Separatio & Coniunctio: Alchemical Themes for the Individuating Consciousness
Author: Christopher Chayban
Individuation, becoming psychologically an undivided whole, is rooted in the creation of consciousness. Consciousness is, having awareness or being aware of something. But the problem is, becoming aware of what? To put it shortly, the opposites. We can look to alchemical symbolism for further understanding and parallels that can be drawn to the alchemical operations of “separatio,” the procedure of taking something apart, and the “coniuctio,” which is the reassembly or synthesis of the divided parts into a new whole.
Some main themes can be outlined in the processes of separatio and coniunctio between Jung and Edinger. For the separatio, there is a theme of withness, creating space, twoness, confrontation, opposition, conflict, detachment and the four functions differentiating.
For the coniunctio, confronting or attracting, failure and guilt, creation of consciousness that is both created by the ego and experienced as fate, the insight into your own actions, becoming a carrier of projections, synthesis of the opposites for example of the conscious and unconscious, synthesis achieved in the image, synthesizing the four functions and becoming conscious of the whole psyche, bridging a dissociation, the chymical marriage of spirit and body, sexuality and finally nirdvandva liberation from opposites.
Edinger informs us on the etymology of the word consciousness. He says “…the experience of consciousness is made up of two factors, “knowing” and “withness,” i.e. knowing in the presence of an “other,” in a setting of twoness. Symbolically, the number two refers to the opposites. We thus reach the conclusion that consciousness is somehow born out of the experience of opposites. “(The Creation of Consciousness pg.17). This is significant because in order to become conscious, the path appears to be to separate from the one (prima materia) and split it into two, which is later put back together as the one in the “chymical marriage” on a more conscious level.
A coworker shocked me one day with his thoughts on consciousness. We had been discussing science and how it can’t explain everything (mainly consciousness), yet. He said “Some things are just too big and beyond our knowledge, and that his atheist friend once asked him, where he was before he was born? He said, I told my friend I was everywhere but in a different form, spread out through the world, we are the world and it wasn’t until my father combined the elements (he said food that came from different parts of the world) within himself in his body to produce me that I became conscious of myself.”
I was blown away by this explanation and a great deal can be taken away from his statement. First of all, the inherent idea that he was a prima materia spread across the world and unconscious, and that only when he was created as this form that consciousness came into play. This reminded of the Hindu concept of Purusha (Spirit) and Prakriti (Matter) who collide together in creation in a coniunctio to create consciousness. Also, in Creation Myths by Von Franz reiterates the idea that the dawning of consciousness is synonymous with the creation of the world and the reverse is true where there is no world with out consciousness.
To conclude, Edinger says the goal of the alchemical process is the coniunctio and uniting the opposites. The creation of consciousness through the achievement of the coniunctio creates an “enduring psychic substance” (The Mystery of the Coniunctio pg.18) which is able to hold the opposites in tension and perhaps liberated from them.
Resources:
Edinger, E. (1983). The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.
Edinger, Edward F.. The Mystery of the Coniunctio: Alchemical Image of Individuation. Inner City Books.
Franz, M. V. (1995). Creation myths. Boston: Shambhala.
Schwartz-Slant, N. (1995). Jung on Alchemy. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
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