But, young as the psychology of the unconscious process may be, it has nevertheless succeeded in establishing certain facts which are gradually gaining acceptance.
[Perhaps the most important point regards the] polaristic structure of the psyche, which it shares with all natural processes. Natural processes are phenomena of energy, constantly arising out of a "less probable state" of polar tension. This formula is of special significance for psychology, because the conscious mind is usually reluctant to see or admit the polarity of its own background, although it is precisely from there that it gets its energy.
Whereas the Christian belief is that man is freed from sin by the redemptory act of Christ, the alchemist was evidently of the opinion that the "restitution to the likeness of original and incorrupt nature had still to be accomplished by the art, and this can only mean that Christ's work of redemption was regarded as incomplete.
It is the moral task of alchemy to bring the feminine material background of the masculine psyche, seething with passions, into harmony with the principle of the spirit - truly a labor of Hercules.
God is an intelligible sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
- Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctis
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