C. G. Jung and the Alchemical Imagination: Passages into the Mysteries of Psyche and Soul

301 Pages·2020·6.424 MB·English

by  Stanton Marlan

C.G. Jung and the Alchemical
Imagination
Stanton Marlan brings together writings which span the course of his career,
examining Jungian psychology and the alchemical imagination as an open-
ing to the mysteries of psyche and soul.
Several chapters describe a telos that aims at the mysterious goal of the
Philosophers’ Stone, a move replete with classical and postmodern ideas
catalysed by prompts from the unconscious: dreams, images, fantasies, and
paradoxical conundrums. Psyche and matter are seen with regard to soul,
light, and darkness in terms of illumination, and order and chaos as linked
in the image of chaosmos. Marlan explores the richness of the alchemical
ideas of Carl Jung, James Hillman, and others and their value for a revi-
sioning of psychology. In doing so, this volume challenges any tendency
to literalism and essentialism, and contributes to an integration between
Jung’s classical vision of a psychology of alchemy and Hillman’s Alchemical
Psychology.
C.G. Jung and the Alchemical Imagination will be a valuable resource
for academics, scholars, and students of Jungian and post-Jungian stud-
ies, Jungian analysis, and psychotherapy. It will also be of great interest to
Jungian psychologists and Jungian analysts in practice and in training.
Stanton Marlan, PhD, ABPP, FABP is a Jungian analyst, President of the
Pittsburgh Society of Jungian Analysts, and an Adjunct Professor in Clini-
cal Psychology at Duquesne University, with long-time interests in alchemy
and the psychology of dreams, and the author of The Black Sun: Alchemy
and the Art of Darkness.
“Stanton Marlan’s essays movingly mirror the steadily burning passion of
the alchemists for their opus. With these critical ventures into alchemical
psychology Marlan has forged an opus of his own that is more than an amal-
gam of other thinkers’ insights. It is a singular work of creative scholarship
and imagination and is thus another link in the golden chain of engagement
with the mysteries of the human psyche.”
Murray Stein, Ph.D., author of Jung’s Map of the Soul
“To use an alchemical metaphor, in this collection of his writings, we find
Stan Marlan having “taken another round in the container.” That is, he
works his material again and again, with it each time becoming more re-
fined, sophisticated, and qualitatively transformed. The result is a series of
deep insights and psychological wisdom, richly evolved and well worth the
reader’s time. I highly recommend this intellectually clarifying and emo-
tionally satisfying book!”
Pat Berry, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst
“Over the years my own understanding of Jung has been deepened by Stan
Marlan’s own original and insightful essays on the pivotal place of alchemy
in Jung’s psychology. What a joy now to have the fifteen essays gathered
in this volume. For the reader the book itself becomes an alchemical ves-
sel whose fire attests to the radical depths and reveals the expansive reach
of Jung’s Alchemical Psychology beyond the narrow confines of what his
psychology has become. Marlan’s scholarship and elegant writing display
Jung’s alchemical imagination as a necessary and much needed recovery
of the erotic coupling between psyche and nature, that dark desire of spirit
to matter and for matter to be inspired. Read Marlan’s book and learn to
trust and to love the brilliance of the soul’s dark light that illuminated the
alchemists of old and beckons us to be with them today.”
Robert D. Romanyshyn, Ph.D., author of Victor
Frankenstein, the Monster and the Shadows of
Technology: The Frankenstein Prophecies
C.G. Jung and the Alchemical
Imagination
Passages into the Mysteries
of Psyche and Soul
Stanton Marlan
The author’s personal library. (Photo courtesy of the Marlan archives, with
thanks to Dawn, Tori, and Brandon.)
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Stanton Marlan
The right of Stanton Marlan to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-40527-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-40528-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-35651-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of figures vii
Foreword viii
Preface x
Acknowledgments xiv
Introduction 1
1 Jung’s discovery of alchemy and its development in the
Jungian tradition 8
2 Jung and alchemy: a daimonic reading 40
3 Fire in the stone: an inquiry into the alchemy
of soul-making 58
4 Salt and the alchemical soul: Freudian, Jungian,
and archetypal perspectives 81
5 The metaphor of light and renewal in Taoist alchemy
and Jungian analysis 103
6 The metaphor of light and its deconstruction in Jung’s
alchemical vision 121
7 Facing the shadow: turning toward the darkness of the
nigredo 137
vi Contents
8 The black sun 146
Part A. Archetypal image of the non-self 146
Part B. Epilogue to The Black Sun: The Alchemy
and Art of Darkness 156
9 From the black sun to the Philosophers’ Stone 160
10 A critique of Wolfgang Giegerich’s move from
imagination to the logical life of the soul 183
Part A. The psychologist who is not a psychologist: a
deconstructive reading of Wolfgang Giegerich’s idea of
psychology proper 183
Part B. The absolute that is not absolute: an alchemical
reflection on the Caput Mortuum, the dark other of
logical light 197
11 What’s the matter—with alchemical recipes?
Philosophy and filth in the forging of Jung’s alchemical
psychology 213
12 The Philosophers’ Stone as chaosmos: the Self and the
dilemma of diversity 233
13 The Azure Vault: alchemy and the cosmological
imagination 246
14 Divine Darkness and Divine Light: alchemical
illumination and the mystical play between knowing
and unknowing 253
Index 271
Figures
Frontispiece. The author’s personal library iii
Acknowledgements. The author in Jung’s home library in Kusnacht xv
2.1 The unification of air and earth, from Eleazar’s Uraltes
Chymisches Werck, 1735 53
3.1 The return of the soul. Revivification, from the Rosarium
philosophorum 73
8.1 The black sun, sol niger, nigredo, putrefactio. From Mylius,
Philosophia reformata, 1622 151
11.1 Pele, Goddess of Fire 224
11.2 The philosophical egg. From Codex Palatinus Latinus, 15th c 225
11.3 Illuminated tree 227
13.1 “Gates to the Garden.” Acrylic on canvas 250
14.1 Alchemical homunculus by Franz Xaver Simm, 1899 255
14.2 Rati-asana (detail). Stone, Khajuraho, Vishvanatha
temple, 1059–1087 256
14.3 Illuminatio. From Artis Auriferae, 1572 259
14.4 Nicolas de Locques: Les Rudiments de la Philosophie
Naturelle. Paris, 1665, frontispiece (N. Bonnart) 263
14.5 Black jaguar 266
Foreword
In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung makes reference to a treasure that “is said
to take nine years, nine months, and nine nights to come to the surface and,
if not found in the last night, sinks down to start all again from the begin-
ning.”1 Reading this always made me think of those invaluable things that
remain buried, hidden, and forgotten until they are found.
The idea of this anthology came when I read one of Stanton Marlan’s
papers and was impressed by his clinical insights and the sophistication of
his theoretical elaboration. I translated the paper into Portuguese, giving
access to the Brazilian public. But still there were other papers that would
be so interesting to the Jungian community; conversations began and the
idea of this book emerged. And now these precious writings that could have
been buried in the past, harder and harder to find, are brought to life again.
Anyone who knows Stan, has visited his library or read about it,2 under-
stands how alchemy is ingrained in his life and fundamental to his way of
thinking and seeing the world. Some say that you know a man from his li-
brary and it comprises more than books. Stan’s library is replete with myste-
rious objects that inspire inquiry, snakes and skulls and stones that open to
a symbolic and numinous presence. They reveal one of the characteristics of
the alchemists, a passionate curiosity into the unknown (see Frontispiece).
There’s no alchemical work without such passion and love for the sensuous
embodiment of life and the surprising transformations that unfold before
our eyes. Such is Stan’s gaze, his curiosity leads the way into the depths, and
he shares with us the mysteries revealed by them.
Stanton Marlan is an analyst whose eyes are at ease in the dark. Not un-
like a true alchemist, he can navigate the depths of the unknown and bring
us back treasures. This book should be celebrated. As many alchemical say-
ings advised: rejoyce!
Leticia Capriotti
Jungian Analyst
AJB/IAAP
Foreword ix
Notes
1 Jung, C.G. Psychology and Alchemy. CW 12, par 111.
2 See the chapter “Transference, Friendship, and Other Mysteries: A Reverie” in
the book Archetypal Psychologies: Reflections in Honor of James Hillman, edited
by Stanton Marlan, New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal Books, 2008, 2–11.