Within the depth-psychology corpus, 'mineral' operates on at least three interlocking registers. In the alchemical literature mediated through Jung, Hillman, Edinger, and von Franz, the mineral kingdom signifies the densest, most inert stratum of matter into which spirit descends and within which it awaits liberation — the prima materia as sleeping divinity. Jung's reading of the Philosophers' Stone in its 'mineral form' anchors this register: minerals, metals, and stones are not dead substrate but psychically charged carriers of projected unconscious content. Hillman, characteristically, dissolves the boundary between vegetable and mineral kingdoms by treating metals as seeds — living intentional forces, vis naturalis — whose animation challenges the modern organic/inorganic dichotomy. Abraham's dictionary entries document the alchemical lexicon in which the 'mineral body' is subject to corruption, mortification, and eventual perfection through the opus. A secondary register appears in Sardello's ensouled-world phenomenology, where phosphorus and sulphur as mineral substances carry qualities of warmth and levity, bridging soul and matter. A tertiary, more marginal register surfaces in nutrition science, where 'mineral' designates micronutrient deficiencies in addiction recovery — a usage entirely outside depth-psychological intent. The central tension throughout is between mineral as inert matter and mineral as the most condensed locus of psychic energy: the stone that heals, transmutes, and ultimately redeems.
In the library
12 passages
The mineral form of the Philosophers' Stone hath the power of transmuting any imperfect earthy matter into its utmost degree of perfection; that is, to convert the basest of metals into perfect gold and silver; flints into all manner of precious stones
Edinger cites Ashmole's prolegomena to establish the mineral form of the Philosophers' Stone as the primary alchemical-psychological symbol of transformation, linking mineral substance directly to the perfecting power of the opus.
Edinger, Edward F., Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972thesis
By considering metals as seeds, alchemy kept less to the distinctions between vegetable and mineral (organic and inorganic) kingdoms. Seeds are living forces; a metal such as silver is a vis naturalis with encoded intentionality
Hillman argues that alchemy collapses the vegetable/mineral divide by treating metallic mineral bodies as living, intentional seeds — vital carriers of soul rather than inert matter.
Alchemical salt, like any other alchemical substance, is a metaphoric or 'philosophic' salt. We are warned in various alchemical texts not to assume that this mineral is 'common' salt, our table salt or sodium chloride.
Hillman establishes that mineral salt in alchemy must be read as a psychological-philosophical substance rather than a literal chemical compound, exemplifying the hermeneutic applied to all mineral terms in depth-psychological alchemy.
Unus est Mercurius mineralis, Mercurius vegetabilis, Mercurius animalis.
Jung cites this inscription on the alchemical basin to argue that Mercurius — the transformative spirit — unifies mineral, vegetable, and animate levels of being, making the mineral the foundational stratum of a psycho-cosmological hierarchy.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of the Transference and Other Subjects, 1954thesis
preparing that Divine Salt by which the metallic or mineral body is corrupted, destroyed, and mortified
Abraham documents the standard alchemical usage in which the mineral body must undergo mortification — destruction of its fixed state — as a necessary stage of the opus.
Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting
That water is simple and unmixed, this water is composed of two substances: namely of our mineral and of simple water. These composite waters form the philosophical Mercurius.
Jung cites alchemical authority to show that 'our mineral' is a constitutive component of the philosophical Mercurius, embedding mineral substance at the heart of transformative psychic process.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944supporting
Phosphorus... is a mineral substance that when exposed to air bursts into fire; that is, it does not tend toward a state of compactness but is a substance radiating beyond itself. Sulphur is more mixed, for it is a mineral substance that burns.
Sardello reads mineral substances such as phosphorus and sulphur as carriers of soul-qualities — warmth, levity, radiation — within his animistic phenomenology of the world.
Sardello, Robert, Facing the World with Soul: The Reimagination of Modern Life, 1992supporting
Jung's index entry equating 'mineral' with 'metal' and locating the 'mineral kingdom' as a distinct ontological domain reflects the systematic place of minerals within his alchemical psychology.
Jung, C. G., Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907supporting
the blood of their stone will free the leprous metals and also men from their diseases. Wherefore they have said, not without good reason, that their stone is animate.
Jung documents the alchemical belief that the Stone — originating in mineral matter — produces a redemptive blood capable of healing both leprous metals and diseased human bodies, affirming the animation of mineral substance.
Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
These lunatic phases are silver mines. When we enter the mine we go lunatic for a spell.
Hillman uses the silver mine as a psychological metaphor for the disorienting vishuddha phase of inner work, grounding mineral extraction in depth-psychological transformation.
the Fathers of the American Revolution – Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Rush – studied mineral waters... the first artificial mineral-water business of Schweppe, Paul and Gosse began in Switzerland.
Hillman traces the cultural history of mineral waters as part of his broader narrative on the alchemical spirit entering democratic and commercial life, here functioning as historical context rather than direct psychological argument.
Vitamin and mineral values are also inconsistent in published studies, suggesting that confounding variables such as dietary choices make it difficult to associate the drug with any specific deficiencies.
This clinical nutrition passage uses 'mineral' in a purely biochemical sense to discuss micronutrient deficiencies in opioid use disorder, standing entirely outside depth-psychological discourse.
Wiss, David A., The Role of Nutrition in Addiction Recovery: What We Know and What We Don't, 2019aside