Jung and the Alchemical Imagination (Jung on the Hudson Book Series)

In the above quote, Jung explained how the self could orchestrate the psyche, including the collective unconscious, around the powerful center I call the manifest self. As a result of the work of individuation, the self gains the position of the dominant spiritual force within the psyche. When images manifest, they manifest as the self, and though

From this point of view, disease was a spiritual entity, that is, it was imaginal, and in its manifestation in the imagination it corrupted and distorted the imagination of the archeus. It was as if there were an unconscious active imagination going on between the image of the disease and the archeus, and through this dialogue the former overcame t

The transcendent function is the psychological mechanism that unites the opposites and helps bring the self to manifestation.

As the self brings the archetypes into harmony, it effects the patterned order of the mandala structure with each archetype in a complementary relationship to the whole. In this process, the archetypes lose their universal and collective qualities, and actually contribute to the uniqueness that is the self.

Figure 1 (page 14) is one example of the way the alchemists imagined the confusion at the beginning of the work. Everything is in disorder, with no obvious connection between the disparate elements, which seem hardly formed or differentiated. Figure 2 (page 16) illustrates the order created when the alchemist has accomplished the great work. The di

There are only a few rules that apply to this stage of the work. Inner figures should, whenever possible, not be real people, living or dead. The personified form should emerge from the unconscious, and should be unique to the person doing the active imagination. Doing actives with the images of real people is unfair to those individuals, for they

One can experience inner figures in many ways. Active imagination connects individuals with inner figures which, while very powerful, are clearly imaginal and derived from the psyche. These figures feel as if they were coming from within oneself. Typically one experiences them with eyes closed, and attention directed inward. These are the psychic f

The second way the union is experienced is simultaneously. The ego is able to work when appropriate, and rest when appropriate, but the way in which it does both changes dramatically.

In short, we are unafraid to express all sides of our personality and repress none. Our willingness to be all that we are, and to embrace all of our parts, allows us to experience ourselves as whole beings. We might think of the union of opposites proceeding in this manner as sequential; first one part of the personality expresses itself, then anot