Sapphire

The stone is a dark blue sapphire, but its connection with the sapphire stone in Ezekiel, which played a great role in ecclesiastical allegory, was not known to the painter. The special virtue of the sapphire is that it endows its wearer with chastity, piety, and constancy. It was used as a medicament for 'comforting the heart.' The lapis was called the 'sapphirine flower.'

Jung identifies the sapphire hidden in the roots of the philosophical tree as an alchemical image of psychic wholeness, connecting it to Ezekielian allegory, traditional lapidary virtues, and the direct equation of lapis with the 'sapphirine flower.'

Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967thesis

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The stone is a dark blue sapphire, but its connection with the sapphire stone in Ezekiel, which played a great role in ecclesiastical allegory, was not known to the painter. The special virtue of the sapphire is that it endows its wearer with chastity, piety, and constancy.

Restating the core thesis of 'Alchemical Studies', this passage confirms that sapphire's symbolic valence — encompassing Ezekielian vision, moral virtue, and therapeutic power — is unconsciously operative even when unrecognized by the image-maker.

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

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In the roots of the tree a sapphire lies hidden!

A direct image caption from a patient's artwork confirming that the sapphire as buried psychic treasure in the roots of the tree is not merely textual but a spontaneously produced, modern depth-psychological symbol.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Alchemical Studies, 1967thesis

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'The virtues therefore of the heavens are signified by the sapphire stone, for these spirits... hold the dignity of the highest place in heaven.'

Jung cites Gregory the Great's exegesis of Ezekiel to establish that sapphire in the Western theological tradition signifies the dignity and virtue of celestial spirits, a meaning Jung absorbs into his alchemical psychology of the Self.

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

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Above the firmament over their heads something like a throne could be seen, looking like sapphire. Upon it was seated, up above, one who had the appearance of a man.

Edinger reproduces Ezekiel's foundational sapphire-throne vision, the theophanic source text that underlies Jung's and the alchemical tradition's deployment of sapphire as an image of divine or Self-luminosity.

Edinger, Edward F., The Creation of Consciousness Jung's Myth for Modern Man, 1984supporting

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Robert Fludd called the 'quintessence (often identified with the Stone) a 'spirituall rock of pure transparent saphir'

Abraham documents Robert Fludd's direct identification of the alchemical quintessence — the refined essence of the prima materia — with a sapphire rock, confirming sapphire's role as a symbol for the highest distillate of the opus.

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

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'lazurite; sapphire' (Thphr., LXX, etc.)... Certainly somehow related to a similar Semitic word; cf. Hebr. sappir.

Beekes establishes the Semitic etymology of the Greek term for sapphire, grounding the biblical and alchemical sapphire symbolism in its Hebraic linguistic origins.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside

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