Page 59, The Secret of the Golden Flower
Translated by Richard Wilhelm
Commentary by C.G. Jung
Master Lu Tzu said : Yu Ch'ing has left behind him a magic spell for the Far Journey :
"Four words crystallize the spirit in the place of power :
Non-action in action.
In the sixth month the white snow is suddenly seen to fly.
At the third watch the disk of the sun sends out shining rays.
On the water blows the wind of gentleness.
Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the receptive.
And the deeper secret within the secret :
The land is nowhere, that is the true home...
To perform or dream of magic, suggests that you need to look at things from a different view or approach your problems from a new angle in order to successfully move forward. Alternatively, magic symbolizes creativity and wonder. Perhaps someone or something has caused you to be in awe. The dream may also be a metaphor that you or someone is "up to some trick".
To dream of black magic, implies that you have obtained your wishes and wants through underhanded tricks. It also symbolizes deception, evil and treachery.
To dream of accomplishing any design by magic, indicates pleasant surprises.
To see others practising this art, denotes profitable changes to all who have this dream.
To dream of seeing a magician, denotes much interesting travel to those concerned in the advancement of higher education, and profitable returns to the mercenary.
Magic here should not be confounded with sorcery or spiritism. If the reader so interprets, he may expect the opposite to what is here forecast to follow. True magic is the study of the higher truths of Nature.
Dreaming that you are performing magic means many pleasant surprises. It may also represent a creative mind and that events will turn out the way you had hoped for. Seeing others performing magic in your dream indicates profitable endeavors. Dreaming of black magic, represents that you have obtained your wishes and wants through underhanded tricks. It also symbolizes evil and treachery.
1. Practices that aim to use paranormal or spiritual means to influence events for selfish purposes, or for the benefit of all humanity. 2. The art of conjuring. The claimed art of altering things either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult natural laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical analysis, whereas practitioners of magic claim it is an inexplicable force beyond logic. Magic has been practised in all cultures, and utilizes ways of understanding, experiencing and influencing the world somewhat akin to those offered by religion, though it is sometimes regarded as more focused on achieving results than religious worship. Magic is often viewed with suspicion by the wider community, and is commonly practised in isolation and secrecy. Modern Western magicians generally state magic's primary purpose to be personal spiritual growth, many seeing magic ritual purely in psychological terms as a powerful means of autosuggestion and of contacting the unconscious mind. Modern perspectives on the theory of magic broadly follow two views, which also correspond closely to ancient views. The first sees magic as a result of a universal sympathy within the universe, where if something is done here a result happens somewhere else. The other view sees magic as a collaboration with spirits who cause the effect.
From the spiritual point of view, the journey is never merely a
passage through space, but rather an expression of the urgent desire for discovery
and change that underlies the actual movement and experience of travelling. Hence, to study, to inquire, to seek or to live with intensity through new and profound
experiences are all modes of travelling or, to put it another way, spiritual and
symbolic equivalents of the journey. Heroes are always travellers, in that they are
restless. Travelling, Jung observes, is an image of aspiration, of an unsatisfied
longing that never finds its goal, seek where it may (31). He goes on to point out
that this goal is in fact the lost Mother; but this is a moot point, for we might
equally well say that, on the contrary, its journey is a flight from the Mother.
Flying, swimming and running are other activities which may be equated with
travelling; and so also are dreaming, day-dreaming and imagining. Crossing a ford
marks the decisive stage in the passage from one state to another (56). There is a
connexion between the symbolism of the journey, in its cosmic sense, and the
symbolism of the essential landscape of megalithic cults (or that seen by the
shamans in their visions). Travelling may also be related to the complete cycle of
the year or to the attempt to escape from it, depending upon certain secondary
characteristics of the journey. But the true Journey is neither acquiescence nor
escape—it is evolution. For this reason Guénon has suggested that ordeals of
initiation frequently take the form of ‘symbolic journeys’ representing a quest
that starts in the darkness of the profane world (or of the unconscious—the
mother) and gropes towards the light. Such ordeals or trials—like the stages in a
journey—are rites of purification (29). The archetype of the journey is the pilgrimage to the ‘Centre’ or the holy land—or the way out of the maze. The Night
Sea-Crossing, equivalent to the Journey into Hell, illustrates certain basic aspects
of journey-symbolism which still call for elucidation. Primarily, to travel is to
seek. The Turkish Kalenderi sect require their initiates to travel ceaselessly, since,
as we have suggested, travelling is often invested with a higher, sublimatory
significance.
To dream that you are going on a journey, signifies profits, self-discovery or progress. The scenery you see in your journey and the method of travel is telling of your feelings and circumstances you may be currently experiencing.
To dream that your friends go on a journey, signifies a welcoming and harmonious change.
To dream of the band Journey, represents advice that some of their songs may offer in some waking situation. "Don't stop believing", "Open Arms", etc.
To dream that you go on a journey, signifies profit or a disappointment, as the travels are pleasing and successful or as accidents and disagreeable events take active part in your journeying.
To see your friends start cheerfully on a journey, signifies delightful change and more harmonious companions than you have heretofore known. If you see them depart looking sad, it may be many moons before you see them again. Power and loss are implied.
To make a long-distance journey in a much shorter time than you expected, denotes you will accomplish some work in a surprisingly short time, which will be satisfactory in the way of reimbursement.
This indicates that there will be a great change in conditions and circumstances.
Good journey indicates good conditions and bad journey with troubles indicates a bad life.
Dreaming that you are going on a journey means profits, self-discovery or progress. The scenery you see in your journey is telling of your feelings and circumstances you may be currently experiencing. Dreaming that your friends go on a journey means delightful and welcomed change and harmony.
A dream about a journey represents your path in life or a part of your life's journey. It may reflect some of your fear and anticipation.
The meaning of a dream about a journey will depend upon where you are going and the form of transportation that you use.
Superstion-based dream interpretations say that if you go on a voyage by sea, you will have an unexpected visitor, and that if you take a trip to the shore, you will receive money.
All secrets symbolize the power of the supernatural, and this explains
their disquieting effect upon most human beings. Jung is emphatic about this,
pointing out that, for the same reason, it is very helpful for the individual so
affected to unburden himself of his secrets (31). On the other hand, the ability to
master this state of tension within oneself confers an awareness of unfailing
superiority—a sensation which is common in individuals who live outside the
law and in spies and privy counsellors to kings and magnates. This same notion
supplies part of the basic attraction of esoteric thought and of all forms of
Hermetic science in literature and art.
To dream that you or someone has a secret, represents hidden power. It suggests that something is emerging from your unconscious.
Dreaming that you or someone has a secret, represents hidden power. It suggests that something needs to emerge from your unconscious.
Here is Luc Benoist’s version of a passage about heaven taken from
the Chândogya Upanishad: ‘In the beginning, all the universe was non-being. It
became being. It grew and formed an egg, which remained unbroken for a year.
Then it broke open. Of the two halves of the shell, one was of silver and the other
of gold.’ The latter was heaven, while the former became earth. In Hindu architecture, these two halves are represented by the altar and the stupa (6). One can
clearly see in all this how the myth arose from converging formal analogies.
Heaven has always been considered, except in Egypt, as part of the masculine or active principle, associated with things of the spirit and with the number three,
whereas the earth is related to the feminine, passive or material principle, and the
number four. Mircea Eliade has something to say about the symbolism of heaven
which is rather less abstract and therefore fails to be so cosmogonic: the azure of
the sky, he suggests, is the veil which hides the divine face. The clouds are his
garments. The light of heaven is the ointment with which he anoints his immense
body. The stars are his eyes (17). Again: among oriental peoples, the dome of
heaven is associated with the nomad’s tent—quite apart from the usual heaven/
earth association—as if they had a presentiment that three-dimensional space is
only a kind of lid which prevents Man from penetrating into the mystery of the
other world. Celestial space, then, ceases to be a container and becomes content
of hyperspace, or rather, of trans-space. A terrible aspect of heaven can be seen in
the myth of the cosmic catastrophe which William Blake appears to have had in
mind when he wrote of ‘the angry religion of the stars’ (3). We must also remember that, from the earliest times, heaven has been thought of as consisting of
several heavens, owing to the tendency of primitive logic to assign a separate,
cellular space to each celestial body or group of bodies, a tendency which anticipates the theory of gravitation, the gravitational field and the laws of organic
structures, and which illuminates the very essence of the relationship between
the qualitative (the discontinuous) and the quantitative (the continuous) (Plate
XVI).
To see heaven in your dream, signifies your desires to find perfect happiness. You may be trying to escape from the difficulties you are experiencing in your life. The dream serves as a medium in which you can restore your faith, optimism, and hope.
If you ascend to heaven in a dream, you will fail to enjoy the distinction you have labored to gain,, and joy will end in sadness.
If young persons dream of climbing to heaven on a ladder, they will rise from a low estate to one of unusual prominence, but will fail to find contentment or much pleasure.
To dream of being in heaven and meeting Christ and friends, you will meet with many losses, but will reconcile yourself to them through your true understanding of human nature.
To dream of the Heavenly City, denotes a contented and spiritual nature, and trouble will do you small harm.
The remainder of your life will be spiritually happy, and your death will be
peaceful.
Seeing heaven in your dream means your desires to find perfect happiness. You may be trying to escape from the difficulties you are experiencing in your life. And your dream serves as a medium in which you can restore your faith, optimism, and hopes.
The wind is air in its active and violent aspects, and is held to be the
primary Element by virtue of its connexion with the creative breath or exhalation.
Jung recalls that in Arabic (and paralleled by the Hebrew) the word ruh signifies
both ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ (31). At the height of its activity, the wind gives rise to
the hurricane (a synthesis and ‘conjunction’ of the four Elements), which is
credited with the power of fecundation and regeneration. It was taken up in this
sense by the alchemists, as can be seen for example in Jamsthaler’s Viatorium
Spagyricum (Frankfort, 1625) (31). The winds were numbered and brought into
correspondence with the cardinal points and the signs of the Zodiac, so as to bring
out their cosmic significance. In Egypt and Greece the wind was reckoned to
possess certain evil powers; but for the Greeks, this menacing implication, which
they associated with Typhon, was reversed from that moment when the fleet of
Xerxes was destroyed by a tempest (41).
To dream of the wind blowing softly and sadly upon you, signifies that great fortune will come to you through bereavement.
If you hear the wind soughing, denotes that you will wander in estrangement from one whose life is empty without you.
To walk briskly against a brisk wind, foretells that you will courageously resist temptation and pursue fortune with a determination not easily put aside. For the wind to blow you along against your wishes, portends failure in business undertakings and disappointments in love. If the wind blows you in the direction you wish to go you will find unexpected and helpful allies, or that you have natural advantages over a rival or competitor.
To dream that the wind is blowing, symbolizes your life force, energy, and vigor. It reflects changes in your life. Alternatively, the dream suggests that you need to pick up your pace and work on achieving your goals more quickly and efficiently.
To dream of strong or gusty winds, represent turmoil and trouble in your life. You are experiencing much stress in some waking situation.
Dreaming of blowing winds, symbolizes your life force, energy, and vigor. It reflects changes in your life. Dreaming of strong or gusty winds, represents turmoil and trouble for you. You are experiencing much stress in some waking situation.
The wind in your dream could be symbolic of your own spirit or the life force. The wind may represent changes in your life. The amount of force behind the wind could indicate the amount of change. A very gusty wind could represent stress and turmoil but also the energy that you need or have to make changes. The sound of the wind and the movement of objects around you are probably what alert you to the wind in the dream, rather than a sensation of wind on your skin. The sound of the wind is considered by some to be special because it is a sound of nature and has spiritual significance.
Denotes injury to yourself. If you receive a blow, brain trouble will threaten you.
If you defend yourself, a rise in business will follow.
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the symbol for water is a wavy line with
small sharp crests, representing the water’s surface. The same sign, when tripled,
symbolizes a volume of water, that is, the primaeval ocean and prime matter.
According to hermetic tradition, the god Nu was the substance from which the
gods of the first ennead emerged (19). The Chinese consider water as the specific
abode of the dragon, because all life comes from the waters (13). In the Vedas,
water is referred to as mâtritamâh (the most maternal) because, in the beginning,
everything was like a sea without light. In India, this element is generally regarded
as the preserver of life, circulating throughout the whole of nature, in the form of
rain, sap, milk and blood. Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and
the end of all things on earth (60). Although water is, in appearance, formless,
ancient cultures made a distinction between ‘upper waters’ and ‘lower waters’.
The former correspond to the potential or what is still possible, the latter to what
is actual or already created (26). In a general sense, the concept of ‘water’ stands,
of course, for all liquid matter. Moreover, the primaeval waters, the image of
prime matter, also contained all solid bodies before they acquired form and rigidity. For this reason, the alchemists gave the name of ‘water’ to quicksilver in its
first stage of transmutation and, by analogy, also to the ‘fluid body’ of Man (57).
This ‘fluid body’ is interpreted by modern psychology as a symbol of the unconscious, that is, of the non-formal, dynamic, motivating, female side of the personality. The projection of the mother-imago into the waters endows them with
various numinous properties characteristic of the mother (31). A secondary meaning of this symbolism is found in the identification of water with intuitive wisdom. In the cosmogony of the Mesopotamian peoples, the abyss of water was
regarded as a symbol of the unfathomable, impersonal Wisdom. An ancient Irish
god was called Domnu, which means ‘marine depth’. In prehistoric times the
word for abyss seems to have been used exclusively to denote that which was
unfathomable and mysterious (4). The waters, in short, symbolize the universal
congress of potentialities, the fons et origo, which precedes all form and all
creation. Immersion in water signifies a return to the preformal state, with a sense
of death and annihilation on the one hand, but of rebirth and regeneration on the
other, since immersion intensifies the life-force. The symbolism of baptism,
which is closely linked to that of water, has been expounded by St. John
Chrysostom (Homil. in Joh., XXV, 2): ‘It represents death and interment, life and
resurrection. . . . When we plunge our head beneath water, as in a sepulchre, the
old man becomes completely immersed and buried. When we leave the water, the
new man suddenly appears’ (18). The ambiguity of this quotation is only on the
surface: in this particular aspect of the general symbolism of water, death affects
only Man-in-nature while the rebirth is that of spiritual man. On the cosmic level,
the equivalent of immersion is the flood, which causes all forms to dissolve and
return to a fluid state, thus liberating the elements which will later be recombined
in new cosmic patterns. The qualities of transparency and depth, often associated with water, go far towards explaining the veneration of the ancients for this
element which, like earth, was a female principle. The Babylonians called it ‘the
home of wisdom’. Oannes, the mythical being who brings culture to mankind, is
portrayed as half man and half fish (17). Moreover, in dreams, birth is usually
expressed through water-imagery (v. Freud, Introduction to Psycho-Analysis).
The expressions ‘risen from the waves’ and ‘saved from the waters’ symbolize
fertility, and are metaphorical images of childbirth. On the other hand, water is, of
all the elements, the most clearly transitional, between fire and air (the ethereal
elements) and earth (the solid element). By analogy, water stands as a mediator
between life and death, with a two-way positive and negative flow of creation and
destruction. The Charon and Ophelia myths symbolize the last voyage. Death
was the first mariner. ‘Transparent depth’, apart from other meanings, stands in
particular for the communicating link between the surface and the abyss. It can
therefore be said that water conjoins these two images (2). Gaston Bachelard
points to many different characteristics of water, and derives from them many
secondary symbolic meanings which enrich the fundamental meaning we have described. These secondary meanings are not so much a set of strict symbols, as
a kind of language expressing the transmutations of this ever-flowing element.
Bachelard enumerates clear water, spring water, running water, stagnant water,
dead water, fresh and salt water, reflecting water, purifying water, deep water,
stormy water. Whether we take water as a symbol of the collective or of the
personal unconscious, or else as an element of mediation and dissolution, it is
obvious that this symbolism is an expression of the vital potential of the psyche,
of the struggles of the psychic depths to find a way of formulating a clear message
comprehensible to the consciousness. On the other hand, secondary symbolisms
are derived from associated objects such as water-containers, and also from the
ways in which water is used: ablutions, baths, holy water, etc. There is also a
very important spatial symbolism connected with the ‘level’ of the waters, denoting a correlation between actual physical level and absolute moral level. It is
for this reason that the Buddha, in his Assapuram sermon, was able to regard the
mountain-lake—whose transparent waters reveal, at the bottom, sand, shells,
snails and fishes—as the path of redemption. This lake obviously corresponds to
a fundamental aspect of the ‘Upper Waters’. Clouds are another aspect of the
‘Upper Waters’. In Le Transformationi of Ludovico Dolce, we find a mystic
figure looking into the unruffled surface of a pond, in contrast with the accursed
hunter, always in restless pursuit of his prey, implying the symbolic contrast
between contemplative activity—the sattva state of Yoga—and blind outward
activity—the rajas state. Finally, the upper and lower waters communicate reciprocally through the process of rain (involution) and evaporation (evolution).
Here, fire intervenes to modify water: the sun (spirit) causes sea water to evaporate (i.e. it sublimates life). Water is condensed in clouds and returns to earth in
the form of life-giving rain, which is invested with twofold virtues: it is water, and
it comes from heaven (15). Lao-Tse paid considerable attention to this cyclic
process of meteorology, which is at one and the same time physical and spiritual,
observing that: ‘Water never rests, neither by day nor by night. When flowing
above, it causes rain and dew. When flowing below, it forms streams and rivers.
Water is outstanding in doing good. If a dam is raised against it, it stops. If way is
made for it, it flows along that path. Hence it is said that it does not struggle. And
yet it has no equal in destroying that which is strong and hard’ (13). When water
stands revealed in its destructive aspects, in the course of cataclysmic events, its
symbolism does not change, but is merely subordinated to the dominant symbolism of the storm. Similarly, in those contexts where the flowing nature of water is
emphasized, as in the contention of Heraclitus that ‘You cannot step twice into
the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.’ Here the reference is not to water-symbolism as such, but to the idea of the irreversible flow along a
given path. To quote Evola, in La tradizione ermetica: ‘Without divine water,
nothing exists, according to Zosimus. On the other hand, among the symbols of
the female principle are included those which figure as origins of the waters
(mother, life), such as: Mother Earth, Mother of the Waters, Stone, Cave, House
of the Mother, Night, House of Depth, House of Force, House of Wisdom,
Forest, etc. One should not be misled by the word “divine”. Water symbolizes
terrestrial and natural life, never metaphysical life.’
This indicates birth (of some person).
To dream of clear water, foretells that you will joyfully realize prosperity and pleasure.
If the water is muddy, you will be in danger and gloom will occupy Pleasure's seat.
If you see it rise up in your house, denotes that you will struggle to resist evil, but unless you see it subside, you will succumb to dangerous influences.
If you find yourself baling it out, but with feet growing wet, foreshadows trouble, sickness, and misery will work you a hard task, but you will forestall them by your watchfulness. The same may be applied to muddy water rising in vessels.
To fall into muddy water, is a sign that you will make many bitter mistakes, and will suffer poignant grief therefrom.
To drink muddy water, portends sickness, but drinking it clear and refreshing brings favorable consummation of fair hopes.
To sport with water, denotes a sudden awakening to love and passion.
To have it sprayed on your head, denotes that your passionate awakening to love will meet reciprocal consummation.
The following dream and its allegorical occurrence in actual life is related by a young woman student of dreams:
``Without knowing how, I was (in my dream) on a boat, I waded through clear blue water to a wharfboat, which I found to be snow white, but rough and splintry. The next evening I had a delightful male caller, but he remained beyond the time prescribed by mothers and I was severely censured for it.'' The blue water and fairy white boat were the disappointing prospects in the symbol.
To see water in your dream, symbolizes your unconscious and your emotional state of mind. Water is the living essence of the psyche and the flow of life energy. It is also symbolic of spirituality, knowledge, healing and refreshment. To dream that water is boiling, suggests that you are expressing some emotional turmoil. Feelings from your unconscious are surfacing and ready to be acknowledged. You need to let out some steam.
To see calm, clear water in your dream, means that you are in tune with your spirituality. It denotes serenity, peace of mind, and rejuvenation.
To see muddy or dirty water in your dream, indicates that you are wallowing in your negative emotions. You may need to take some time to cleanse your mind and find internal peace. Alternatively, the dream suggests that your thinking/judgment is unclear and clouded. If you are immersed in muddy water, then it indicates that you are in over your head in a situation and are overwhelmed by your emotions.
To dream that water is rising up in your house, suggests that you are becoming overwhelmed by your emotions.
To hear running water in your dream, denotes meditation and reflection. You are reflecting on your thoughts and emotions.
To dream that you are walking on water, indicates that you have total control over your emotions. It also suggests that you need to "stay on top" of your emotions and not let them explode out of hand. Alternatively, the dream is symbolic of faith in yourself.
Seeing water in your dream, symbolizes your unconscious and your emotional state of mind. Water is the living essence of the psyche and the flow of life energy. It is also symbolic of spirituality, knowledge, healing and refreshment. Seeing calm, clear water in your dream means that you are in tune with your spirituality. It indicates serenity, peace of mind, and rejuvenation. Seeing muddy or dirty water in your dream indicates that you are wallowing in your negative emotions. You may need to devote some time to clarify your mind and find internal peace. Alternatively, it suggests that your thinking/judgment is unclear and clouded. If you are immersed in muddy water, then it indicates that you are in over your head in a situation and are overwhelmed by your emotions. Dreaming that water is rising up in your house means your struggles and overwhelming emotions. Hearing running water in your dream indicates meditation, reflection and pondering of your thoughts and emotions. Dreaming that you are walking on water, suggests that you have supreme and ultimate control over your emotions. It may also suggest that you need to "stay on top" of your emotions and not let them explode out of hand. Alternatively, it is symbolic of faith in yourself.