Putrefactio

Putrefactio — from the Latin for “rotting” — names the organic decomposition that, with mortificatio, constitutes the operative double of the nigredo. Edinger (Anatomy of the Psyche, 1985) distinguishes the terms precisely: mortificatio “has no chemical reference at all” and is drawn from the ascetic vocabulary of subjecting the passions through penance; putrefactio is the specifically biological process of decay that follows death. The two are “overlapping terms” for “different aspects of the same operation” — mortificatio is the killing, putrefactio is what the corpse then does. The logic of the alchemical texts is unambiguously generative: “Putrefaction is of so great efficacy that it blots out the old nature and transmutes everything into another new nature, and bears another new fruit. All living things die in it, all dead things decay, and then all these dead things regain life” (Paracelsus, cited in Edinger 1985); “putrefaction precedes the generation of every new form into existence”; and — the instruction alchemists repeated to their students — “when you see your matter going black, rejoice: for that is the beginning of the work.” Hillman (Alchemical Psychology, 2010) sharpens the phenomenology: where mortificatio is mechanical — mortar and pestle, hammer — putrefactio is organic, “the inner heat that brings about decay.… ripening and rotting can hardly be distinguished.” Its psychological target is the crust of fixation: “those encrustations that psychology calls fixations, resistances, and compulsions, give up their habitual routines. The psyche surrenders its unity and identity, falling into a messy yet fecund disarray, like a compost pile.” Jung (1954) holds the paradox in theological register: “there is nothing that is apparent, that can be perceived, recognized, or tasted, but darkness, most painful death, a hellish fearful fire, nothing but the wrath and curse of God; yet he does not see that the Tincture of Life is in this putrefaction or dissolution and destruction, that there is light in this darkness, life in this death.” The instruction: “persevere in it in patience, in suffering, and in silence, until its forty days of temptation are over.”

Relationships

Primary sources

jung-psychology-and-alchemy (Jung 1944)
edinger-anatomy-of-the-psyche (Edinger 1985)
hillman-alchemical-psychology (Hillman 2010)