“Transference, however, alters the psychological stature of the doctor, though this is at first imperceptible to him. He too becomes affected, and has as much difficulty in distinguishing between patient and what has taken possession of him as has the patient himself. This leads both of them to a direct confrontation with the daemonic forces lurking in the darkness. The resultant paradoxical blend of trust and fear, of hope and doubt, of attraction and repulsion is characteristic of the initial relationship. It is the hate and love of the element, which the alchemist linked to the primeval chaos. The activated unconscious appears as the flurry of the unleashed opposites and calls forth the attempt to reconcile them, so that, in the words of the alchemist, the great panacea, the medicina catholica, may be born.” — CW 16, para. 375
This state of activated unconscious at the beginning of the therapy is often followed by a dream. When I met a person that is to become my client, she shared a dream of the war between the east and west, with the undertone of paranoia. Later when he became my client this state of war was symbolic expression of his state traumatized his family experiences during last 70 years of suffering because of communism, a regime that came afterwards and traumas he experienced as a child because of psychological problems of his parents (caused by a family member disappearing one day, never finding out his fate).
“…psychological parallel to the nigredo is the result of the foregoing preliminary talk which, at a certain moment, sometimes long delayed, “touches” the unconscious and establishes the unconscious identity of doctor and patient. This moment may be perceived and registered consciously, but generally it happens outside consciousness and the bond thus established is recognized only later and indirectly by its result. Occasionally dreams occur about this time announcing the appearance of the transference.” — CW 16, para. 382
And as a fact, when the treatment started, it was colored by constant lookout for dangers. At first by my client, followed by an attempts to protect himself by accusing me of having hidden motives. But later, I was also traumatized by these attacks which led to a fear of saying the wrong thing and restricting my expression as not to touch a complex that will ignite a negative response. In time I recognized this as an aspect of transference, but also as my countertransference projection. I need to say that it took me almost a year to get to a point where the therapy is not endangered by the possibility of breaking because of strong emotions constellated in my client and myself.
“Once the unconscious content is constellated, it tends to break down the relationship of conscious trust between doctor and patient by creating, through projection, an atmosphere of illusion which either leads to continual misinterpretations and misunderstandings, or else produces a most disconcerting impression of harmony… One finds himself in an impenetrable chaos, which is indeed one of the synonyms for the mysterious prima material. The latter corresponds to the nature of the unconscious content in every respect, with one exception: this time it does not appear in the alchemical substance but in man himself.” — CW 16, para. 383
“The elusive, deceptive, ever changing content that possesses the patient like a demon now flits about from patient to doctor, as the third party in the alliance, continues its game… The alchemist aptly personified it as the god of revelation, Hermes or Mercurius; and though they lament the way he hoodwinks them, they still give him the highest names, which brings us very near to deity.” — CW 16, para. 384
You see, here we get a psychological description of what this mysterious Mercurius is. In the example of my client it is the pervasive paranoia of fear that made his live very hard, because he searched for the hidden reasons behind people’s reactions toward him in the hope of finding the tendency to hurt him. And if one searches long enough, one always finds that what he was searching for. As a consequence, his relationships were very unstable or nonexistent. And this Mercurius we needed to recognize and help him transform.
“The difficulty of our psychotherapeutic work teaches us to take truth, goodness, and beauty where we find them: often they are hidden in the dirt or are in the keeping of the dragon. “In sterocore invenitur” runs the alchemical dictum…” — CW 16, para. 384
The biggest problem of my client was not just the paranoia that prohibited him to have meaningful relationships, but also passivity when it came to his own needs in relationship to the needs of the parents. Paranoia was also a necessity, but not in relationship to the world but to family influences. As he became more free to fight for himself, this “paranoia” enabled him become conscious of the need to fight for himself, consciously and actively and not just by being afraid of a revenge of the surroundings.
“The refining of the prima material, the unconscious content demands endless patience, perseverance, equanimity, knowledge and ability on the part of the doctor; and on the part of the patient, the putting forth of his best powers and capacity for suffering… If the work succeeds, it often works like a miracle, and one can understand what it was that prompted the alchemists to insert heartfelt Deo concedente in their recipes, or to allow that only if God wrought a miracle could their procedure brought to a successful conclusion.” — CW 16, para. 385
Whatever our goal is, being in our own development, being in therapy, or our life, it is a conscious goal and as such it is one sided. Being conscious of this fact can enable us to be influenced by something else. Often such influences are extremely important: we say the right word in the right moment, not being conscious of it and finding about it accidentally at the end of therapy. Sometimes we do not even remember saying such a thing, or even not agreeing with it. Or some unexpected turn of events not caused by our or clients will change his life in such a way so that healing is possible. Of course, we have to give our best, but without such “divine influences”, our efforts cannot help much.
“Deo concedente… expresses the firm attitude of the man who does not imagine that he knows better on every occasion and who is fully aware that unconscious material before him is something alive, a paradoxical Mercurius of whom the old masters says: And he is that on whom nature hath worked but a little, and whom she hath wrought into metallic for yet left unfinished – a natural being, therefore, that longs for integration within the wholeness of a man.” — CW 16, para. 386
And this seems to me is the goal of life. Everything else we find dear; relationships, our leisure time, our work and success in working with clients, seems work only as a consequence of our being able to integrate, at least to some extent, what Mercurius represents, the unconscious as it manifests in us, which is consequently influenced by persons we come into contact with, not limited by our patients.
“But there is not the slightest doubt that massa confusa of archaic and undifferentiated contents exist, which not only manifests itself in neuroses and psychoses but also forms “skeleton in the cupboard” of innumerable people who are really not pathological.” — CW 16, para. 387
The unconscious manifests as complexes that more or less obstruct our conscious will or as symptoms and many customs, beliefs and religions take this tendency of human beings as a reality and personify it in some way or another. In Christianity we have the Devil who influences us in negative way. However, the unconscious has also positive aspects: as creativity, inspirations that are totally opposite from the unconscious content represented by Devil.
“The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the source of the highest good: not only dark but also light, not only bestial, semi-human and demonic but superhuman, spiritual and… divine. The Mercurius who personifies the unconscious is essentially “duplex”, paradoxically dualistic by nature, fiend, monster, beast and at the same time panacea, “the philosopher’s son”, sapientia Dei, and donum Spiritus Sancti.” — CW 16, para. 389
Do you have an idea what determines does the unconscious manifest in positive or negative terms? It seems to me that it reacts to our standpoint of consciousness. But one should take note about the meaning of Mercurius, because our series of pictures start with picture titled “Mercurial fountain”.
And, as we mentioned already, the religions seem to do a wonderful work of dealing with the unconscious.
“The Church would be an ideal solution for anyone seeking a suitable receptacle for the chaos of the unconscious, were it not that everything man-made, however refined, has its imperfections.” — CW 16, para. 392
One of imperfections seems to be the incompatibility of Church teachings with our rational mind. Resurrection seems to be one of it. This conflicts make impossible the return to Church to some people and it seems that then they are left without the proper mean of “salvation”. This is the result of tremendous development of consciousness and expansion of knowledge.
“…when there is a marked change in the individual’s state of consciousness, the unconscious content which are thereby constellated will also change. And the further the conscious situation moves away from certain point of equilibrium the more forceful and accordingly the more dangerous become the unconscious content that are struggling to restore the balance.” — CW 16, para. 394
Here Jung explains the familiar process of compensation and in personal lives this compensating manifests in all kind of symptoms. However, if a great number of people share the one-sided attitude of consciousness it often leads to great social unrest or even wars. This is a new development and one of the reasons Church is becoming less and less appropriate as the mean of contact with the unconscious is that they have not adapted to this change.
Other parts of the seminar can be found here: