Fermentatio
Fermenting
The leaven that brings the dead matter to life.
Fermentatio: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The alchemists likened their ferment to the leaven in bread: a little of it, added to the matter, brings the whole to life and changes it through and through. Jung read fermentation as the ensouling of a content, the moment it begins to live and work on its own, often with heat and turmoil.
Fermentatio: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Leaven in the Gospel parable, bread and wine, the ferment of the gold added to the stone, the bubbling of the vat.
From the Sources
Explaining how a tincture penetrates melted metal, Paracelsus compares it to leaven, which penetrates and sours the whole mass, so that 'ferment is the Tincture of Dowe, and Bread.'
“…so much the sooner the Tincture runs through them, as Leaven penetrates, and infects the whole masse with sowreness; and by how much better the masse is covered, and kept warm, so much the better is it fermented, and makes the better bread: for ferment is the Tincture of Dowe, and Bread.”
Micheel Sandivogius; Paracelsus (Nine Books Of the Nature of Things), A New Light of Alchymie ... Also Nine Books Of the Nature of Things, Written by Paracelsus ... Also a Chymicall Dictionary, Paracelsus, Of the Nature of Things, Book VII (on Tincture). Faithfully translated out of the Latin into the English tongue, by J. F. M.D.; London, Printed by Richard Cotes, for Thomas Williams, at the Bible in Little-Britain, 1650. The text, read in part
The Golden Tract quotes Arnold's Flower of Flowers: the Sages call the ferment the soul of the Stone, because it gives life to the imperfect body, which before was dead, and makes its form more beautiful.
“The Sages have affirmed that our Stone is composed of body, soul, and spirit, and they have spoken truly. For the imperfect part they have compared to a body, because it is weak. The water they have called spirit, and truly, because it is spirit. The ferment they have termed soul, because it gives life to the imperfect body (which before was dead), and makes its form more beautiful.”
The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged: Most Faithfully Instructing All Disciples of the Sopho-Spagyric Art How That Greatest and Truest Medicine of the Philosopher's Stone May Be Found and Held, 'The Golden Tract concerning the Stone of the Philosophers' (between pp. 14 and 18). Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; containing twenty-two most celebrated chemical tracts; in two volumes, Volume I; London: James Elliott and Co., Temple Chambers, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C., 1893 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Operations of the Work
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Fermentatio.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/fermentatio.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Fall: The loss of paradise, and the birth of consciousness. The Father: Law, order, and spirit, and their hardening. Fire: Energy that warms, purifies, and consumes. The Fish: Life in the depths, drawn up.