Page 49 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

association, if scholarly ones. The finding of ‘archetypes’ is almost
inevitable if you expand the field of association without limit (or until
you reach a symbol which strikes you as numinous), but the connection
of those ‘archetypes’ to the original symbol, or textual passage, may be
extremely tenuous. It also means that Jung may actually, amidst all the
amplifications, hide his insights, or at worse, attempt to escape the
possibility that his theory of alchemy is extremely reductive.

Further, by not being grounded in investigation of particular
alchemists, or of changing patterns in the history of alchemy, his method
assumes (rather than proves) the existence of an a-historical psychology.
Given that Jung himself argues that psychology changes with the
‘dominant world view’, this is not an assumption that he can make
without much stronger justification than he ever gives. Occasional
reports of similarities with dream images of his clients, who he does not
know for certain never saw alchemical images anywhere, or of historical
gaps between the use of particular symbols, are not good enough.

We might again object to the idea that all of alchemy is archetypal
and universal. If, for example there is, as Jung seems to theorise in his
early writings, a historical connection between gnosticism, paganism
and alchemy, then it is not that surprising that they might use similar
symbols 17. Jung, depending on which theory of the archetypes he is
using (determined or undetermined), needs to show similar structures,
occurring in independent texts, which he only really attempts by
reduction of all unions to the union of binary opposites, the assertion
that vaguely circular figures are mandalas and thus intimate wholeness
of the Self, or by the use of the Quaternity which behaves similarly.

Fours in Jung’s work are specific exemplars of wholeness. One of
his recurrent criticisms of Christianity is that threes (Trinities), are
unstable and tend towards fours. The devil, or the Virgin Mary are the
unspoken fourth (despite God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Virgin and
Devil, making a five). Part of his recurrent ‘proof’ of this is to quote the
aphorism attributed to ‘Maria Prophitissa’ “One becomes two, two
becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as forth” (CW 12: 23),
but quoting one alchemist can hardly count as proof that such instability
was widely recognised or active. Clearly he can easily relate this

17. Later Jung will suggest that the issue is that there is no historical connection
(despite early alchemical writings having such a link), and therefore the same
ideas can arise spontaneously (CW 14: 438).

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