the alchemical coniunctio process

[daojones]

I am looking to find more info on how the alchemical coniunctio oppositorum process works and was having trouble finding resources. Was hoping somebody could make a suggestion or perhaps has something to share.

 

The context is that I am doing work in/on my psyche and I think understanding this process would help me move forward in resolving my 'opposites'.

[Marks of Glory]

rsrs....

 

I guess this is the great Mystery that everyone seeks information about...

 

A good meditation or qigong lineage does the job I believe.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Marks of Glory

[三江源]

 

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4. Sacred Marriage

When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the Kingdom.

Gospel of Thomas, 22

The sacred marriage, the ‘coniunctio’ or ‘coitus’, refer to the union of our divine spirit with the soul, and finally with the body. By way of speaking we could say that in common man the spirit, soul and body are kind of separated from each other, although they are working with each other. But when the Great Work has been completed, the divine spirit has been brought ‘down’ to shine through the soul and body and unified itself with them, so they all form one and the same ‘body’.

(Museum Hermeticum reformatum, Frankfort, 1678)

Some alchemists claim there are three coniunctio’s, but coniunctio by itself can be interpreted in many ways.

Alchemy knows a lot of opposite images, like water and fire, dryness and wetness, warmth and cold, the volatile and the fixed, the bodily and the spiritual, the Sun and the Moon, gold and silver, circle and square and so on. The union of these opposites already constitutes a coniunctio. Coniunctio is also the union of divine or spiritual energies with earthly energies.

In the mystical sense coniunctio is the understanding or experience of the unity of opposites or paradoxes, the experience of the unity that lies behind our world of duality. Our limited understanding can only see in opposites. In the far East one tries to transcend this limited understanding by koans, expressions that contain paradoxes. Alchemy has a similar approach as it uses expressions as fiery water, watery fire, water that does not wet the hands, fire that does not burn.

Coniunctio provides this transcendence into unity by the process of dissolution of the body into water. "As the dissolution dissolves the bodies, thus the doubts of the philosophers are dissolved by knowledge." (Gerhard Dorn, 16^th century)

In alchemical manuscripts conciunctio is depicted as the union or coitus of King and Queen, of the red man and the white woman, or just by man and wife. "Connect the slave with his fragrant sister and by themselves they will make the entire work; because as soon as the white woman has been married to the red man, they will hug themselves firmly and become one, they will decompose and perfect each other: from the two bodies they were before they will become one single body that is susceptible for perfection." (Donum Dei, early 16^th century). As it shows in this quotation coniunctio was often incestuous. We can also find that in other religions, like Sulamith and Adam Kadmon in the Cabala, Adam and Eve in Catholicism, Isis and Osiris in ancient Egypt. In alchemy it usually between mother and son. "Beya mounted Gabricius (her son) and locked him up in his belly, that well that he was not visible anymore. And she hugged Gabricius with such love that she took him completely into her nature and divided him into numerous parts." (Rosarium philosophorum, 1550). A bizarre union but it is entirely symbolic. Carl Gustav Jung says that this symbolic incest is the descent into or the penetration of the unconscious. The mother is the unconscious, the son is the conscious. It is a ‘regressus ad uterum’ or the return to the uterus of the mother. Penetration of the female is the same as the penetration of the water or the unconscious. Thus we see that the coniunctio is depicted as the coitus of man and wife, king and queen, but also by the king taking a bath, or drinking water. Sometimes the coitus between man and woman happens in water, in a bath or in a fountain. The water is also synonymous with mercury or quicksilver.

The alchemist Gerhard Dorn spoke about the body, soul and spirit of man. The body (corpus) corresponds with what we now would call with the Jungian term ‘the shadow’. The soul (anima) he considered to be a neutral life energy, the habits, wishes and desires. Spirit (animus) was the will, the ego concept. The spirit is always good and has higher mental potentials. In ignorant man they form a trinity, because man is not conscious of all three, but experiences them as just one.

Dorn said there are three coniunctio’s. The first coniunctio happens with ‘separatio’ or ‘distractio’. The soul separates itself from the body when man becomes conscious of those two. The soul and the spirit are uniting, which he calls ‘unio mentalis’. As man is now conscious of his body as separated from his soul and spirit, it is a voluntary death of the body, for example one does not express its negative impulses.

The second coniunctio is the unio mentalis combined with the purified body.

The third coniunctio is the combination of the spirit-soul-body with the ,unus mundus’. "The unus mundus is the potential world of the first day of creation when nothing existed ‘in actu’, that is in Two or multiplicity, but only of One." It is an entrance into unity, where one experiences everything as one.

In Hinduism the individual soul unifies with Brahman, which is the ultimate reality, the all unifying principle. He is the inner being of all things. He is limitless and cannot be understood by our intellect, nor expressed by words.

The alchemist Pernety (1858) also knows three coniunctio’s: "The first one is called double coniunctio. It is between ‘agens’ and ‘patiens’, between the male and the female, the form and the substance, quicksilver and sulfur, the subtle and the gross. The second one is called threefold, because it unifies three things: the body, the soul and the spirit. Thus reduce trinity to unity. The third one is called fourfold, because it unifies the four elements into one, but also includes the three others."

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[voidisyinyang]

Just read the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" -- it's free online scribd or various pdf downloads.

[Wells]

http://www.all-dao.com/essence-taoist-alchemy.html

 

 

Why do people die?
What is the essence of Taoist alchemy? Xing and Ming. Fusion of soul XING with energy MING

Why do people die, if they have no diseases? Old age is the reason, you may say. But why does this old age come, what is the mechanism of it? A man grows old and dies because he is spending his vital energy. It's like a battery in a toy, when the battery is new – the toy car runs, but when the battery has run out – the toy car stops...And what kind of "battery" is it? It is something that is located in the area of the abdomen in the human body (compare stomach and stamina).

In Chinese tradition “the battery” is called MING 命, translated as life or destiny. (“How much stamina one has?”). So, this Ming - battery otherwise known as yuanqi 元氣 in traditional Chinese medicine, but in Taoism a different character is used 元炁 - the primordial qi*. It is getting spent. And when it ends, then a "kind" man with a scythe comes.

Ming is a tangible real substance and it can be felt, given a perfected sensitivity. Ming can be replenished only by mastering the since Taoist alchemy (just to emphasize that, according to the records of our school, some other traditions also posses such an essentially identical method, ). Note that to "Die" in Chinese is written emphatically: 失命 i.e. LOST MING.

But apart from Ming there is still another substance. It is located in the chest, and any other spiritual schools strive to perfect it. All of them base their teachings on it. It is called XING 性, which is translated as nature, the nature of the heart. In Chinese it is also called 心性 XIN XING or 本性 BEN XING. All the many methods of meditations and praying, stopping the internal dialogue, etc appeal to this. The mechanism is simple in theory - it is necessary to reduce the vibrations, to remove the waves and gradually reach a full peace. If you will perfect at this even further, then you will go into a stable peace, the breath will go away, the heart will almost stop beating and A Yin spirit YINSHEN will be able to leave of the body. This is what actually called enlightenment in the late Chan Buddhism. In addition, this work may lead to the improvement of specific abilities. This spirit is something that in many cultures is called a ghost. This spirit is identical to the soul that leaves the body at death – which is also called YINSHEN.

However, in contrast to the dying person, the spirit of the practitioner is connected to the body. When this out of the body experience happens, and then the spirit returns to the body, there are the certain signs which indicate that it did really happen. However many modern practitioners do not get out of the body, and with closed eyes travel in their fantasies. And that is a different phenomenon.

All religions and the latest doctrines hope for such an out of body experience, hence the attention to MORALITY is so strong. Control the passions - that's their main slogan.

If such a practitioner has not reached the mastery, he, at his death like all the dead souls, will go to a worser world (hell - in Christian terminology). After death the life memories of an ordinary person is not preserved, but the memories of a person, who has attained perfection at YINSHEN, will be preserved. But he can’t do anything with it and he can’t be reborn as a human being again. The teacher for him can only be another Yin spirit, i.e. another being from the lower worlds. The upper worlds are closed for the YINSHEN.

Xing and Ming are the separated parts of the primordial Unity. If Xing is a Yin part, then Ming is a Yang part. The YIN spirit (i.e. Xing) is inert and has no energy, and therefore he can’t rise to higher worlds. He needs energy similarly to a rocket needing fuel for the takeoff. Using only the meditation and any methods tied to Xing only changes the Yin'S characteristics, but makes no qualitative change. The ancient Taoist tradition (and with it those that I have already mentioned) uses the energy of Ming for fusion with Xing.Thus it turns these two into a Yang Spirit , also called a Tao fetus, who has the real potential and can move to higher worlds. So it is the Fusion of the energy Ming with the soul Xing that is the essence of alchemy.

Thus, the goal of alchemy - to fuse the soul Xing with the energy Ming and creating a yang Spirit – a Tao fetus, who has the real potential and can move to higher worlds.

How to perfect Xing you can understand by yourself or from the books, but how to perfect Ming you can get only in oral precepts of your Teacher. And important question is: Why it is so? Because of the fact that the secret of Ming is the secret of Life and Death! In carrying out the practice Ming the person violates a natural law (remember the saying "studying from the nature"). This law establishes that an ordinary person SHOULD BE BORN, GROW, LEAVE OR NO AFTER HIMSELF HIS PROGENY AND HIS ACTIONS, THEN GROW OLD AND DIE. Recall the Taoist phrase: "My destiny (MING!) is inside me, it is not from Heaven!" That is, a Taoist does not follow “the Nature", but instead overcomes it and goes against it.

The method passed on by a Teacher is not so complicated, so everyone can change their destiny - Ming. You do not need a special morality, you just need hard work and persistence. An ordinary person, even talented, does not have enough time to do too much of anything – whether good or evil. At childhood and at youth there are a lot of unconscious, automatic behavior. At maturity, when you just started to get your strength, the diseases and decline start to kick in. When a person reaches the top of his comprehensions of the meaning of life, ironically there is no longer the strength to do something.

As well said by Zhang Boduan: "Human life is so much as bubble on the water; yesterday one was on a horse, and now the corpse lies in the coffin, immersed in a death dream". "Remember the Death" – is one of the principles of ancient traditions. And now you can change your destiny, prolong life. What does this mean for mankind? Is this possible without responsibility?

So, why Xing can be understood by yourself or from books? Because the mind works rather manifestly, if we just watch it, we can understand that it is useful not to be overly emotional; the calm mind brings feelings of purity and reinvigoration, etc. If you go further, you can even bring out your own spirit from the body (Yin of course). However, it should be done carefully, because if a person is weak, the spirit will not return to the body and a death will occur. Therefore, you can learn it by yourself or from the books.

As for Ming, then the person can’t understand anything. He could only feel the difference between a young age and the old one etc, but it is difficult to determine whether the energy flows out, or comes in. To see all of these processes clearly you need to be already a being with the cosmic level of thinking. Every second of life staying in the illusion of a permanence, we actually run on an invisible treadmill. What happens to the Universe, how are the energies change, who does understand this now? I.e. to replenish the Ming a new you should be able to change with the cosmos, picking what assists to this task and rejecting anything else. This is the doctrine of changes of the ancient Chinese. How can modern people understand that, living by a bland clock hours and practicing in accordingly? At any modern qigong you will hear that the time and space do not matter, that your practice of qigong helps you “go beyond the natural laws”. And this is said about ordinary people who are can’t even get rid of the laws of heat and cold, food and hunger, but presume to “get rid of the influence of the Cosmos”!

So then the modern person has no alternative, but to seek a direct transmission of knowledge , which stems from the time, when the mankind have a clear understanding of cosmic laws. Of course, we can assume that a genius who can understand these law without could be born. But such an extraordinary person will not need anything at all from this world let alone a transmission. On the other hand there exist fake methods invented by ordinary people, these methods are usually only a projection of their mind and have nothing to do with the laws of Cosmos. Here is an example: Did Someone deciphered the Yi Jing? I think the answer is obvious.
Hence stem here need for the personal transmission. In this case firstly there will be no distortions, and secondly there will be personalized training for each person. Thirdly, in order to avoid deviations the practice will be done under the oversight of Teacher (and not like today, in stadiums, where participants do anything they want). Also, a ritual of accepting a student is a promise by the Teacher to be personally responsible for his student, to vouch for him, including with teachers own destiny...

古圣有言曰命由性修 性由命立 命者炁也性者神也炁 则本不离神神则有时 离炁
Ancient sages said:
Ming is perfected starting from Xing. Because you need the true spiritual condition to find your Teacher and then to practise, i.e. you need the correct state of mind while practicing.
Xing is established starting from Ming. Without repleniching and perfecting of Ming the true spiritual work is impossible.
Qi is inherently inseparable from the Shen (the spirit). If qi ever comes apart from shen, there will be an instant death. So while the person is alive they are inseparable. (This refers to the out of body experiences of the spirit when qi remains in the body)

The author © Dmitry A. Artemyev

Notes:
* While the character reads qi in the both first and the second example, it refers to a different energy. Doctors know only the post heaven energy - houtian, while Taoists practise with pre-heaven one - xiantian... Therefore, doctors don not understand what is contained in the kidneys, mistakenly writing 元氣. Ming and the primordial qi (the Taoist one) are the same.
Xiantian – pre-heaven, given before birth and can’t be changed in the direction of the increasing by the ordinary man. Houtian – post heaven, the energy that "feeds" a man after the birth: food, water, air, external qi ... a lot of things, but the main thing is that it can’t replace the pre-heaven energy...
Ming is not located exactly in the kidneys but is closely tied to them, as the system of the kidneys is a a part of a reproducing- discharging system of the human body, so the kidneys spend their energy directly for the purpose of reproducing...

[puretruth01]

In Chinese tradition “the battery” is called MING 命, translated as life or destiny. (“How much stamina one has?”). So, this Ming - battery otherwise known as yuanqi 元氣 in traditional Chinese medicine, but in Taoism a different character is used 元炁 - the primordial qi*.

Very Cool