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The Transformation of the Negredo
The negredo represents the initial state of the prima materia, a misunion of opposites caught in an
unconscious state of conflict, which appears in projection as the leaden massa confusa. What is
required is a unifying framework, a vessel or vehicle of transformation by which to contain the
conflict and subject it to a process of simplification and sublimation, a reduction to order through
concentration, distillation, and reconciliation of the chaotic prima materia. For the art perfects
that which nature left unfinished.
But this is just where the real problem arises, for instead of ordering the chaos of the prima
materia it is difficult to avoid simply adding to it, for it does not willingly lend itself to order and
clarity. One's voice becomes lost in the impenetrable darkness of disorientation and distress.
Without direction things fall apart. Yet out of the material itself shines imperceptibly at first the
light of the lumen naturae, by which we are able to find and follow the middle path of the
transcendent function that seeks to unite the opposites.
Within the collective unconscious there are certain ruling principles, or archetypal motifs that have an ordering or constellating effect on the cosmogonic material, and these above all must be brought out and made effective. These archetypes in turn are centred on the ruling principle par excellence, the archetype of the Self, a symbol with power to hold the opposites apart and reunite them in living form.