Antimony occupies a richly determined position in the depth-psychology corpus, entering almost exclusively through alchemical hermeneutics. Jung's most sustained treatment appears in Mysterium Coniunctionis, where antimony is identified with the 'antimony of the philosophers' invoked by Michael Maier — the arcane substance figured as a sunken king, a Christian dominant that has descended into the unconscious and must be raised in renovated form. Its chromatic ambivalence is insisted upon: antimony trisulphide produces blackness (kohl), while the pentasulphide yields the orange-red 'gold-sulphur,' linking the substance to the full nigredo-to-rubedo arc of the opus. Edinger, extending Jung's framework into clinical psychotherapy, foregrounds the metallurgical identity of antimony as the 'wolf of metals' — the purifying agent that devours all metals save gold, functioning as balneum regis and thereby symbolising the ego's encounter with a dissolving, purgatorial force. Hillman, reading through Artephius, recovers antimony's whitening function: 'antimonial vinegar' as a 'middle substance, clear as fine silver,' capable of receiving tinctures and producing albedo. Abraham's lexicographic work situates raw antimony ore among the synonyms for prima materia and the green lion. The term thus articulates a cluster of psychic operations — purification, descent, dissolution, and whitening — at the junction of sulphur, Saturn, and the royal motif.
In the library
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The arcane substance corresponds to the Christian dominant, which was originally alive and present in consciousness but then sank into the unconscious and must now be restored in renewed form. Antimony is associated with blackness: antimony trisulphide is a widely used Oriental hair-dye (kohl).
Jung identifies antimony as the arcane substance that symbolises the sunken Christian dominant requiring psychological renewal, linking its chromatic range — from black trisulphide to orange-red pentasulphide — to the full spectrum of the opus.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis
He identifies the wolf with antimony, which was called the 'wolf of metals,' because it 'devoured,' or united with, all the known metals except gold. On account of its use in purifying molten gold—the impurities being removed in the form of a scum—antimony was also called balneum regis, the 'bath of the King.'
Edinger explicates antimony's dual alchemical identity — devouring wolf and royal bath — as images of the purgatorial dissolution of the ego's ruling principle during mortificatio.
Edinger, Edward F., Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985thesis
the text of Artephius is by an old man over eighty. It insists that 'without antimonial vinegar no metal can be whitened.' This antimony 'is a mineral participating of Saturnine parts.' It is 'a certain middle substance, clear as fine silver,' which receives tinctures so that they be 'congealed and changed into a white and living earth.'
Hillman draws on Artephius to present antimony as a Saturnine 'middle substance' essential to albedo, functioning as an alternative whitening agent to sulphur and emblematic of a depressive but psychically vivifying mode of transformation.
raw antimony ore, the unclean matter of the Stone, philosophical mercury, the *prima materia in the earliest stage of the opus alchymicum
Abraham's lexicon identifies raw antimony ore as a synonym for prima materia and the green lion, locating it at the very inception of the alchemical work.
Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
when applied to antimony ore it caused it to crystallize in a star pattern, producing the regulus of antimony
Abraham notes the technical production of the regulus of antimony through iron reduction, a process with significant symbolic resonance in the star-patterned crystallisation associated with the astral imagery of the opus.
Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
transformative: or arcane substance, 72, 74, 211; antimony as, 146
An index entry in Jung's Collected Works Volume 3 explicitly cross-references antimony under 'arcane substance' and 'transformative,' confirming its standing as a central operative principle in the alchemical-psychological lexicon.
Jung, C. G., Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907supporting
sulphur, 106, 110ff, 168, 184, 220, 239, 241, 517 alchemical symbols of, 125 as anima/soul, 113, 350n and antimony, 332
The index of Mysterium Coniunctionis records sulphur and antimony as co-located concepts, confirming their functional pairing in Jung's analysis of the opus's active principles.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting
An index citation in Mysterium Coniunctionis cross-references antimony at two loci, signalling its recurrent but non-dominant presence across the argument of that work.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955aside
A bare index entry in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious places antimony in the conceptual neighbourhood of the Antichrist and collective shadow material, without elaboration.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959aside
are mude spiritual and most antimony aqua vitae antimony subtle, so are they now the true tinctures
Abraham's dictionary places antimony in adjacency to aqua vitae in its index structure, indicating its role among the volatilising and tincturing substances of the opus without extended commentary.
Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998aside