The Round Table
For
what is meant by being called the Round Table is the roundness of the world and
the condition of the planets and of the elements in the firmament; and the
conditions of the firmament are seen in the stars and in countless other things;
so that one could say that in the Round Table the whole universe is symbolized.
TGL 163
In
the Philosophia reformata,
an alchemical work by J.D. Mylius (1622), four goddesses are shown sitting at a
round table. As Jung explains, they represent the four
seasons and the four elements, which in a literal sense appear to be “combined”
around the table. The table, therefore, is more associated
than is the vessel with the human endeavour towards
a
syntheis of the
totality, which then expresses
itself in the vessel, the Grail. TGL 166
As
Jung says, the opposing elements must come together in a common effort to help
the one achieve
totality. TGL 168
(A
table’s) quaternary
structure resembles the foundation of the
god-image. It is as if
the Self required the consciousness of the
individual, consisting of
the four functions, as the basis for its realization, since the quaternity,
in contradistinction to the circle, symbolizes
reflected wholeness. Compared
with the vessel, the
table is for that very reason more connected with the human effort to achieve
consciousness.
By its means all the dissociated aspects of the
personality will be made conscious and
brought into unity. A
symbol of the incarnate deity, the “Son of
God” or,
in the Grail story, the wondrous vessel which constitutes a
feminine analogy to the Son of Man, then
appears on the table for the first time. The awarding of
equal value to both aspects well reflects the psychological perception
that “God cannot be experienced at all unless this futile and ridiculous
ego offers a modest vessel
in which to catch the effluence of the Most High.” TGL
169
The
fact that the plate is of silver permits association with the alchemical
lapis
when in the state of the albedo,
because the stone is then white or silver like the moon. The
plate, moreover, is a “round” object – a symbol of
the Self, like the
lapis.
However, while the table represents a more collective aspect of the
process of bringing the Self into
consciousness – it brings many persons
together for a
communal meal – the plate is an illustration of a
more individual application of that same
transcendent function, since
it is from a plate that the single person eats his share of wholeness.
TGL 170
In
the preparation for the Communion, which is meant to symbolize the slaying of
the Lamb, a square piece of bread is cut out of the consecrated loaf and marked
with the form of a cross. The four loosely connected pieces
produced in this way symbolize the Lamb of God that is to be slain.
In the various versions, these knives appear to have the unchanging function of carrying on or completing the work of the lance. TGL 171
In
itself, the knife, like the sword, represents a psychic
function, i.e.,
discriminating
thought and judgment.
The doubling of the knife in Wolfram indicates, however, that this
function – thinking – is
as yet only nascent and even partly identical with the enlightening impulse (the
lance) on its way up from the unconscious,
or else that it is only now separating out from it. TGL 171
(Because)
the Grail stories were written by poets, this new form of understanding was
considered from the purely symbolic angle and was apprehended visually as it
emerged from the unconscious.
The alchemists, on the other hand did exert themselves to extract from
matter, i.e. from the unconscious itself, a sensus
naturae, or “light of nature,” and a way of
thinking, the symbolic or essentially psychological thinking that is contained
within it. For this reason, many of their texts recommend
working on the head or skull or brain of a human being so as to extract the
“thinking” from it. The thinking thus taken from the
unconscious is clearly symbolized here by the two knives and is intended to
protect the lance or imago Christi
from the desiccated residue – that is, behind the
Imago Christi stands
the Self, and what
the Self attains is cultivated by a
thinking achieved through self-knowledge
and is thereby protected from the sterilizing effect of the intellect.
TLG 172
Cont’d … (this section summarizes chapter 9, but is very valuable)