The Vision of Hermes Trismegistus, artwork by Johfra Bosschart

The Dance of Mercurius
Alchemy, Jung, and the Hermetic Tree of Life

An Essay by Eva Rider, MA

 “All theory is gray, my friend.
But forever green is the tree of life.”

(Goethe, 1984)

The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is an archetypal map and blueprint for the underlying patterns of the universe. Kabbalah means ‘to receive’ and invites the divine to enter the material plane bringing spirit into matter through the mediating function of the soul, the Greek ‘psyche.’ The Tree of Life provides a system of correspondences that elucidates this alchemical journey of the psyche from spirit into matter and back again in a descending and ascending pattern. Thus, it is a map describing the relationship between a vertical movement of energy that links macrocosm and microcosm as in the Hermetic axiom, ‘as above, so below,’ from The Emerald Tablet (Burckhardt, 1967, p. 196-201), and the horizontal opposing poles of positive and negative, masculine and feminine, force and form, yang and yin.

The tree is composed of three triangles bridging the worlds of spirit, psyche, and matter. From a mythic perspective, the Greek god, Hermes, Roman Mercurius as the messenger of the gods, travels between the worlds linking them. As Thoth and Hermes Trismegistos, he was known as the scribe of the Emerald Tablet and mythic father of alchemy, astrology, and magic, thereby called the ‘thrice great.’ The essence of the Emerald Tablet is embedded in the Tree of Life.

Through the study of alchemy, we examine the interplay between the unconscious and the conscious. By observing, reflecting, and integrating these inner and outer worlds, we engage in a process simultaneously in which we are transformed.

The Kabbalistic Tree thus offers us a pictorial scaffold on which to project our creative journey of Individuation or wholeness. Jung’s alchemical work provides a psychological vocabulary to understand these correspondences bridging the relationships between the spheres (Sephirah) on the Tree. The Sephiroth (plural) are symbolized by 10 spheres. They correspond to Planets, elements, and the Chakra energy system of Yogic tradition. As the Tree of Life is itself an archetype, these correspondences offer us a map by which we can navigate the darkness of consciousness in our search for meaning.

The Secret Garden artwork

The Garden of Eden and the Serpent’s role

Within the Garden of Eden mythic landscape, the Tree of Life stands at its center as a unified whole. The tree of good and evil can be described as a structural separation into polar opposites in time and space after the mythic ‘fall from Grace.’

In the Genesis biblical beginning, Adam and Eve enjoy a unity in which spirit, psyche, and matter are one and undifferentiated. This can be seen as the original participation mystique, the term C.G. Jung borrowed from Lévy-Bruhl. (Jung 1976, para. 781).

The serpent in this garden is a messenger whose role inducts Adam and Eva into opposition, temptation, and desire, and thus is the story born.

The serpent as the messenger of God may be associated with the trickster god and messenger, Mercurius, and may also be linked to the feminine face of God, the exiled Lilith as well as the fallen Greek goddess of Wisdom, Sophia.

The serpent offers Eve the gift of knowledge or gnosis. The price of Eve’s curiosity is a separation from oneness and a fall into the duality of time and space.

Humanity’s fall thus begins with deception, temptation, and disobedience. Disobedience, when in service to consciousness is necessary for individuation. Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience holds the seeds of their wholeness and their potential destiny to become stewards and co-creators of earth, the kingdom. The return to the Garden may be embedded in the original pattern of creation itself. The kingdom of heaven is on earth, as the embodied world soul, the Anima Mundi.

Ouroborus colored illustration
The serpent as Mercurius holds a key to the mystery of life. The serpent illustrates the kundalini, coiled at the base of the spine, DNA, and the caduceus of the Mercurius. They are one and the same. Our return home can be seen as a spiral circumambulation, represented by the symbol of the ouroboros—a snake eating its own tail; a circle, which has no beginning and no end.

This alludes to Mercurius as a shapeshifter and dragon. The image of the ouroboros is a mandala, the circular symbol Jung believed to represent wholeness.

Of the Ouroboros, Jung writes,

‘He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he, therefore, constitutes the secret of the prima materia.’ (Jung, 1977, para. 513)

The prima materia, translated as the primal matter is the raw unconscious material of alchemy. It must be transmuted, refined, and transformed into the gold of consciousness.

The story of the exile of humankind from the Garden of Eden illustrates this separation from the divine in the fall into matter and the split into duality.
Symbolically, duality is represented by a vertical axis that connects the cosmos with the world of matter and is crossed by a horizontal axis, connecting the opposites forming a cross.

The etymology of the word matter is derived from the Latin ‘materia’ meaning ‘origin,’ ‘substance,’ or ‘mother.’ The world ‘matrix’ also finds its root in mater or womb. (Barnhart & Steinmetz, 1988) The original spark of light seeks its reflection, thus separating from the One. Creation begins from the point of separation from unity to reflect self and transformation occurs at the apex point of the triangle giving birth to a new and third state of being. This is the underlying pattern repeated in the replication of life symbolized by the Ouroboros and the movement of the caduceus. The opposites are always striving towards equilibrium and harmony through a dance. The animating spark finds a vessel that reflects itself and creates a containing receptacle as the moon reflects the Sun. Without the tension of opposites, all would remain in a state of stagnant potential. The unification of the opposites results in a third, greater than the sum of the two. The Transcendent third in Jung’s terms is transformed at the apex of a triangle. Thus, the creative source, whether divine, psychological, imaginal, or embodied seeks to know itself and thus transform. The opposites are reunited in the coniunctio or sacred wedding uniting the opposites in a third reality that could never have been imagined from our previous reality.

Jung, Alchemy, and Creativity

The essence of alchemical change can be seen as akin to the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. In the chrysalis process, the caterpillar disintegrates into a formless substance called imaginal cells before it is reconstituted as a butterfly. The butterfly is often seen as a harbinger of the soul. Psyche as soul also is subject to the same transformational process.

In a simplification of the seven phases of alchemical transformation, the alchemical processes can be divided into four primary phases. The first of these is the Nigredo or blackening (death) which is experienced as a dark night, a disintegration of what has become worn down and devoid of vitality. In alchemical art, it is represented by crows or ravens. The second phase, the Albedo or whitening is a return of spirit.

This is a unification with the lunar light and hope. It is often depicted as a white dove. Citrinitas, the yellowing portends the return of the Solar light and is associated with fermentation and further refining of soul. The culmination in the final phase of Rubedo or reddening; completes the transformation. Life is renewed as light in matter in a new vital form.

This cycle repeats in a spiral that moves through planes of existence. Psychologically, in Nigredo, we experience a burning (fire), a cleansing dissolution (water), a separation (air), self-reflection, and a conjunction in which the spirit and soul are reunited with the body (earth). This represents the completion of the first coniunctio; Unio Mentalis. The second coniunctio reunites the spirit, soul with body. This may be the Individuation that Jung described. The third coniunctio is called the Unus Mundus, the one world. This is a Unification of spirit, soul and body with the One. We can link the Unus Mundus symbolically to allude to the return to the Garden; the kingdom of heaven on earth as it is in heaven.

The three coniunctios recount the process of creative transformation on all planes; spiritual, mental, imaginal, and physical. The movement of the creative process can be seen as essentially arising in the dance signified by the caduceus carried by Mercurius. The caduceus depicts two intertwining snakes that connect and are crowned at the top of the Tree in Kether. The intertwining serpents unite and separate endlessly as they dance throughout time and space.

We experience the alchemical processes currently manifesting in our world through the climate crisis. The Calcinatio (fire) is the first phase of the Nigredo. Dissolution or Solutio (water) as evidenced by floods and hurricanes. Separatio (air) is separation and potential self-reflection to awaken and reunite the opposites. The earth is speaking through us.

Geometry original oil painting by Jake Baddeley

Mercurius

Mercurius is the beginning and the end of the great work of alchemy. He is the Prima Materia and the Philosopher’s stone. As a trickster, he contains the opposites, separates and reunites them in the coniunctio, the marriage of brother and sister, king and queen, Sun and Moon in alchemy. Mercurius is the dance and the dancer. In alchemy, spirit is linked to sulphur and salt to matter. Here the chemical Mercury is a substance of both liquid and metal.

The philosophical Mercurius is also androgyne; uniting male and female, spirit and matter, good and evil. Mercurius is the beginning and the end of the process of revolving transformation. He is as such the Lapis stone that holds the elixir of life. As ouroboros, he is the serpent and its redemption, bearer of the caduceus. In alchemy, he is air and water and links the fire of sulphur with the salt of earth. Mercurius is the above and below, bridging macrocosm and microcosm. He is the quintessence as the spark of spirit. As Hermaphrodite, he joins the sun and moon, masculine and feminine. He is the traveler between worlds, god of crossroads, commerce, thief, trickster, serpent, and duplex god. In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung elaborates on Mercurius:

When the alchemist speaks of Mercurius, on the face of it he means quicksilver, but inwardly he means the world-creating spirit concealed or imprisoned in matter. The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy. It appears as the Ouroboros, the tail-eating dragon. Time and again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one and leads back to the one, that it is a circle that bridges heaven and earth and a spiral that has no beginning and end. It is Mercurius who stands at the beginning and end of the work.
(Jung, 1968, para. 404)

Geometry original oil painting by Jake Baddeley

The Structure of the Tree of Life

Observing the structure of the Tree of Life, there are three inherent triangles that link four worlds. These triangles are the supernal triangle also called the archetypal world, the psychological or philosophical triangle, and the imaginal or astral triangle. From the bottom astral triangle hangs a single circle. This is the kingdom, the realm of earth/body/matter, and is called Malkuth. It is the fourth world where the three seek root in manifestation.

Earth contains the quaternity which is comprised of the original Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. These four elements correspond to the Kabbalah’s four worlds and one can see correspondence to Jung’s personality typology of Intuition, Thinking, Feeling, and Sensation as well as Tarot’s minor arcana’s suits of Wands, Swords, Cups, and Pentacles which also illustrate the multivalence of these correspondences. In meditating on these correspondences, an amplification of the symbols begins to reveal our relationship to the “as above, so below”. The horizontal and vertical axes of the cross anchor the opposites in time and space, dividing them into four equal parts designating the quaternity. On the Tree of Life, the ascending path is the Serpent path depicting the evolution of consciousness. The reference to the serpent is an apt descriptor of this process; it is one of winding upward toward the light in a serpentine movement.

The descending path known as the Lightning flash is one of involution and is imaged as a lightning bolt that moves vertically downward from side to side. When viewed from above or below, this back-and-forth motion is seen as a spiral.

As we have noted, the three triangles depicted on the Tree of Life represent Spirit, Psyche, and the Astral or subtle body. They manifest in the fourth which is Matter.

Lightning Path on the Tree of Life
Serpent Path on the Tree of Life
Three Triangles on the Tree of Life

The Triangles and the Transcendent Third

As noted above, the union of these opposites depicts the third which Jung called the Transcendent function. This transcendence arises from the marriage of the Sun and Moon. Their offspring is the divine child; Mercurius as filius philosophoum or the lapis philosophorum. Jung writes:

If the mediatory product remains intact, it forms the raw material for a process not of dissolution but of construction, in which thesis and antithesis both play their part. In this way it becomes a new content that governs the whole attitude, putting an end to the division and forcing the energy of the opposites into a common channel. It thus forms the middle ground on which the opposites can be united.
(Jung, 1958, para. 825)

As Jung indicates, on a psychological level, the symbol of the triangle describes how the ego, in encountering its unintegrated shadow, dissolves and reconstitutes itself as something more spacious to receive the expanded light of Spirit. Jung thus provides us with a psychological language based on symbol, image, and metaphor to bridge the worlds of the unconscious and consciousness.

The Supernal triangle located at the top of the Kabbalistic Tree emerges from the unmanifest at the Crown (Kether), the first spark of light in the archetypal world. The crown of the tree is the apex of the Supernal triangle which separates into Wisdom (Chokmah) on the right pillar of Mercy and Understanding (Binah) on the left pillar of Severity. They intimate the polarities that will continue to descend into manifestation as the flash of light moves toward matter. The Supernal triangle is the original triad of creation in the archetypal or collective world.

The Ethical or Philosophical triangle below the Supernal triangle illustrates the world of psyche and mind in time and space which we experience as duality.
The Sun (Tiphareth), translated as Beauty sits at the center of the entire tree. Tiphareth is in a direct vertical line from the first spark of Kether on the middle pillar and can be seen as a symbol of the Self. As Tiphareth is the Sun, Kether is the Light that illuminates the Sun, the Sun behind the sun. Tiphareth is symbolized by the intersecting triangles comprising the Seal of Solomon. The upward point of the seal designates Fire or force, yang, and masculine. The downward point of the seal is Water or form; yin and feminine, thus creating the sacred chymical marriage. This is the Coniunctio in which Spirit above and Matter below unite and become one in soulment.

The Astral triangle is the lowest of the three triangles, the realm of the subtle body and as such, it is closest to matter/earth. It is significant that the apex Moon (Yesod) is a reflection of the Sun (Tiphareth). The astral triangle is the realm of dreams, and visions. In this realm, the creative spark appears in the silver ghost-like garment of the moon. Yesod is a receptacle of the energies that have sprung from the original spark in the Collective Unconscious. Here, we have descended into the realm of imagination. thought and dreams.

‘Luna is really the mother of the Sun, which means, psychologically, that the unconscious is pregnant with consciousness and gives birth to it.’
(Jung, 1977, para. 219)

 

The Quaternity and the Quintessence

The quaternity is the goal and gold of the philosopher’s stone. It is the ‘cornerstone’ in which the spirit Mercurius returns to live in matter. spirit in matter then becomes the Quintessence. Fire, Water, Air, and Earth are reunited with spirit in the symbol and depicted as a five-pointed star.

Our task is to bring spirit into matter through Psyche as soul; Mercurius is here both mediator and transformer. He is quintessence at the heart of the chrysalis, the alchemically sealed vessel in which we incubate and transform the soul. Significantly, the alchemists sought to capture Mercurius and contain him to complete the operations of alchemical transformation.

 

Jung as Emissary of Mercurius

Jung traverses religion and culture through dreams, visions, and active imagination, (a process he created and used throughout The Red Book (Jung, 2009)) drawing connections to Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Alchemy, Gnosticism, and Shamanism. The following quotation expresses Jung’s own journey on the evolutionary Serpent path leading up the Tree of Life:

The right way to wholeness is made up…of fateful detours and wrong turnings. It is the longissima via not straight but snakelike, a path that unites the opposites in the manner of the guiding caduceus, a path whose labyrinthine twists and turns are not lacking in terrors.
(Jung, 1968, para. 6)

Image of the Serpent to illustrate the Serpent’s path

Illustration of the serpent rising from Carl Jung’s Red Book Manuscript

The Serpent’s Path

Jung references the Serpent’s path of evolution moving in a spiral motion up the Tree in The Red Book (Jung, 2009, p. 54). The pathways encompass the mysterium tremendum; the great mystery within the Unus Mundus, the one undivided world and its manifestation as Anima Mundi, the world soul. 

In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung recounts his numinous experience in the garden after his heart attack in 1944. He refers to the ‘Garden of Pomegranates’—the Garden of Eden. In Jung’s vision, Malkuth—the Kingdom—was married to Tiphareth, Beauty. Of the vision, he wrote poignantly:

‘It is impossible to convey the beauty and intensity of emotion during those visions’ (Jung 1989, p. 294)

Jung’s visions of the Garden and his description of his ecstatic experience recall us back to humanity’s original destiny. In the wedding of Heaven and Earth—in this coniunctio—where the ego surrenders to the soul, eternal light is made manifest in nature. Creative resolution is the completion of this journey, the fruit of the imagination. Creativity is imagination in motion: never static as is winged Mercurius a fluid quintessence who comprises the very substance of being. The caduceus he bears is also the ouroboros revolving spirit into matter and back into spirit.

The Anima Mundi is spirit returned to Matter and is linked to Sophia, the divine feminine who fell from Grace. She is identical to the original Hebrew Shekinah, as archetypal image of ‘form’ (Owens, 2010). Therefore, she is the Anima Mundi.

The Archetypal world of Spirit and the Instinctual world of Matter is as macrocosm to microcosm. A Saturnian contraction allows the formation of the philosopher’s stone. The sparks of the light of Kether must be contained, captured, and refined to create the philosopher’s stone.

Here we see the essential goal of alchemy through the elemental and psychological perspectives. New life arises from the old like the snake shedding its skin, or like a bolt of genius striking and reverberating in soul, wedding creative imagination and emotion.

The Tree of Life as a map encompasses all four planes of existence, invisible and visible. We are both witnesses and creators in this process of self-discovery. As such, the Tree of Life stands as a luminous symbol of Archetypal oneness. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end are One, heralding our return home to the one world.

Anima Mundi illustration

References

Barnhart, R. K., & Steinmetz, S. (Eds.) (1988). Barnhardt dictionary of etymology. Hackensack: H.W. Wilson.

Burckhardt, T. (1967). Alchemy. English translation by Stuart and Watkins. Köln: Element Press

Goethe, W. Von (1984). Faust Part 1, Translated by George Madison Priest. The Franklin Library, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1854)

Jung, C.G. (1958). The Transcendant function. In Kusnacht (Ed.), The structure and dynamics of the psyche. The collected works of C.G. Jung (2nd ed., Vol. 20). Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1916)

Jung, C.G. (1962). Symbols of Transformation: CW5: An Analysis of the Prelude to a Case of Schizophrenia (vol. 2). New York: Harper & Brothers.

Jung, C.G. (1968). Psychology and alchemy (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). In G. Adler & R.F.C. Hall (Eds.), The collected works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 12). Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1939)

Jung, C.G. (1976). Psychological types (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). In W. McGuire, S.H. Read, M. Fordham, & G. Adler (Eds.), The Collected Works of C.G. Jung (Vol. 6). Princeton: Princeton University Press (Original work published 1921)

Jung, C.G. (1977). Mysterium coniunctionis: An inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). In R.F.C. Hull, M. Fordham, & G. Adler (Eds.), The collected works of C.G. Jung (2nd ed., Vol. 14). Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1956)

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections (R. Winston & C. Winston, Trans. A. Jaffe Ed.). New York: Random House. (Original work published 1961)

Jung, C. G. (2009). The red book, liber novus. (M. Kyburz, J. Peck, & S. Shamdasani, Trans.). In S. Shamdasani (Ed.). New York: W.W. Norton.

Owens, L. (2010). Lecture 3 –The prophet’s bride: C. G. Jung and the Red Book (Retrieved from http://gnosis.org/redbook/JRB-Lecture-3.mp3)

 

Artwork

  1. Bosschart, Johfra; The Vision of Hermes Trismegistos
  2. Baddeley, Jake; The Secret Garden
  3. Zoroaster Clavis Artis, M.S. Verginelli-Rota, Vol. 2, P. 18, 1738; Ouroboros
  4. Baddeley, Jake; Geometry
  5. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life
  1. Diagrams: a) Lightning Path, b) Serpent Path, c) Three Triangles
  2. Jung, C.G.; The Red Book: Serpent Image P. 54
  3. Fludd, Robert; Anima Mundi from the Metaphysical and technical history of both the greater and the lesser cosmos, (Oppenheim, 1617)
Reclaiming Soul spiral icon in gold

Would You Like to Explore How the Kabbalistic Tree of Life May Be Applied to Your Life?

Contact Me to set up a Free Discovery Call, and learn how Jungian Depth Psychotherapy & Coaching, along with Dream Analysis, Tarot,  and Astrology may help you on your journey to find relief from suffering.

Let’s work together to find solutions around obstacles that are blocking your path to fulfillment and purpose.