Sublimatio
Rising as vapour
What was heavy rises, and becomes spirit.
Sublimatio: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In sublimatio a solid is heated until it rises as vapour and settles again, purified, higher in the vessel. Edinger read it as rising above a situation to see it from a height: the gain of perspective and meaning, and its danger, the flight from the earth into abstraction. Freud’s use of the word for turning drives to higher aims is a distant relation.
Sublimatio: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The eagle rising, the ladder of ascent, the tower, the mountain climbed.
From the Sources
Paracelsus writes that in sublimation, the second degree, what is spiritual is raised from what is bodily and made subtle, the volatile from the fixed, and the pure separated from the impure.
“…so in Sublimation, that which is spirituall is raised from what is corporeall, and is subtilized, volatile from fixed, and that in dry things, as are all Mineralls, and the pure is separated from the impure.”
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
In the passage from Artephius quoted by Silberer, the brass is made to ascend by degrees of fire, freely and without violence, and when it rises on high it is born in the air or spirit and is changed into a spirit.
“Our brass or latten then is made to ascend by the degrees of fire, but of its own accord freely and without violence. But when it ascends on high it is born in the air or spirit and is changed into a spirit, and becomes a life with life.”
Dr. Herbert Silberer, Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts (originally published as Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism), Part II, Section III ('The Hermetic Art'), quoting Artephius after Hitchcock (H. A., p. 87). 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), “Sublimatio”
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Sublimation.
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
“Sublimatio.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/sublimatio.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Nearby in the alphabet: The Star: A light in the dark: guidance and destiny. The Stone: What endures: the philosophers’ stone. Sulphur: The burning principle: desire and will. The Sun: Consciousness, and its daily and yearly course.