Page 22 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

As Jung wrote “It is characteristic of alchemy that there are no clear cut
concepts, so that one concept can take the place of another ad infitum, at
the same time each concept functions as though it referred to a single
substance” (CW 13:: 142). Again a blanket statement must be modif ied,
there seems no doubt that some alchemists tended to use such symbols
in a fairly straightforward way - particularly the later ones - but this also
does not mean that all did.

Alchemists, perhaps because of this combination of symbolic
imagination with laboratory work, also tended to anticipate results, and
reported them as occurrences. Even reputed adepts did this. Ashmole
records a “Retraction of [George] Ripley's... Wherein he beseeches all
men wheresoever they shall meete with any of his Experiments written
by Him... (from the yeare 1450 to the yeare 1470.) either to burne them
or afford them no Credit, being written acording to his esteeme, not
proofe; and which (afterwards upon tryal) he found false and vaine: for
so long was he seeking the Stone, but in the truth of practise had not
found it, till towards the end of that yeare” (1652: 455-6).

So it is more than possible that alchemists saw what they expected
was in the texts, and there may have been many different types of
alchemies, and traditions of alchemy. We cannot in advance dismiss
certain self proclaimed alchemists as not really alchemists.

Doing practical alchemy was extremely difficult, flasks would break
or leak, fires would go out and there was no way of controlling or even
measuring temperature. Substances had what we would call impurities
which produced different kinds of reactions (Principe 1987). It was no
wonder that success in the venture, particularly in a process with any
complexity, would seem to be dependent upon the grace of God, or upon
the particular powers or state of the alchemist, and alchemists often
make precisely that kind of point - that success comes from God, from
prayer and from morality. Likewise we can expect that the alchemists
would have to pay extreme attention to the work, to concentrate upon it,
just to regulate the fire and look for the signs of progress if nothing else.
They might also inhale various poisons, and with all these factors we
can expect that some at least were sometimes, or often, in altered states
of consciousness, possibly hallucinating, certainly engaging in symbolic
thought, and this is were we come to Jung.

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