Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon: Jung
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In the 19th century, major general Ethan Allan Hitchcock argued that the world had assumed a mistaken view of alchemy. Rather than being reducible to a proto-scientific form of chemistry, the transformation of metal into gold was an allegory for a God-like elevation of the soul. It was primarily spiritual and psychological, and only secondarily material. The alchemists' esoteric style--expressed in parables and arcane symbolism--helped to mask their goals at variance with the religious and political authorities of the day.
A century later, Jung reviewed the alchemical literature and found unconscious inner conflict rather than conscious allegory. The alchemists, beset by warring impulses both to serve and master God, were working to integrate the two poles of their personality. Their symbolic language was a medium for visualizing and reenacting the underlying psychic experience.
In Jung's case study of Paracelsus, Melusina is at the center of this unconscious psychic experience: a mythological nymph or siren, part fish and part human. Appearing at a moment of catastrophe, her story of longing for a soul and redemption serves the adept as a guide out of darkness and toward transformation.
Melusina may be considered symbolic of a new religion of nature, interweaving spirit and matter, and a vehicle for coming to terms with the sanity-threatening perils and paradoxes of psychic truths. Insofar as the whale (part fish and part mammal) serves a similar spiritual function for Ishmael, this may help explain Jung's remark that Moby-Dick is "the greatest American novel."
Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon ~60pp:
Alchemical Studies:
Supplemental:
- Inner Gold - Alchemy and Psychology
- History of Alchemy - In Our Time
Extracts:
- "Much less had he aught in common with the tribe of alchemists, who sought, by a species of incantations, to evoke some surprising vitality from the laboratory." ("The Bell-Tower")
- "...then must he have been hopelessly infected with the craziest chimeras of his age; far outgoing Albert Magus and Cornelius Agrippa." ('The Bell-Tower")
- "My friend Atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded according to a receipt of his own." (Mardi, 1.98)
This meetup is part in a series on Muses and Monsters.