« 104: Alchemy, Alchemy, Hey! | Main | 106: The Slow Tread » October 23, 2004

105: Understanding the Unknowable

"The spiritual constitution of man in the premodern cycles of culture was such that each physical perception had simultaneously a psychic component which 'animated' it, adding a 'significance' to the bare image, and at the same time a special and potent emotional tone. Thus ancient physics was both a theology and a transcendental psychology, by reasons of the illuminating flashes from metaphysical essences which penetrated through the matter of the bodily senses. Natural science was at once a spiritual science, and the many meanings of the symbols united the various aspects of a single knowledge." Evoila, La tradizione ermetica, pp. 28f.

By our generation, Jung's concept of the collective unconscious is old news. It has evolved into Alan Moore's "ideaspace" or even the Internet-ready term "memespace." There exists, the thought goes, an ephemereal realm in which capital-I Ideas exist, where Archetypes and Pure Concepts play Croquet (though only as a thought experiment) and drink Tea (or rather Tea engages in a discussion of the Idea of a State of Imbibement where one Object ingests Another and Tea, certainly, isn't about to simply become the Object of Action versus the Actor without some participation of its own into the course of its de-Evolution into an nearly empty afternoon ceremony in meatspace).

"The real mystery does not behave mysteriously or secretively; it speaks a secret language, it adumbrates itself by a variety of images which all indicate its true nature. I am not speaking of a secret personally guarded by someone, with a content known to its possessor, but of a mystery, a matter or circumstance which is "secret," i.e., known only through vague hints but essentially unknown." (Jung, Psychology and Alchemy,p. 244)

Alchemy allows the artifex to project the unconscious into matter; it is a tool that allows the underlying mythic constructions of our psychology to manifest itself in the meat space. It unlocks the doors between you and I by demonstrating the existence of the passages between our brains -- the Paths of the Not Dead -- whereby you and I become You-I. It is the opportunity for the unknown to be Realized. Not Known, but Understood.

There's always been the conundrum of the Existence of God. If He is Infinite, then He is Unknowable because Infinity, by definition, has no boundaries and, as such, cannot be Conceived, cannot be limited by something as facile as human perception. But, if alchemy allows you and your Soul to communicate -- even on an unconscious, psychological level -- then it is possible for us to Understand.

Your waking brain is somewhat suspect, after all, caught up in the sensory details of the world and the perceptions and judgements which it leverages against that input data. By virtue of Witnessing, we isolate ourselves from the infinite system. Alchemy degrades, unifies, and resurrects both the physical aspect of the alchemical experiment and the mental state of the artifex.

Posted by Teppo at October 23, 2004 07:48 AM

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