In this part (the previous: 1, 2, 3,) Dr. Jung goes intensively into the essence of Geometry and Alchemy. It seemed this topic got his attention so profoundly that he stopped working on his work, Liber Novus.

In The Red Book, Reader’s Edition by Sonu Shamdasani, we read why Jung did stop working on Liber Novus: In his afterword, written in 1959, he wrote:
My acquaintance with alchemy in 1930 took me away from it. The beginning of the end came in 1928 when [Richard] Wilhelm sent me the text of the “Golden Flower”, an alchemical treatise. There, the contents of this book found their way into actuality, and I could no longer continue working on it. To the superficial observer, it will appear like madness. It would also have developed into one had I not been able to absorb the overpowering force of the original experiences. With the help of alchemy, I could finally arrange them into a whole. I always knew that these experiences contained something precious, and therefore, I knew of nothing better than to write them down in a “precious”, that is to say costly, book and to print the images that emerged through reliving it all – as well as I could. I knew how frightfully inadequate this undertaking was, but despite much work and many destructions, I remained faithful to it, even if another / possibility never…

{This appears on p. 190 of the calligraphic volume of Liber Novus. The transcription was abruptly left off in the middle of the sentence on p. 189. This epilogue appears on the next page, in Jung’s normal handwriting. This, in turn, was abruptly left off in the middle of the sentence!}

There is one more completed painting in Liber Novus. In 1928, Jung painted a Mandala of the golden castle (The Red Book, p. 163); after finishing, it struck him that the Mandala had something Chinese about it. Shortly afterwards, he got a letter from Richard Wilhelm with the text of The Secret of The Golden Flower, asking him to write a commentary on it. Jung was struck by it and the timing:

The next gave me an undreamed confirmation of my ideas about the Mandala and the circumambulation of the centre. It was the first event which broke through my isolation. I became aware of an affinity; I could establish ties with someone and something. (Memories, pp. 222-23)

So! Let’s now continue the story.

The Mandala Symbolism (Dream 16) P.4

There are a lot of people there. Everyone walks counterclockwise around the square. The dreamer is not in the middle but on one side. It is said that one wants to reconstruct the gibbon.

Since alchemy, in its philosophical form, has dealt with problems that are very close to those that interest our modern psychology, it is perhaps important to go into the dream motif of the monkey that is to be reconstructed in a square room. In the vast majority of cases, alchemy identifies its transformation substance with the >argentum vitum< or Mercurius. Chemically, this term refers to Mercury, but philosophically, it refers to the ‘spiritus vitae’, even the world soul (Fig. 48). Thus, Mercurius also takes on the meaning of the god of revelation, Hermes.

This is not the place to present this connection in detail. This should happen elsewhere. (The Spirit Mercurius, CW 13). Hermes is linked to the idea of roundness and squareness, as shown in a particular Papyrus V, line 401 of the ‘Papyri Graecae Magicae’. (Ed. by Preisedanz, 1928/31, p. 195). There you will find the name Strongylós και tetrágonos (rounder and square). It is also called tetraglochin (square). It actually has to do with the number four; therefore, there is also a Hermes tetracephalus (four-headed). (See Bruchmann: Epitheta Deorum, quae apud poetas Graecos leguntur, 1893). These attributes were also known in the Middle Ages, such as Cartari’s work shows. (Cartari: Les Images des dieux des anciens, 1581, p. 403). It says there: >Davantage, les figures quarres de Mercure (Fig. 49), qui n’avait seulement que la teste et le membre viril, signifoient que le soleil est le Chef du monde, et qui seme toutes choses, mesmes les quatre costez de la figure quarree, designed ce que signifie la sistre aquatre chordes, qui fut aussi donnee a Mercure, c’est a dire, les quatre parties du monde, ou autrement, les quatre saisons de l’annee ou bien que les deux equinocces, et lesdeux solstices, viennent a`faire les quatre parties de tout le Zodiaque.<

[“Moreover, the square figures of Mercury (Fig. 49), which only had the head and the virile member, signify that the sun is the Head of the world and which shows all things, even the four sides of the figure square, designate what is meant by the “four-chord sistrum”, which was also given to Mercury, that is to say, the four parts of the world, or otherwise, the four seasons of the year or even the two equinoxes, and the two solstices, come to make the four parts of the whole Zodiac.”]

It is easy to understand that such qualities made Mercurius particularly suitable to represent that mysterious transformative substance of alchemy because this is round and square. This whole consists of four parts (four elements). Therefore, both the four-part Gnostic primitive man (Paracelsus as a spiritual phenomenon, CW 13, § 168 and §§ 206 ff.) (Fig. 50) and the Pantocrator Christ are an >imago lapidis< (Cf. Ideas of Redemption in Alchemy, CW 12, §§ 332ff) (Fig. 51).

Insofar as Western alchemy is largely of Egyptian origin, we direct our attention primarily to the Hellenistic Hermes Trismegistos, whose figure, on the one hand, is a godfather to the medieval Mercurius and, on the other hand, is derived from the ancient Egyptian Thoth (Fig. 52). The attribute of Thoth was the dog-monkey, or he was directly represented as a monkey.

Thanks to the countless editions of the Book of the Dead, this view remained in direct view until the latest times. In alchemy, whose existing texts, with a few exceptions, belong to the Christian era, the ancient connection between Thoth-Hermes and the monkey has disappeared. However, it still existed in the Roman Empire. But since Mercurius has much to do with the devil (which will not be discussed in detail here), the monkey (Fig. 53) appears again in the neighbourhood of Mercurius in the Simia Dei. It is part of the nature of the transformative substance that, on the one hand, it is thoroughly cheap, even contemptible, which is expressed through a series of devil allegories, such as the snake, dragon, raven, lion, basilisk and eagle, but on the other hand it is also the valuable, even that Divine itself means. The change leads from the lowest to the highest, from the animal-archaic infantile to the mystical >Homo Maximus<.

Let’s take another break! I want to express my gratitude to all of you for being here with me. I appreciate it!🙏💖🤗

The Image at the top: Ex libris Maria (Combining Opposites) Albin Brunovsky, 1985