GUIDE FOR STUDY OF JUNG’S Magnum Opus, Mysterium Coniunctionis

First some introductory comments.  According to Jung, The psyche is made up of opposites. Consciousness and the unconscious are a pair of opposites.  For ego consciousness to exist at all, it must differentiate itself from many things.  A newborn just happens to itself; it is a piece of nature.  At birth, it sees the light, and that light is an early dawning of consciousness, an aurora consurgens.   It is critically important, and fortunately also a natural process, that the budding consciousness learn to distinguish and identity with its own isness to avoid being swallowed by the surrounding darkness.

 For a mature, developed person, there may come a time when the ego house, the "home state" it has known (more or less constructed for it by family, religion, institutes of learning, our collective paternal society, and, of course, by self-effort) becomes too small.  Freud’s work was all about this structure—the id, ego, and superego—of the individual.  Many therapeutic approaches are dedicated to updating and reconfiguring the ego’s house, certainly a worthy endeavor and quite sufficient for many.

 

Jung’s lifelong efforts were devoted to understanding not only the ego-structure but also the foundation from which it arises and from which it takes its form.  When his own wonderful “house,” had grown too small, he was forced to face the unconscious.  He gives a vivid description of his “Confrontation with the unconscious” in MDR.  He describes some of his dreams and visions from the period of 1913 – 17, which he undertook as a scientific experiment but came to believe was equally an experiment being conducted on him.  [P. 178]

 

In dealing with “something emotionally vulgar or banal” from one of his experiences, he would say to himself, “It is perfectly true that I have thought and felt this way at some time or other, but I don’t have to think and feel that way now.  I need not accept this banality of mine in perpetuity; that is an unnecessary humiliation.” [p. 186-187]  In this way he was able to strip unconscious urges and energies of their power and take up a conscious position toward them.

 

It was out of this three-four year outpouring of unconscious material that Jung was able to distill, make conscious, and share his revelations and discoveries.  Jung was truly an alchemist.  His laboratories were himself, his own experiences, and his work with others.

 

Now, turning to Jung’s magnum opus, his Mysterium Coniunctionis, what attitude can we adopt?  Mysterium is vexing, difficult, frustrating, even maddening.  I had a professor once say it was the product of Jung’s failing years and should be completely disregarded.  Certainly, a temptation, since our habitual way of learning is to absorb new material, work with it until we make it our own, then move on – a new class, subject, degree, job, profession, dare I say relationship?  With Mysterium there is no moving on.  We have met a new limit.  We are meeting ourselves.  We cannot understand this work because here Jung is writing from, out of, the collective unconscious.  He has entered the minds of the alchemists who adopted not knowing, their experimenting almost as a way of life, quite content to bring forth a gold nugget from time to time, or not.  The work alone seemed to many of them enough.

 

I suggest one take a patient, waiting attitude, knowing we won’t understand much of this work.  But we may come away with some nuggets.  We must bring to our study all the requirements of the alchemist in the laboratory:  patience; courage; continuous regimen; avoidance of haste, despair, or deception; recognition of the sacred nature of our work; and an ability to deal with the prima materia, our own life, feelings, thoughts, fantasies, dreams, and experiences.

 

Jung wrote that during his "confrontation with the unconscious" he believed he was conducting an experiment.  Much later he realized that more likely he was a subject of the experiment.  Who knows?  Perhaps each of us is the subject of an experiment.

I’ll end with this quote from Teilhard de Chardin (slightly paraphrased):

"If a person is to come up to his full measure, she must become conscious of her infinite capacity for carrying herself still further; she must realize the duties it involves, and she must feel its intoxicating wonder."

 

Rose F. Holt

September 22, 2025

HELPFUL WAYS TO LOOK AT THE ROLE OF THE "I" IN A DREAM

Paraphrasing C.G. Jung:  If you examine your dreams long enough, you will develop an opinion about the unconscious.  More importantly, the unconscious will develop an opinion about you.

There are few guides for understanding and working with dreams.  Three that I generally subscribe to are:  1.  Every dream is an attempt to heal or help the individual in some way.  2.  Everything in the dream--setting, people, unfolding drama--is just as it must be with the possible exception of the "I" (the dreamer him/herself).  3.  The dream is an attempt to restore some balance between consciousness and unconscious contents so that considering the compensatory nature of any dream can be helpful.

An important dream I heard some 30+ years ago might illustrate some of the above.  

I was sitting in a waiting room when Bill came in, loud and boisterous, upsetting everyone in the room.  My question:  “So, what happens when you get into a “waiting room?”  The dreamer remembered that on the day before the dream she had her car serviced at a dealership.  The dealership computer system went down so there was a long delay. She became very angry and complained loudly.  

"And what about Bill?"  The question introduced a bit of humor into a delicate situation, both of us silently remembering the film, "What about Bob."  "Bill is a man I work with.  He makes mountains out of molehills."   

Bingo!  The “waiting room” in her psyche was very real and very troubling.  When she got into such a place in her real life, her unconscious "Bill," a very real factor in her psychic economy, was her trigger for anger as he grossly exaggerated small issues.  The dreamer had suffered from an unconscious complex that had caused her much trouble in her life.  Information delivered by the dream helped free her from that complex.

 

It was obvious to the me (and probably to others in the dreamer's life) that the dream was attempting to resolve one of the dreamers’ adaptation problems, but I knew a direct approach would raise up great resistances and would serve no purpose.  A profound reasons for working with dreams is that we will accept a lesson from a dream that not even a saint could deliver with mere words.