Sublimatio

Sublimatio — the alchemical operation of vaporizing a solid substance and condensing it again at a higher level — is, psychologically, the operation by which what has been bound in matter is lifted into spirit. Edinger’s Anatomy of the Psyche gives the operation its systematic Jungian reading. The greater sublimatio is a culminating process, the final translation into eternity of that which has been created in time (Edinger 1985). The lesser sublimatio is reversible — what ascends must descend — but the greater is one-way: Individual consciousness or realization of wholeness is the psychological product of the temporal process of individuation. For that to be made eternal is a mysterious idea. It seems to imply that consciousness achieved by individuals becomes a permanent addition to the archetypal psyche (Edinger 1985).

Jung’s near-death visions of 1944 are Edinger’s experiential touchstone: I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away; everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence falling away into objective form (Jung quoted in Edinger 1985). The operation is the alchemical signature of ratio-pneuma — the place where the pneumatic register is enacted on the substance of the soul.

The image-tradition is rich: Simeon Stylites on his column, Dante’s ladder of Saturn, Elijah’s chariot, the Iliaster’s passage of the mind or soul into another world (Jung 1967, citing Ruland). All belong to the iconography of ascent the operation makes available.

Relationships

Primary sources

edinger-anatomy-of-the-psyche (Edinger 1985)
alchemical-studies (Jung 1967)