Spirituality Studies 11-1 Spring 2025 45 Ivana Ryška Vajdová fluid, in other words, a fluid in which the matter is completely dissolved, and not one that would have to be considered a mere mixture of a fluid and solid particles merely suspended in it” (Kant 1790, 222). This means that the “residue” that crystallizes under suitable conditions cannot be separated from the substance except conceptually. Two additional characteristics noted by Kant are particularly interesting. First, that the “residue” of the same substances always crystallizes in the same way, leading to the theme of universality. Second, that crystallization occurs “by a leap”, highlighting the distinctiveness of this process compared to all preceding events and thereby emphasizing what Kant calls the “free formations of nature” (Kant 1790, 222). Kant’s crystallizing structure has an analogous characteristic to Jung’s archetype. It is that “residue” within the fluid of psychic material that suddenly reveals itself, always in the same form, as soon as the right conditions arise. The archetype is not a content of the psyche, but its structure, which only becomes visible through concrete and accessible content. Psychic material organizes itself according to the archetype in a similar way to how mineral growth is structured through a crystalline lattice. Jung (CW9 1938, 79) expresses this as follows: I encounter the mistaken notion that an archetype is determined in regard to its content, in other words that it is a kind of unconscious idea (if such an expression be admissible). It is necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined as regards their content, but only as regards their form and then only to a very limited degree. He further writes about the “primordial image”, which is Jung’s auxiliary concept, bridging the absolutely unconscious archetype with imagination, and the potential to create content (Jung CW9 1938, 79): A primordial image is determined as to its content only when it has become conscious and is therefore filled out with the material of conscious experience. Its form, however, as I have explained elsewhere, might perhaps be compared to the axial system of a crystal, which, as it were, preforms the crystalline structure in the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own… The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a ‘facultas praeformandi’, a possibility of representation which is given a priori… In principle, it can be named and has an invariable nucleus of meaning – but always only in principle, never as regards its concrete manifestation. The image of a crystal in connection with the archetype appears in several places throughout Jung’s work. In the essay Depth Psychology, Jung demonstrates that the archetype manifests in schizophrenics, neurotics, and healthy individuals alike, proving itself, in his view, to be the most universal organizing principle of the psyche: “It is an ‘irrepresentable’ factor which unconsciously arranges the psychic elements so that they fall into typical configurations, much as a crystalline grid arranges the molecules in a saturated solution”(Jung CW8 1948, 483). In Mysterium Coniunctionis, he again compares the process of crystallization to psychological processes, drawing analogies with “alchemy” (Jung CW14, 449–451). In The Psychological Approach to the Trinity (Jung CW11 1940–41, 149 n. 2), he once again employs the image of the crystal to address the question of how to conceive of the participation of the archetype in the psyche: “Archetypes can be recognized only from the effects they produce. They exist preconsciously, and presumably, they form the structural dominants of the psyche in general. They may be compared to the invisible presence of the crystal lattice in a saturated solution… Empirically considered, however, the archetype did not ever come into existence as a phenomenon of organic life but entered into the picture with life itself.” The psychic contents “crystallize” according to archetypal structures, says Jung. However, this is not a physical but a psychological process, in which experience and consciousness take shape and undergo transformation. 4 Schema of Crystallization Whatever we think of is always already something definite – a content, a meaningful entity with which our reason subsequently engages. This means that before “knowledge in the proper sense” – that is, conceptual knowledge – there already exists something meaningful at the level of perception. Kant calls this the synthesis of manifoldness and designates such human capacity as imagination (Kant 1998, A 78). For us to grasp anything as meaningful (that is, as a distinct entity), a “formal condition of sensibility” must be involved, which Kant refers to as a “schema” – a mediation between perception and conceptual thought. As such, the world has any order for us at all because we apprehend it schematically and, therefore, in a limited way. Kant emphasizes that the creation of schemata is exclusively the work of imagination (Ger. transzendentale Einbildungskraft). This is a crucial point for Jung, made even more significant by the fact that in the same passage, Kant describes the schema as “the monogram of pure a priori imagination”, and
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