The Retort
In alchemy, as you know,
the glass
retort is even regarded as being identical with
the
Philosopher’s Stone.
The vessel is the feminine aspect of
the
Philosopher’s Stone, which is the masculine aspect of
the Self, but both are
the same thing. TPoPA 211
(The)
retort is a place of transformation, and what is the precondition for any kind
of psychological transformation?
Looking at oneself, looking
completely within. It means that instead of looking at
the outer facts, at other people, I only look at my own
psyche.
That would be putting it into a glass. Suppose I am
angry with somebody; if I turn away from that person and say, “Now let me look
at my anger and what that means, and at what is behind it,” that would be
putting my anger into the retort.
So the retort represents an attitude that aims at
self-knowledge – an
attempt to become conscious
of oneself instead of looking at other people. As far as the
will is concerned, it requires determination, and as far as intellectual
activities are concerned, it means
introversion, the search for inner self-knowledge at all costs, and
objectively, not subjectively, musing about one’s problems, making the effort to
really see oneself.
Nobody can find this attitude except by what one could call an act of
grace. TPoPA 213
For
instance, if somebody is either madly in love, or madly angry over some problem,
perhaps a money problem, one always tries to get the person for once to look
away from that particular question, whatever it may be, and just for a minute
try to be objective, to look at the dream – see how it looks from within, from
the
objective psyche – using the
dream life as a mirror for
the objective psychological situation. Again and again,
unless something like a miraculous turn takes place, people cannot do that even
if they want to. They begin again, “Yes, but you see tomorrow
I have to decide with my banker; I have either to sell the stock or not.”
Yes, but let’s turn away, let’s look for a minute at the objective side,
at what the objective psyche has to say about it! “No, you
see I have to decide!” And then it is like a miracle if that
person suddenly becomes
quiet and objective and makes that turn and looks inside and says, “I will
just abstain from looking at the whole situation and abstain from the emotions
which flow toward it and try to be objective.” TPoPA 213
(VIP.)
That is a miracle, and it needs the intervention of
the Self; something
must happen in the person for him to be able to do it. One
knows it oneself, for sometimes one wants to find that attitude again and
cannot; one is pushed away from self-knowledge and can’t do it, and then
suddenly this strange peace
comes up within, generally when one has suffered enough.
Then one becomes quiet and silent, and the
ego
turns to look at the facts within, objectively, and stops the monkey-dance of
thinking about the situation. The monkey-dance of ego self-assurance
stops, and a kind of objectivity comes over the person.
Then it is possible to look at oneself and be open to the experience of
the unconscious.
It
can therefore be said that in a way the alchemical vessel is a mysterious event
in the psyche.
It is an occurrence – something which takes place suddenly and which
enables people to look at themselves objectively, using
dreams and other products
of the unconscious as mirrors in which one can see oneself.
Otherwise one has no
Archimedean point outside the ego by which to do it. That
is why an
awareness of the Self is necessary before one can look at oneself, and that
is why very often people are touched in the beginning of the analysis by an
experience of the Self.
Only that enables them afterward to strive toward looking at themselves
in this objective way. That is what the alchemists meant by
the vessel. It could also be said that the vessel symbolizes an
attitude which is, for example, the prerequisite for doing
active
imagination, for that you cannot do except with the vessel.
You can call
active
imagination itself a sort of vessel, for if I sit down and try to objectify
my psychological situation in
active
imagination, that would be having it in a vessel, which presupposes again
this attitude of ethical detachment, honesty and objectivity, which is
necessary in order to be able to look at oneself. That
would be the vessel in a positive form. If with my
ego I
judge the unconscious,
I put it in a vessel too, but then it is the glass prison, the “nothing but”
attitude, which gives that prison a negative aspect. Then it
is an intellectual system, and the living phenomenon of the
psyche is always
imprisoned in any kind of intellectual system. The owner is
the power.
This
is very subtle. There are people willing to look at
themselves, but only in order to be stronger than the other person or to master
a situation. They still retain an ego-power purpose, and they
even use the techniques of
Jungian
psychology –
active
imagination, for instance – but with their eyes fixed on power, on
overcoming the difficulty, on being the big stag who did it.
That gives it the wrong twist; nothing comes out of it.
Or there are others who work for a certain time honestly analyzing
themselves – but in order to become analysts and have power over others.
That is another snare of the same kind: looking at oneself only in order
to exercise power over others; looking within not for its own sake – not just
because one has the need to be more
conscious.
Thus power speaks into everything again and again, and turns that which
has been living spiritual manifestation into a trick, a technical trick in the
possession of the
ego.
TPoPA 214
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