The Seba library treats Lava in 8 passages, across 4 authors (including Giegerich, Wolfgang, Russell, Dick, Levine, Peter A.).
I hit upon this stream of lava, and the heat of its fires reshaped my life. That was the primal stuff which compelled me to work upon it, and my works are a more or less successful endeavour to incorporate this incandescent matter
Giegerich cites Jung’s autobiographical account in which lava names the eruptive, incandescent prima materia of inner experience that compels and precedes all scientific work.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
As a Jung man my goal had been to accomplish something in my science. But then, I hit upon this stream of lava… Not by choice, to be sure, but compelled by that eruptive force that reshaped his life.
Giegerich argues that lava marks the moment Jung’s orientation shifted from scientific ambition to genuine psychological vocation, driven by an irresistible eruptive force rather than deliberate choice.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
able to think the liquefied and the recrystallized states at once. Each individual statement has to be able, like Thor’s cat, to represent the whole ‘Midgard Serpent.’ It must have the original stream of lava within itself.
Giegerich extends the lava metaphor into a methodological imperative: every rigorous psychological statement must hold within itself the living, liquefied vitality of the originating experience.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
lava metaphor 60-61, 63, 88-90, 93, 98
The index of Giegerich’s work formally registers the lava metaphor as a recurring and structurally significant concept spanning multiple chapters of argument.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
b) From fiery liquid lava to crystallized stone
Giegerich designates the transition from lava to crystallized stone as a named section heading, establishing it as a formal structural category within his epistemology of soul.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020supporting
“like a rich pile of lava….”: JH letter to Spiegelman, undated, Spring 1967, Hinshaw archive.
Hillman independently employs the lava image to characterize a creative or intellectual deposit, confirming the term’s currency as an evaluative metaphor among archetypal psychologists.
, Life and Ideas of James Hillman, 2023supporting
When a volcano erupts, the animals frequently lose their survival instincts, get confused, and some walk straight into the oncom
Levine invokes volcanic eruption as a naturalistic analogy for traumatic disorganization, using the implicit image of lava-flow to illustrate how overwhelming threat collapses instinctual purpose.
, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010aside
lava, 18
A bare index entry in Jung and Kerényi’s mythological essays situates lava within Italian mythological material, without elaboration, suggesting a contextual mythic rather than psychological valence.
, Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis, 1949aside