Quote: (03-31-2019 03:42 AM)Paracelsus Wrote:
...
A Christian man is unrefined gold, placed in a crucible to melt. God is the goldsmith. Gold has any number of imperfections, bits and pieces within it, and the initial melting allows the easiest, biggest chunks to rise to the surface, where the smith can skim them off and dispose of them. But to find and remove the deeper imperfections, the initial temperature is insufficient; so the smith turns up the heat higher. Deeper imperfections rise and are removed. So the process continues, the temperature going higher and higher, the deepest imperfections rising to the top to be skimmed off and disposed of by the smith.
...
Spoken like the true Alchemist you are Paracelsus.
Jung devotes nearly a hundred pages to Paracelsus in Alchemical Studies: Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 13.
I managed to find a copy on line just a day or two ago as I was doing more preparation to contribute something to this thread. I referred to it a couple of times in my previous posts.
You can grab a legal copy here (for now). I've broken the link:
https://www. jungiananalysts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/C.-G.-Jung-Collected-Works-Volume-13_-Alchemical-Studies.pdf
It's about a hundred bucks to buy new or 50 bucks from an academic repository. For some reason it's just there out in the open. Grab it while you can. It's an excellent book to buy though even if you only have but a small library. It covers so much ground, and you will find yourself coming back to it again and again.
You want to start at -
III. PARACELSUS AS A SPIRITUAL PHENOMENON
Pages 109-190
I've taken a little snippet:
The very 'process' you talk about there from the Crucible is Alchemical in nature. Jung said that after Alchemy was squashed out, outmoded and abandoned, it would take another 200 years for man to discover the psyche. Turning silver in to gold - refinement of not just something in to a more pure form, but another form again sometimes - transmutation.
But why was Alchemy squashed out, outmoded and abandoned? A few reasons - that Jung expounds on several times throughout his work. Not least the coming of Christ.
Christianity spreading through the Pagan world with astonishing rapidity.
Alchemy is spread through several millenia. In several parts of the world. It's not just the golden age of after Christ and pre-rennaisance that most of us associate it with, it was very much 'BC' as well.
https://www.sciencehistory.org/age-of-alchemy
For many of us alchemy conjures up images of mysticism or a fool’s quest for gold. But alchemy’s golden age was much more. In this era of experimental discovery and practical skill, physicians and chymists worked to heal the human body. They studied the secrets of the natural world. These men and women ushered in change, creativity, and scientific inquiry.
Christ fulfilled a need in very real terms. So Alchemy which had been 'grappling in the dark' was made somewhat redundant. Of course, it didn't go away. I don't want to get too caught up on Alchemy, or even Jung. But he seems to be the thread and needle that sews this rich tapestry together, for me anyway.
I liked this image of the Alchemist -
But to find and remove the deeper imperfections, the initial temperature is insufficient; so the smith turns up the heat higher. Deeper imperfections rise and are removed. So the process continues, the temperature going higher and higher, the deepest imperfections rising to the top to be skimmed off and disposed of by the smith.
As for Alchemy ocurring through the ages, one of its main works - The Hermetica by Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-greatest Hermes") appears around what many consider the 'golden age' - a little while after Christ. But Jung points out that he was also supposed to have existed pre-Christ and at another time as well. Is this why he is called "thrice-greatest Hermes"? I don't know. But this is the age and the Hermes that most people think of when his name is mentioned.
But it wasn't just Alchemy that they were diving in to.
They discuss the divine, the cosmos, mind, and nature. Some touch upon alchemy, astrology, and related concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetica
Jung is a scholar of Christianity among other things. He goes too far sometimes and it all devolves in to a nonsense I'm sure that even he couldn't understand, or
only he could understand, rather. There are many valid criticisms of him. But I don't want to get caught up on that here. I'm interested in how Alchemy relates to Christianity, and also other Eastern religions.
Jung and Alchemy are just a map. And the map is not the territory.
As for how all this connects with and to Christianity -
I'm hitting the captchas so now would be a good time to wind this post up.
More good news is that I found a link to another legal pdf you can read on line:
http://www. venerabilisopus.org/en/books-samael-aun-weor-gnostic-sacred-esoteric-spiritual/pdf/200/267_jung-carl-psychology-and-religion-west-and-east.pdf
This is where that last screenshot comes from. A great find. Alchemical studies is Volume 13, this is:
Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 11
Psychology and Religion: West and East
Hearing Bosch talk about mysticism with relation to Christianity is also very enlightening. But I'll save that for later.
I also found a work I had never heard of before: The_Psychology_of_Kundalini_Yoga
I spent some hours this morning preparing a post about my experience on mushrooms with Kundalini. It was the most profound experience of my life, so I want to do it justice. The archetypal mystical experience that all religions allude to when one meets with God, the One God.
I did some Vajrayana type Lightning Vehicle Buddhist meditation while I tried to remember it as accurately as possible. This lasted about 3 hours. I had been in serious pain earlier, but my body calmed and the strangest thing happened, as I remembered the Serpent Power: I could feel the peristalsis of my stool moving down my lower back passage. It was incredibly vivid. Not like that moment when you want to take a shit, just the actual slow movement down and through. Kundalini acts on the base Chakra and rises. Very strange and unique - I'd never experienced that before.
I will also quickly cover Chakras as they are alluded to in many Eastern religions and how they actually correlate with the Endocrine system and axes of the body. There are 7 parts to the human Endocrine system, and generally speaking there are usually 7 Chakras mentioned in Eastern Mysticisim/Religiion. They align pretty much perfectly.
I'll also quickly delve in to things like the God Molecule - DMT and the other psychedelics and how they relate to other neurotransmitters such as Serotonin and Dopamine. After all, it is these hormones and signal generators that send the messages through the Chakras and Glands of the body, creating either a healthy positive feedback loop, or a potentially debilitating negative feedback loop.
I'll also try to cover how major disruption to this system relates to trauma such as in C-PTSD and PTSD - how it manifests and ways to combat it. I hope it is within scope of this thread, but one thing leads to another. It is hard to find and become closer to God when in pain. I would say being able to alleviate that pain and get your body back to equillibrium puts you in a much better state to do your searching/praying/meditating and let's not forget what it's all really about - living!
I'll put the link to the Kundalini Yoga book in my next post.
I'll just end with this. I found the quote I paraphrased from Jung in my very first post in this thread. It's apropos to all this talk of Kundalini and Yoga.
There could be no greater mistake than for aWesterner to take up the direct practice of Chinese yoga, for that wouldmerely strengthen his will and consciousness against the unconscious andbring about the very effect to be avoided. The neurosis would then simplybe intensified. It cannot be emphasized enough that we are not Orientals,and that we have an entirely different point of departure in these matters. Itwould also be a great mistake to suppose that this is the path every neuroticmust travel, or that it is the solution at every stage of the neurotic problem.It is appropriate only in those cases where consciousness has reached anabnormal degree of development and has diverged too far from theunconscious. This is the sine qua non of the process. Nothing would bemore wrong than to open this way to neurotics who are ill on account of anexcessive predominance of the unconscious. For the same reason, this wayof development has scarcely any meaning before the middle of life(normally between the ages of thirty-five and forty), and if entered upon toosoon can be decidedly injurious.
C.-G.-Jung-Collected-Works-Volume-13_-Alchemical-Studies.pdf
Whatever, I wasn't going to post. But seeing Paracelsus talk about melting metals down in relation to refinement of the 'soul' was all too much for me.
Paracelsus, is that
you?
Could it be that you did find the Elixir of life - the Philosopher's stone?