Fixatio

Fixatio is the alchemical operation of stabilizing what had been volatile. Edinger names it “one of the synonyms for coagulatio” and points to the alchemists’ pictures of “the mercurial serpent fixed to the cross or transfixed to a tree” as its master emblem (Edinger 1985, p. 105). What is being fixed is the elusive spirit mercurius — the autonomous psychic content that, left uncoagulated, dissipates or inflates. What fixes it is relation to a body: the body of a practice, the body of a vocation, the body of a life.

The classical chemistry is legible. Mercury amalgamated with a large quantity of another metal, or combined with sulphur, forms a solid; the Turba Philosophorum records the recipe: “Take quicksilver, coagulate in the body of Magnesia, in Kuhul (lead), or in Sulphur which does not burn” (Turba, dictum 11, cited in Edinger 1985). The clause “Sulphur which does not burn” marks the move from chemistry to psychology. What fixes spirit is a desire that holds its form under heat — a desire that does not consume itself in its own expression.

Psychologically, fixatio names the discipline by which an insight becomes a life. What is merely known evaporates; what is fixed in concrete commitment endures. The Christian image the alchemists borrowed was the crucifixion — spirit “nailed to matter,” the four elements (the cross) holding the volatile mercurial serpent in place (Edinger 1985, p. 105). The Manichean doctrine of Jesus patibilis, “the suffering Jesus who hangs from every tree” and is “dispersed in all creation” (Edinger 1985, p. 106), universalized the figure: every instance of uncoagulated spirit seeks its fixation.

Relationships

• coagulatio
• solutio
• mercurius
• opus-alchymicum
• lapis-philosophorum

Primary sources

• edinger-anatomy-of-the-psyche (Edinger 1985)
• jung-mysterium-coniunctionis (Jung 1955)