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Jung's Collected Works #14
Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation And Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy
Mysterium Coniunctionis was first published in the Collected Works of C.G. Jung in 1963. For this second edition of the work, numerous corrections and revisions have been made in cross-references to other volumes of the Collected Works now available and likewise in the Bibliography.
Mysterium Coniunctionis was Jung's last work of book length and gives a final account of his lengthy researches in alchemy. It was Jung's empirical discovery that certain key problems of modern man were prefigures in what t he alchemists called their 'art' or 'process'. Jung maintained that 'the world of alchemical symbols does not belong to the rubbish heap of the past, but stands in a very real and living relationship to our most recent discoveries concerning the psychology of the unconscious'. The volume includes ten plates, a Bibliography, an Index, and an Appendix of original Latin and Greek texts quoted in the work.
Mysterium Coniunctionis was Jung's last work of book length and gives a final account of his lengthy researches in alchemy. It was Jung's empirical discovery that certain key problems of modern man were prefigures in what t he alchemists called their 'art' or 'process'. Jung maintained that 'the world of alchemical symbols does not belong to the rubbish heap of the past, but stands in a very real and living relationship to our most recent discoveries concerning the psychology of the unconscious'. The volume includes ten plates, a Bibliography, an Index, and an Appendix of original Latin and Greek texts quoted in the work.
740 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1956
132 people are currently reading
2950 people want to read
About the author
C.G. Jung
1,917 books11.8k followersCarl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
October 8, 2014
Jung seems to write from the dream state; associations interleaved with digressions punctuated by potent and startling images. This is his most satisfying book for me because it has the simplest premise but is also the largest and richest. He stretches out enormously within a limited range, gathering a life-time of inquiry into a writhing basket of conflicting thought. This method illustrates perfectly how deep experience can become when meditated upon and scrutinized and when tangents are whole-heartedly encouraged and darksides allowed to bloom. No need to hop-scotch around the world, just look into the pile of dead ants beneath your radiator and let your mind wander. The conjunction of opposites: perhaps Jung's emblem for the source of life, the alembic, where all intellectual and emotional births occur. Read and reread this book to step through the microcosmic door into unlimited life right where you are.
June 13, 2009
Holy coniunctionis, Batman, this puppy is dense. Give yourself lots of time to chew on every tidbid, to reflect upon the alchemical images. For me, this is the heart of all of Jung's investigations and musings about the psyche. I am constantly referring to this work, and everytime I open it, I find a new golden nugget to work with. Outstanding work, but Jung doesn't make it easy for mere-mortal readers at all, thus the 4 stars.
November 7, 2012
Need another lifetime to tackle this volume again, read it while I was hitchhiking in Quebec two summers ago. The Coniunctionis refers to the Tao, or the unity of all things, it is at treatsie on practical mysticism, fitted into the language of modern day psychology. The Mysterium Coniunctionis is the unification of the conscious ego self, and the unconscious, the anima and aenima, which results in "one-ness with all things, or AyaMayA".
December 21, 2013
One of Jung's contributions to studies ancillary to his psychiatric profession has been to the study of the history and symbolism of alchemy. Our textbooks in the public schools either treated alchemy as proto-chemistry or as patent fraud. Jung suggests that at least some alchemists were quite sincere about an agenda which went beyond mere chemistry. They, some of them, were seeking self-transformation (or salvation), their practices being an objectification of their inner states. This he seems to demonstrate and plausibly interpret in this volume.
Whether this insight was original with Jung is unknown to me. Whatever the case, I appreciated being brought to reconsider my previous dismissal of the work of alchemists.
Whether this insight was original with Jung is unknown to me. Whatever the case, I appreciated being brought to reconsider my previous dismissal of the work of alchemists.
August 4, 2014
Carl Jung is the greatest genius and champion of the mind in our century. His ability to overview the psyche through the ages and different cultures enabled the 20th century to have a better understand of humanity as whole and our inner disconnectedness as the inevitable truth. From the stand point of any religion with his help, we now can understand our universality and the work to be done to grow as individuals and as humanity. He is not easy to read but many of his followers have it made easier for us. If you read at least some of his books the most general ones, your life will be enriched and your mind enlarged.
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April 20, 2022How the study of alchemy was the beginning exploration of the structure of the Self -- "The alchemist's statements about the lapis, considered psychologically, describe the archetype of the self. ... secondary symbols [express] the nature of the opposites to be united." (544)
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October 17, 2025A book which I started about 4 years ago now (...!) for an essay on the coincidence of opposites theme in Finnegans Wake. For whatever reason, when reading this I was no longer particularly excited at the time or did not feel I was learning anything new from it. To a certain extent this was quite true. Everything always seems to come back to Faust with Jung, as after those 4 years and finishing this book, a lasting impression is still these lines:
This appears rather the point of the alchemical quest, it seems always -- as it is in Faust Part Two (and I gather, from what I have heard, Coelho's The Alchemist to use a less refined example), a circular journey back to the starting point only to realise that whatever you were searching for was sort of staring you in the face the whole time. For me, the realisation this time is that, of course, the precise nature of the coniunctio that Jung was just as unknown to the alchemists as it is to any confused and neophyte reader in these matters. Jung essentially admits as such:
What the alchemists seemed to have meant by the Mysterium Coniunctionis or the coincidentia oppositorum is just as incomprehensible and unknowable as the unconscious (by very definition, not available to our psyche: "the unconscious is unconscious and can neither be grasped nor conceived") or God, who, according to Nicholas of Cusa, was least poorly defined as the coincidence of opposites. How can we ever know our "whole self" -- where has someone who has not been divided in mind and spirit ever been encountered? Of course such a thing is utterly unknowable, the union of opposites by nature "transcends human imagination".
So what is the point of reading this book -- if it is only ultimately all mysticism and a recounting of inevitably failing attempts to describe the process of encountering the unknowable? What is the point of the process of "individuation" if its end-goal is ultimately so mystical and intangible and unknowable as the development of the "whole Self"? The counter-question always rises: what is the point of *not* encountering these deeper questions either, by staying in the sterile realm of the purely empirical and factual, and refusing to engage with the more fundamental problems of God and "psychic wholeness"?
I can't possibly have an answer to those questions, and neither does Jung claim to do so. Jung does stay, perhaps, purely in the realm of empirical/"scientific" as he so firmly asserts that he does. This is something not quite easy to believe when the matter for investigation is so deeply and the manner of writing more discursive and closer to literary theory, but when reconsidering how limited the implications of what he says actually are its empirical character is reasonably evident (if certainly working within a preconceived framework of interpretation -- but all science does this, ultimately). There is no revelation of the "mysterium" here (which by definition couldn't be revealed) either of the coniunctio or of individuation (which must be a personalised process), only an examination of some of the common symbols used by alchemists, and often derived from other mystical/occult traditions like Gnosticism and the Kabbalah, to describe this process.
To sum up: Jung's essential thesis, which of course also in many ways provides the framework of interpretation and thus provides the necessary hermeneutic circle (we always find what we expect to find), is that the alchemists were describing the psychological process of individuation and the production of the lapis philosophorum was equivalent with psychic wholeness and encountering the whole Self. This is a thesis continued from Psychology and Alchemy, and this book does not much develop theoretically beyond this, rather summing up and providing deeper consideration of the central theme of the alchemical process. An objection to this thesis and to the central one of Aion (that Christ acts as a symbol for the whole Self), an objection that I have had in the past, is that it appears overly reductive to a modern and humanist viewpoint. Jung is very careful in Aion and also here, to stress that just because Christ and God act as psychological symbols for alchemists (etc.) does not mean that is all they are -- the psychic map is never the territory. Nevertheless, he does all recognise at the end of this book that the psychological approach brings us always towards more of a humanist bias, but justifies it in a way that is rather important -- describing the natural humanism of religion:
I feel that is perhaps rather the central coincidentia oppositorum which underlies the whole book - that religion is itself justification for humanism, that the mystery of the incarnation, the coincidence of opposites of God and man, itself gives justification for viewing Christ as a psychological symbol of wholeness - and gives hope for Jung's hoped-for Age of Aquarius where the "opposites" of humanism/science and religion might be, somehow, mystically, integrated. The nature of Christ and the incarnation as the genuine embodiment of this conjunction between a religious and psychological viewpoint of his own symbolism is a paradoxical, extraordinary and for me awe-inspiring coincidentia oppositorum.
Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor!
This appears rather the point of the alchemical quest, it seems always -- as it is in Faust Part Two (and I gather, from what I have heard, Coelho's The Alchemist to use a less refined example), a circular journey back to the starting point only to realise that whatever you were searching for was sort of staring you in the face the whole time. For me, the realisation this time is that, of course, the precise nature of the coniunctio that Jung was just as unknown to the alchemists as it is to any confused and neophyte reader in these matters. Jung essentially admits as such:
Just as a lapis Philosophorum, with its miraculous powers, was never produced, so psychic wholeness will never be attained empirically, as consciousness is too narrow and too one-sided to comprehend the full inventory of the psyche.
What the alchemists seemed to have meant by the Mysterium Coniunctionis or the coincidentia oppositorum is just as incomprehensible and unknowable as the unconscious (by very definition, not available to our psyche: "the unconscious is unconscious and can neither be grasped nor conceived") or God, who, according to Nicholas of Cusa, was least poorly defined as the coincidence of opposites. How can we ever know our "whole self" -- where has someone who has not been divided in mind and spirit ever been encountered? Of course such a thing is utterly unknowable, the union of opposites by nature "transcends human imagination".
So what is the point of reading this book -- if it is only ultimately all mysticism and a recounting of inevitably failing attempts to describe the process of encountering the unknowable? What is the point of the process of "individuation" if its end-goal is ultimately so mystical and intangible and unknowable as the development of the "whole Self"? The counter-question always rises: what is the point of *not* encountering these deeper questions either, by staying in the sterile realm of the purely empirical and factual, and refusing to engage with the more fundamental problems of God and "psychic wholeness"?
I can't possibly have an answer to those questions, and neither does Jung claim to do so. Jung does stay, perhaps, purely in the realm of empirical/"scientific" as he so firmly asserts that he does. This is something not quite easy to believe when the matter for investigation is so deeply and the manner of writing more discursive and closer to literary theory, but when reconsidering how limited the implications of what he says actually are its empirical character is reasonably evident (if certainly working within a preconceived framework of interpretation -- but all science does this, ultimately). There is no revelation of the "mysterium" here (which by definition couldn't be revealed) either of the coniunctio or of individuation (which must be a personalised process), only an examination of some of the common symbols used by alchemists, and often derived from other mystical/occult traditions like Gnosticism and the Kabbalah, to describe this process.
To sum up: Jung's essential thesis, which of course also in many ways provides the framework of interpretation and thus provides the necessary hermeneutic circle (we always find what we expect to find), is that the alchemists were describing the psychological process of individuation and the production of the lapis philosophorum was equivalent with psychic wholeness and encountering the whole Self. This is a thesis continued from Psychology and Alchemy, and this book does not much develop theoretically beyond this, rather summing up and providing deeper consideration of the central theme of the alchemical process. An objection to this thesis and to the central one of Aion (that Christ acts as a symbol for the whole Self), an objection that I have had in the past, is that it appears overly reductive to a modern and humanist viewpoint. Jung is very careful in Aion and also here, to stress that just because Christ and God act as psychological symbols for alchemists (etc.) does not mean that is all they are -- the psychic map is never the territory. Nevertheless, he does all recognise at the end of this book that the psychological approach brings us always towards more of a humanist bias, but justifies it in a way that is rather important -- describing the natural humanism of religion:
That a psychological approach to these matters draws man more into the centre of the picture as the measure of all things cannot be denied. But this gives him a significance which is not without justication. The two great world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, have, each in its own way, accorded man a central place, and Christianity has stressed this tendency still further by the dogma that God became very man. No psychology in the world could vie with the dignity that God himself has accorded to him. [italics mine]
I feel that is perhaps rather the central coincidentia oppositorum which underlies the whole book - that religion is itself justification for humanism, that the mystery of the incarnation, the coincidence of opposites of God and man, itself gives justification for viewing Christ as a psychological symbol of wholeness - and gives hope for Jung's hoped-for Age of Aquarius where the "opposites" of humanism/science and religion might be, somehow, mystically, integrated. The nature of Christ and the incarnation as the genuine embodiment of this conjunction between a religious and psychological viewpoint of his own symbolism is a paradoxical, extraordinary and for me awe-inspiring coincidentia oppositorum.
February 2, 2020
One of the most complicated Jungian books I’ve read, but in his typical style he reveals gems of wisdom if you take the time to search for them.
May 27, 2019
Firstly, this is not an easy read for those who never studied Alchemy before and don’t understand of how the stages of the Magnus Opum (the Great Work) relate to the stages of the individuation process. If you have a good general understanding of the main stages and operations of the alchemical process, I’d recommend that book. In my personal experience, a broader way that I found useful to understand the universality of this archetypal process was investigating how the Conjunction, the inner “Sacred Marriage” is represented and described in distinct spiritual/ philosophical systems.
In Greek Tradition, the Conjunction is represented as Hieros Gamos, the sacred marriage between a God and a Goddess that are embodied as a King and a High Priestess-Queen. Such marriage is consummated through rituals that include strong sexual elements leading to a fusion of masculine and feminine, integrating those polarities that have a transmutation of two into one as a final result. During my early teens, I read the four book series “The Mists of Avalon” that narrates the legend of King Arthur. At some point, one of the books describes the rituals of Hieros Gamos between Artur and his half-sister Morgan in details (this is illustrated in the book number one of the series, “Mistress of Magic”) to conceive a child inside the royal lineage. Even though I didn’t have any depth of knowledge on Alchemy at that time, I felt instinctively attracted to those heavyset books, and I just couldn’t put them down.
The book one approaches the Conjunction/ Hieros Gamos from the perspective of Celtic Paganism. Boys went through rites of passage during their transition to adulthood to prove they‘re ready to be a genuine man (King archetype). In those rites they wear the fur of a deer and confront a real deer (usually the leader of a herd) till death, and if they succeeded in dominating and killing the animal, they were ready to merge with a chosen female (the High Priestess Queen archetype) and were rewarded with a night of ritualistic sex with her to conceive a child. The female would have her body bathed in dead deer’s blood, and the man would have sex with her. Those rites would happen during the spring/ summer transition during the festival of Beltaine since they were related to celebrations of fertility.
If we translate the symbolism of this Celtic version of Hieros Gamos, the boy dressed as a deer confronts his Shadow (the deer in animal form) and has to deal with his insecurities, fears of failure and transmute them into courage to face the wild when he’s pushed to fight, dominate and kill the animal. If he succeeds, he’s now in the lead of his Shadow, and he has triumphed over it, not being unconsciously controlled by it anymore. After overcoming his fear of vulnerability, he’s now ready to accept and integrate his Anima, his feminine side and in the legend, this integration between male/ animalistic and female/ spiritual happens via ritualistic sex with a female priestess. When the sexual union takes place, the feminine energy (Shakti) that resides in the root chakra ascends, and the masculine energy (Shiva) that resides in the crown chakra descends and meet in the heart chakra. A new conscious state emerges from such a masculine/ feminine union.
The interesting thing is that the word Gamos comes from the Latin Gammus which refers to a type of fallow deer of a species called Dama Dama that seems to have its origins linked to a species of deer found in Mesopotamia. Although “Hieros Gamos” is a denomination coined by the Greeks, distinct spiritual traditions refer to such process in their texts: Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese, Sumerian, Tibetan, Hindu. The Yin/Yang symbol, for example, is a clear allusion to the Conjunction. The feminine (black) contains the masculine seed/ Animus (white) in it while masculine (white) contains the feminine seed/ Anima (black); those are the principles that lead the feminine move towards masculine and vice versa both in an unconscious search for each other to reach a balance. Together, they create a circle (oneness, infinite potential).
In Astrology, solar eclipses (Sun and Moon conjunction) represent this process, and this is seen in the skies as New Moon.
Anyways, those symbolic elements can be used as complementary sources to study the Conjunction.
In Greek Tradition, the Conjunction is represented as Hieros Gamos, the sacred marriage between a God and a Goddess that are embodied as a King and a High Priestess-Queen. Such marriage is consummated through rituals that include strong sexual elements leading to a fusion of masculine and feminine, integrating those polarities that have a transmutation of two into one as a final result. During my early teens, I read the four book series “The Mists of Avalon” that narrates the legend of King Arthur. At some point, one of the books describes the rituals of Hieros Gamos between Artur and his half-sister Morgan in details (this is illustrated in the book number one of the series, “Mistress of Magic”) to conceive a child inside the royal lineage. Even though I didn’t have any depth of knowledge on Alchemy at that time, I felt instinctively attracted to those heavyset books, and I just couldn’t put them down.
The book one approaches the Conjunction/ Hieros Gamos from the perspective of Celtic Paganism. Boys went through rites of passage during their transition to adulthood to prove they‘re ready to be a genuine man (King archetype). In those rites they wear the fur of a deer and confront a real deer (usually the leader of a herd) till death, and if they succeeded in dominating and killing the animal, they were ready to merge with a chosen female (the High Priestess Queen archetype) and were rewarded with a night of ritualistic sex with her to conceive a child. The female would have her body bathed in dead deer’s blood, and the man would have sex with her. Those rites would happen during the spring/ summer transition during the festival of Beltaine since they were related to celebrations of fertility.
If we translate the symbolism of this Celtic version of Hieros Gamos, the boy dressed as a deer confronts his Shadow (the deer in animal form) and has to deal with his insecurities, fears of failure and transmute them into courage to face the wild when he’s pushed to fight, dominate and kill the animal. If he succeeds, he’s now in the lead of his Shadow, and he has triumphed over it, not being unconsciously controlled by it anymore. After overcoming his fear of vulnerability, he’s now ready to accept and integrate his Anima, his feminine side and in the legend, this integration between male/ animalistic and female/ spiritual happens via ritualistic sex with a female priestess. When the sexual union takes place, the feminine energy (Shakti) that resides in the root chakra ascends, and the masculine energy (Shiva) that resides in the crown chakra descends and meet in the heart chakra. A new conscious state emerges from such a masculine/ feminine union.
The interesting thing is that the word Gamos comes from the Latin Gammus which refers to a type of fallow deer of a species called Dama Dama that seems to have its origins linked to a species of deer found in Mesopotamia. Although “Hieros Gamos” is a denomination coined by the Greeks, distinct spiritual traditions refer to such process in their texts: Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese, Sumerian, Tibetan, Hindu. The Yin/Yang symbol, for example, is a clear allusion to the Conjunction. The feminine (black) contains the masculine seed/ Animus (white) in it while masculine (white) contains the feminine seed/ Anima (black); those are the principles that lead the feminine move towards masculine and vice versa both in an unconscious search for each other to reach a balance. Together, they create a circle (oneness, infinite potential).
In Astrology, solar eclipses (Sun and Moon conjunction) represent this process, and this is seen in the skies as New Moon.
Anyways, those symbolic elements can be used as complementary sources to study the Conjunction.
October 16, 2021
This is not a book. It is a tome. And it is also a slow burn. Almost 600 pages of actual text, the 'point' of this tome (as with most of Jung's writings) only coalesces as you reach the end. But what an interesting end!
The body of the work busies itself with numerous alchemical metaphors, all of which were the personal constructs of ancient wise men striving to understand the spiritual nature of mankind. These metaphors can be boiled down to a sort of meta; everyone suffers a death of the ego, through which they are purged of their corruption, and can emerge as a better person.
Now we can translate that to one of the most powerful metaphors in the book; the Sun descends into the waters of the ocean and its fire is extinguished. This night, when the Moon has dominion. Yet the moonlight waters also purify the Sun and allow it to rise, the next day, glorious and rejuvenated.
This happens to human beings many times in their lives, allowing them to grow through many different things. Much of this book is walking you through different metaphors with this message. The alchemists, living in a society without science or psychology, had to use metaphorical language to explain things they didn't understand. What does it mean when you say that the Moon is a representation of the Unconscious? That she is the mistress of love and madness?
It is through our ego death that we come closer to the Coniunctionis, the Union of Opposites. One of the pieces of this book concerns itself with Paradox. How can something be two things at once? How can the Moon be a brilliant white but also a symbol of darkness? It is in that intersection, that conjunction, that we find a great mystery. Yet there is also a great power there.
The moon is often used to describe the feminine, while the sun is used to describe the masculine. The union of these two things, often represented by the descent of the sun into the sea and its subsequent rising, stands for a greater metaphor; the union of the physical and spiritual worlds. It is through an ego death and the resulting humiliation that you are cleansed of your impurities and can live your life as a better human being. That is the Union of opposites, your ego married to the anima and the shadow, which results in the birth of the self.
For Jung, writing as a Christian, the self was exemplified in Jesus Christ. He is the Union of the physical and spiritual worlds, the mysterious conjunction that is a paradox we strive to understand. This mode of thinking, elevating Christ beyond a simple role model for behavior, is what Jung identifies as a truly religious way of thinking. It is through Christ, the Union of Opposites, that we are able to make a connection with the spiritual world and receive rejuvenating energy that allows us to keep going. This is the Inner Fire.
Without metaphor; it is by killing our ego, suffering humiliation, and recognizing the different parts of our psyche that we can find the inner strength to continue in a disappointing, materialistic world.
There is also a great bit in this book, which I didn't know where to place in my review, about the connection between Western Alchemy and Taoism. Both came to the conclusion that everything in our world is connected with everything else. Everything is in Union with everything else. We cannot forget that and believe ourselves to be isolated. That is how we forget that everyone else is also a human being. We let our Ego dominant us and lead us to believe we are something like the Center of the Universe. Yet the most interesting part of this is the fact our modern world likes to specialize everything. We like to separate schools of thought and sciences so that they are isolated from others, thereby doing the exact thing that leads us to believe we have found the Universal Truth.
I would only recommend this if you have read several of Jung's other works. Before this I would recommend "Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, (1934)" "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (1951)" and "Psychology and Alchemy (1936)" in that order. These will lay down the fundamentals with which you will be better equipped to understand this book.
The body of the work busies itself with numerous alchemical metaphors, all of which were the personal constructs of ancient wise men striving to understand the spiritual nature of mankind. These metaphors can be boiled down to a sort of meta; everyone suffers a death of the ego, through which they are purged of their corruption, and can emerge as a better person.
Now we can translate that to one of the most powerful metaphors in the book; the Sun descends into the waters of the ocean and its fire is extinguished. This night, when the Moon has dominion. Yet the moonlight waters also purify the Sun and allow it to rise, the next day, glorious and rejuvenated.
This happens to human beings many times in their lives, allowing them to grow through many different things. Much of this book is walking you through different metaphors with this message. The alchemists, living in a society without science or psychology, had to use metaphorical language to explain things they didn't understand. What does it mean when you say that the Moon is a representation of the Unconscious? That she is the mistress of love and madness?
It is through our ego death that we come closer to the Coniunctionis, the Union of Opposites. One of the pieces of this book concerns itself with Paradox. How can something be two things at once? How can the Moon be a brilliant white but also a symbol of darkness? It is in that intersection, that conjunction, that we find a great mystery. Yet there is also a great power there.
The moon is often used to describe the feminine, while the sun is used to describe the masculine. The union of these two things, often represented by the descent of the sun into the sea and its subsequent rising, stands for a greater metaphor; the union of the physical and spiritual worlds. It is through an ego death and the resulting humiliation that you are cleansed of your impurities and can live your life as a better human being. That is the Union of opposites, your ego married to the anima and the shadow, which results in the birth of the self.
For Jung, writing as a Christian, the self was exemplified in Jesus Christ. He is the Union of the physical and spiritual worlds, the mysterious conjunction that is a paradox we strive to understand. This mode of thinking, elevating Christ beyond a simple role model for behavior, is what Jung identifies as a truly religious way of thinking. It is through Christ, the Union of Opposites, that we are able to make a connection with the spiritual world and receive rejuvenating energy that allows us to keep going. This is the Inner Fire.
Without metaphor; it is by killing our ego, suffering humiliation, and recognizing the different parts of our psyche that we can find the inner strength to continue in a disappointing, materialistic world.
There is also a great bit in this book, which I didn't know where to place in my review, about the connection between Western Alchemy and Taoism. Both came to the conclusion that everything in our world is connected with everything else. Everything is in Union with everything else. We cannot forget that and believe ourselves to be isolated. That is how we forget that everyone else is also a human being. We let our Ego dominant us and lead us to believe we are something like the Center of the Universe. Yet the most interesting part of this is the fact our modern world likes to specialize everything. We like to separate schools of thought and sciences so that they are isolated from others, thereby doing the exact thing that leads us to believe we have found the Universal Truth.
I would only recommend this if you have read several of Jung's other works. Before this I would recommend "Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, (1934)" "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self (1951)" and "Psychology and Alchemy (1936)" in that order. These will lay down the fundamentals with which you will be better equipped to understand this book.
August 25, 2018
A very deep dive into the symbols and writing of alchemists that only delves two-thirds beyond the surface, making connections to the field of psychology and the sense of self implied by Jung’s collective unconscious. At times dizzying, other times overly meticulous (especially on points Jung later dismissed as silly or inauthentic). In a way, it reads like an autobiography of someone quixotically consumed by readings and interpretations, and yet he comes out on the other side of Coniunctionis self-assured and collected. Can’t wait to see how Maria von Franz finishes off the final third!
March 25, 2009
Anyone who says they've read the whole thing is either a liar...or...a liar. Not my favorite Jung book, but, I admittedly only actually read a little mroe than half....maybe if I'd have gotten through the whole thing, I'd have found it more relevant to...anything - that said, it still has Jung's beautiful voice and style - someday I'll get the second half - but for now, I'm considering it read.
August 22, 2016
Jung was a total nutcase, and is one of my biggest inspirations.
July 15, 2018
Took me years to read and to understand. Commentaries helped me though.
February 28, 2021
This book only heightened my obsession with paradoxes.
June 2, 2025
Shadow
“The alchemists knew about the snake and the ‘cold’ half of nature, and they… endeavoured by their art to lead that serpentine Nous of the darkness, the serpens mercurialis, through the stages of transformation to the goal of perfection (telesmus).”
“The psychological equivalent of the chaotic water of the beginning is the unconscious, which the old writers could grasp only in projected form, just as today most people cannot see the beam in their own eye but are all too well aware of the mote in their brother's. Political propaganda exploits this primitivity and conquers the naïve with their own defect. The only defence against this overwhelming danger is recognition of the shadow. The sight of its darkness is itself an illumination, a widening of consciousness through integration of the hitherto unconscious components of the personality. Freud's efforts to bring the shadow to consciousness are the logical and salutary answer to the almost universal unconsciousness and projection-proneness of the general public. It is as though Freud, with sure instinct, had sought to avert the danger of nation-wide psychic epidemics that threatened Europe. What he did not see was that the confrontation with the shadow is not just a harmless affair that can be settled by "reason." The shadow is the primitive who is still alive and active in civilized man, and our civilized reason means nothing to him. He needs to be ruled by a higher authority, such as is found in the great religions. Even when Reason triumphed at the beginning of the French Revolution it was quickly turned into a goddess and enthroned in Notre-Dame.”
C.f. To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 18:9-14
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
“Alchemy announced a source of knowledge, parallel if not equivalent to revelation, which yields a "bitter" water by no means acceptable to our human judgment. It is harsh and bitter or like vinegar, for it is a bitter thing to accept the darkness and blackness of the umbra solis and to pass through this valley of the shadow. It is bitter indeed to discover behind one's lofty ideals narrow, fanatical convictions, all the more cherished for that, and behind one's heroic pretensions nothing but crude egotism, infantile greed, and complacency. This painful corrective is an unavoidable stage in every psychotherapeutic process. As the alchemists said, it begins with the nigredo, or generates it as the indispensable prerequisite for synthesis, for unless the opposites are constellated and brought to consciousness they can never be united. Freud halted the process at the reduction to the inferior half of the personality and tended to overlook the daemonic dangerousness of the dark side, which by no means consists only of relatively harmless infantilisms. Man is neither so reasonable nor so good that he can cope eo ipso with evil. The darkness can quite well engulf him, especially when he finds himself with those of like mind. Mass-mindedness increases unconsciousness and then the evil swells like an avalanche, as contemporary events have shown. Even so, society can also work for good; it is even necessary because of the moral weakness of most human beings, who, to maintain themselves at all, must have some external good to cling on to. The great religions are psychotherapeutic systems that give a foothold to all those who cannot stand by themselves, and they are in the overwhelming majority.”
“The alchemists knew about the snake and the ‘cold’ half of nature, and they… endeavoured by their art to lead that serpentine Nous of the darkness, the serpens mercurialis, through the stages of transformation to the goal of perfection (telesmus).”
“The psychological equivalent of the chaotic water of the beginning is the unconscious, which the old writers could grasp only in projected form, just as today most people cannot see the beam in their own eye but are all too well aware of the mote in their brother's. Political propaganda exploits this primitivity and conquers the naïve with their own defect. The only defence against this overwhelming danger is recognition of the shadow. The sight of its darkness is itself an illumination, a widening of consciousness through integration of the hitherto unconscious components of the personality. Freud's efforts to bring the shadow to consciousness are the logical and salutary answer to the almost universal unconsciousness and projection-proneness of the general public. It is as though Freud, with sure instinct, had sought to avert the danger of nation-wide psychic epidemics that threatened Europe. What he did not see was that the confrontation with the shadow is not just a harmless affair that can be settled by "reason." The shadow is the primitive who is still alive and active in civilized man, and our civilized reason means nothing to him. He needs to be ruled by a higher authority, such as is found in the great religions. Even when Reason triumphed at the beginning of the French Revolution it was quickly turned into a goddess and enthroned in Notre-Dame.”
C.f. To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 18:9-14
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
“Alchemy announced a source of knowledge, parallel if not equivalent to revelation, which yields a "bitter" water by no means acceptable to our human judgment. It is harsh and bitter or like vinegar, for it is a bitter thing to accept the darkness and blackness of the umbra solis and to pass through this valley of the shadow. It is bitter indeed to discover behind one's lofty ideals narrow, fanatical convictions, all the more cherished for that, and behind one's heroic pretensions nothing but crude egotism, infantile greed, and complacency. This painful corrective is an unavoidable stage in every psychotherapeutic process. As the alchemists said, it begins with the nigredo, or generates it as the indispensable prerequisite for synthesis, for unless the opposites are constellated and brought to consciousness they can never be united. Freud halted the process at the reduction to the inferior half of the personality and tended to overlook the daemonic dangerousness of the dark side, which by no means consists only of relatively harmless infantilisms. Man is neither so reasonable nor so good that he can cope eo ipso with evil. The darkness can quite well engulf him, especially when he finds himself with those of like mind. Mass-mindedness increases unconsciousness and then the evil swells like an avalanche, as contemporary events have shown. Even so, society can also work for good; it is even necessary because of the moral weakness of most human beings, who, to maintain themselves at all, must have some external good to cling on to. The great religions are psychotherapeutic systems that give a foothold to all those who cannot stand by themselves, and they are in the overwhelming majority.”
April 1, 2024
This book had been sitting around on my bookcase for ages! It looked to be such a massive time I was not sure when would be the right time to plough through it.
However, alot of the back bulk of the book is appendices in relation to the documents King did read to support his theories. As a professor, he was quite the scholar. Most of his sources will be unknown to most lay people, so that means the reader has to trust the writer, that he is not foisting his own interpretation on readers, or cherry-picking facts. However, it does seem likely that he Jung was right about the alchemists. They weren't greedy trying to create gold. The opération was a magical one, driven by the most noble of spiritual aspirations.
It also makes for a dense read, as there are footnotes everywhere regarding his arcane sources. Jung cautions that mystical literature of this kind is full of paradoxes, it is the nature of the beast. This is a translation from German, and his sentences can be pretty convoluted. Commentators such as Anthony Storr just badly state that he expresses himself badly. Those of a mystical bent may have a lot less trouble with his writing style. The main themes, however, are set out clearly enough: the book looks at the symbolism of Sun and Moon, who most need to conjoin, the elements of salt and sulphur, alongside the symbolism of the ailing King, his Queen, and the figure of Adam.
The main thrust of the hypothesis is that the alchemists, knowing or unknowingly, projected deep psychic processes onto matter, bringing about transformation to av more integrated level of consciousness. The average ego is limited, not particularly admirable, and needs to be broken down, and allowed to decompose or be burnt, then sublimated. This leads to the bridal chamber, where Sun and Moon are united.
This was written on 1955, fresh from the aftermath of WW2 and the holocaust, now there was the terror of the Cold War. Would things be different if humans were somehow more aware?
Jung does avow here that if there were less of a s his between science and religion there might be. He declares his research into the similarity between the psychic processes described in these ancient texts mirror what happens in his psychanalytical sessions with patients. It has to be remembered if course that Jung had more experience working with psychotic patients than Freud did. There was less of a concern with sexual issues with psychotic patients anyway, but questions over God, Jesus and the devil and do seem to turn up more often.
Jung bécane a guru for many peoe who did want to bring spirituality back into the equation, beyond resolving any kind of mental health issues. Many would still see his books as an attempt to sneak God into the back door then, and for all his protestations about being an empiricist, many would still decry his research as anecdotal rather than based in a science. Currently things have not changed much where Freud warned Jung to keep his table rappers and occultism out of the new science of psychology for fear of being discredited - Jung felt unable to do that, as, as he also notes, certain physicists are also unable to do. He could still prove to be ahead of his time in that regard, tbough others may have issue with his reactionary stance on other things. Why did he dislike Joyce so much, for example?
As a pioneer, it has to be remembered, he led the way for a lot of the drkwth movement, for better or for worse.
However, alot of the back bulk of the book is appendices in relation to the documents King did read to support his theories. As a professor, he was quite the scholar. Most of his sources will be unknown to most lay people, so that means the reader has to trust the writer, that he is not foisting his own interpretation on readers, or cherry-picking facts. However, it does seem likely that he Jung was right about the alchemists. They weren't greedy trying to create gold. The opération was a magical one, driven by the most noble of spiritual aspirations.
It also makes for a dense read, as there are footnotes everywhere regarding his arcane sources. Jung cautions that mystical literature of this kind is full of paradoxes, it is the nature of the beast. This is a translation from German, and his sentences can be pretty convoluted. Commentators such as Anthony Storr just badly state that he expresses himself badly. Those of a mystical bent may have a lot less trouble with his writing style. The main themes, however, are set out clearly enough: the book looks at the symbolism of Sun and Moon, who most need to conjoin, the elements of salt and sulphur, alongside the symbolism of the ailing King, his Queen, and the figure of Adam.
The main thrust of the hypothesis is that the alchemists, knowing or unknowingly, projected deep psychic processes onto matter, bringing about transformation to av more integrated level of consciousness. The average ego is limited, not particularly admirable, and needs to be broken down, and allowed to decompose or be burnt, then sublimated. This leads to the bridal chamber, where Sun and Moon are united.
This was written on 1955, fresh from the aftermath of WW2 and the holocaust, now there was the terror of the Cold War. Would things be different if humans were somehow more aware?
Jung does avow here that if there were less of a s his between science and religion there might be. He declares his research into the similarity between the psychic processes described in these ancient texts mirror what happens in his psychanalytical sessions with patients. It has to be remembered if course that Jung had more experience working with psychotic patients than Freud did. There was less of a concern with sexual issues with psychotic patients anyway, but questions over God, Jesus and the devil and do seem to turn up more often.
Jung bécane a guru for many peoe who did want to bring spirituality back into the equation, beyond resolving any kind of mental health issues. Many would still see his books as an attempt to sneak God into the back door then, and for all his protestations about being an empiricist, many would still decry his research as anecdotal rather than based in a science. Currently things have not changed much where Freud warned Jung to keep his table rappers and occultism out of the new science of psychology for fear of being discredited - Jung felt unable to do that, as, as he also notes, certain physicists are also unable to do. He could still prove to be ahead of his time in that regard, tbough others may have issue with his reactionary stance on other things. Why did he dislike Joyce so much, for example?
As a pioneer, it has to be remembered, he led the way for a lot of the drkwth movement, for better or for worse.
March 4, 2026
Definitely a book for folks committed to diving deep into Jungian waters. On one level, it's Jung's final statement and in salient ways his most profound. Because he uses alchemy as a touchstone for delving into the intricacies of psychological processes, it's also at times his least accessible. You have to be willing to commit to many pages of discussion of arcane symbols, often in contexts that grew out of historical epochs that employed vocabularies that have long since fallen into dis-use. To complicate matters further, Jung's discussion frequently hinges on the ways that the alchemists tempered their insights in response to the Christian doctrines of their time while at the same time developing approaches more closely aligned to pre-Christian gnostic thought. And to complicate the complications, he's intensely aware of the emerging scientific insights on the first half of the 20th century--he's focused on physics, but I think that much of what he says has direct implications for contemporary neuroscience and ecology. What brings the threads together is his convincing and (if you can extract it) clear argument that the alchemists anticipated the processes leading to psychological "individuation" and wholeness in ways the help us understand the intricacies of our own psyches.
All of which is to say, if that doesn't make sense to you, start elsewhere. The path to Mysterium leads from Psychology and Alchemy through Aion. It's been a decades long road for me, but I'm glad I'm walking it. For most readers, the path into Jung begins with Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
All of which is to say, if that doesn't make sense to you, start elsewhere. The path to Mysterium leads from Psychology and Alchemy through Aion. It's been a decades long road for me, but I'm glad I'm walking it. For most readers, the path into Jung begins with Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
June 23, 2024
Very complex, yet wonderful read. On the the most compelling ideas to Jung on Psychology & Chemistry as it relates to the alchemy of "the self".
Bonus part of Jung's work is the amount of Latin to English one learns in the process. One of my very ideas he shared in this specific text was: "Magnes Hominis" which according to Jung roughly translates to "Magnet of Man". It makes me think of the gravitational pull with which we have on other individuals based upon the energy with which we conduct ourselves with.
Bonus part of Jung's work is the amount of Latin to English one learns in the process. One of my very ideas he shared in this specific text was: "Magnes Hominis" which according to Jung roughly translates to "Magnet of Man". It makes me think of the gravitational pull with which we have on other individuals based upon the energy with which we conduct ourselves with.
Want to read
November 13, 2019Read the last half
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2022
This book only heightened my obsession with paradoxes.
November 7, 2022
This is the book that shines at the end, but it shines only, if one reads it from beginning to end.
August 6, 2023
As dry as it gets. Last bit I found very difficult to turn through pages.
September 9, 2023
Jung’s writings is different from Freud’s writings, Freud is rational, Jung is intuitive, a feeling. I do not remember most of Jung’s books, only a feeling.
July 10, 2023
When Adam left Paradise, God sent the angel Gabriel to him with an offer of three gifts of which he should choose one: modesty, intelligence, and religion. Without hesitation Adam chose intelligence. Thereupon Gabriel commanded modesty and religion to return at once to heaven. But they refused, invoking God’s own command never to part from intelligence, wherever it might be found. For the Prophet had said: “Never submit to one who has no trace of intelligence.” (p584, an Arabian legend)
The note above was taken during the reading. I had actually paused to choose one before continuing and had supposed Adam would choose modesty or religion. So why intelligence should govern the other two? And, what is intelligence? Is it the ability to discern opposites, or the ability to unite them？
The third stage is the synthesis of opposites, or the integration. It's the stage where the hero returned his quest with the treasure. Will the treasure last, for how long, and what's the effect? Are they all decided by the intelligence?
May 15, 2017
The Bible and this Inquiry are my favorites.
January 8, 2021
Read it if you are interested in exploring the depths of the human mind and of the human existance, as well as its meaning, origins and the relationship God-men. It cast light on the path (unique for each individual) one must follow to a meaningfull and thoughtfull life.
Better to read first Psychology and Alchemy.
Make notes, you’re coming back.
Better to read first Psychology and Alchemy.
Make notes, you’re coming back.
October 16, 2009
One of the best from Jung
May 8, 2012
An exceedingly difficult book, but if approached as a meditation coming back to it many times, then this book will give to the reader what the reader gives to it, a larger awareness.
June 13, 2010
ARGH! A necessary read/study when I was in training.
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