Solutio
Dissolving
Dissolved back into the waters.
Solutio: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In solutio a solid is dissolved in water and returns to a formless state, from which it can be reformed. Edinger, following Jung, read it as the dissolving of rigid attitudes in the unconscious, a return to the source that may be felt as renewal or as drowning. An alchemical maxim advises that nothing be done until all is water.
Solutio: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Baptism and immersion, the Flood, the bath of the king and queen, melting and weeping.
From the Sources
Paracelsus makes solution the third degree, comprising dissolution and resolution, in which the matter left at the bottom is resolved; he distinguishes a solution by cold from one by heat.
“The third degree is Solution, under which are to bee understood Dissolution, and Resolution, and this degree doth most commonly follow Sublimation, and Distillation, viz. that the matter be resolved which remaines in the bottome. Now Solution is twofold: the one of Cold, the other of Heat; the one without Fire, the other in Fire.”
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. 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
Silberer quotes Arnold (citing 'Ros., I, 9'): the philosophical work is to dissolve and melt the stone into its mercury, bringing it back to its prima materia, its original condition and purest form.
“The philosophical work is to dissolve and melt the stone into its mercury, so that it is reduced and brought back to its prima materia, i.e., original condition, purest form.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section II ('Alchemy'). Translated by Smith Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D.; Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971, an unabridged republication of the work published by Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, in 1917 (Project Gutenberg eBook #27755). 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), “Solutio”
- Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Solve et coagula.
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
“Solutio.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/solutio.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Nearby in the alphabet: Silver: The metal of the moon. The Skull: Death remembered, and what outlasts the flesh. Sophia: Wisdom as a feminine figure beside God. The Spear: The wound that pierces, and the wound that heals.