4.7.2 Comparison of the modern terminology with the Hermetic process

With the help of the above definitions of the structure and the dynamics of my modern interpretation of the alchemical unio corporalis or coniunctio we can now also relate these terms to the Hermetic process. This is necessary because the alchemists were not yet really conscious about what they meditated on and wrote about. The structure and the dynamics of the processes they recorded were simply presented to them by the preconscious knowledge of the collective unconscious (Carl Jung) with the help of many different images.

Since we are now on a more conscious level and can include Carl Jung’s collective unconscious with its center, the Logos Self and the quantum physical idea of the wave function and its collapse in the quantum leap we can describe the process much more clearly.

As we have seen the unio corporalis has two main goals. The first is the creation of an intermediate realm between spirit and matter which is neither of them, but an unknown third. I called this excluded third the psyche in its wider meaning. It is the psychophysical realm or unus mundus Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli unsuccessfully looked for.

The alchemists called this first goal of this coniunctio

 

The creation of the Seal of Solomon/lily

The creation of the rotundum, the “round thing”, the Anthropos, the God-man

The production of the lapis, the stone

 The production of the philosophical gold

The fertilization of the queen (the world soul) with the atoms of the dying king

The relationship with the wheel image (Radbild; Nicholas von Flue)

 

For us modern men this symbolic goal of the Hermetic alchemical opus becomes the establishing of a relationship with the anima mundi, the world soul, the energetic principle of the unus mundus described above. This means concretely that we accept the idea of the bipolarity of the energy term and as a consequence the possibility of the potential double transformation process. As we have seen, a further necessary condition for such an opus (work) is the transformation of the Logos consciousness into the Eros consciousness, since only the latter is able to relate to the anima mundi in the unus mundus.

If the Hermetic alchemist succeeded in this task, the world soul was able to show her acausal births. This process was – of course without the modern quantum physical insight of its acausality – called

 

The extraction of the quintessence out of the Seal of Solomon/lily

The rotatio, the rotation of the rotundum

The extraction of the red tincture out of the lapis, the stone

The observation of the gildening of the universe by the philosophical gold

The observation of the birth of the infans solaris

The relationship with the renewed God-image of Nicholas von Flue, the world soul[1]

 

In my modern terminology I describe this event as the observation of the acausal double or twin process {spirit-psyche à matter-psyche / matter-psyche à renewed spirit-psyche}. I postulate further that such processes are observable, but cannot yet prove this statement here. To solve this enigma we have first to compare the above events with the preconscious knowledge that appeared in a dream of Marie-Louise von Franz in the year 1994[2], and further with some quantum physical principles[3].  

With the interpretation of the Hermetic alchemical opus and its translation into a modern terminology we have however reached a further goal: We understand now a little more what the incredibly deep statement of Carl Jung means when he writes:

 

“Man’s procreative power is only a special instance of the procreative nature of the Whole”.

 

This enigmatic statement seems to mean that there exist meditative and/or imaginative states of consciousness, in which certain individuals are able to observe processes in the anima mundi, i.e., acausal or indeterministic energetic events in the unus mundus, and as an effect of such observations not only incarnations in the sphere of the mind, i.e., synchronicities potentially enlarging the collective consciousness take place, but also real physical or psychophysical creation and incarnation acts, in which out of the unus mundus – the pregnant uterus of the world soul – “new life” is born into our space and time bound world.

[Proofread GJS, 12/27/2005]

 

part 19c