"...the Self has been imagined as a Self under erasure, as an idea and image that has the mortificatio and self-deconstruction at its heart.
Such a Self is always a non-Self also.
It is a darkness that is light and a light that is darkness,
and in this way of imagining it we have a glimpse of Sol niger." ~ Stanton Marlan
"...the violence of light,
a condition ... considered psychologically and symbolized by
a one-sided identification with King/ego
and the tyrannical power of an undifferentiated,
unconscious shadow. " ~ Stanton Marlan
"We have concluded that if we speak of unity or wholeness, it is important not to lose sight of stubborn differences and the monstrous complexities that, if true to the phenomenon, lead to humor, astonishment, and at times divine awe." ~ Stanton Marlan
"For the alchemists, the unrepresentable
can be perceived only by the inward person
and was considered a mystery
at the heart of nature itself." ~ Stanton Marlan
"Concepts as well as symbols
of wholeness and expressions of totality
have a tendency to degenerate
and move toward abstraction
as idealized and rational conceptualizations
that seduce us into forgetting
that they fundamentally reflect an unknown." ~ Stanton Marlan
"No Epilogue signifier proves to be adequate to capture the fullness of human experience." ~ Stanton Marlan
The Black Sun: the Alchemy and Art of Darkness
Stanton Marlon
May 2008
https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/86080
Excerpt
"...We began our exploration of the black sun as an experiment in alchemical psychology. It begins and ends with an enigma, with a movement from the nigredo of light to the mystery of an illuminated darkness.
Imagined in juxtaposition to light, darkness casts a shadow and sets the stage for a new Faustian bargain, not with the forces of darkness but with the forces of light. In so doing, the primacy of light is declared, and the values of science, technology, rational order, patriarchy, and progress lead the way into modernity with its astonishing contributions to the spread of civilization and to consciousness itself. We have noted, however, that if light and the sun have led us into the present, it has also led to a massive repression and devaluation of the dark side of psychic and cultural life and displayed a blind spot with regard to vision itself. Philosophical and cultural critics of our time have pointed to the shadows of phallocentrism, logocentrism, and heliopolitics, driven by
the violence of light,
a condition we have considered psychologically and symbolized by
a one-sided identification with King/ego
and the tyrannical power of an undifferentiated,
unconscious shadow.
We have noted that the despotic King as prima materia must be relativized, and we have examined the alchemical phenomenology of the mortificatio in which this primitive King is tortured, beaten, humiliated, poisoned, drowned, dissolved, calcined, and killed. These alchemical operations lead to a nigredo, or descent into darkness, that ultimately empties the soul and leaves only skeletal remains and the infernal light of Sol niger.
Sol niger has been a difficult image to throw light upon since, like a black hole, it sucks all light into itself. Thus, in alchemy and, following it, in the depth psychology of Jung, the black sun has been associated with darkness almost exclusively. Our strategy has been to stick with this image and to resist any salvationist attempt to reach beyond it.
Rather, our work has been to hesitate before the darkness, to pause and enter its realm, following it in alchemy, literature, art, and clinical expressions. Entering this world of darkness, we have encountered Sol niger in its blacker-than-black aspects and seen its most literal and destructive dimensions associated with
narcissistic mortification, humiliation, delusion,
despair, depression, physiological
and psychological decay, cancer, psychosis, suicide,
murder, trauma, and death.
In short, we have followed it into the heart of darkness, into the worlds of Hades and Ereshkigal, to Kali’s cremation ground and Dante’s world of ice, where puer visions of light and eternity give way to Saturnian time and the perils of night.
Here, rational order breaks down,
and traumatogenic defenses
come into play
to prevent the unthinkable,
but the unthinkable itself presents us with a mystery,
the mystery of a death that is not simply literal,
but also symbolic.
Alchemy portrays such mysteries in a strange and paradoxical confluence of images: corpses and coffins with sprouting grains and black suns that shine. It is a mystery that calls for more than defense and constellates a necessity that must be entered. As such, we have conceived of it as an ontological pivot point, marking a desubstantiation of the ego that exhibits both death and new life, light and darkness, presence and absence, the paradoxical play intrinsic to Sol niger as a black sun.
For the alchemists, the unrepresentable
can be perceived only by the inward person
and was considered a mystery
at the heart of nature itself.
Its odd light, the lumen naturae, was considered to be a divine spark buried in darkness and could be found in both the prime matter of the alchemist’s art and in the soma pneumatikon, or subtle body. We have traced the images of the subtle body in many esoteric traditions as well as in the imagery of contemporary patients. For all of the traditions we have explored, the subtle body is a microcosm of a larger universe and an image of the divine in human form. This form has shown itself in symbols of the primordial human being, who, understood psychologically, is an expression of the Self.
For Jung, the Self is an idea that attempts to reflect the wholeness of the human psyche. It is intended to designate a structure that includes both consciousness and the unconscious, light and dark, and was considered a central, ordering principle at the core of psychic life. The Self as a transcendental and superordinate structure cannot be made totally conscious. At its core, it was always considered to be an unknown mystery that disseminated itself in multiple archetypal images across time and culture.
We have seen how these archetypal images more or less adequately represent the wholeness of the archetypal structure that they attempt to express. For Jung, the Self is a psychological lens through which to consider these expressions. These images, perhaps by necessity, always fall short of full expression of the archetype of wholeness. We have considered that the same limitations may apply to the concept of the Self.
Concepts as well as symbols
of wholeness and expressions of totality
have a tendency to degenerate
and move toward abstraction
as idealized and rational conceptualizations
that seduce us into forgetting
that they fundamentally reflect an unknown.
With regard to the psyche, Jung writes,
“The concept of the unconscious posits nothing, it designates only my unknowing.” We have noted the importance of preserving this mystery that constitutes the strangeness and miracle of perception at the heart of the mysterium coniunctionis.
We have concluded that if we speak of unity or wholeness,
it is important not to lose sight of stubborn differences and the monstrous complexities that,
if true to the phenomenon,
lead to humor, astonishment, and at times divine awe.
As noted, the idea of the Self is Jung’s attempt to capture this complexity, but as his theories became assimilated and familiar, his concept is subject to the same fate as all fundamental ideas. That is, they soon lose their original profundity, mystery, and unknown quality. In our attempt to speak the unspeakable, we have noticed that the Self, too, casts a shadow, and we have focused on this shadow, recognizing the unnamable, invisible, and unthinkable core of the idea, which some have referred to as a Divine Darkness while others have called it a non-Self. The non-Self is not another name for the Self but is founded in the recognition of the problematics involved in any representation of wholeness and a mark for the profound expression of this mystery.
All of the attempts to name this mystery
might be said to leave traces in the language
in which we have attempted to speak it.
No Epilogue signifier proves to be adequate
to capture the fullness of human experience.
The idea of the Self, like a shooting star of darkness, leaves a trail of metaphor in a variety of images inscribed in the margins of our experience. One might imagine these images as traces of silence at the heart of what we have imagined as the Self. In an attempt to speak about the Self, we have sought to find innovative ways to preserve its mystery, paradox, and unknown quality. Borrowing from postmodern philosophy,
the Self has been imagined
as a Self under erasure,
as an idea and image
that has the mortificatio and self-deconstruction
at its heart.
Such a Self is always a non-Self also.
It is a darkness that is light
and a light that is darkness,
and in this way of imagining it
we have a glimpse of Sol niger.
Experientially, these two poles of the archetype, light and dark, are in an eternal embrace, crossing one another in a dance that might look like the structure of DNA. It appears to me now that Sol niger might be considered an archetypal image of the non-Self, having two integrated poles and multiple differentiations. At one end, the non-Self can be seen in its most literal form locked into the nigredo and the mortification of the flesh. Here the non-Self leans toward physical annihilation and literal death. At its other pole, however, the archetypal image is no longer confined to the nigredo and reflects itself in a different light, where annihilation is linked to both the presence of the void understood as absence, Eros, and self-forgetting and a majesty that sets the soul on fire.
In all, there is an alchemy and art in darkness, an invisible design rendering and rending vision, calling it to its sourceless possibility. The light of Western metaphysics has obscured darkness; sedimented reason has thrown it to the shadows, naming it only as its inferior counterpart. But darkness is also the Other that likewise shines; it is illuminated not by light but by its own intrinsic luminosity. Its glow is that of the lumen naturae, the light of nature, whose sun is not the star of heaven but Sol niger, the black sun"
~ Marlon Stanton
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