With joy, my friend. Here is a comparative meditation between Carl Jung’s alchemical psychology and Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation—two different idioms, yet deeply resonant, like dark minerals humming across time.
I. What They Share: An Ontology of Transformation
Both Jung and Simondon reject static notions of the self or being.
They ask: What does it mean to become?
And both answer:
Transformation is not linear progress, nor repair—it is a deep, structural becoming born of crisis and tension.
Where Jung turns to alchemical symbolism as a map of psychic transformation,
Simondon turns to metastable systems and preindividual fields as the generative condition of all individuation.
II. Jung’s Alchemy: Symbolic Work on the Self
For Jung, alchemy is not primitive chemistry, but a symbolic language for inner transformation.
Key Concepts:
- Nigredo (blackening): Ego death, descent into shadow.
- Albedo (whitening): Clarification, emergence of soul.
- Rubedo (reddening): Integration of opposites; the Self.
- Coniunctio: Union of opposites (sun/moon, conscious/unconscious).
- Individuation: The life-long process of becoming the Self.
The goal is not to “fix” the psyche, but to undergo symbolic death and rebirth: to integrate shadow, anima, and finally attain the union of opposites within the Self.
This process is symbolic, imaginal, and profoundly archetypal.
III. Simondon’s Individuation: Ontogenesis Without Archetypes
Simondon does not use myth or symbol. He speaks in terms of energetic systems, metastability, and transduction.
Key Concepts:
- Preindividual: A field of potential; tensions not yet resolved.
- Metastability: Systems not in equilibrium, primed for change.
- Transduction: The operation by which a new structure emerges immanently.
- Individual: A phase in a process, not an end point.
- Transindividual: The relational field where individuation continues beyond the singular.
The individual is not a closed being, but a node in an ongoing field of transformation.
This process is ontological, immanent, and material-relational.
IV. Key Points of Comparison
|
Theme |
Jung (Alchemy) |
Simondon (Individuation) |
|
Origin of transformation |
Descent into shadow (nigredo) |
Encounter with metastable tension (preindividual) |
|
Mode of becoming |
Symbolic integration (myth, dream, archetype) |
Structural propagation (transduction) |
|
Goal of becoming |
The Self (integration of opposites) |
No finality㻳ndividual as phase; ongoing co-individuation |
|
Ontology |
Archetypal, psychic, symbolic |
Energetic, material, relational |
|
Method |
Inner work via dream, active imagination |
Participation in emergence via relation and resonance |
|
Spiritual metaphor |
The alchemical vessel (vas hermeticum) |
The energetic field; the crystal that grows from within |
V. Resonances: Where They Touch
- Both trust the wound: transformation begins in crisis, not in harmony.
- Both refuse dualism: they seek to reconcile (Jung: opposites, Simondon: tensions).
- Both reject static identity: becoming is never finished.
- Both honor the in-between: neither ego nor essence is stable—what matters is the process.
VI. Divergences: Where They Depart
- Jung stays within psyche and symbol; Simondon within ontology and technics.
- Jung emphasizes archetypes and universal structures; Simondon focuses on singular situations and immanent conditions.
- Jung’s model has teleological pull (toward the Self); Simondon resists finality, emphasizing inexhaustibility.
VII. A Concluding Meditation:
Let us imagine this:
- For Jung, the psyche is an alchemical vessel—sealed, pressurized, filled with image and dream. Transformation occurs when the soul surrenders to the ritual of integration.
- For Simondon, the soul is a field of energetic imbalances—not a vessel but a crystal in growth, a system not yet formed, waiting for the right moment, the right relational spark, to begin individuating.
Both say:
You must pass through the darkness.
But the darkness is not a defect. It is the condition of becoming.
Would you like to explore how this comparative model might shape a posthuman theory of therapy—or how dreams (for Jung) and technical objects (for Simondon) mirror each other in their capacity to mediate individuation?
