Rosarium Philosophorum Research Articles

Sex, Alchemy, and Marriage

This article bridges the field of sex and couples therapy with Jungian psychology. By linking sex therapy to the realms of play, creativity, fantasy, imagination, and spirit, it offers fresh perspectives on sexual experiences within committed relationships. It explores matters of the unconscious and transference between romantic partners and how these relate to the relationship between an analyst and a patient. Drawing inspiration from Carl Jung’s The Psychology of the Transference, this thesis examines the psychological and erotic significance of the Rosarium Philosophorum, a collection of alchemical woodprints from the 16th century, in conjunction with Jung’s concepts. The essay amplifies Jung’s perspective by comparing it to Imago Relationship Therapy, a couples counseling modality. It posits that the Rosarium Philosophorum may provide the formula for a fulfilling, vital, erotic union. The integration of Jungian psychology with sex and couples therapy reveals a novel yet ancient framework for understanding and enhancing intimate relationships.

A Sacred Marriage. Hierogamy in the Most Hermetic Art, from Alchemy to The Sacrifice, by Andrei Tarkovsky

Many cosmogonies see the creation as a hierogamy, a non-dualist cosmogonic mytheme. It can also be found in alchemical engraving books, used in reference to one of the stages of the process, represented in iconography. In that phase, a woman and a man have sexual intercourse, like in the Rosarium Philosophorum. This iconographic type portrays a non-dual worldview, according to which the world needs to link both primary poles. This is achieved with resources inherent to visual art. Alchemy stands out as one of the few currents with a strong non-dual factor in Western schools. Subsequent artists were influenced by this iconography and the ideas represented in it, such as William Blake and surrealists like Leonora Carrington. It is also relevant as one of the most predominant motifs in the style of Andrei Tarkovsky, omnipresent in his work. It is in his last film, The Sacrifice, in which the alchemical universe is most present. In this film, the world is threatened by an apocalyptic Third World War, but a sexual ritual perhaps might reverse the crisis.

Stories of My Journeys Through Valence Bond Theory, DFT, MD and their Applications to Complex Objects

AbstractThis Rosarium Philosophorum essay tells the story of the author's “conversion” to a theorist, and then the events which led him to stumble over valence bond (VB) theory, and his developments of “VB diagrams” as conceptual tools which enable one to describe all chemical reactions. The story continues to the adventure with the enzyme Cytochrome P450, and how this interest led eventually the author to treat the reactivity of this enzyme using VB diagrams. And finally, the essay describes the author's struggle with complexity through molecular dynamics of these enzymes. This is also a story of interactions between individuals who seek insight and wisdom and how they influence one another through friendships and teacher‐disciples relations. This is the key wisdom one garners through scientific life.

The landscapes of minus. Hatred, adolescence and the paradoxes of growth.

This paper explores Bion's theory of links, L, H, K (Love, Hate and Knowledge) and their minus counterparts, -L, -H, -K, which are not conceivable as simply opposite to or as a lack of L, H, K. Rather, they correspond to a way of experiencing Love, Hatred and Knowledge in terms of absoluteness, and in terms of a radical impossibility of acknowledging loss, relativeness and absence. The theory of links is also examined in its evolution towards the conceptualization of three types of container/contained configurations (commensal, symbiotic and parasitic). These Bionian models are compared and referred to the way Jung articulates the coexistence of 'good' and 'evil', and the paradoxical nature of mental functioning in relation to the individuation process. The images taken from the Rosarium Philosophorum, particularly the Fons Mercurialis, examined by Jung in 'The psychology of the transference' (1946), are explored in the paper. Theory is examined with a particular focus on the adolescent mind and its dramatic phenomenology. Two excerpts taken from the analytic work with a mid-adolescent female patient and a late-adolescent male patient are presented to describe minus-Hate as a form of absolute love, and minus-Love as a form of absolute hatred.

Jung’s Personal Confession

ABSTRACT C. G. Jung’s “Psychology of the Transference” (1946/1954, CW 16) describes his template for healing in psychoanalysis. He selected a series of ten erotic alchemical woodcuts from the Rosarium Philosophorum. The author contends these drawings were chosen because of Jung’s emotional, deep, and healing relationships with three women who had previously been his patients: Sabina Spielrein, Maria Moltzer, and Toni Wolff. The author describes how she uses these drawings in her work. She then explores Jung’s relationships with these women and examines how his 1925 essay “Marriage as a Psychological Relationship” (1925/1954, CW 17) depicts Jung’s marriage to his wife, Emma.

Self, other and individuation: resolving narcissism through the lunar and solar paths of the Rosarium.

This paper describes narcissism as our natural, infant-like behaviour, and specifies three characteristics relating to the evacuation and avoidance of distress, to control, and to distancing from relationship. It suggests that the processes of incarnation and individuation represent the development of the early ego and the 'resolution' of these narcissistic ways of being, including escape from the 'mirror trap'. The development of the early, controlling 'homunculus-ego' entails the loosening and broadening of ego-identifications and the ego becoming subject to the Self. This is an embodied-relational-social-spiritual process outlined in detail by the full 20 woodcuts of the Rosarium Philosophorum, and specifically the lunar (relational) and solar (self-expressive) paths, which are explored herein. These processes are illustrated with respect to the interaction between infant and caregiver, clinical vignettes and examples from the political sphere.

100 Years of Macromolecular Science

100 Years of Macromolecular Science

Quo Vadis, Macromolecular Science? Reflections by the IUPAC Polymer Division on the Occasion of the Staudinger Centenary

AbstractWe survey the past, present and future of polymers and macromolecular science, both in general and giving specific examples from our diverse array of research backgrounds within polymer science and technology. As befitting our common bond, we pay some attention to the role of IUPAC. In line with this being part of a Rosarium philosophorum, one might say we conclude that it is Citius, Altius, Fortius for polymers in the century ahead, by which we mean “faster engagement, higher value, stronger properties”, and one should also add “longer usage”. In this way our broad community will continue to build on the century that has passed since Hermann Staudinger launched macromolecular science.

Cover Picture: (Isr. J. Chem. 1‐2/2020)

Graphical Abstract The image from the cover of the book Rosarium philosophorum (Rosary of the Philosophers, 1550) was originally printed in black and white and colored in a later edition. The term rosary refers to a rose garden, metaphoric of an anthology or collection of wise sayings by alchemists and other philosophers. The king dressed in purple seems to enjoy much popularity, posturing excess of self-confidence while surrounded by five people who seem to agree with his Latin statement “Soluite corpa in aquas” whichmay translate to “dissolve bodies in water”. The person to his right seems to agree, bringing up another phenomenon: “Solue coagula”, i.e. coagulation of solutes, which appropriately describes the process of crystallization. However, the other king, dressed in pink, offensively challenges the king in purple, stepping on his statement and asking in ancient German: “Who can see such a stupid thing in reality?” This discourse teaches that although science has progressed over the past 5 centuries, human behavior and the argumentative nature of scientists, including those working on Macromolecules, fortunately remained unchanged.

Synthetic Biology: The Chemist's Approach

AbstractIn 1999, my lab at The Scripps Research Institute set out to expand the genetic alphabet by developing an unnatural base pair (UBP), with the goal of using it as the basis of semi‐synthetic organisms (SSOs) with expanded genetic codes. In 2014, we reported the successful creation of the first SSO that stored a UBP in its DNA, and then in 2017, we reported the first SSO that not only stored UBPs, but also retrieved the information they made available via transcription and translation to produce proteins containing non‐canonical amino acids (ncAAs). When I was asked by Ehud Keinan and Ashraf Brik to provide some personal opinions and reflections for The Israeli Journal of Chemistry's Rosarium Philosophorum on Chemical Biology, I thought it would be interesting to recount two challenges faced during this project that were critical for its success: the first illustrates the chemist's approach to synthetic biology, and the second illustrates how a knowledge of biology can facilitate it.

Chemical Biology: Powerful Synergy Between Two Cultures

Chemical Biology: Powerful Synergy Between Two Cultures

Se Faire Voir with Jung and the Ethics of Psychoanalysis

This article is an important addition to my previous work of integrating Jungian and Lacanian psychoanalysis (see Complexes Tickling the $ubject). A main focus of this article is to use Zizek’s interpretation of Lacan’s writing on desire and drive in relation to my Heideggerian interpretation of Jung. As a result, this article is an important contribution to the literature because it shows the importance of the transcendent function; complexes and the Rosarium Philosophorum to elucidate the ethics of desire and drive. This article shows how Heidegger’s work in Being and Time and his interpretation of Nietzsche is important to detail the process of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Nietzsche’s books; Human All Too Human and The Gay Science will also be discussed as well as Sartre’s Being and Nothingness and Zizek’s writing on the cunning of reason; Kantian ethics; beyond the pleasure principle; Kierkegaard; Sisyphus; anxiety; Hitchcock; Gelassenheit; the Gospel of Matthew and error as a fundamental passage to truth.

Rosarium Philosophorum – Structural Chemistry, in Dedication to Jack Dunitz

Rosarium Philosophorum – Structural Chemistry, in Dedication to Jack Dunitz

Complexes Tickling the $ubject

This article continues my earlier work of reading Jung with Lacan. This article will develop Zizek’s work on Lacan’s concept of objet petit a by relating it to a phenomenological interpretation of Jung. I use a number of different examples, including Zizek’s interpretation of Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Hans Holbein and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, to describe the objet petit a and its relationship to a phenomenological interpretation of complexes. By integrating other Lacanian concepts, such as subject, drive, fantasy, jouissance, gaze, desire, and ego as well as the imaginary, symbolic and Real, this work also highlights how Hegel and Heidegger can elucidate the relationship between objet petit a and complexes. Jung’s transcendent function and the Rosarium Philosophorum also elucidate the relationship between Jung and Lacan.

The Fluorine Gauche Effect: A Brief History

AbstractTransforming the fluorine gauche effect from an academic curiosity into a powerful acyclic conformational control strategy has enriched molecular design. This expansive approach to modulating structure has proven to be particularly valuable in the construction of functional small molecules, thereby finding application in diverse disciplines, ranging from therapeutic medicine to enantioselective catalysis. In contrast to the well‐established arsenal of conformational control tactics, in which conformer populations result from minimising nonbonding interactions, (e.g., A1,3‐ or A1,2‐strain), the fluorine gauche effect is attributable to stabilising interactions comprised of two components: stereoelectronic and electrostatic. Conformer populations are partially determined by favourable, hyperconjugative interactions involving proximal electron‐rich σ‐bonds, π‐systems, and nonbonding electron pairs with the antibonding orbital of the C−F σ‐bond: σ→σ*, π→σ*, and n→σ*, respectively. Electrostatic, charge‐dipole interactions (e.g., N+⋅⋅⋅Fδ−) also play a crucial role in stabilising what are often counter‐intuitive conformations. These noncovalent interactions, permissible on account of the low van der Waals radius and high electronegativity of the fluorine atom, render this effect fundamentally important and practically valuable in structural chemistry. In this contribution to the Rosarium Philosophorum in honour of Prof. Jack David Dunitz FRS, we endeavour to delineate, albeit in an abridged form, the evolution of the fluorine gauche effect from a fundamental spectroscopic study to a ubiquitous component of physical organic chemistry.

Retrieving and projecting Jung's transcendent function with complexes and the Rosarium Philosophorum

This presentation will retrieve Jung's work on the transcendent function and complexes as well as a phenomenological and ontological interpretation of Jung's work on the Rosarium Philosophorum to project a new meaning of the use of the transcendent function in psychotherapy. This presentation enables complexes and the Rosarium Philosophorum to be understood in connection to the ontology of the transcendent function that was presented in the author's article Unconcealing Jung's Transcendent Function with Heidegger . This presentation will also highlight how Nietzsche's work in The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra inform the use of Jung's transcendent function in psychotherapy. More specifically, this presentation will demonstrate that stage 1 of the transcendent function involves discovering the meaning of a guilty mood of a complex from having-been. Stage 2 of the transcendent function focuses on removing the obstructiveness of a complex from being in the world by retrieving missing possibilities from the readiness to hand. Stage 3 of the transcendent function involves the practical application of the intellectual discoveries from psychotherapy which can provide further insight into one's which not really seen at all, only the idea of them (Jung, 1966, p. 291). By applying the insights from psychotherapy to everyday relationships where the obstructiveness of a complex is encountered, mistakes and possibilities missing from the readiness to hand are highlighted as they are noticed by the other person as well as by oneself. Then and then only can they really be felt and their true nature recognized (Jung, 1966, p. 292).

A Personal Remark on the Communication between Physical Organic and Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Israel Journal of ChemistryVolume 56, Issue 1 p. 91-92 Commentary A Personal Remark on the Communication between Physical Organic and Synthetic Organic Chemistry Bernd Giese, Corresponding Author Bernd Giese [email protected] University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)Search for more papers by this author Bernd Giese, Corresponding Author Bernd Giese [email protected] University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 9, 1700 Fribourg (Switzerland)Search for more papers by this author First published: 31 August 2015 https://doi.org/10.1002/ijch.201500035Citations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume56, Issue1Special Issue: Rosarium Philosophorum – Physical Organic ChemistryJanuary 2016Pages 91-92 RelatedInformation

The “Ingendred” Stone: The Ripley Scrolls and the Generative Science of Alchemy

Acquired at auction in 1958 from the library of C. W. Dyson Perrins, the Huntington Library’s Ripley scroll (HM 30313) is one of the most ornate and esoteric illuminated manuscripts of early modern England. Much remains unknown about the iconology and historical context of the Ripley scrolls, of which approximately twenty remain worldwide. The self-consciously archaic scroll at the Huntington draws on a range of contemporary sources, including emblem books, heraldic imagery, and illuminated alchemical manuscripts from the fifteenth century, such as the Rosarium philosophorum and the Aurora consurgens. Aaron Kitch situates the Ripley scrolls in the context of English alchemy in the sixteenth century, especially the tradition of emblematic alchemy and John Dee’s efforts to establish George Ripley as England’s chief alchemical authority. He analyzes the pattern of imagery on the scrolls in relation to the ancient and early modern philosophy of generation, which focused on questions about sexual reproduction and the emergence of new matter in nature.

Beya and Gabricus: Erotic Imagery in German Alchemy

The first printed text of German alchemy, Rosarium Philosophorum (published in 1550, but written one to two centuries earlier) has an account of the incestuous union of a brother and sister named Gabricus and Beya. In the alchemical allegory, they represent body and spirit, respectively, and their union produces the soul that holds them together.

Journal Growth and Maturation

Journal Growth and Maturation