Clavis Artis
This paper presents the first results of a three-year study exploring the living encounter between laboratory alchemy and Jungian depth psychology. It is the first research within Jungian studies to examine the psyche of a contemporary alchemist in the context of ongoing analysis, showing how the work with matter itself becomes a catalyst for inner transformation. The case material demonstrates that the outer opus—the slow and meticulous engagement with plants, metals, and elements—directly affects the psychic process of the practitioner, amplifying alchemical motifs in dreams, intensifying synchronicities, and accelerating psychic differentiation.
Jung opened the door to alchemy as psychology, yet he often left the actual work with matter aside, regarding it as a projection screen for unconscious processes. This study suggests that the opus in matter cannot be reduced to metaphor. Matter itself has agency, and when approached with devotion and precision, it enters into dialogue with human consciousness. The primary case study follows one practitioner who, during two and a half years of simultaneous analytic work and laboratory practice, undertook the creation of a “Plant Stone.” Over an eighteen-month period, the long differentiation and reunification of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury unfolded both in the vessels of the laboratory and in the inner world of the psyche, echoing the very structure of the alchemical tradition.
Drawing on interviews, dreams, synchronicities, and direct observation, this research stands at the crossroads of Jungian psychology, the history of alchemy, and contemporary Spagyric practice. It also gestures toward a horizon beyond them—one that embraces feminist, ecological, and post-humanist perspectives where psyche, spirit, and matter are entangled rather than split. In this light, the study asks why alchemy, as both a psychology and a practice, might be essential for our times of ecological crisis. To “replant the alchemical tree during the Ecocide” is to envision a renewal of the bond between psyche and nature, archetypal Mother and Father, matter and religion—a redemption that speaks to the survival of both inner and outer worlds.
About Faranak
Faranak Mirjalili is a Diploma Candidate at the CGJIZ and a scholar of religion, and completed her Research Masters at Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She has also extensive years of work with groups of women in a mythopoetic and oral tradition at the Anima Mundi School.
She did her thesis research on the intersection of laboratory and psychological alchemy The title of her thesis was: Between Lab & Psyche: On the Analysis and Synthesis of Body, Soul and Spirit. She is currently working on this ongoing research for her thesis at the CG Jung Institute in Zurich where she is planned to graduate this Summer.
Time and date: April 24th 7pm CET online
Cost: 10,- euro
Please register at the CG Jung Society of Austria for this event.