Page 45 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

‘microphysics’ tend to deal in paradoxes or antinomies when they push
into the unknown, then psyche and physis may come from a
hypothetical common stratum which is neither. However it could be
suggested, in a way not incompatible with what Jung wrote elsewhere,
that the antinomies stem not from the materials involved, but from the
fact that they are as yet unknown. In a way, it might also be implied that
if this common stratum exists, then alchemy (as transmutation of metals
with the participation of the adept), may not be impossible after all (CW
14: 536ff).

Hillman

One of the most interesting developments of Jung’s theory, from the
therapeutic point of view, is that of James Hillman, who to some extent
divorces alchemy entirely from its historical background - although I
would still suggest that his thesis about the changing vision of air
(1982a), could be suggestive to historians. Hillman has primarily
developed alchemy as a form of poetry to describe the process of
change, and to engage with it. He writes that “Where Jung does a
psychology of alchemy, I am trying to do an alchemical psychologising”
(1982b: 112).

Jung had briefly suggested that the language of alchemy was
particularly appropriate to therapy, writing: “Intellectual or supposedly
scientific theories are not adequate to the nature of the unconscious
because they make use of a terminology which has not the slightest
affinity with its pregnant symbolism. The waters must be drawn together
and held fast by one water… the kind of approach which makes this
possible must therefore be plastic and symbolical” (CW 16: 270). Later
Jung had emphasised the idea that alchemy produced a language
whereby the unknown energies of the psyche can flow non-neurotically
(CW 9-II: 169).

Hillman develops this idea, suggesting that neurosis is an inevitable
result of a one-sided organisation of consciousness, and that this is
reflected in the language we use (1978: 30). Ordinary conceptual
language tends to become concrete and directed, so that when we use
terms like ego, unconscious or libido we think of them as concrete
realities and as explanations, rather than as tools we use to grasp at
psychic events. Hillman states that he, for instance has never met these
things outside of textbooks (ibid: 36). Psychology’s terms are abstract
and give the impression that the soul is abstract and ungraspable. The

41