Jung's Alchemical Soror Mystica

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C. G. Jung's Alchemical Soror Mystica
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C. G. Jung's Alchemical Soror Mystica
Presented by Roger Weir
Friday, September 18, 1987

Transcript:

The date of September the 18th 1987. This lecture was delivered by Roger Weir at the Gnostic Society on Hollywood Boulevard.

Is the night(?)...

Oh yes.

Are you needing a voice to test your meter?

It's moving.

Is it?

All right.

Inaudible statement from the room.

I've chosen a very difficult problem to discuss tonight. the problem of the Soror Mystica in alchemy. I've been doing a lecture series on the alchemical core of Jung's work over at the philosophic Research Society. And pursuant to that I've had to refresh acquaintance with whole mass of alchemical books. Very few of them mentioned the phenomenon. Or if you will the newmanon(sp?) of the Soror Mystica. And those which do give us a very unsatisfactory picture.

Here's a standard book on alchemy available, The Arts of The Alchemists by C. A. Berlin published by the MacMillian Company in New York. Khadi Berlin is a very good mythologist. We have a color frontispiece from Solomon Trismosin's Splendor Solis. It's well bound. It's expensive. But as far as information on Soror Mystica it's quite misleading. In fact in several different ways it's totally misleading and ignorant.
The first mention, there are three but I'll only discuss two briefly. The first mention of Soror Mystica is here on page 42. And he makes the case that the whole notion of having a feminine partner with whom one is not sexually involved. With whom one is not married. That the phenomenon of the Soror Mystica must certainly come because early Western alchemy, as it came from the Arabs, was translated and used for the first couple of centuries by clerics. By monastics. And so the idea of the feminine was always seen then from a monastic or cleric standpoint. And of course one doesn't marry. Or one doesn't have a sexual relationship from that kind of a standpoint. And that this then passed into currency in alchemy and was carried down habitually or traditionally throughout the centuries. Now this sounds very plausible. In fact it sounds quite attractive. Whether one is pro or con, clerics or monastics it sounds very typical. And one could accept this and work with that idea and that perspective and come to some sort of understanding of alchemy. But it's totally inadequate actually. And not true at all.

The second time or rather the third time set. We're going to skip over it's just a brief reference. The third time that he mentions the Soror Mystica he gives us the information that according to him the Soror Mystica on the other hand although. He doesn't say that. he says it's an 18th century idea that developed out of alchemy. Out of the alchemical process. And this is not true either.

Where does one go? The best quick accurate place to go is to the wonderful, intelligent writings of a real Soror Mystica. A woman who knew what she was talking about. and the woman is Marie Louise von France. Who was..who fulfilled that function. who was that person. Who is that woman. In relation to C.G. Jung. She has in her little book on alchemy published by the, in the studies in union psychology series. Inner-city books and the date is 1980. I believe it's still available. She has three illustrations in this book of the alchemists in Soror Mystica which are succinct to the point, accurate and quite truthful. Which yields the beginnings of true understanding.

First illustration in here shows an alchemist at work with his Soror Mystica. And in parentheses after that title, female assistant. And perhaps the most simple way to begin is to understand that the Soror Mystica is a female assistant. From that simple beginning we can build. Representing the collaboration with his own feminine side. So that there is a double picture in the illustration. I'm sorry I didn't have facility nor time to put them on to slides. I shall do so. But what is succinct about this illustration is that the Soror Mystica is the assistant to the alchemist. But she not only assists the man as an alchemist but she assists him as a man who has a soul. An anima. a feminine counterpart to himself inside. So that she must maintain a very radical tension in her relationship to the alchemist. She must be a paradox continuously. She must be a female assistant for the man and she must be a collaborative anima for the inner man. And she must not lose that tension for him.

This is extremely difficult to form an image without a mythological image. I think perhaps the best that would work here is the image of Ariadne holding the other end of the clue. The Greek word for the thread through the labyrinth was the clue. She must hold that for him. Or if you wish another image, holding the mirror for the man so that he may slay the Gorgon. It is her function all the time to be paradoxically there for him in two distinct ways. which very often tend to become confused. And which in certain transfer of processes must be confused. Because the very first thing that happens in alchemy is that the chaos is evoked. He will lose track. he needs to lose track of his discrimination in this capacity. So the Soror Mystica is extremely important.

The second illustration in here, likewise very excellent. She is just wonderful. And she was I am sure for Jung a godsend. The Alchemist and his Soror Mystica and now in parentheses psychologically his soul, holding the keys to the work. Here represented as freeing the soul from the fetters of the body. In parentheses here is the seperatios(sp?). But we have to understand here that it's a...the separation of the soul from the body in this first process which goes on and on and on. It's not a single process but whole panoply of procedures amounting to an accumulative process. whereby that which is separated each time is collected in an abstract, if you will. In the mind. So that in the accumulated seperatios knows what comes to be is the purified soul taken out of the body. And that this purified soul must be unified. The unio mentalis. So that one has to be careful as one separates that you're not just throwing the husk away, as it were, to save this kernel. One has to save the husk and one has to keep track of this kernel, constantly. Constantly. the Soror Mystica here is invaluable. Invaluable because she can objectify the situation for the alchemist. As that process continues and goes on he is less and less able to do this for himself. Because of the functional requirement that he is taking. The discriminatory capacity out of himself and putting it in an abstracted mentality. And until the unio mentalis is formed he increasingly becomes incapacitated to do this. This is why the precariousness of the alchemical procedure always stressed don't be naive. Many do this and end up in total ruin. In fact most do this and end up in total ruin.

The third illustration in here, also very good. And I'll leave the bookmarks in so later on you can you can look at this for yourself. Perhaps get copies and and pour over this. The secret content of the alchemical work, alchemist and Soror Mystica fishing together. And one has concentric circles here in talmudic style. And in the very center there is a water. And floating on top of the water in a boat is the alchemist and Soror Mystica fishing. The alchemist has the line and Soror Mystica is holding an object forward to him. They're on opposite ends of the boat.

Inaudible question from the room.

Fishing frame. Not a frying pan. It's called a crater. Called a crater. Fishing for Neptune and for mermaid. Neptune as animus, mermaid as anima. Fishing a common motif in dreams etc etc. But it goes much deeper than that. And so we could go into it Tuesday nights. I've gone into that for many many months on the fish symbolism in alchemy.

So the Soror Mystica is extraordinarily important. And one wonders then why any alchemists would attempt this without one. And by the end of the lecture you'll see that no real alchemist ever does this alone. That in some way there's always a Soror Mystica there. And that only occasionally was there an actual woman.

If it's not an 18th century idea. If it doesn't come in in the 12th century with the monks. How far back does it go? Jung in his estimation indicated that he felt that the phenomenon of the Soror Mystica went back to Simon Magus. That Simon Magus with his Soror Mystica, named Helen, was the prototype of all the other pairs. In GRS Mead's wonderful little monograph on Simon Magus he gives us in the beginning all of the quotations known about Simon Magus. From Luke, from Irenaeus, from all of the classical sources. And in mentioning Simon Magus here.
This is from Irenaeus Against Heresies, "He took round with him a certain Helen, a hired prostitute from the Phoenician city Tyre. After he had purchased her freedom saying that she was the first conception or thought of his mind. The mother of all. And knowing, and by whom in the beginning he had conceived in his mind the making of the angels and the Archangels."

The operative term here in this expression in Irenaeus, not stressed by him but necessary for us to do so. Is the term conceived. Conceived of course is a metaphor for procreation. But conceived also at the same time is an expression of creativity. Not particularly of rationality. If we use conceived in terms of rationality we then usually point towards the conclusion. But if we use conceived psychologically we talk about the whole process. And we have instead of conclusions, we have a creative process. If we have a creative process, which we do in alchemy, then what is operative is synchronicity. If we have a logical procedure what is operative is causality. And the conclusion is the is the only objective fact. Is the only visible object to come out. That consciousness focuses itself upon the conclusion. But if we have, as we do in alchemy psychologically a process, then the entirety of the process as a pattern is of concern to us. We wish to understand the whole process. Not in its steps linking up, leading to a conclusion but to the synchronistic Gestalt, the meaning of the whole. Which always involves something of the inner person. The outer world and the inner person in sync is what makes synchronicity.

Later on in another quotation we're told that a little bit more about Helen. And we're told a little bit more about the phenomenon of Simon Magus and so forth. He traveled around with her. They incidentally went to Rome and he was received lionized in the Rome of his day. During the time of the Emperor Claudius about 5055 A.D. And a huge statue of Simon Marcus was put in the Tiber River. And he was deified as a god. And actually displaced in the Roman mind at the time. Displaced the upcoming image of Jesus in the Roman experience, in the 50s A.D. This was quite an extraordinary situation.

What was the date again?

In the 50s A.D.

You'll find it in Acts of the Apostles by Luke is the beginning of that whole complication. The Apostle who was involved was Philip. And Philip of course is the Apostle who was concerned with the development of the sacraments. And the only one of the apostles to actually marry and have daughters. And of course archetypally his three daughters were all very powerful psychics. So that later on the image was always Philip and his daughters. Not Philip and his wife but Philip and his daughters. And in a way there's a Soror Mystica relationship between the Apostle Philip and his psychic daughters. It hasn't been developed and no one's ever looked into this. but it seems to my insight that it's quite conceivably possible that the Apostle John and Mary Magdalene also had this kind of relationship.

What happens is that the alchemist when he has a Soror Mystica becomes a Magus. becomes a master of magic as the science of Sciences. That is to say there is an ex potential metaphorical use of the term science here. Science of Sciences.

We need to go off on a tangent for a moment and explain something I think which Jung has made more clear than anyone I've ever run across. If you actually patiently wade through the volumes of Jung he is constantly talking about energy using the term gradient. He's always talking about gradients. As if energy moves in a gradient curve. And he seems to insist rather strongly that in alchemy there is no transformation of the substance. But there is a transformation from one gradient to another. So that one would be dealing with impossible polarities, world of illusion, to try and change work on the substance to change it. What transmutes is the gradient constellation. And the gradient constellation occurs on what was in greek called the dynamis. And the Greek term dynamis the one which we would say is power today. So that the powers are constellated episodes of manifestation on a power movement. So that in order to transmute anything, including oneself, one has to get out of the substantive mode and into a energy mode. Where the relationalities are in terms of constellated manifestations along a dynamis gradient.

I will skip over most of it but GRS Mead, excellent as he was, talks about magic as the great art of the Ancients was in reality is now as difficult...what it was in reality is as now difficult to discover as the true religion that underlies all religions of the world. It was an art a practice, a great and supreme art of the most sacred science of God, the universe and man. Now the two words that are used strongly in here by Mead in his expression are art and science. Constantly. And perhaps the short-form way of understanding this is to picture for yourself that the individual is born out of an artistic creation. But that the amplification of the individual into a larger than personal affectivity is a science. So that the person is a work of art but the spirit in its amplification is a science. This is very difficult to talk about in one single step. It takes me two years of teaching on Saturdays to just say this to students that I have. Takes two full years just to say that in an adequate way.

In Jung, when we wish to come across the Soror Mystica, of course The Mysterion Coniumctionis is always the major focus. It's, it's always the place if you get to the Mysterion Coniumctionis in your alchemical studies with Jung you're somehow on the right track. All of the roads lead here. All of them. He introduces the Soror Mystica in a very interesting way. He's the only one who puts it exactly in this way. Page 136 of the Mysterion Coniumctionis. This is in the section, the three of the six, third of the sixth the personification of the opposites. And he's writing here about Simon and Helen. And he gives us a little passage here. A quotation from Hippolytus, an ancient writer. A quotation from Simon Magus' Great Explanation, a document which has been lost but the fragment has been preserved in Hippolytus.

Here's what Simon Magus is reputed to have written. "There are two offshoots from all the aeons having neither beginning nor end from one root. And this root is a certain power." The Greek term is dynamis. "An invisible and incomprehensible silence. One of them appears on high and is a great power. The mind of the whole who rules all things and is a male. The other below is a great thought. A female giving birth to all things." A mind and it's thought. A male and female. "Standing opposite one another they pair together and cause to arise in the space between them an incomprehensible air without beginning or end. But in it is a father who upholds all things and nourishes that which has beginning and end. This is he who stood, stands and shall stand. a masculine, feminine power after the likeness of the pre-existing boundless power dynamis which has neither beginning nor end abiding in solitude."

The term that they translate as solitude in greek is mono tetede. We use the phrase tet a tet, person-to-person. solitude actually means one personess. it doesn't mean solitude in an Emersonian sense. But it's very specific. The Greek is extremely specific and it's a term which came out of centuries of meditative practice. I t means one personess. In the sense of a uniate(sp?) person, all of the factors of that person have been brought together. So that person is one, oneness. meaning that the inner and the outer man have been brought together. so that this...this incomprehensible air between the mind. The mind. And its first thought in this incomprehensible air is a creator. The capacity to create. Some person who can't create. A oneness personality that can create. And this of course it was Simon Marcus's, excuse me, but rather clumsy way of trying to interpret what he had heard about Jesus. The son of the Holy Father and the mother. And he being really originally the creator of the universe. And in his odd way Simon Magus expressed it in this way.

Jung in his commentary on this immediately seizes upon very interesting situation. This passage is remarkable for several reasons. It describes a coniumctio solas at Luni, Sun and Moon. Which Simon it seems concretizd in his own life with Helen the harlot of Tyre in her role as Ishtar." You want to keep that. We're gonna come back to Ishtar in a moment. "As a result of the pairing with the Soror, Philia Mystica," He uses two terms. There isn't only a Soror Mystica there is also a a Philia Mystica, a mystical brother. For a female Alchemist there is such a thing as a mystical brother. Just as necessary. Absolutely irreplaceable.

There was begotten with as a result of this pairing with the Soror Mystica or Philia Mystica there was begotten a masculio feminine numa. Curiously designated air. Since numa like spirit originally meant air in motion. That is to say there there really is a discrimination here. that the element air is different from spirit by virtue of spirit being dynamic. That is to say spirit is able to move on the constellation gradient. Whereas air as an element is always trapped in whatever composition has been constellated. and all of the other elements are trapped along with air. So that they can, they can never move but the spirit can move. The spirit is the dynamis. But the spirit only moves in a creative mode. So it has to be approached in that way.

Mysterium Coniunctionis is one of the very best places to come when one has gone into this material. But unfortunately in the English translation they left out an indispensable part of it. In the swiss edition mysterium coniunctionis is quite a bit larger othan this. In fact it's as large as incorporating this book with it. These two books formed the swiss edition of Mysterium Coniunctionis. This is the way that Jung in his alchemic Soror Mystica wrote it, as a culmination of his whole life's work. Why the institutional unions split this off remains a mystery to me. Absolutely incomprehensible. It shows that they do not understand. Its the only conclusion one can come to. Not only did they do it with Mysterium Coniunctionis but the volume Aion in the collected works also has a complement by his Soror Mystica, Marie Louise von France. Which was split off and not even published in the Bollingen series in a separate volume, like Aurora Consurgens is.

The other volume in face wasn't translated and published into English until 1979. 18 years after Uncle Karl passed on. And then it was published in a little edition of about 500 copies in Dallas Texas. And I searched and search to find a copy in Los Angeles. And the only that could locate was in the Jung Institite Library which was packed in boxes and I could not get to it. And the librarian assured me that next month when the boxes are unpacked and the books are back in the shelf they'll Xerox a copy for me. But one cannot find it anywhere. And the title of that little pamphlet is The Passion of Perpetua. Which is indispensable. One cannot understand Jung's Aion without it. And one cannot understand Mysterium Coniunctionis without Aurora Consurgens. Why is this so? Because what this woman wrote here is the exact psychological balance and complement to what the man wrote here. And to split it off is to show gross misunderstanding.

The institutionalizing of Jung was even visible to him. I mentioned at the lecture last night that the very last shindig that he went to was a huge celebration for himself. I think it was done on his 80th birthday at one of the grand hotels up above Zurich in the, in the mountainous forest behind. And in the morning it was a free-for-all anybody could come and Jung had a great time. And in the evening only the important people with titles and positions came. And Jung just couldn't stand it. And later on remarked to Barbra Hannah that the morning people would carry on his work. And that the other ones had already formed an an arrogant institution for their own self-aggrandizement. Little editorial. you're used to it from this chair, so I thought make you less nostalgic.

Simon Magus and Helen because of the time period in which they occur, in a time period where a new expression was being given to the archetype of the self. I don't have time to really go into it here. And it's going to take me a long time to go into it anyway. And I've I brought a program said if any of you are interested in October, November and December on Tuesday nights I'll go into it. But the basic formulation apparently is this. That from the age of Sargon of Akkad from about 23-50 BC until about the time of the Book of Daniel about 150-160 BC, the expression in human civilization of the archetype of the self was the king. It was the most pervasive and natural expression of the self. And the development of the self was known as the royal art etc etc.

Inaudible question from the room.

The royal art.

Around the time of 150 BC until about 100 AD somewhere in those two, two and a half centuries was a complete transformation of the way in which the archetype of the self constellates itself. And instead of being constellated as a king the archetype of the South became constellated as a mysterious individual. Or a mysterious person. you can think of it as an individual. But with the proviso that the individual has wondrous powers. Mainly has the ability to transcend out of the temporary form in which he occurs. Or she occurs. so the formulation runs something like this. The divine King was displaced by the mysterious person in those two centuries as an effective expression of the archetype of the self.

So that the self in its symbolical integration had a different constellation. How is this important? It's important exactly in the following way. That only from a symbolic projection of an integrated self is there any kind of an energea by which magic can work. There has to be magic literally in the air before any magical processes can work. And the place that that magic comes from, because it's the root of consciousness, is that it's it's radiated out or projected out by a symbolic self. So that the old magic which was based on the divine kingship no longer worked. It wasn't that magic didn't work. It worked wonderfully in a radical new way because the mysterious person could now, as an archetypal expression of the symbolic self, could broadcast that energea could make that dynamis work. What is this true? It most certainly is. It was true across the board in any part of the known world at that time. The most classic example of this I think is from Plutarch. And Plutarch records the story of a captain of a ship with his Mariners who were told somewhere in Greece that when they approached Italy off the Cape of Brundusium that the sailors were to shout out that the Great God Pan was dead. And he was handsomely paid for this. And that the captain the crew when they sighted the cape of Brundusium coming across the southern Adriatic shouted this out to a barren landscape. And they said the whole landscape with the forest uttered a great ahhhh. They put ashore and they searched there were no people there. There was no one to be found. The land itself, the earth itself recognized that this was true.

The classic statement yet in theological terms is that the Christ took one-third of the powers away from the powers that had dominated the world. Crippled them so that they really didn't work anymore. And increasingly lost steam and energy. And those kings who tried to be divine Kings at that time, like Nero and Caligula and Tiberius etc etc. Domitian. Increasingly ran across the inability psychologically to even hold themselves together as persons, as individuals. And the last great example of that was Domitian about 95 A.D. Somehow sensing like every single Roman Emperor who had gone crazy since that the Christians somehow were at the root of the problem. In some way it wasn't any other religion or cult or sect or group, it was the Christians that were to blame. Nero blamed the Christians for burning Rome. and he was quite right it was because of a Christian shifting of the archetypal basis of the self that he burnt Rome. It is absolutely truthful. He meant to say exactly that. Domitian brought to Rome the Apostle John, Saint John, in his old age. wanting to see what this bird in the Godhead was. And of course he was he was so terrified of what he understood and saw. That he had what did not dare to put John to death. Did not dare to martyrize him. And so exiled him to Patmos where he wrote the Apocalypse.

This change meant that those who participated in the new way were dealing with an effective magic. They were dealing with magical energy which could create and transform. those who still tried to work by the old way, the old archetypal expression of the self, sank back to the mythic level.

Please turn you cassette now. I will commence playing again on the other side without a break in the continuity.

END OF SIDE 1

Essentially a symbol gets to be a symbol because it organizes the meaning capacity of a mythology. And because it effectively does this it can make an energea and magic. It can make consciousness. But when a symbol loses its capacity to integrate like that it falls back into its constituent mythologems. Which now are like dead wood. Which now are truly like the colloquial phrase, oh that's just a myth. And they are indeed at this phase now just a myth. It's not true that they were always this way they were once really living mythic expressions. But their integrated meaning center in the interior of mans collective psyche no longer operative. So that one sees in individuals like Simon Magus a regression back to a mythic prototype which no longer works. You get a scissors and paste kind of feeling. Whereas those who are working with the radically new energea frequently don't know the ropes yet. It works but they can't really tell you why. But they know that by this way and you lay on the hands it heals. So it takes a while for people, for human beings, to get used to a new constellation of the archetype of the self. So one has to go almost 300 years after the event before you begin to get the initial, slightly garbled expressions of what is happening.

And Jung and his excellence. And he is just so excellent. In Alchemical Studies Volume 13, which is the volume that I always use in teaching because it...it gets you right away into the the whole spectrum of what's going on. And they're really powerful essay in alchemical studies is his work on The Visions of Zosimos. Zosimos of Panopolis. Panopolis in Egypt, Zosimos from the 3rd century A.D. Zosimos is a contemporary of Plutinos. And it's about that time, two-thirds of the way through the third century that you finally get talented individuals who can open themselves up enough, spread their consciousness enough, learn discrimination enough to be able to see for the first time the whole pattern. And so one has in the 3rd century the beginnings of these individuals who are astonished at the nature and extent of the pattern. You get Mani. You get Zosimos. You get Plutinos. The third century A.D. is where they all are. It's a murderer's row of geniuses. And they all understand by the end of the third century that the new way is being, is trying to be, drowned out by the power tactics of an old mythology being refurbished and foisted upon mankind. And so the new archetype of the self goes underground at the end of the third century.

Mostly inaudible question from the room. Is this when....the catholic church...

Yeah. 313 A.D. Constantine says the church is a Roman function. Why should we persecute them. We're gonna persecute you if you aren't in it. It is in Anchorome.

And so in the 4th century you begin to get all of the indications that if people want to really survive in this world they tow the mythological line, increasingly. And the apotheosis of that of course is Augustine's City of God. It's a wonderful Roman utopia, it doesn't have anything to do with the kind of transformational capacity that the mysterious person has. But all of those who had learned to operate by this throughout those long centuries knew enough that they had to absent themselves from the institutional structures of this world to survive. And so they went out into the desert. They went out into the the so called wildernesses and and they survived.

Incidentally the the great archetypal image of that is Saint John's vision that the mother of the new archetypal expression has to be characterized as a woman in the wilderness. And for those who are somewhat up on hermetic history you realize that the the early Rosicrucian commune in Philadelphia in the 1690s called itself the woman in the wilderness. That's what they called themselves. The hermetic history does not lose track of its own. That's why it's a science.

Zosimos of Panopolis had a Soror Mystica. Her name was Theosebeia. And Jung is about the only person in the last 1700 years to know that. He's the only one. You can go through anybody's cultural history. Byzantine you name it. Nobody knew that. But Jung knew that. he was able to go into the visions of Zosimos and able to understand that this is what is going on. This is what is being said. How did he know that? Because that's what he was doing. And by virtue of his own experience he could recognize it when he saw it. He could tell right from wrong. That's the basic thing of telling right from wrong. It is that one is living in a discriminating way. Otherwise you how would you know.

He talks in here, in the visions of Zosimos, about the very peculiar situation. Talking about the visions of Zosimos let us now turn to other details of the vision. The most striking feature in the vision is the bowl shaped altar in the vision of Zosimos. The altar itself is is bowl shaped. This is the crater. and have to give you this aside. the crater was the mixing bowl. But there was another kind of a bowl which the serving was done in. The crater is the mixing bowl but the serving bowl was called the kylix. And the crater because of its shape allowed for all elements to come into itself. So when one is mixing in a crater you have like almost from the mixing action a sphericality on the inside of the crater. But on the kylix when you're serving it's always with two hands. And the handles on the kylix is very shallow. It's not much more than an inch at the most. And has a little raised welt in the center.

And both handles come out in a very peculiar way. So that if you abstracted the handles from the kylix you would get the infinity sign. You get the hermetic infinity sign. So the abstract symbol for the kylix became the infinity sign. And whenever you saw that, even thousands of years, later one can understand it. The magician in the tarot cards has the infinity sign over his head. Who is the Soror Mystica? Strength she also has the infinity sign over her head. The first and the eighth card. The completion of the Ogdoad. The male and the female. It's the symbolism is all there for anyone who can read it.

Jung is writing about the visions of Zosimos and he says the most striking thing is that the altar is bowl-shaped. Crater shaped. This is not a church altar where there is a blood sacrifice. Or where there is an institutional King based mythologically outdated sacrifice but there's an alchemical altar. Jung writes, "It is unquestionably related to the crater of poimandres." Poimandres is the first of the hermetic documents. The first of the 14 that survived.

Jung writes, "This was the vessel which the demiurge sent down to earth filled with noose." The guiding element of the mind. The interior searching recognition quality of the mind. It a...the noose was the gift of, mythically, was the gift of Prometheus to man. Foresight. What is it in Greek? Phronesis? Phronesis. This was the vessel. The altar. The crater altar. "Is the vessel which the demiurge sent down to earth filled with noose so that those who were striving for higher consciousness could baptize themselves in it."

It is mentioned in that important passage where Zosimos tells his friend and Soror Mystica Theosebeia. He tells her, hasten down to the Shepherd and bathe yourself in the crater. And hasten up to your own kind." Jung, "She had to go down to the place of death and rebirth and then up to her quote own kind." In other words the twice born. Or in the language of the Gospels the kingdom of heaven.

Jung elsewhere writes, very pointedly, that alchemy is a continuation, very definitely, of the mystical transformation. Whereby the institutionalized of church did not understand that the action, the effective action, the radical creative action was in the dynamis of what theology would identify as the Holy Ghost. That alchemy carries on that kind of energea. That kind of process. It's the baptism by fire. But that this could only be done on an individual basis. It cannot be done on any broader spread. An individual must do this. Alchemy was an individual consecration.

The use of the Soror Mysitca was indispensable. In that the individual had to finally understand that it was not this woman who was his complement. Either as the external man or as the internal man. It wasn't that the outer man is really seeking to just be satisfied with a unification with his inner soul. That was only the first stage out of three in alchemy. That development of the unio mentalis. That development which was complemented by bringing that unio...unio mentalis back to the body so that they were joined together. That was the second stage.

But even that wasn't it. There was yet a further amplification. It was the multiplication. The amplification itself. The power. When one made this golden capacity one had to see how effective it was. And it was amplified always by powers of 10. And in this amplificatio was the test. And the object was to amplify oneself to the extent that the cosmos is. So that the true bride in the high rose gamos was not just the man with his soul, or the man his soul in this world but the man in all of his capacities with God. God was the real bride. Or if it were a woman God was the real bridegroom.

It wasn't until the 13th century in the West that this was finally understood. And when it was understood and I'm not going to have time tonight. Aurora Consurgens is the first document that expresses this. And it's rather like Zosimos' visions in the third century. It takes a great genius to be able to see that and understand that in the Aurora Consurgens. Jung and Marie Louise von France together extraordinary. It's a little bit easier when one takes it to Nicolas Flamel and his Soror Mystica Pernelle. And in the alchemical hieroglyphs of Flamel, which Flamel lives up into the 1400's. So it's far enough along that one can see the symbolism a little clearer. If you try to read the Aurora Consurgens and get bogged down, even with the commentary of Marie Louise von France, turn to the Nicholas Flamel. It's a little easier to see. It's the same matrix and of a parallel process.

I'm not going to have time to do too much more tonight but let me just say this. The temptation always is to gloat in ones triumph. Especially if something has exacted every ounce of your capacity and energy. And there's always that temptation to figure this must be it. This is all that I'd hoped for. But the inscription over the door of the spiritual path is abandon all hope ye who enter here. Don't have even one expectation. Because beyond hope, beyond triumph, beyond para, there is the unknown. And it may be that what you didn't even recognize that you were really seeking has found you. And you have to be open enough to receive that. I can't say it any better tonight.

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