Archetypes: The Green Lion and the Unicorn
In one of his most influential works, Psychology and Alchemy, Carl Jung argues that alchemy was far more than a failed science. Instead, it was an undifferentiated mix of object and subject. Alchemy was chemistry insofar as it was a science, and it was a psychological practice in which the acquisition and manipulation of objects, representing unconscious content, altered one’s psychology.[1] Thus, if we divorce alchemy from its scientific content and analyze the spontaneous symbols generated by the alchemists, we can peer into the human mind. Jung ‘reads our minds’ by analyzing the symbols manifested by the alchemists and demonstrates, by presenting us with a long series of dreams, how these symbols spontaneously emerge from an individual.
In this essay, I will explore one process of psychological maturation, and its parallel symbols, as described by Jung. I will primarily focus on the lion and the unicorn. However, an image’s meaning is often implicit and opaque. And these symbols cannot be understood outside of their surround context. In other words, the meaning of these symbols is evident in relation to other symbols and one’s ego. Just as the meaning of a sound depends on the kind of thing which produced the sound, the kind of thing you are, and the way those two things interact, so too is the meaning of an archetype. In effect, I will paint a picture of the process of individuation through these symbols.
The process of alchemical self-discovery and maturation begins with the ego. Wherever the ego happens to be when the journey into the psyche begins, is where the journey begins. Therefore, the beginning is dependent on the individual. If a person is quite mature when they begin their alchemical and exploration of their mind, then the symbols may appear different or in a different sequence than the symbols which appear to a child.
With that in mind, I will begin with the lion (see figure 1). A lion is an animal. It is strong. It is undomesticated, bestial, or animalistic. A lion rends and tears, and is therefore, dangerous to a human. It may consume us. Thus, when the unconscious, or the part of the mind which produces fantasies, tries to convey animality, even ferocious animality, a lion is a strong candidate. Thus, the lion is your animal nature, particularly that part which is beastly, animalistic, or violent. It is chthonic savagery; Dionysian sparagmos, the ritual rending and tearing of flesh. It is force and frenzy; pagan brutality manifest in mosh-pits. An encounter with a lion, in art, fantasy, and alchemy is ferocious nature or one’s own ferocious nature. In the first of his twelve labors, Heracles conquers the Namean lion. Psychologically, the hero assimilates his own ferocity.
Figure 1: The “green lion” devouring the sun – Rosarium Philosophorum (1550) in CW12 (p. 332).
Frequently, the further back we peer, the more undifferentiated (or confused) the lion-symbol and other symbols are. For example, Ta-urt or the sphinx.[2] In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus confronts the sphinx who blocks the road the Thebes. The sphinx has the head of a woman, the wings of an eagle, the tail of a snake, and the body of a lion. Each of these elements portray dangerous features of mother nature.[3] Her riddle to Oedipus: “What goes on fours in the morning, on twos in the afternoon and on threes at night?” His response: “Man, insofar as he crawls as an infant, walks as an adult, and relies on a cane when elderly.” This is to say that the answer to the riddle of nature is mankind itself. In other words, we are the antidote to the brutality of nature. When Oedipus recognizes this fact, the sphinx is cast into the sea, a symbol of the unconscious.[4]
If we peer back further into the past, and deeper into the psyche, the lion is allied with the Uroboros; for example, the sphinx’s snake tail and Tiamat’s creation of the lion (Peterson, p. 115). The Uroboros is the symbol of totality, the ego’s embeddedness in the totality, and ego dissolution insofar as one experiences oneness (e.g., mysterium tremendum and fascinosum, some ecstatic and psychedelic experiences). As I have written elsewhere, the Uroboros, a snake biting its own tail (see figure 2), develops into the infinity symbol, further cementing its meaning. Thus, what we see at the bottom is a pleromic total unity out of which the sphinx and lion later emerge.
Figure 2: Urboros drawing in the 1478 Codex Parisinus Graecus, a copy of a lost manuscript attributed to Synesius of Cyrene (373 – 414 AD).
When encountering one’s lion-ness, there is danger and opportunity. The great danger is that the lion will consume the ego. This is what is represented by the green lion eating the sun. One may be ‘consumed’ by their work or ‘consumed’ by their nature. The sun is a symbol of consciousness. Consciousness is associated with light in many ways. Fundamentally, we are awake during the day and are unconscious during the night. You can illuminate the truth, become enlightened, or, in a moment of insight, a light bulb appears over your head. When the green lion consumes the sun, our own animality gains control, briefly (which may be healthy) or indefinitely.
In Franz von Stuck’s The Kiss of the Sphinx (see figure 3), the sphinx grips a man resigned to his circumstances. In this case, the sphinx is lust rising from the body and overtaking one’s will. It is impulse and desire, the Freudian Id. The symbol of the sphinx suggests an undifferentiated state of drives, an ocean of desires in which the ego dissolves. The sphinx’s chimeric nature fuses many impulses together, demonstrated by its many animal features, and organizes them under a single identity. Given that the ego is the differentiating function, the degree to which it which objects are fused is the degree to which it is impotent.
Figure 3: Franz von Stuck, The Kiss of the Sphinx (1895).
Unity with this ocean of drives is represented as a sexual union; in sex, two become one. This same dynamic is represented by the siren and femme fatale, who ‘kills’ us with la petite mort. The sphinx is to the man what Delilah is to Samson, a seductress and vampiric thief of libidinous energy. This is well demonstrated by Osamu Dazai’s “kept man” in No Longer Human, who drifts from lover to lover, failing to hold down a job, and lacks any semblance of energy or will.
While Stuck and Dazai represent the dissolution of ego into various appetites, primarily sexuality, when your light is consumed by the lion, sexuality is not its only means of digestion. Anger, hate, grief, hunger, etc. are all baths into which one may dissolve. The risk of encountering one’s own nature is that the enormity of feeling can overthrow your will and replace you as the “executive” of the human system.
With that being said, an encounter with the lion is not doomed to failure. It also represents a profound opportunity, and a symbol of spiritual maturity. For example, Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, or the lion who lays with the lamb. These are symbols of lion-like strength which are tamed. Psychologically, this is when the lion has been brought under the voluntary control of the ego. In this way, the lion presides over all other animals as the “king of the jungle,” and commands respect.
Despite the danger of consumption and ego death, it is also the means of reinvigorating the stale intellect. Drinking the lion’s blood, assimilating its essence, reinvigorates the ‘dead’ king. This is the ennobling of the self by reanimating one’s nature.[5] When one has become ineffectual, a chattering monkey-mind whose words are disconnected from action, or worse, an incessant justification for inaction, the reconnection of the mind to one’s animality provides the individual with the mode of force necessary to preserve themselves and their culture. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, the sickly king Théoden (a representation of the state of Rohan) is reinvigorated by the white wizard Gandalf (who underwent a death and rebirth, similar to the process we are describing here). Furthermore, Gandalf dispels Wormtongue (he who argues for impotency, akin to the Dazai’s kept man). In effect, Gandalf represents alchemical opus we are describing here, which includes the lion. And that opus is the means of reanimating an individual and the state.
The ‘higher’ and more mature form of the lion is the unicorn, which signifies the destination of the alchemical opus: the lapis philosophorum, or philosopher’s stone. A horse is a muscular and powerful animal. However, unlike a lion, a horse is tame. Thus, the unicorn is one’s hulking nature reigned in. The horn is phallic, representing the ferocious energy (even sexual energy) of men. Drinking from the unicorn’s horn bestows “strength, health, and life” (Jung, p. 469).
Furthermore, the unicorn aspires to be Christ, a symbol of the self. The self is the opposite of the uroboros (evident in the Christ and Satan motif). Where the uroboros is undifferentiated totality, the self is differentiated unity. In other words, one’s self is the whole of one’s personality, differentiated, identified, and brought under the control of the ego. Thus, the self is the assimilation of one’s waring opposites into a common unity, organized under a higher value.[6]
This Christ association with the unicorn is reinforced by its association with the virgin Madonna and child; it is said that if one hopes to catch a unicorn, a virgin must lure him.[7] The virgin is anima, or that which entices one to develop; she pulls you forward. Projected, it is one’s ideal lover. After all, women domesticate men.[8] Internally, the animal is Ariadne guiding the ego through the labyrinth of his mind. Jung says, “The horn as an emblem of vigor and strength has a masculine character, but at the same time it is a cup, which, as a receptacle, is feminine” (p. 271).[9] Therefore, the unicorn preserves the functional animal nature of the lion, tamed, and reconciled with one’s femininity or anima; a coincidentia oppositorum. The unicorn is rebus and hieros gamos: The masculine reconciled with the feminine. This reconciliation of opposites, male and female, high and low, rational and animal, is the philosopher’s stone; this process Jung calls “individuation.”
In conclusion, the process of individuation contains multiple stages, each represented by a different symbol. The ego must ‘descend’ into the unconscious where it witnesses one’s own animal nature (the lion). If one descends far enough, one reaches back in time to eras when the psyche left much of the world fused together (the sphinx). If one descends all the way to the bottom, they encounter a tremendous and fascinating totality (the uroboros). The danger of this descent is that one’s discerning faculties will be overwhelmed by sensation or consumed by one’s nature (the green lion eating the sun). However, if one successfully assimilates these regions of the psyche into one-self, integrating their energy, they ascend having captured something of great value (unicorn). The pinnacle of this process is the integration of one’s entire self (Christ and philosopher’s stone). Frequently, the alchemists describe this as a mercurial process, where progress slips between one’s fingers. As such, we may surmise that we must hold our breath and descend into the unconscious many times, returning to the surface with only one small piece of a titanic whole, stalwartly descending again in hopes of achieving total integration.
If you would like to read more about Archetypes read here: Uroboros & The Bull.
Endnotes:
[1] I am inclined to call alchemy a ritual. However, ritual to modern man has come to mean nothing at all, or superstitious gesticulations meant to manipulate the weather. We may be more inclined to understand ritual, in the way the ancients did, by noting that we engage in ritual constantly. Relying on Jonathan Pageau, we posit a desire. This may be to sate our thirst. Then, we manipulate objects to manifest this end state. For example, fill a glass, grip it, and raise it to our lips. We engage in a sequence of events, and manipulate the physical world, to generate an end state. The same is true for religious ritual, with one exemption: instead of manifesting a material state, it manifests a psychological state.
Every morning, when making breakfast, I engage in a ritual. I make my eggs with chopsticks. This allows me to pull the edges of the frying eggs to the center of the pan, and slowly twist the eggs into a spiral pattern. To avoid tearing the eggs, or overcooking them, I am required to pay close attention to what I am doing. The desired end goal of this ritual is not better tasting eggs, I change nothing else about their material makeup beside their presentation, but presentness. This ritual is a practice in mindfulness.
Alchemy was a similar practice, wherein the artists manipulated chemicals and compounds to change their state of mind. The degree to which an alchemist was aware of what they were doing, manipulating their mind, the world, or both, was dependent on the individual. Some recognized their practice as a spiritual endeavor, others became chemists, and others were unsure of the magic they engaged in. The further back in history we look, the less differentiated these states were – something Jung notes when evoking participation mystique in Psychological Types (CW Vol. 6).
[2] From Erich Neumann: “Again, Ta-urt, a huge pregnant monster rearing up on its hind legs, whose cult dates from prehistoric times, is depicted as a hippopotamus with a crocodile’s back, lion’s fee, and human hands” (p. 56).
[3] If I were to explain why nature is feminine symbolically, it would require an essay unto itself. I recommend Eric Neumann’s The Great Mother. Suffice it to say that nature gives birth to everything.
[4] A brief explanation of water as the unconscious: What is unconscious is “beneath the surface.”
[5] Jung recounts the folk tale from the Cantilena Riplaei:
There was once a noble king [the caput corporum] who had no descendants. He lamented his sterility and concluded that a defectus originalis must have arisen in him, although he was “nurtured under the wings of the sun” without any natural bodily defects. He says, in his own words: “Alas, I fear and know for a certainty that unless I can obtain the help of the species at once, I shall never beget a child. But I have heard with astonishment, by the mouth of Christ above, that I shall be born anew.” He then wished to return to his mother’s womb and to dissolve himself in the prima materia. His mother encouraged him in this venture, and forthwith concealed him under her robe, until she had incarnated him again in herself. She then became pregnant. During her pregnancy she ate peacock’s flesh and drank the blood of the green lion. At length she brought forth the child, who resembled the moon and then changed into the splendor of the sun. The son once more became king (p. 408-409)
[6] While one may be tempted to suggest that the highest value under which competing opposites are organized is the ego itself (after all, it does serve as an “executive”), this would be an inflation of ego: Christ as Narcissus. Instead, we are shown one’s opposites aligned under an ego and an ego aligned under God (highest value). Thus, we may speculate that one orders themselves, in part, by pursuing a superordinate goal.
[7] From the Speculum de mysteriis ecclesiae, as quoted by Jung:
The very fierce animal with only one horn is called unicorn. In order to catch it, a virgin is put in a field; the animal then comes to her and is caught, because it lies down in her lap. Christ is represented by this animal, and his insuperable strength by its horn. He, who lay down in the womb of the Virgin, has been caught by the hunters; that is to say, he was found in human shape by those who loved him (p. 444).
[8] A brief note: When I was enlisted in the Marine Corps, some units had men and others did not. I could often tell, within only a few minutes of beginning a conversation, whether or not a male Marine was in a unit with women. These men were much less coarse with their language, and better behaved overall.
[9] Note the similarity to the cornucopia, the “horn of plenty,” which nourished Zeus before he confronted the tyrannical father Kronos. Translated, mature masculinity empowers the individual to confront ossified society.
Referenced Books
Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy. Princeton University Press.
Erich Neumann, The Origins and History of Consciousness. Princeton University Press.
Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human. New Directions Publishing.