I
In philosophical alchemy, there exists the idea of the Soror Mystica who works with the alchemist while he mixes his substances in his retorts. She is with him at all times throughout the long process of fusion, and at the end, there occures a mystic wedding, involving the creation of the Androgynous. This could not have been occured without the presence of the woman, without, in short, the psychic encounter of the Sister and the Alchemist.
II
In the process of individuation... — ... the same fusion takes place. Images and dreams are produced between the two, and become common to both of them so that neither remembers who it was that first produced the dream or the image. This psychic union never takes place in ordinary love, for even though two lovers may wish to fuse themselves completely, they will never be able to dream the same dream; there will always be something that seperates them. The magic wedding is alone capable of closing the gap.
III
... this psychic union could only take place in the spirit of love, since only then would one be willing to risk everything. Nevertheless, the love of the psychic union is tricky and dangerous; it is love without love, contrary to the laws of physical creation and history. It is a forbidden love, which can only be fulfilled outside of matrimony. This love... —... does not produce a child of flesh, but a child of spirit, or of the imagination. It is a fusion of opposing factors within the psyche of each of the lovers; it is a process of magical individuation. While it is true that this love does not exclude physical love, the physical becomes transformed into ritual. What is excluded is mutual sexual pleasure.
IV
The best way of explaining this complicated idea is to concider the Tantric practices of India, in which the Siddha magician attempted to achieve psychic union. The ritual of the Tantras is complicated and mysterious. The initiate had to be chaste, and the woman would usually be one of the sacred prostitutes of the temples which in reality is the same as being chaste. A long period of preparation was required before the culmination of the ritual. The man and the woman would go off together into the forest, living like brother and sister, like the alchemist and his sister, exchanging ideas, images, and words. They would sleep together in the same bed, but they would not touch each other. Only after months of preparation would the final Tantric Mass take place, in which wine was drunk, meat and cereal eaten, and finally Maithuna, or mystical coitus performed. This act was the culmination of the long process of sublimation, during which the flesh was transformed and transfigured, just as in alchemy lead is converted into gold, and the act of coitus was really intended to ignite the mystical fire at the base of the vertabral column.
V
This inextinguishable fire is the product of supreme love, but it has nothing whatever to do with the ordinary sexual act, in which something physical dies in order to produce a new life of flesh. In this love, the spirit of death is operative and produces a life of spirit. The woman is a priestess of magic love, whose function is to touch and awaken the various chakras of the Tantric hero, who is thus permitted to reach new levels of consciousness until totality is achieved. In the end, the pleasure that is gained is not one of the ejaculation of semen, which is strictly prohibited, but is the pleasure of vision, of the opening of the Third Eye, which represents the fusion of opposites. The man does not ejaculate the semen, but impregnates himself; and thus the process of creation is reversed and time is stopped. The product of this forbidden love is the Androgynous, the Total Individual, all of whose chakras, or centers of consciousness, are now awakened. It is an encounter with the Self, that Last Flower of the soul on an Island five thousand years ago....
VI
Once this rite of love without love is completed, the man and woman seperate. They are now complete and indivituated. In this Tantric Mass the man has infact married his spirit; he has married with Anima and she, with Animus.
VII
On the walls of temple of Khajuraho, in India, this forbidden love is pictured in thousands of sculptured figures. But nowhere are there statues of children, and that is why this love is an unnatural love. Inside the temple, in a most secret place, sits Shiva the Androgynous, meditating with his eyes closed, considering and enjoying his own act of creation.
VIII
In these strange rites, it is not important that the Maithuna be physical; what is important is that the Mystic Sister be there, with the alchemist, helping him mix in his substances and, like Mary Magdalen, aiding him in his hour of greatest need. What counts, then, is the psychic interplay of the two, to create together and to find themselves in the process of individuation.
IX
The final wedding, or union, takes place within the isolated individual, who is so completely alone that he really has no sense at all of his own body. This union is achieved by Kundalini, which Jung defined as an ’emotional current’. Like the mercury of the alchemists or the ’astral fire’ of the occultists, Kundalini awakens the chakras one by one until finally the Third Eye, or Ajna Chakra is opened and the Brahma Chakra or Final Emptyness is achieved. It is a wedding between the Ego and the Self achieved through a union of the Anima with the Animus. From the hand of Beatrice, Dante descends to the Inferno and then ascended to Heaven....
X
'Only poets will be able to understand me....’ I realized now the force of Jung’s words; I realized too that Jung, the magician, had almost alone made it possible for us today to take part in those Mysteries which seem capable of taking us back to that legendary land of the Man-God.
XI
And now we must wait for the appearance of a disciple capable of propounding his message, interpreting the underlying language of his work, which is already there like a palimpsest. That disciple will have to be a priest(ess), a magician or a poet.
