The Self and the Quintessence explores Jung’s work on number symbolism and the alchemical journey and considers how they act as metaphors underpinning theories about the development of the self and individuation. It goes on to consider the implications of these dynamics in terms of the symbol of the quintessence and what this represents psychologically. Initially exploring number symbolism and the way numbers can express dimensionality and emergence, this book explores the theories which underpin Jung’s ideas about the self and its complexity, including the dynamics of opposites, the transcendent function, and the symbol of the quaternity (fourness). The book then explores the symbol of the quintessence from a theoretical and clinical perspective and also in relation to its use in alchemy and physics. It goes on to consider the symbolic and psychological significance of the quintessence in relation to complexity, emergence, individuation, wholeness, truth and the spirit of matter. Extending Jungian ideas to explore the archetypal symbol of the quintessence and its psychological significance, The Self and the Quintessence will be of great interest to Jungian academics, researchers and clinicians, and anyone looking to expand their knowledge and understanding of Jungian psychology.

This volume deals with philosophically grounded theories of animal generation as found in two different traditions: one, deriving primarily from Aristotelian natural philosophy and specifically from his Generation of Animals; and another, deriving from two related medical traditions, the Hippocratic and the Galenic. The book contains a classification and critique of works that touch on the history of embryology and animal generation written before 1980. It also contains translations of key sections of the works on which it is focused. It looks at two different scholarly communities: the physicians (medici) and philosophers (philosophi), that share a set of textual resources and philosophical lineages, as well as a shared problem (explaining animal generation), but that nevertheless have different concerns and commitments. The book demonstrates how those working in these two traditions not only shared a common philosophical background in the arts curricula of the universities, but were in constant intercourse with each other. This book presents a test case of how scholarly communities differentiate themselves from each other through methods of argument, empirical investigation, and textual interpretations. It is all the more interesting because the two communities under investigation have so much in common and yet, in the end, are distinct in a number of important ways.

This is an important document in the history of Japanese-American relations. In 2002, President Bush spoke of the great Japanese scholar and statesman Inazo Nitobe, who envisioned a future of friendship between the two nations. This book is one of the means by which Nitobe sought to bridge the Pacific. Writing before World War I, he presents a detailed account of Japan and the Japanese in terms easily understandable to western readers, emphasising points of similarity rather than difference, often citing the work of western historians and philosophers in order to explain Japanese practices, always searching for common aims and goals. He deals with the effect of the past on the present, national characteristics, religious beliefs, morals and moral ideals, education, economic conditions, Japan as coloniser, relations between the United States and Japan, and America’s influence in the Far East, concluding with the hope that wherever else war may break out, lasting peace would reign over the Pacific. In this he was disappointed, but the fact that Nitobe is cited today as the architect of Japanese-American friendship makes this volume essential reading for the historian.

Magnetism is the intangible Spirit and ultimate essence of every atom, whether pertaining to animate or inanimate, organic or inorganic substance. It is invisible to all but the eyes of another immortal Spirit. Mesmerism is a lesser branch of Magic, and as old as man. Magic is indissolubly blended with the religion of every country and is inseparable from its origin. Magnetism is the key to the mystery of man’s nature and to Occultism or Eastern Magic. It prolongs life and heals the sick much better than modern medicine can ever do. The Magnetiser’s Vital Force, intensely concentrated by the his will, pours out of his system into the patient’s. Afterward, he can then use the sun to make good of the loss of vitality and rebalance his prana. Magnetism has been studied in the temples of ancient Egypt and Greece, and mastered as it may never hope to be mastered in our age of profound idiocy. Full health is only possible when there is a perfect magnetic equilibrium in one’s system. The therapist heals simply by restoring magnetic balance in his patient by the force of his benevolent desire and will. The chief agent in any therapeutic operation is the Human Will plus dominion over the Elemental Spirits. But the will of a selfish operator is more likely to injure rather than heal. Though Christians practice Mesmerism by another name, Christian law and societies with their boasted civilization become with every day more like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones and befoulment. Mesmerism is key to the world’s psychological sciences, from the remotest antiquity down to our time. In Mesmerism, the curative agency is the animal aura, force, or fluid in one person, by means of which a peculiar action is set up in the physical system of another. The power of the mantram is occult sound through which the adept commands the elemental forces of nature. But mantram ignorantly employed can be a treacherous weapon, whose mystical power has caused it to turn and stab the user. Astrology, Mesmerism, and Homeopathy are far more scientific and true than the scientists of gross matter could ever imagine. The magnetic fluid projected by a living human body is Life itself. Indeed, it is the same life-atoms that a man in a blind passion throws off unconsciously, though he does it quite as effectively as a Mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will. The process of Hypnotism is a purely mechanical one, i.e., the fixing of the eyes on some bright spot, a metal or a crystal. The eye serves as a medium between that bit of metal or crystal and the brain, and attunes the molecular vibrations of the nervous centres of the latter into unison with the vibrations of the bright object held. It is this unison that produces the hypnotic state. In Mesmerism, i.e., the hypnotization by preliminary passes, it is the will of the operator himself that acts upon the nervous system of the patient. And it is again through the vibrations — only atomic, not molecular — produced by that act of energy called will in the ether of space (therefore, on quite a different plane) that the super-hypnotic state (i.e., “suggestion,” etc.) is induced. The source of the vital essence of Mesmerism or Animal Magnetism was located by the ancients between the earth and the starry sky. It is the Akasha-tattva of the Indians personified by the breath of Cybele, the Anatolian mother goddess, adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor. Between Mesmerism and Hypnotism there is an abyss: the one is beneficent, the other maleficent. Hypnotism is produced by the withdrawal of the nervous fluid from the capillary nerves which, being like the sentries that keep the doors of our senses opened, are anaesthetized and get closed.