Thanks to his unconscious identity with it, man and cosmos interact.
Nothing would have been easier than to equate the love story of Mars and Venus with that of Gabricus and Beya (who were also personified as dog and bitch), and it is likely that astrological influences also played a part.
Thanks to his unconscious identity with it, man and cosmos interact.
The following passage, of the utmost importance for the psychology of alchemy, should be understood in this sense:
“And as man is composed of the four elements, so also is the stone, and so it is [dug] out of man, and you are its ore, namely by working; and from you it is extracted, namely by division; and in you it remains inseparably, namely through the science.”
Not only do things appear personified as human beings, but the macrocosm personifies itself as a man too.
“The whole of nature converges in man as in a centre, and one participates in the other, and man has not unjustly concluded that the material of the philosophical stone may be found everywhere.”
The “Consilium coniugii” says:
“Four are the natures which compose the philosophical man.”
“The elements of the stone are four, which, when well proportioned to one another, constitute the philosophical man, that is, the perfect human elixir.”
“They say that the stone is a man, because one cannot attain to it^^ save by reason and human knowledge.”
The above statement “you are its ore” has a parallel in the treatise of Komarios:
“In thee [Cleopatra] is hidden the whole terrible and marvellous secret.”
The same is said of the “bodies” (i.e., ‘substances’): “In them the whole secret is concealed.”
~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 125
