Quicksilver

the quicksilver is a material substance and at the same time a living spirit whose nature can be expressed by all manner of symbolic synonyms — though only, it is true, when it is made fire-resistant by artificial means.

Jung establishes quicksilver's defining paradox: it is simultaneously a physical substance and a numinous living spirit, accessible as symbol only through the transformative work of the alchemical art.

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

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It was certainly quicksilver, but a very special quicksilver, 'our' Mercurius, the essence, moisture, or principle behind or within the quicksilver — that indefinable, fascinating, irritating, and elusive thing which attracts an unconscious projection.

Jung draws the decisive distinction between common quicksilver and the philosophic Mercurius, arguing that the latter designates an autonomous unconscious content that projects itself onto the physical substance.

Jung, C. G., Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907thesis

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The idea is that the extraction of Mercurius from the prima materia is symbolically equivalent to the extraction of the blue caelum from the grape-pips; they correspond to the same psychological fact.

Edinger positions the Quicksilver text as psychologically equivalent to Dorn's caelum, identifying both as symbols for the same act of extracting a transcendent psychic content from gross matter.

Edinger, Edward F., The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995thesis

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The Sages have it that gold is nothing but quicksilver perfectly digested in the bowels of the earth, and they have signified that this is brought about by sulphur which coagulates the Mercury and digests it by its own heat.

Abraham documents the sulfur-mercury theory of metals, in which quicksilver constitutes the prime material substrate of all metals including gold, requiring sulphur to coagulate and mature it.

Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting

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The prima materia, the pure, first matter which contains the male and female seeds of metals, is sometimes called 'quicksilver'. 'The Golden Rotation' states that the matter of the Stone must be 'reduced into his first beginning, which is quicksilver the first matter of metals'.

Abraham establishes quicksilver's identification with the prima materia, showing it as the ur-substance containing the generative principles of all metals and the starting point of the Stone's preparation.

Abraham, Lyndy, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, 1998supporting

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'Para-da' (bestowing the Other Shore) signifies quicksilver. Mercurius was first understood pretty well everywhere as hydrargyrum (Hg), quicksilver or argentum vivum.

Jung traces quicksilver's identification with Mercurius across cultural and linguistic traditions, from the Indian Quicksilver System to the Western alchemical designation argentum vivum, establishing its universality as a symbol.

Jung, C. G., Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907supporting

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mercury can be extracted from certain compounds by heating. It vaporizes, sublimates, and reappears on the cooler portion of the vessel… 'the expulsion of the quicksilver (exhydrargyrosis)'.

Edinger connects the physical sublimation of quicksilver — its vaporization and re-condensation — to the psychotherapeutic operation of sublimatio, in which a psychic content is volatilized and rendered more refined.

Edinger, Edward F., Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, 1985supporting

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'Mercury, that is Hermes, is the Nous, the mind or reason, and that is the animus, who is here outside instead of inside. He is like a veil that hides the true personality.' The silver is quicksilver!

Chodorow records an active imagination in which a patient spontaneously equates the silver of Mercury's wings with quicksilver and then interprets this as the animus projected outward, displacing the true personality.

Chodorow, Joan, Jung on Active Imagination, 1997supporting

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Nor can I consider the Indian 'Quicksilver System.'

Jung briefly notes the existence of an Indian alchemical Quicksilver System without elaborating, signaling the term's cross-cultural reach while bracketing it from his primary Western focus.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967aside

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