Soma Sophia - Body Wisdom & Natural Senses
Coagulatio is the operation of turning something into earth--spirit manifesting as substance, so it often equated with creation. When psychic substances become earth, they take on a particular, localized form, promoting ego development and solidifying personality, connecting the ego with the Self. Here it is represented by the substantive reception of physical impulses via the sensory organs, which is also the confinement within the limits of our own personal reality, but with the capacity for redemption. Psychic development is a process of coagulatio--the images of dreams and active imagination coagulate, connecting outer and inner worlds and relationships.
The pre-existent totality, the Self is first incarnated, then assimilated through the living efforts of the individual. Then spirit inhabits body. The blue background of this piece is composed of closeups of actual sensory apparatus, the various sensory receptors. In the center, the incubation of the divine child continues within the realm of the anima--active imagination.
The spiritual sense, and even the symbolic sense of balance interact to produce a quickening of the transmutive process. Images of sexual sense, chastity, pregnancy, even dreamsex amplify the definition of the natural senses, the basic substance of existence and embodiment, without which consciousness cannot interact with the environment.
The illuminative brain/mind is the center of the revealed truth of a living Universe, a process/goal of evolution, which is overseen here by the celestial hierarchy and the Absolute. The anima media natura corresponds to Sophia caught in the embrace of Physis and is equated with Divine Wisdom, the feminine counterpart of God. This gnostic Sophia is the alchemical mother. Our own belief in the light means the spirit draws the soul to itself from its imprisonment in the body.
Coagulatio is the operation of turning something into earth--spirit manifesting as substance, so it often equated with creation. When psychic substances become earth, they take on a particular, localized form, promoting ego development and solidifying personality, connecting the ego with the Self. Here it is represented by the substantive reception of physical impulses via the sensory organs, which is also the confinement within the limits of our own personal reality, but with the capacity for redemption. Psychic development is a process of coagulatio--the images of dreams and active imagination coagulate, connecting outer and inner worlds and relationships.
The pre-existent totality, the Self is first incarnated, then assimilated through the living efforts of the individual. Then spirit inhabits body. The blue background of this piece is composed of closeups of actual sensory apparatus, the various sensory receptors. In the center, the incubation of the divine child continues within the realm of the anima--active imagination.
The spiritual sense, and even the symbolic sense of balance interact to produce a quickening of the transmutive process. Images of sexual sense, chastity, pregnancy, even dreamsex amplify the definition of the natural senses, the basic substance of existence and embodiment, without which consciousness cannot interact with the environment.
The illuminative brain/mind is the center of the revealed truth of a living Universe, a process/goal of evolution, which is overseen here by the celestial hierarchy and the Absolute. The anima media natura corresponds to Sophia caught in the embrace of Physis and is equated with Divine Wisdom, the feminine counterpart of God. This gnostic Sophia is the alchemical mother. Our own belief in the light means the spirit draws the soul to itself from its imprisonment in the body.
"Problems are places where love is hidden," writes James Hillman, and the "oracle" thrust of each "cure" consists in animating and re-animating "together," bringing souls to places of care and relationships. After all, if Gods love to hide, he wants to look and not to become the "salvific" place of the disease in the extreme." --Eldo Stellucci
The psychological path is a middle way. Spiritual paths tend to encourage the glorification of the spirit (ascent) over the body and instincts (descent) we need to keep us grounded. We cannot merely drop the body and soar infinitely skyward, even metaphorically.
We are neither solely 'ascenders' or 'descenders.' Soul connects the two movements if we pay attention and engage with it. There is even a shadow-side to the god-image. Meaning is about connectivity and interdependence with everything else out there: self, others, and cosmos. As Hillman notes in Re-Visioning Psychology, "The soul loses its psychological vision in the abstract literalisms of the spirit as well as in the concrete literalisms of the body."
We cannot deny the body's role in our complete being as we confront the autonomous aspects of our transpersonal nature. Our wounds and blocks are expressed as psychic or somatic symptoms. So, to come 'full circle' we need to make both upward and downward spiraling movements which are expressed in imagery and embedded in our innate physical nature. Thus, we circulate among the aspects of our unfolding sacred and natural being.
"We see, therefore, that possession by a breath-like being is a primeval conception of a spiritual condition.
The man who unexpectedly speaks from an exalted or peculiar state is mana or tabu, if he speaks paradoxically then he is surely a sorcerer.
All this shows us that the psychological phenomenon of the spirit is an exalted condition of life, or at least an unusual one, or, to formulate it still more carefully, it is a change in the personality. You see it is something very different to the modern use of the word “Geist”, and I am convinced that these original forms are far nearer to its real nature.
We can only speak of it as a human condition; what it is in and for itself is a question which cannot be answered, we can only know how it is experienced. This is equally true of the concept of matter or body.
We must say here that the body has nothing to do with matter.
Matter is an abstraction, nowadays it has become a philosophical and scientific concept, whereas body is the direct psychic experience of the body.
Here again there is danger of a misunderstanding. If we ask modern man what is body, he describes the anatomical structure which he can see with his eyes. But that is no psychic experience, it is scientific experience of the body. Psychic experiences is the image of the body which is reflected in the psyche.
How I experience the body from within is a totally different question. I am inside the body as a psyche. If we investigate carefully what that means we come on a lot of extremely peculiar experiences which have given rise to many of the strangest symbols.
If you want to know how the body can be experienced psychically you must turn to eastern Yoga; medieval philosophy also knew something of the matter. If you contemplate the body from the point of view of the psyche, you will be able to locate a mental sphere of consciousness in the head, another centre of consciousness in the heart and one in the abdomen. Our medieval philosophers discovered these, and such centres are highly differentiated in India.
Anatomical knowledge does not tell us how we fill our own bodies but psychic experience does give us information on this point. We fill our bodies as if through inner streams. The Indian teaching of Prana formulates this, it makes people aware that they can, so to speak, stream into certain limbs and, if one experiments on these lines, one finds it is possible to achieve very peculiar results.
One can, for instance, warm cold limbs in this way and enervate certain muscles. Yogins have many stunts of this kind which are based on psychological Prana experience and have nothing to do with mysticism." ~Carl Jung, ETH, Pages 225-226
The psychological path is a middle way. Spiritual paths tend to encourage the glorification of the spirit (ascent) over the body and instincts (descent) we need to keep us grounded. We cannot merely drop the body and soar infinitely skyward, even metaphorically.
We are neither solely 'ascenders' or 'descenders.' Soul connects the two movements if we pay attention and engage with it. There is even a shadow-side to the god-image. Meaning is about connectivity and interdependence with everything else out there: self, others, and cosmos. As Hillman notes in Re-Visioning Psychology, "The soul loses its psychological vision in the abstract literalisms of the spirit as well as in the concrete literalisms of the body."
We cannot deny the body's role in our complete being as we confront the autonomous aspects of our transpersonal nature. Our wounds and blocks are expressed as psychic or somatic symptoms. So, to come 'full circle' we need to make both upward and downward spiraling movements which are expressed in imagery and embedded in our innate physical nature. Thus, we circulate among the aspects of our unfolding sacred and natural being.
"We see, therefore, that possession by a breath-like being is a primeval conception of a spiritual condition.
The man who unexpectedly speaks from an exalted or peculiar state is mana or tabu, if he speaks paradoxically then he is surely a sorcerer.
All this shows us that the psychological phenomenon of the spirit is an exalted condition of life, or at least an unusual one, or, to formulate it still more carefully, it is a change in the personality. You see it is something very different to the modern use of the word “Geist”, and I am convinced that these original forms are far nearer to its real nature.
We can only speak of it as a human condition; what it is in and for itself is a question which cannot be answered, we can only know how it is experienced. This is equally true of the concept of matter or body.
We must say here that the body has nothing to do with matter.
Matter is an abstraction, nowadays it has become a philosophical and scientific concept, whereas body is the direct psychic experience of the body.
Here again there is danger of a misunderstanding. If we ask modern man what is body, he describes the anatomical structure which he can see with his eyes. But that is no psychic experience, it is scientific experience of the body. Psychic experiences is the image of the body which is reflected in the psyche.
How I experience the body from within is a totally different question. I am inside the body as a psyche. If we investigate carefully what that means we come on a lot of extremely peculiar experiences which have given rise to many of the strangest symbols.
If you want to know how the body can be experienced psychically you must turn to eastern Yoga; medieval philosophy also knew something of the matter. If you contemplate the body from the point of view of the psyche, you will be able to locate a mental sphere of consciousness in the head, another centre of consciousness in the heart and one in the abdomen. Our medieval philosophers discovered these, and such centres are highly differentiated in India.
Anatomical knowledge does not tell us how we fill our own bodies but psychic experience does give us information on this point. We fill our bodies as if through inner streams. The Indian teaching of Prana formulates this, it makes people aware that they can, so to speak, stream into certain limbs and, if one experiments on these lines, one finds it is possible to achieve very peculiar results.
One can, for instance, warm cold limbs in this way and enervate certain muscles. Yogins have many stunts of this kind which are based on psychological Prana experience and have nothing to do with mysticism." ~Carl Jung, ETH, Pages 225-226
"Probably in absolute reality there is no such thing as body and mind, but body and mind or soul are the same, the same life, subject to the same laws, and what the body does is happening in the mind. The contents of the neurotic unconscious are strange bodies, not assimilated, artificially split-off, and they must be integrated in order to become normal." (Jung, 1984, p.20)