Edward F. Edinger on Mysterium Coniunctionis
‘Do not be disturbed because you sometimes find contradictions in my treatises, after the custom of the philosophers; these are necessary if you understand that no rose is found without thorns.’
This good advice to any reader of Mysterium Coniunctionis was given by an alchemist who compared his method of exposition to the paradoxical nature of Mercurius, whose end was also his beginning.
Jung’s book exemplifies the ’roundness’ of alchemical thought in its ‘mystic peregrination’. In a circular journey through more than 550 pages, Jung puts into practice his method of circumambulation and amplification, by means of which the meaning of a symbol is intimated by viewing its overlapping, interpenetrating, and contradictory motifs from multiple standpoints.
As images pile upon images, and analogies are compounded with ideas, the central theme (of separation and analysis which lead to synthesis and unity) emerges and re-emerges in ever-varying forms . Roses bloom in unexpected places, but the path is often a thorny one for an English empiricist who has been encouraged by the section headings to expect progress from a beginning to an end , only to find that as he goes forward he meets himself coming back ….
.. . Jung often complains of being misunderstood, but his love of paradox and his reluctance to maintain a systematic thesis create major problems for the conscientious expositor or reviewer, who cannot always be sure when he is dancing, or boxing, with his own projected shadow. In order to elucidate Jung’s thought, ideas have often to be pieced together from a paragraph here and a paragraph there.
The pieces are often widely separated and, not infrequently, are concealed in long stretches of tedious repetition which must be endured if vital passages are not to be overlooked.
Nevertheless, the search is worth while, and I find that in this book many of Jung’s leading ideas emerge with remarkable clarity. …
. .. He repudiates the suggestion that he is uncritically applying psychological assumptions to a different context in history, for there are universal human facts which have always been felt, and thought about, in very much the same way.
The same transformations that occurred in alchemy occur in psychotherapy today, with the important difference that they are now experienced symbolically and not projected into, and identified with, matter.
Jung goes very much further than merely interpreting alchemical procedures, for he claims that, in the elucidation of the individuation process, a study of alchemy is of more value than a recording of clinical observations.
As the psychologically unsophisticated alchemists thought that they were exploring matter, they had few inhibitions and defensive mechanisms were not much in evidence.
Furthermore, as alchemy was built up over centuries, its symbolism came to have a richness and scope which are never attained by the individual with his limited amount of experience and limited powers of portrayal ….
It is difficult to escape the conclusions that, in Jung’s view, it is essential that a trained analyst should be experienced in the practice of active imagination, which is the method of achieving individuation and the distinctive contribution of analytical psychology.
There is an urgent need for careful study of active imagination, particularly of the circumstances and personality types in which it is appropriate or even possible.
One of my speculations is that the ability to use visual imagery is important and that research in perception might be relevant. I suspect from his use of certain types of imagery and from his ‘pictorial’ literary style that Jung himself was a great visualizer.
The use of the method in the service of defensive idealization and denial needs serious consideration, but the fact that there are dangers in the procedure (some of which Jung himself points out) is not, in itself, a reason for rejecting it.
A well-developed ego is essential for individuation, and Jung takes issue with those critics who have accused him of underestimating the ego and giving undue prominence to the unconscious.
He asserts that the ego is supremely important, and he shows how it is often represented by images of the sun and God which, in other contexts, he had related to the self.
This apparent contradiction arises because the ego is a part of the self and, in discussions that emphasize the importance of consciousness, it can be used as a pars pro toto. Jung stresses that, in most of his writings, he is concerned with cases in which there is a hybris of the ego – a usurpation by a part of the functions of the whole.
This discussion of the ego is welcome, but it is at times obscure and is far from sufficient to provide a basis for an ego-psychology; many readers will consider that not a little of Jung’s treatment of symbolism is vitiated by an inadequate concept of ego defence mechanisms.
It will be evident that his analysis of magical identity, of withdrawal of early projections, and of the differentiation and integration of opposing tendencies and images, is important with regard to ego development and is not incompatible with either psychoanalysis or the experimental studies of perception and learning ….
. . . Some, like myself, insist upon the importance of rigorous experiment in the laboratory or in carefully controlled clinical situations, but that is not to reject the contentions of Dorn and Jung that some of the most important experiments must be made on ourselves.
To read Mysterium Coniunctionis with attentive participation and to note carefully its emotional and intellectual effects can be the beginning of a worthwhile experiment. ~Robert E Hobson (From)AP, IO, 2, July 1965)
… Jung’s breadth of view, which is one of the glories of this work, will undoubtedly be a stumbling block for many. What for him is only ‘sufficient room’, for others of lesser scope will be a disorienting vastness of depth in which they are lost.
Also, the strictly empirical-descriptive method to which Jung holds will be a problem to those who need the security of containment in well-ordered theoretical constructions no matter how narrowly based or premature they may be.
From such critics will come the familiar epithets of dismissal ….
Nevertheless, what Jung has to convey is so truly original and so far-ranging in its implications that I suspect that this book will be a real challenge even to those most psychologically sophisticated.
What he here presents in rich and documented detail can perhaps best be described as an anatomy of the objective psyche. As with all anatomy books, it is not easy reading ….
Jung’s so-called allusive style is very evident in this book. Image is piled upon image; parallels and analogies branch out and intertwine in all directions until the reader feels caught in a labyrinthine network.
Repeatedly, while reading, I found that I had lost my way and was obliged to retrace my footsteps until I could pick up the path some pages back.
This is no fault of Jung. The nature of the subject requires the approach he uses. The analogical method is the only way into the unconscious.
The allusive style is the natural style of the unconscious itself, and the one we must use if we are to fathom the meaning of dreams and other unconscious products.
The only alternative is to apply a preconceived theory. But, besides violating scientific empiricism, this method is sterile because it allows one to extract no more meaning from an image than that which he has already put into it.
There is no enlargement of consciousness.J ung’s style is deliberate, an integral part of his method ….
He starts by stressing the inevitability of subjectivity in every attempt to be objective. He then goes on to contrast Gnosis and Christianity, which he compares with thinking and feeling.
He elaborates with a description of Tertullian and the sacri.ficium intellectus that he made to become a Christian. Origen, an Alexandrian, went the opposite way with his sacri.ficium phalli, which led him from the feeling position to the thinking position.
Here Jung interjects that psychology is now the mediator that can unite the idea and the thing without doing violence to either. Abelard presaged this with his nominalism versus realism.
Extraversion and introversion Jung sees united by phantasy. …
. . . One should perhaps mention here that Jung said his development of his type concepts were the result of his continuing effort to understand what went wrong between him and Freud. I should also like to interject here my version of ‘like father like son’.
Research has shown that in two Jungian groups (vide paper by Doctor Katherine Bradway in this Journal, Vol. 9, 1964, pp. 129-35), approximately 90 per cent of the members are intuitive and 86 per cent introverted. Though I lack documentation,
my long-term, extensive contacts with Freudian groups convinces me that they would rate equally high in sensation and extraversion ….
Jung repeatedly emphasizes creative phantasy (later to be called active imagination), as the reconciler of opposites. He goes on to say that consciousness cannot reconcile the opposites as it has no symbolic content.
This is why it falls to the unconscious, the source of the creative phantasy, to reconcile the conflict. This mediation process Jung calls the transcendent function ….
In discussing the conflict between the Apollinian and Dionysian philosophies, he refers to a fact that has often struck me, namely, that from the central personal problem of psychologists there usually emerges their magnum opus.
The men in my mind are Jung, Freud, Adler, Sullivan and Erikson ….
I should like to conclude this windy, and perhaps not cr itical enough piece, with a reference to my closing remarks at the Fifth International Congress last September.
As Freud focused on the first half of life, so did Jung on the second half. So it was fortuitous that Dr Fordham was a child analyst.
There were no others to be found in Jungian circles, since Mrs. Wickes had transferred her interest to grown-ups. Lacking any stimulation or resource in Jungian circles for the beginnings of life, he naturally turned to the lively and informed people in the Freudian groups – notably those with a Kleinian disposition . ~Edward F. Edinger, (From ]AP, IO, 2, July 1965)
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