Eureka! & THE MAGNUM OPUS

“Individuals blind to the sexual opposite within them, be they male or female, are condemned to be ruled by it. For in such individuals, the anima or animus will be projected onto another person, and a destructive and inescapable pattern will be set up in the relationship”

– Liz Greene

“Animus is the soul in woman just as anima is the soul in man. Animus usually personifies himself as a masculine force and appears in women’s dreams as a masculine figure. Women relate to their animus side differently than men relate to anima, but there is one thing that men and women have in common: Romantic love always consists in the projection of the soul-image. When a woman falls in love it is animus that she sees projected onto the mortal man before her. When a man drinks of the love potion, it is anima, his soul, that he sees superimposed on a woman.”
― Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love

“The shadow can be realized only through a relation to a partner, and anima and animus only through a relation to a partner of the opposite sex, because only in such a relation do their projections become operative”

– Carl Jung

“For men, this means embracing the Anima and recognizing the value of qualities that society may label as “feminine.” Likewise, for women, it involves integrating the Animus and owning traits that may be seen as “masculine.” This balance is crucial for developing a well-rounded personality and achieving individuation”

– Apraxis center

“But there is a great difficulty that I have mentioned only indirectly up till now. This is that every personification of the unconscious — the shadow, the anima, the animus, and the Self — has both a light and a dark aspect.”

– CARL JUNG

“No aspect of the human psyche can live in a healthy state unless it is balanced by its complementary opposite. If the masculine mind tries to live without its “other half,” the feminine soul, then the masculine becomes unbalanced, sick, and finally monstrous. Power without love becomes brutality. Feeling without masculine strength becomes woolly sentimentality. When one side of human nature grows out of balance with the other, it becomes a tyranny in the soul.”
― Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love

“Carl Jung said that if you find the psychic wound in an individual or a people, there you also find their path to consciousness.”
― Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love

“Jung once quoted a medieval alchemist who said, “Only what is separated may be properly joined.” When two things are muddled together they need to be separated, distinguished, and untangled so that they may later be rejoined in a workable synthesis. This is the correct meaning of “analysis” in psychology; to analyze is to separate out the entangled threads of one’s inner life—the confused values, ideals, loyalties, and feelings—so that they may be synthesized in a new way. We analyze romantic love, not to destroy it, but to understand what it is and where it belongs in our lives. Analysis must always serve synthesis in order to serve life; what is taken apart must be put back together again.”
― Robert A. Johnson, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love

“The man with the persona is blind to the existence of inner realities, just as the other [man without a persona] is blind to the reality of the world, which for him has merely the value of an amusing or fantastic playground.”
― C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology

“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life…If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature…Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.”
― C.G. Jung, The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition

“Creation which cannot express itself becomes madness.”

― Anaïs Nin

“[…]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked. “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”
― Paulo Coehlo

“We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. 
We are not afraid of the darkness. 
We trust that the moon shall guide us. 
We are determining the future at this very moment. 
We know that the heart is the philosopher’s stone. 
Our music is our alchemy.”
― Saul Williams

“When you see your matter going black, rejoice, you are at the beginning of the work.”

— Rosarium Philosophorum

“The nigredo is the blackening, the detachment of everything, and after forming your prima materia, you balance anima/animus and integrate the shadow. The next step is then to find your star or self or the philosopher’s stone.” 

— Reddit user

“In alchemy one goes through four stages of development: the nigredo, in which one experiences the darkness and depression of life; the albedo, in which one sees the brightness of things; the rubedo, where one discovers passion; and finally the citrino, where one appreciates the goldenness of life.”

— Robert A. Johnson

“The Magnum Opus, or “Great Work,” is a term used in alchemical philosophy to describe the process of transformation that the alchemist undergoes in their pursuit of the Philosopher’s Stone. The Magnum Opus is often described as a four-stage process, with each stage represented by a specific color. Overall, the four stages of the Magnum Opus represent a transformative journey that the alchemist must undergo in order to achieve spiritual and material perfection. While the specific practices and beliefs of alchemy may no longer be widely accepted or practiced today, the legacy of the Magnum Opus can be seen in the ongoing human quest for personal and collective transformation and evolution.”

– THE WITCH’S AND DRUIDS DEN

“The first stage of the Magnum Opus is known as Nigredo (Blackness), which represents the process of putrefaction or decomposition. This stage is often associated with the color black, and it is characterized by a sense of darkness, chaos, and dissolution. The alchemist must confront and overcome their own darkness and negative aspects in order to move forward in the process of transformation.

• Calcination: Represents the initial breakdown and purification of the base material.
• Putrefaction: Signifies the stage of decay and decomposition in the alchemical process.

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The second stage of the Magnum Opus is known as Albedo (Whiteness), which represents the process of purification and enlightenment. This stage is often associated with the color white, and it is characterized by a sense of clarity, purity, and illumination. The alchemist must refine and purify their consciousness in order to gain a deeper understanding of the universe and the nature of reality.

• Solution (or Dissolution): Symbolizes the dissolution of impurities and the emergence of a cleaner, more refined substance.
• Separation: Involves isolating the different components of the substance, further purifying the material.

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The third stage of the Magnum Opus is known as Citrinitas (Yellowness), which represents the process of transformation and growth. This stage is often associated with the color yellow, and it is characterized by a sense of creativity, inspiration, and expansion. The alchemist must integrate their purified consciousness with their material reality in order to bring about the transformation of both themselves and the world around them.

• Conjunction: Represents the union of opposites and the integration of the purified elements.
• Sublimation: Involves the ascent of the spirit to a higher, more refined state.

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The fourth and final stage of the Magnum Opus is known as Rubedo (Redness), which represents the process of unity and transcendence. This stage is often associated with the color red, and it is characterized by a sense of wholeness, completion, and transcendence. The alchemist must achieve a state of unity and oneness with the universe in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the Philosopher’s Stone.

• Congelation: Signifies the stabilization and fixation of the purified elements.
• Cibation: Represents the continuous input of energy and effort into the transformational process.
• Fermentation: Symbolizes the final stage of transformation, where the transmuted substance is used to bestow healing and transformation.
• Exaltation: Represents the culmination of the Magnum Opus, achieving the substance’s most perfect and elevated state.
• Multiplication: Signifies the enhancement and multiplication of the spiritual essence’s potency.
• Projection: Related to the Rubedo stage, where the transmuted substance is used to bring about the desired transformation or transmutation of other substances or individuals.”
• THE WITCH’S AND DRUIDS DEN

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacaphony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.”
― James Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife

“But if we understand anything of the unconscious, we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this life turns against us if suppressed, as happens in neurosis. Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is suppressed and injured by the other. If they must contend, at least let it be a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too – as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, an ‘individual.’ This, roughly, is what I mean by the individuation process.”
― C.G. Jung

“The material world is all feminine. The feminine engergy makes the non-manifest, manifest. So even men (are of the feminine energy). We have to relinquish our ideas of gender in the conventional sense. This has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with energy. So feminine energy is what creates and allows anything which is non-manifest, like an idea, to come into form, into being, to be born. All that we experience in the world around us, absolutely everything (is feminine energy). The only way that anything exists is through the feminine force.”
― Zeena Schreck

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

“The ripples of the kind heart are the highest blessings of the Universe.”
― Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style