Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘arcanum’ operates across two distinct but interpenetrating registers. In the alchemical literature mediated through Jung, von Franz, and Edinger, the term denotes a hidden, numinous substance or principle — a secret doctrine concealed within matter itself. For Jung, the arcana of Paracelsian natural philosophy were projections of unconscious psychic contents onto physical substances; ‘philosophy was as it were concealed in matter,’ making the arcanum a prototype of the projected Self. Mercurius, the aqua permanens, the prima materia, and the lapis philosophorum are all designated arcana in this tradition, each pointing toward an indescribable unitary reality at the centre of the psychic opus. In the Tarot literature — Jodorowsky, Greer, Hamaker-Zondag, Pollack, and Place — the word migrates to name the individual trump cards of the Major and Minor Arcana, understood as autonomous symbolic presences, ‘letters’ in a sacred alphabet that encodes the full range of psychic transformation. Here each Arcanum is not a hidden substance but a living image possessing initiatory force. The tension between these usages — arcanum as concealed numinous matter versus arcanum as disclosed symbolic figure — marks a productive fault-line in the corpus, one that illuminates how depth psychology has consistently understood hidden knowledge as simultaneously psychological and cosmological.
Hence they appeared in the form of quicksilver or Mercurius, lead or Saturn, gold or aurum non vulgi, salt or sal sapientiae, water or aqua permanens, etc. These substances were arcana, and like them philosophy too was an arcanum.
Jung identifies the alchemical arcana as projections of psychological contents onto matter, establishing arcanum as the foundational category linking unconscious psyche to hidden natural substance.
, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature, 1966thesis
The arcane substance was also known simply as the rotundum, by which was understood the anima media natura, identical with the anima mundi.
Jung equates the arcane substance with the world-soul and the rotundum, positioning arcanum as the psychological symbol for the Self’s cosmic dimension.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
He should also know of the wonders of nature and the strange correspondence of the microcosm with the macrocosm, and not only with the visible universe, but with the invisible cosmic arcana, the mysteries.
Paracelsian medical knowledge, as framed by Jung, demands acquaintance with cosmic arcana — the invisible mysteries that link microcosm to macrocosm and prefigure the unconscious.
, The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature, 1966thesis
arcanum(-a), 73, 76, 81f, 102, 104n, 123, 135n, 153n, 185, 187n, 309 identical with artifex, 309 Mercurius as, 235
Jung’s index in Alchemical Studies maps arcanum to the arcane substance, Mercurius, and the artifex, demonstrating the term’s centrality and polysemic range across the alchemical corpus.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
numerous people are frightened by Arcanum XIII, which depicts a skeleton. In our civilization, this image is identified with death. But on taking a closer look at it, we perceive that the figure is blue, red, and flesh colored: it is a living, active skeleton that is a force of transformation in motion.
Jodorowsky establishes the individual Arcanum as a living symbol of psychic transformation whose meaning transcends culturally conditioned fear, requiring active interpretive engagement.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004thesis
If an Arcanum is a letter, if two are a syllable, three will form a word. More than three could constitute a sentence.
Jodorowsky articulates a structural linguistics of the Arcana, positioning each card as a discrete symbolic unit within a generative combinatory language of psychic meaning.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
These two Arcana reflect the two paths of knowledge that alchemical tradition called the ‘dry path’ and the ‘wet path.’
Jodorowsky situates paired Arcana within the alchemical schema of via sicca and via humida, explicitly linking Tarot symbolism to alchemical epistemology.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
it is first necessary to become familiar with the Major Arcana, the four Suits of the Minor Arcana, the function and value of the cards, and the symbology of the numbers that underlies the entire organization of the Tarot.
Jodorowsky frames the Major and Minor Arcana as the structural skeleton of the Tarot mandala, whose numerological organisation encodes a complete symbolic cosmology.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
More than any other Arcanum, The Wheel of Fortune is clearly oriented toward closure with the past and expectation of the future.
Jodorowsky characterises the individual Arcanum as a concentrated symbol of temporal and cyclical experience, capable of diagnosing the querent’s developmental moment.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
Patiently, day by day, I performed this same exercise by allowing each of the other seventy-seven Arcana to possess me. When they entered my s
Jodorowsky describes an active-imagination method of internalising each Arcanum, treating the cards as autonomous psychic presences capable of possessing consciousness.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
All the transformational energy of the Nameless Arcanum (XIII) collides against the dam presented by The Hanged Man. This situation can lead to self-destruction or rage.
Jodorowsky reads combinatory Arcana as dynamic psychological forces whose interaction models internal conflict and potential for either destruction or transformation.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
The High Priestess, devoted to collecting and studying inside the cloister, receives with Arcanum XVIIII light, freedom of movement, and the possibility of transmitting the sacred Word to the entire world.
Jodorowsky treats each Arcanum as an energetic principle that undergoes qualitative transformation when paired with adjacent cards, illuminating sequential developmental logic.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004supporting
The Arcus Arcanum deck displays a cat, instead of a dog, as the companion of The Fool, and the animal
Hamaker-Zondag references a specific deck named ‘Arcus Arcanum,’ illustrating how the term itself has been institutionalised as a proper name within Tarot publishing and Jungian Tarot study.
, Tarot as a Way of Life: A Jungian Approach to the Tarot, 1997aside
They have their heads at the bottom like The Hanged Man of Arcanum XII because they are seeing the world in a new way. The intellect, the mind, is looking directly at Nature.
Jodorowsky uses the numbered Arcanum designation to anchor his iconographic commentary, reinforcing the card-as-letter convention while reading bodily inversion as cognitive transformation.
, The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards, 2004aside