before how possessed he was by the intellect as the tacitly recognized supreme power. Now he has a chance to view this function, which till then had been the uncontested dominant of his psychic life, at somewhat closer quarters. Well might he exclaim with Faust: "So that's what was inside the poodle!" Mephistopheles is the diabolical aspect of every psychic function that has broken loose from the hierarchy of the total psyche and now enjoys independence and absolute power. But this aspect can be perceived only when the function becomes a separate entity and is objectivated or personified, as in this dream.

(p. 141)


As with all the different parts of the psyche, Mephisto/Mercurius/the intellect has a helpful side as well as a dangerous one. After we realize that he's just one of many parts of us, he can help us to understand the parts of us that are in the darkness.

At the last moment, friend "Pointed Beard" appears on the scene as an obliging deus ex machina and exorcises the annihilation threatened by the formidable ape-man. Who knows how much Faust owed his imperturable curiosity, as he gazed on the spooks and bogeys of the classical Walpurgisnacht, to the helpful presence of Mephisto and his matter-of-fact point of view! Would that more people could remember the scientific or philosophical reflections of the much-abused intellect at the right moment! Those who abuse it lay themselves open to the suspicion of never having experienced anything that might have taught them its value and shown them why mankind has forged this weapon with such unprecedented effort. One has to be singularly out of touch with life not to notice such things. The intellect may be the devil, but the devil is the "strange son of chaos" who can most readily be trusted to deal effectively with his mother...

The voice finally declares, "Everything must be ruled by the light," which presumably means the light of the discerning conscious mind, a genuine illuminatio honestly acquired. The dark depths of the unconscious are no longer to be denied by ignorance and sophistry - at best a poor disguise for common fear - nor are they to be explained away with pseudo-scientific rationalizations. On the contrary it must now be admitted that things exist in the psyche about which we know little or nothing at all, but which nevertheless affect our bodies in the most obstinate way, and that they possess at least as much reality as the things of the physical world which ultimately we do not understand either. No line of research which asserts that its subject was unreal or a "nothing but" has ever made any contribution to knowledge.

(p. 165)


The helpful Mephisto is thus necessary for an honest exploration of the depths - in fact, without his help, we would be overwhelmed. The differentiated conscious is a powerful tool in the individuation process - just as the Self needs the ego for the process, the unconscious needs consciousness. We may have gone too far as a society (and individually) in an unbalanced direction but a strong, healthy intellect is one of the best tools we have in our toolkit for furthering the process.

1. Jung, Carl G., Dreams.

From transference to the heirosgamos

"These are angels!" I called out "Yes," he replied, "that is you." I saw the gray curtain that separated the two angels, and the teacher explained, "That is the veil of illusion." It had lots of holes. I was deeply moved and shouted, "Oh, it's falling away, it's falling away," and I had the feeling that thousands of years that had been lived through in the half-conscious hope that it could be broken through were now fulfilled. I went to the angel who was "me" and saw a silver string reaching down from him into a very tiny creature that was also "me" in the realm of illusion. Another string reached down into a woman down there. It was Alberta. The two angels seemed identical and sexless, and they could "think together" in a kind of identicalness (that sometimes happened to me with Alberta in reality "down there'). And we thought, "Such a small part of our consciousness lives in these little creatures, and they worry about such little things. Poor little creatures!" And we saw that their union could not come about properly if the two little creatures did not fulfill their obligations to those near them rather than following their egoistic desires. And at the same time it was clear to us that it would be a sin against that "ultimate reality" (a sin against the Holy Ghost?) if we did not go on with the process of mutual striving for consciousness.

(from Psychotherapy, by Marie-Louise von Franz)



I seem to be smack dab in the middle of some serious Animus work (projections, transference, etc.), as will be obvious to anyone who's read the last few months of this blog, and this post is largely a continuation of the post about relationships I'd done a couple of months ago. In that post I explored how romantic attachments (or obsessions) are a part of the individuation process. This post is a really condensed overview of what I think that process looks like - I'll go explore the various aspects in later posts.

The hierosgamos, the sacred marriage of Goddess and God, is basically the symbol of ultimate individuation, the union of opposites. It's often associated with other images of individuation (like the Holy Grail) and I think it's the reason why we tend to be obsessed with romance in our society. We no longer fall in love with God (or Goddess); now, the literal relationship between men and women has become the sacred space where we meet the Other. And this can lead to some serious problems, as is obvious from the high divorce rates our marriages suffer from. But if our romantic relationships are a kind of vale of tears, it's also where we meet the Soul... if we're lucky. And if we work hard.

As usual I'm going to be borrowing heavily from Marie-Louise von Franz because, quite honestly, I couldn't really say it better than she has.


Transference

The anima is a kind of desire or a system of expectations that a man has in relation to a woman, an erotic-relationship fantasy. If outer expectations like ordinary sensual desire or schemes regarding money, power, and so on, get mixed up with it, everything is lost. Thus conscious recognition of the anima means loving the other for herself and for love's sake. "When I follow my love, then my love is fulfilled." Only for a man who pursues the anima for her own sake does she become Beatrice. For such a man she becomes a bridge to the transcendental realms. "Meditating, I followed the path of love," as Dante expresses it. But the anima is initially also to be found in a man's ambition, and thus she entangles him in guilt and error if he does not consciously recognize his lust for power. If a man is incapable of this, he finally ends up completely isolated in a state of possession

We could also apply this description to the animus, which is really a system of understanding.

For the animus what counts is insight or truth for truth's sake over and against any admixture of sensuality or power craving. Only a woman who loves the truth for its own sake can integrate the animus, and then he becomes, like the anima, a bridge to the Self, that is, to the knowledge of the Self. And when two people in a relationship with each other are on the path of a reciprocal individuation process, then the motif of the coniunctio of a suprapersonal couple is constallated. Jung pointed out in the citation given at the beginning that in the hierosgamos, it is not two egos that are face to face, but rather "everyone whose heart we touch." This strange multiplicity is very difficult to understand. It is as though in the "beyond" there exists only one divine couple, Shiva and Shakti, who are in eternal embrace, and the earthly human being participates in their coniunctio only as a "guest at the feast."

 (1, p. 251)


Transference is basically taking an unconscious image of an archetype and laying it over some new person. For example let's say your father was authoritarian. If you meet an older man who provides a convenient hook (by being strong willed or demanding, for example) then you react to him in a way that's out of proportion to anything he's actually done. Just the memory, possibly not even conscious, of this archetypal relationship infects your present relationship. This makes sense from a basic biological psychology perspective; all animals make emotional associations. This is an adaptive response that enables them to make instant decisions about things that might be harmful or helpful. But we humans take this even further.

There are 4 stages in the process from transference to the hierosgamos:

1. archaic identity (or "participation mystique")
2. mutual projections
3. personal relationship
4. fated togetherness in "eternity"

Archaic identity is an unconscious state in which we aren't even aware of being possessed by these images, we simply unquestioningly assume that they're real - there really is a ghost, that tree really is talking to me, gods and demons really do exist. This is why projections can be so useful; it's only when these unconscious parts of ourselves are projected onto another person that we can start to become aware of them, and then proceed with the difficult process of owning and withdrawing those projections.

In the second stage, at first we're not even aware that there's any projecting going on, we just think we're relating to the person as they are (i.e. we're "in love"). But this isn't love. It's a facsimile of love that "creates an unrealistic erotic attraction darkened by infantile demands and prejudices". (1, 238) For as long as the beloved doesn't do anything that violates our projection, everything is bliss. But sooner or later (usually sooner), we see them for the mere human beings they really are.

If, however, we can get beyond the stage of mutual projections and accept the other for the special and unique person they are, we can get to the stage of personal relationship. This is where we finally start to have a real relationship, and it's where the hard work really begins; the difficult questions of finding a moving balance between intimacy and distance, and staying present regardless of whatever emotional upheaval you're undergoing. And yet, it's also the gateway to the fourth and final stage, the hierosgamos.


The Heirosgamos

This brings us to the fourth aspect, which I have called a "fated togetherness in eternity," the real mysterium coniunctionis. This stage has to do with the experience of the Self, the inner wholeness that cannot be understood intellectually, but only through love. Jung writes: "This love is not transference and it is not ordinary friendship or sympathy. It is more primitive, more primeval and more spiritual than anything we can describe." In this realm, it is no longer two individuals relating with each other on the personal level, but the "many, including yourself and anybody whose heart you touch." There, "there is no distance, but immediate presence. It is an eternal secret..." In a certain sense, in the manifestation of this fourth aspect a return to the first aspect takes place, but on a higher, more conscious level. For that reason an inkling of this highest stage is already present in the first and brings about the depth of passion with which many try to cling to the stage of participation mystique and to fight off a conscious coming to terms with, and recognition of, the limited human reality.

 (1, p. 245)


This is the final stage (about which I'm just using my imagination, hence the even more liberal use of other people's quotes.)  Most relationships don't even get beyond the second stage because most people don't even realize they're projecting, let along do the hard work of owning and withdrawing their projections. But if they can get to the third stage, of personal relationship, and endure the uncertainty and maintain their presence with the other, they can occasionally touch upon the eternal relationship.

As in the third stage, the hierosgamos requires a moving balance, as it is "both more primitive and more spiritual than anything we are capable of describing. The king and queen [the spiritual couple], as well as the the animals [the instinctive couple], represent something completely transpersonal, like something that exists in the divine realm, beyond space and time. That is why the dream tells us that the royal couple are 'strangers to the world.' The human ego has to help them move in this concrete sphere. The dream beautifully depicts the intermediate position of the ego, which on the one hand imposes a certain spiritual discipline on the animals and on the other has to provide the royal couple with an element of earthly reality." (1, p. 247)

With the awareness and strength to withdraw projections, and with the continual struggle to find the difficult and moving balance between sexuality and spirituality, we may finally attain the hierosgamos. This is the reason why love (and desire) exercises such fascination for us; because it is through our relationships that we come face to face with the Divine.

When this event is highlighted in the background of a human encounter, when the god and goddess are present, then a feeling of eternity arises, as though the moment of the earthly encounter were now and always at the same time, as Jung expressed it, an "immediate presence." Thus Jung wrote in his memoirs that "emotional ties... still contain projections, and it is essential to withdraw these projections in order to attain oneself and to objectivity... objective cognition lies hidden behind the attraction of the emotional relationship; it seems to be the central secret. Only through objective cognition is the real coniunctio possible."

(1, p. 253)


Books referenced

1. von Fran, Marie-Louise, Psychotherapy.

The urge to become whole is the strongest drive in a human being, and that is what is really hidden behind the deeper passion in the transference. At the end of his life, Jung admitted: "I falter before the task of finding language which might adequately express the incalculable paradoxes of love. Eros is a kosmogonos, a creator and father-mother of all... consciousness.... Here is the greatest and smallest, the remotest and nearest, the highest and lowest, and we cannot discuss one side of it without discussing the other... If he [man] possesses a grain of wisdom, he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown, ignotum per ignotius - that is, by the name of God."

And once in a conversation, he said, "The problem of love is so difficult that a person has to be happy if at the end of his life he can say that no one has been destroyed on his account."

(from Psychotherapy, by Marie-Louise von Franz)