Materia occupies a philosophically sovereign position in the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a cosmological substrate, an alchemical operative concept, and a psychological symbol of the unconscious in its most primordial state. The lineage is unambiguous: from Plato’s Timaeus, where the ‘receiving principle’ is rendered formless precisely so that it may receive every form, through Plotinus’s insistence that Matter is ontologically necessary to quality and quantity, to the alchemical prima materia as both the raw chaos from which the Work begins and the concealed divine substance awaiting liberation. Jung inherits this entire tradition and performs the decisive psychological inversion: the materia — especially the prima materia — becomes a projection screen for unconscious contents; what the alchemist believes he encounters in matter is, Jung argues, chiefly the data of his own unconscious. Yet this is not a reductive dismissal: for Jung, the deity is genuinely ‘sleeping in matter,’ and the Work is the liberation of that immanent divinity. Edinger and von Franz extend this reading into clinical and cosmological registers respectively, while Abraham’s lexicographical work establishes the full range of synonyms — sea, chaos, Adam, Mercurius, prima materia — that the tradition accumulated. Simondon, outlier yet relevant, interrogates the hylomorphic relation between matter and form at the ontogenetic level, pressing against the Aristotelian schema that underlies all alchemical matter-theory. The central tension throughout is between materia as inert substratum and materia as living, generative, spiritually charged ground.
the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. Only as a secondary consideration does he hope that some benefit may accrue to himself
Jung identifies the alchemist’s core conviction that materia is the locus of a fallen, imprisoned divinity, making the transformation of matter a theurgical rather than merely chemical act.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis
The mercurial dragon of Greek alchemy, surnamed ἕν τò πᾶν gave rise to descriptions of the prima materia as Unum, Unica Res, and Monad
Jung documents the tradition’s identification of prima materia with metaphysical unity — the One and All — grounding the alchemical substance in a philosophical cosmology derived from Greek sources.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis
the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly prepared, unless it is formless, and free from the impress of any of those shapes which it is hereafter to receive from without
Plato establishes the philosophical archetype of materia as the radically formless receiving principle — the mother — from which all generated things take shape, a foundational move that all subsequent hylomorphic and alchemical theories inherit.
, Timaeus, -360thesis
The prima materia is the original stuff of creation from which it was thought all things in the universe were made. The sea is used as an image for the prima materia because it is the ‘mother’ (mater, matter) from which all things come.
Abraham establishes the etymological and symbolic equivalence of materia and mater within the alchemical lexicon, tracing the sea-image as a synonym for the formless, all-generative prima materia.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998thesis
In the context of the opus alchymicum Adam is a synonym for the prima materia, the substance from which it was believed the universe and all the things in it were created.
Abraham maps the alchemical synonymy between Adam and prima materia, demonstrating that the ‘red earth’ of human origin is coextensive with the original creative substance of the cosmos.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998thesis
The child is the prima materia of the adult. This patient’s urge for transformation is causing his return to the original condition… the formless state of pure potentiality, in order for a new form or actuality to emerge.
Edinger applies the prima materia concept clinically, reading the regressive pull toward formlessness in psychopathology as the psyche’s own dissolution back into the undifferentiated state prerequisite to transformation.
, Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985thesis
What he sees in matter, or thinks he can see, is chiefly the data of his own unconscious which he is projecting into it.
Jung articulates his central interpretive thesis: the alchemist’s engagement with materia is fundamentally a projection of unconscious psychic contents onto physical substance.
, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis
Matter is necessary to quality and to quantity, and, therefore, to body. It is, thus, no name void of content; we know there is such a base, invisible and without bulk though it be.
Plotinus defends the ontological necessity of Matter as a real, if invisible, substrate — the indeterminate base without which no quality, quantity, or body could exist.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
There is, then, a stable element, that which puts off one form to receive the form of the incoming entity… They must, therefore, consist of Matter and Form-Idea — Form for quality and shape, Matter for the base, indeterminate as being other than Idea.
Plotinus articulates the classical hylomorphic account of materia as the stable, indeterminate substratum that persists through all form-changes, distinguishing it categorically from Form-Idea.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
the work on one’s own individual psychic condition is of essential importance to the Opus, and this throws a new light on the previously referred to quotation concerning the separation of body and soul.
Von Franz reads the material transformations of alchemy as simultaneously inner psychic events, situating the microcosmic Work on the psyche as homologous to macrocosmic operations on matter.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
In alchemy all forms were believed to be created from the same formless substance, the prima materia or original first matter.
Abraham summarizes the alchemical doctrine of universal material unity: the prima materia as the single formless substratum underlying all differentiated forms in nature.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
Sulphur constituted the ‘form’ of the metal, argent vive its ‘matter’. This theory, which was based on Aristotle’s account of the generation of metals, first occurred in the writings of Geber.
Abraham traces the Aristotelian sulphur-mercury theory of metals, in which argent vive (mercury) constitutes the materia of metals while sulphur supplies the form — establishing the hylomorphic basis of practical alchemical chemistry.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
The matter conveys with it the potential energy being actualized; the form, which is here represented by the mold, plays an informing role by exerting forces without work, forces that limit the actualization of the potential energy momentarily borne by the matter.
Simondon critiques the passive Aristotelian conception of matter, reframing materia as an active carrier of potential energy whose individuation requires genuine participation rather than mere passive reception of form.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
In the raw clay, there is the capacity to become a maleable mass with the dimension of the future brick due to the colloidal properties of aluminum hydrosilicates… the molecular reality of the clay and of the water it absorbs is organized by the preparation.
Simondon illustrates his revised hylomorphism through the preparation of clay, showing that matter already contains implicit organization and potential that the forming operation must respect, not simply impose upon.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the artifex accompanies his chemical work with a simultaneous mental operation which is performed by means of the imagination… By projecting himself into the substance he has become unconsciously identical with it and suffers the same process.
Jung describes the Paracelsian doctrine of imaginatio whereby the alchemist’s psychic identification with the material substance creates a bidirectional transformation — the work on matter is simultaneously a work on the psyche.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
Mercurius is the mother of all metals, the substance from which all other metals are created… Mercurius or Hermes is also the name of the divine spirit hidden in the depths of matter, the light of nature.
Abraham identifies Mercurius as the supreme synonym for the animating spirit concealed within matter, bridging the material and spiritual dimensions of the alchemical materia.
, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
take the thing we now call water. This, when it is compacted, we see (as we imagine) becoming earth and stones, and this same thing, when it is dissolved and dispersed, becoming wind and air
Plato’s account of elemental transformation illustrates the underlying unity of the material substrate, which cycles through elemental forms without any one of them being the ultimate materia.
, Plato’s cosmology the Timaeus of Plato, 1997supporting
Matter is continuously overruled towards the better; so that out of the total of things — modified by Soul on the one hand and by Matter on the other hand — there is, in the end, a Unity.
Plotinus assigns Matter an active though subordinate role in the cosmic order, as a principle that generates imperfection but is perpetually drawn toward the Good by Soul’s overriding influence.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
Adam is the transformative substance, the ‘old Adam’ who is to renew himself.
Jung reads Adam in alchemical manuscripts as a personification of the prima materia undergoing self-renewal, reinforcing the equation of the anthropic and the material in alchemical thought.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955aside
sic Opus nostrum … nihil aliud est quam vapor et aqua. Esse illum Spiritum Domini, qui terrarum orbem impleat et ab initio aquis supernatavit.
A Latin alchemical source cited by von Franz identifies the prime material of the Work with vapor and water animated by the Spirit of God — fusing cosmogonic and material registers.
, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966aside