Coniunctio
Literally, "conjunction," used in alchemy to refer to chemical combinations; psychologically, it points to the union of opposites and the birth of new possibilities.
The problem of opposites called up by the shadow plays a great - indeed, the decisive - role in alchemy, since it leads in the ultimate phase of the work to the union of opposites in the archetypal form of the hierosgamos or "chymical wedding." Here the supreme opposites, male and female (as in the Chinese Yang and yin), are melted into a unity purified of all opposition and therefore incorruptible. The prerequisite for this, of course, is that the artifex should not identify himself with the figures in the work but should leave them in their objective, impersonal state.
The thing about magic and sorcery is that they are for controlling and influencing external events, but external events are the result of internal events, which you're ignoring by focusing on the external events. Focusing on the internal events will influence the outcome of - external events.
Unfortunately our Western mind, lacking all culture in this respect, has never
yet devised a concept, nor even a name, for the union of opposites through
the middle path, that most fundamental item of inward experience, which
could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of
Tao. It is at once
the most individual fact and the most universal, the most legitimate fulfilment
of the meaning of the individual's life.
Naturally the conjunction (of
opposites) can only be understood as a
paradox, since a union of opposites can
be thought of only as their
annihilation.
Paradox is a characteristic of all
transcendental situations because it alone gives adequate expression to their
indescribable nature.
(As you can see) the spiritual
order that we associate with religious teaching and instinctual activity are in
complete harmony, but again and again in the history of mankind and in the
histories of religion this original oneness, or harmonious functioning of the
meaning and order pattern with the instinctual physical impulse, falls apart; it
is only then, as Jung points out, that there is a split and the religious
teaching begins to be hostile and poisonous to instinctual physical
impulsiveness. AAI 92
We know that ultimately all conflicts are created not only by, let us
say, a wrong conscious attitude, but by the
unconscious itself,
in order to
reunite
the opposites on a higher level. Therefore the situation
in which a religious doctrine or teaching or tradition is poisonous and
destructive to the physical instinctuality of man is to be viewed not only as a
catastrophe or a deviation from the original pattern, but just as much a
provocation of the unconscious psyche to bring forth higher consciousness.
If this goes too far, however, then one gets into a split situation and
experiences such a tension of opposites that one completely loses his inner
balance and even his capacity for survival. In such cases,
when the unconscious
has, so to speak, created the split, it afterwards also produces
symbols that are meant
to reconcile it. The most frequent symbols that occur in such
a moment are those of a great healer or a God-man or savior figure who again
unites the opposites, overcomes the split, and brings a new order of things in
which the physical instinctuality of man, his original roots, so to speak, and
his unconscious come together again in living cooperation, as a new vision or a
new order of things. AAI 93
The philosophical love and the enmity within the material part is just the same as in the parts of man. The union of the two can only be achieved if one first removes the corruption before the coniunctio, which is why one must make peace between the enemies so that they can become friends. In all imperfect bodies [metals as you find them in nature] which have not yet achieved their complete perfection, there is a state of friendship and enmity at the same time. But if, with great understanding and effort, man removes the enmity, then, as we explained, they achieve perfection through becoming one in man. Therefore, separate the impure parts in each body by fire and purify them (the pure parts do not need that). Then mix again what has been purified with the pure, and what is heavy with what is light, and after you have sublimated that, then you can make what is fixed, volatile, and what is physical, spiritual. -- G. Dorn
(The) so-called unity of
consciousness is an illusion. It is really a
wish-dream. We like to think that we are one; but we are not, most decidedly
not. We are not really masters in our house. We like to believe in our
will-power and in our energy and in what we can do; but when it comes to a real
show-down we find that we can do it only to a certain extent, because we are
hampered by those little devils the
complexes. Complexes are autonomous groups
of associations that have a tendency to move by themselves, to live their own
life apart from our intentions. AP 81
It
is evident, then, that in our daily living we are but half men and that all
societies actually favor and foster such a fractioning through their moral
assignments of men’s thoughts, words, and deeds either to the vice side or the
virtue side of their ledgers. Thus in the Christian system of
symbolic forms, where the Cross is central, Heaven is above, to which the good
go, and Hell below, to which the wicked are assigned; but on Calvary the cross
of Jesus stood between those of the good thief and the bad,
the first of whom would be taken up to Heaven, and the latter sent down to Hell.
Jesus himself would descend into Hell before ascending to Heaven since,
in his character as total man, eternal as well as historical, and transcendent
thus of all pairs-of-opposites (male and female no less than good and evil, as
was Adam before the Fall and before Even had been taken from his rib), he
transcends in his being all terms of conflict whatsoever, even that of God and
Man. TMD 194
The
symbolism is obvious: to his left and right are the opposed thieves; himself, in
the middle, will descend with one and with the other ascend to that height from
which he has already come down. Thus Christ is bound to
neither of the opposed terms, neither to the vertical nor to the horizontal beam
of his cross, though historically he is indeed bound, even crucified – as we all
are in our own lives. We, however, through faith in his
image, are unbound and “saved.” TMD 195
If
we read this metaphor of crucifixion in the psychological terms suggested by
Jung’s designation of sensation
and intuition, feeling and thinking, then we recognize that in our living –
in our temporal, historical living – we are bound either to one or to the other
of the opposed terms of each pair, and hence to a
knowledge or
idea of good and evil that commits us to living as but part men.
It follows that to be released from this limitation one must in some
sense die to the law of virtue and sin under which one lives in this world and
judges, opening oneself to a
circulation of
energy and light through
all four of the functions, while remaining centered in the middle, so to
say, like the Tree of Life in the garden, where the rivers flow to the four
directions; or like the point of crossing of the two beams of the cross, behind
the head of the Savior, crowned with a crown of thorns. “Our
old self,” states Paul, “was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be
destroyed…. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law
but under grace” (Rom. 6:6 and 14). TMD 195
The real meaning of the coniunctio is that it brings to birth something that is one and united. TPofT 86
The coniunctio is one of these archetypes. The absorptive power of the archetype explains not only the widespread incidence of this motif but also the passionate intensity with which it seizes upon the individual, often in defiance of all reason and understanding. TPotT 130
The extreme consequence of this is the dissolution of the ego in the unconscious, a state resembling death. It results from the more or less complete identification of the ego with unconscious factors, or as we would say, from contamination. This is what the alchemists experienced as immunditia, pollution. TPotT 130
(Thou
seest that he who seemeth to be one is yet not one, but as many persons appear
in him as he hath velleities).
Possession by the
unconscious means
being torn apart into many people and things, a disunictio. That is why,
according to
Origen, the aim of the Christian is to become an inwardly united human
being. The blind insistence on the outward community of the
Church naturally fails to fulfil this aim; on the contrary, it inadvertently
provides the inner disunity with an outward vessel without really changing the
disunctio into a
coniunctio.