Separatio
Dividing
Dividing the one into two, so it can be known.
Separatio: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The alchemists separated the elements, the subtle from the gross, the pure from the impure. Edinger read separatio as the work of discrimination by which consciousness is born: telling apart what was mixed, subject from object, one’s own feelings from another’s. Every creation myth begins with a separation.
Separatio: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Light from darkness and the waters above from those below in Genesis, Marduk cleaving Tiamat, the separation of sky and earth, the sword of judgment.
From the Sources
Paracelsus begins his book on separation with the Creation, in which the first separation was of the four elements out of the one Chaos that was the first matter of the world.
“In the Creation of the world, the first separation began from the foure Elements, seeing the first matter of the world was one Chaos. Of this Chaos God made the greater world, being divided into four distinct Elements”
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 VIII, "Of the Separation of Naturall things". 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
Paracelsus observes that the bodily matter of a mixed thing often cannot be known by anyone, or named, until a separation is made.
“Where it often falls out, that the corporeall matter of that thing cannot bee known by any, or signified by any expresse name, untill there bee a separation made.”
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 VIII ("What Separation is"). 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 Emerald Table bids the reader separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently but with great skill.
“Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, but with great skill. It rises from earth to heaven, and again descends to the earth”
Michael Sendivogius (author of the tract read), The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged, "The All-Wise Doorkeeper": "The Emerald Table of Hermes", pp. 320-321. Now first done into English from the Latin original published at Frankfort in the year 1678; in two volumes, Volume II; London: James Elliott and Co., 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
- Edward F. Edinger, Anatomy of the Psyche (1985), “Separatio”
- 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
“Separatio.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/separatio.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Self: The whole of the psyche, and its centre. The Senex: Order, limit, and time, and their hardening into rigidity. The Serpent: The chthonic, the healing, and the wise. The Seven: The number of the planets, the days, and the stages.