Coagulation is the alchemical operation that refers to earth. More exactly, it refers to things being made solid. Many creation myths use images of coagulation, for instance. Earth itself is a synonym for coagulation. Whatever is made solid from non-solids, which was the work of alchemists, is also a metaphor for the process of coagulation.
Creation Myths Express Coagulatio
North American Indians for whom the world is created by an “earth diver” brings up from the sea bits of solid mud. One Cherokee myth teaches that In the beginning the animals were crowded into the sky-world; everything was flood below. Next a water beetle dives below surface and brings up bits of mud which solidify and so the animals can come down.
Hindu mythology uses explicit images of churning: “Gods and genii churned the ocean of milk, using the great serpent as a rope and the Slow-Mountina as a churning rod.” From this action earth coagulates. Another image common to Hinduism is the churning of butter, making solids out of what was liquid. Hindu mythology is full of such images which always express abundance and stability in daily life.
Dreams Often Express Coagulatio
The churning action that establishes the coagulation is an image that often appears in dreams. For instance, take this dream of a middle age man in the midst of a mid-life crisis, finding nothing solid or enduring in his life. He dreams that that he is up to his middle in a substance akin to mud and slime and must begin churning his legs in order to solidify this slimy substance so he can again stand on solid ground. This dreamer had been going through a time of feeling his old way of life was slipping away and he needed to find a more solid footing, a new orientation.
Psychology of Coagulatio
Pscyhologically speaking this means that one needs the storm and stress of life to promote essential ego development. Without certain trials and the stress of activity, the ego does not develop sufficiently. These things help to solidify the personality. These are all images of the alchemist’s coagulatio.
Ancient Alchemical Texts
Ancient alchemical texts refer to coagulatio in this way:
Take quicksilver, coagulate in the body of Magnesia, in Kuhul (lead), or in Sulphur which does not burn; ect. (dictum 11).
Magnesia, lead, and sulphur — three agents of the alchemist’s coagulation work — meant something very specific to Carl Jung. Jung, it is recalled saw all these processes as projections of the alchemist's own psychological processes. What the materials signify and how each behaves pertains more to psychology than to magic or chemistry, according to Jung.
Magnesia
- To the alchemist: Crude, metal ore in need of purification.
- To Carl Jung : Transpersonal nature of mind needing to be distilled from its primitive state
Lead
- To the alchemist: A heavy, solid material in the manner of Saturn (prone to depression and dullness)
- To Jung: Essential grounding quality of solid ego needed in adult life of responsibility
Sulphur
- To the alchemist: A highly stinky yet volatile matter close to sun because of color and burning quality.
- To Jung: Brings energy, light and personal idiosyncrasy to the individual.
Therefore, it is the interaction of these three elements that bring about healthy psychological development. Through coagulaltio, ego emerges from its infantile state of original oneness with the psyche (or unconsciousness), and becomes coagulated (made self-aware). Thus the personality, with help from the rightly coagulated ego, begins to develop.
Spiritual Imagery
Finally, in many spiritual texts, as well as in great poetry, there is reference to the soul’s need to take on a more embodied form after death. Seeking some stability for its new found peace, the soul, through coagulatio, re-accustoms itself to its spirit-based nature.
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul.
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length are free
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
(Oliver Wendell Homes' The Chambered Nautillus.)
For more Suite articles about the operations of Alchemy read Calcinatio—Alchemy of Fire and Solutio—Alchemy of Water.
Sources: Edinger, E.F. Anatomy of the Psyche; Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy (1998). Chicago: Open Court.
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