Queen Of The South

The Queen of the South enters the depth-psychology corpus primarily through the alchemical tradition, where she functions as a personification of Sapientia — the feminine Wisdom principle that seeks Solomon and is sought by the adept. Jung and von Franz are the decisive voices. In the Aurora Consurgens commentary, von Franz systematically identifies the Queen of the South with the anima as a projection of the collective unconscious: a luminous, crowned figure arriving ‘like the morning rising’ from the east, bearing power, honour, and dominion, and wearing upon her head a crown of twelve stars. This figure conflates the biblical Queen of Sheba (regina austri), the Solomonic Wisdom literature, and the alchemical Sophia into a single psychological complex. Jung treats her implicitly in Mysterium Coniunctionis through the transformation of the feminine element from serpent to queen — the anima elevated from temptress to psychopomp — and in Psychology and Alchemy through the Wisdom of the south who preaches in the streets and is trodden underfoot. The key tension in the corpus is between the figure’s exalted metaphysical status (self-projection, coronation, coniunctio) and her radical devaluation in ordinary consciousness, trampled daily by those who pass her by. The Queen of the South thus embodies the latent numinosity of the unconscious feminine awaiting recognition.

In the library 12 passages

This is Wisdom, namely the Queen of the south, who is said to have come from the east, like unto the morning rising, to hear, to understand, yea and to see the wisdom of Solomon, and there was given into her hand power, honour, strength, and dominion

Von Franz identifies the Queen of the South with Wisdom as a projection of the Self, discoverable everywhere as the light of nature hidden in all things.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

This is the Wisdom, Queen of the South, who has come from the east like the rising dawn to hear and understand the wisdom of Solomon. In her hand is power, honour, glory, and the kingdom.

Von Franz presents the Queen of the South as Wisdom crowned with twelve stars, an alchemical-psychological personification of the Self approaching Solomon as the conscious mind.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

This is Wisdom, namely the Queen of the south, who is said to have come from the east, like unto the morning rising. The famous verse from the Song of Songs was interpreted by the Fathers as the earthly Church.

Von Franz traces how the Queen of the South in Aurora Consurgens inherits both the patristic interpretation of the Song of Songs and the alchemical designation of Wisdom as Aurora.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

All good things come to me together with her, that Wisdom of the south, who preacheth abroad, who uttereth her voice in the streets, crieth out at the head of the multitudes

Jung cites the alchemical Aurora Consurgens text to establish the Wisdom of the South as a publicly proclaimed yet universally overlooked feminine principle central to the opus.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

the beginning of the text would accordingly describe a numinous encounter with the anima, whose irruption into the sphere of consciousness the author endeavours to control

Von Franz argues that the Aurora’s opening, which contextualises the Queen of the South figure, represents a numinous anima encounter compensating the author’s prior devaluation of the feminine.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

the Queen stood on my right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety…. O Queen of the heights, arise, make haste, my love, my spouse, speak, beloved, to thy lover, who and of what kind and how great thou art

Jung presents the queen-figure in the alchemical text as the elevated feminine counterpart to the kingly Sol, prefiguring the coniunctio as mutual recognition between conscious and unconscious.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The transformation of the feminine element from a serpent into a queen. The coronation, apotheosis, and marriage signalize the equal status of conscious and unconscious that becomes possible at the highest level—a coincidentia oppositorum with redeeming effects.

Jung explicitly maps the queen’s coronation onto the psychic process by which the anima is transformed from temptress into psychopomp through the ego’s surrender to suprapersonal decrees.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Queen: of alchemy, 370; of Heaven, 212; higher, 397n; of the South, see South… South, 380n; Queen of the, 158, 189, 204, 210, 217; symbolic meanings, 158

The general index of the Aurora Consurgens commentary catalogues the Queen of the South across multiple chapters, indicating the term’s structural importance to the work’s symbolic architecture.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

in the Jewish tradition it is chiefly the Kabbala that has again taken up this theme, and in the Christian tradition there are a few mystics like St. John of the Cross

Von Franz contextualises the love-mysticism associated with Solomonic Wisdom — the conceptual field of the Queen of the South — within broader suppressed traditions of the divine feminine in Judaism and Christianity.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980aside

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Related terms