Calcinatio is considered the first of the alchemy procedures. It has to do with burning, subjecting the prima materia (basic material) to intense heat. The desired result is a burning away, a drying out, a process that drives away all alien substances leaving only the purest of substances, a whitened ash.
What this Means Psychologically
What this means psychologically is that through analysis the client is allowed to burn, metaphorically speaking, to become emotionally intense in a way that both dissolves and dissipates anything but the truth of the client’s psyche. Anger can often arouse the state of calcinatio and under controlled circumstances is a useful means of burning off the false and leaving the truth of an experience. With the calcinatio exerience what remains is the true psyche of the patient, released from all of its complexes, affects and distortions.
Three Imagistic Symbols
Visually there are three symbols that represent this process. Again, it is in relation to the ego that these can be understood. They are in order of the hierarchy: the king or highest authority of the ego; the wolf or the desirousness of the ego (example being the wolf devours the king); and the lion, the power that drives of the king. Thus there are these three distinct levels of calcination in the ego’s hierarchy:
- The King — representing the highest ego authority
- The Wolf — representing the desirousness of the ego
- The Lion — representing the ego drive itself of the ego
The Rising Phoenix
All three of these are represented symbolically and pictorially by the dead King being devoured by the wolf which symbolizes his own desirousness. The wolf is eating the body or prima materia of the dead king. Once the body of the dead king is fed to the wolves, the wolf in turn is fed to the fire. “After its descent into hell, the ego or king is reborn, phoenixlike, in a purified state.”
Most Famous Symbol: The Starry Salamander
Another famous symbolic image of the work of calcinatio is that of the roasted salamander known by alchemists as the "Starry Salamander That lives in the Fire." It is also known as the Mercurial Spirit of the prima materia. The salamander in its natural changeable form represents the mercurial nature of the adaptive psyche. Once the salamander is roasted, this changeable tendency is halted and turned to ash. This is one of the supreme images of calcinatio.
As with all the alchemical procedures, the importance is not a literal performance but in understanding on a metaphorical and symbolic level. The psyche itself, comprised of ego, self, and accompanying complexes, is what undergoes these transformations. Each aspect moves from a conglomerate state to a more purified state. In other words, as the person becomes fully individuated, this state is more evident.
Archetype Enlarges and Deepens Ego
As Edinger points out, “Experience of the archetypal psyche has this effect to the extent that it enlarges and deepens ego consciousness. There is then less endless likelihood of identification with the emotional reactions of oneself or others.”
Finally, colors play an important part of the symbolism in these processes. In this case think of the red of the fire of the calcinatio, so hot it is a purging fire which acts upon the nigredo or black stuff of the basic prima material which in turn becomes the white ash in its most refined, purified state. The colors red, black and white signal the increasing growth and transformation through calicinatio.
Rising from the Ashes
(A poem by late poet, dancer and Jungian Dorsha Hayes illustrates this phenomenon.)
Filled with clutter of unsorted stuff
a spark can set a man ablaze. What’s there
heaped high among stored rubbish at a puff
will burst in flame. No man can be aware
oh how inflammable he is, how prone
to what can rage beyond control, unless
the piled up litter of his life is known
to him, and he is able to assess
what hazard he is in, what could ignite.
A man, disordered and undisciplined,
lives in the peril of a panic flight
before the onrush of a flaming wind.
Does it now seem I seek to be profound?
I stand on smoking ash and blackened ground!
For more information about Alchemy please see my other Suite articles entitled What is Alchemy Today and Solutio — Ancient Alchemy by Water.
Sources: Edinger, E. F., Anatomy of the Psyche; Alchemical Symbolism in Psychohtherapy (1998). Chicago: Open Court
Hayes, Dorsha. The Bell Branch Rings (1947). Dublin, N. H.: Pantheon.
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