Alchemy
Throughout a wide range of alchemical texts, Jung found parallels to his own way of understanding the experience and processes of the psyche. Far beyond the pursuit of turning literal lead into gold, the treatises written in symbolic language revealed a complex system of meditation and psychological transformation.
The profusion of images and symbols in constant transition displayed striking analogies to the structures of dreams, such that observing them through an alchemical lens often made it possible to discover new paths for situations that had previously become stagnant – in life as well.
At first encounter, the field often appears strange. Gradually, however, its concepts become more familiar, although, as is characteristic of symbolic language, they always remain somewhat beyond the full grasp of the intellect.
When I first read Anatomy of the Psyche –one of the classic works on alchemy in Analytical Psychology, by E. Edinger– I was intrigued by the diagrams that open each chapter. Each one presented an alchemical operation and the main terms associated with it (see below).
Given the continuity among the themes, I had long thought of bringing all diagrams into a single map. Eventually, I began weaving them together and, from coniunctio to coagulatio, the unified pattern took shape.
In its final form, this chaotic stitching-together, much like a star-filled sky, seems to invite the eye into a leisurely exploration, resting on whichever points happen to be most compelling at a given moment, or alternatively, following a particular path by tracing the outline of one of its constellations.
To navigate the unified diagram, click here:
