Adam and Eve

The circular arrangement of the elements in the world and in man is symbolized by the mandala and its quaternary structure. Adam would then by a quaternarius, as he was composed of red, black, white, and green dust from the four corners of the earth, and his stature reached from one end of the world to the other. According to one Targum, God took the dust not only from the four quarters but also from the sacred spot, the "centre of the world." MC 388

I do not want to pile up proofs of Adam's quaternary nature, but only to give it due emphasis. Psychologically the four are the four orienting functions of consciousness, two of them perceptive (irrational), and two discriminative (rational). We could say that all mythological figures who are marked by a quaternity have ultimately to do with the structure of consciousness. We can therefore understand why Isaac Luria attributed every psychic quality to Adam: he is the psyche par excellence.47 MC 390

We do not devalue statements that originally were intended to be metaphysical when we demonstrate their psychic nature; on the contrary, we confirm their factual character. But, by treating them as psychic phenomena, we remove them from the inaccessible realm of metaphysics, about which nothing verifiable can be said, and this disposes of the impossible question as to whether they are "true" or not. We take our stand simply and solely on the facts, recognizing that the archetypal structure of the unconscious will produce, over and over again and irrespective of tradition, those figures which reappear in the history of all epochs and all peoples, and will endow them with the same significance and numinosity that have been theirs from the beginning. MC 390

We conclude that meditative philosophy consists in the overcoming of the body by mental union [unio mentalis]. This first union does not as yet make the wise man, but only the mental disciple of wisdom. The second union of the mind with the body shows forth the wise man, hoping for and expective that blessed third union with the first unity [i.e., the unus mundus, the latent unity of the world]. May Almighty God grant that all men be made such, and may He be one in All. MC 465

It is significant for the whole of alchemy that in Dorn's view a mental union was not the culminating point but merely the first stage of the procedure. The second stage is reached when the mental union, that is, the unity of spirit and soul, is conjoined with the body. But a consummation of the mysterium coniunctionis can be expected only when the unity of spirit, soul, and body is made one with the original unus mundus. This third stage of the coniunctio was depicted after the manner of an Assumption and Coronation of

Forbidden Fruit:  There's a standard folk motif called the one forbidden thing.  Remember Blue Beard - don't open that closet - and then one always does it.  And in the old testament story - he knows that man is going to eat the fruit, but it is by that t