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Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo: Cultural Complexes and the Redemptive Power of the Abjected Femini

Acknowledgments Prelude: Preparing the canvas I The death of Remedios Varo and the science of all things Varo’s alchemical practice of painting and the problem of patriarchy Alchemy and art as modes of deep inquiry Mother, father, and the making of an alchemist The nature of the alchemical first matter Black and blue: Imagination and the importance of the nigredo All art is propaganda: Patriarchy and Varo’s alchemical practice of painting Mirror of the marvelous: Art, psyche, and the experience of the numinous Wonder, Surrealism, and Jungian psychology Psychology, alchemy, and the mercurial nature of the prima materia Note References The fructifying bonfire of trauma and death Remedios as remedy: The replacement child and a search for identity Tension of opposites: Masculine and Feminine in the theater of war Prison: Varo in the underworld The trauma complex, art, and the healing capacity of imagination References Putting the canvas on the easel: Surrealism, alchemy, and the unconscious Surrealism and alchemy: Re-enchanting the world The heroine’s quest: Symbolic alchemy and the transformation of deep suffering References The end as beginning: Varo’s dream of the executioner, last painting, and death The dream of the executioner and the renewing aspect of the dangerous secret Still Life Reviving: Varo’s last painting and preparation for death Threads of change: Death, rebirth, and the dream of the executioner Note References Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle: Psychology, alchemy, and weaving the garment of a new world Premonition: Weaving a woman’s mystery Toward the Tower: Varo, the beehive, and the retelling of a traitorous truth Women at work: Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle and the alchemical Feminine Self-representation and the transformative concept of the double Feeding the caged moon: Patriarchy, the Feminine, and Jung’s theory of complexes Raveling: Varo and the transformation of cultural complexes powered by patriarchy Secret recipes: Alchemy, creation, and the art of political weaving References Voyage to the center of the inner world: The Feminine quest, the labyrinth, and the dangerous secret Quest of the Feminine: Art, psyche, and female initiation Spiral Transit: Spiritual gold and the journey of the soul Dead Leaves: The labyrinth, Ariadne’s thread, and rewinding the myth of the male hero Notes References Cauldrons of color: Dead Leaves and the alchemical movement between death, life, and rebirth The blackening: The human soul and its need for death to come alive The blue thread: Imagination and initiation into the labyrinth of one’s own being The two whitenings: The furnace of distress and the death of innocence Silvered imagining: The hammered soul and the symbol as a living presence Three ravens: Black, white, and the red that brings all things to an end Note References Birds and eggs: Symbol of the liberated soul and image of immortality Art and the alchemical symbolism of the egg The egg in the alchemical paintings of Leonora Carrington The egg, the liberated soul, and the dream of the executioner Notes References The dream of the executioner: A paradigm shift The archetypal Masculine and the man in the egg The Juggler.The alchemical androgyne and the union of opposites in the world Still Life Reviving: Image as soul food Facing death without fear: Dream 9 and the menace within The Encounter: The egg, an owl, and an image of the dangerous secret The artistic diary: Toward the culmination of the work, the coniunctio Manifesting the sacred The dream of the executioner and the dangerous secret: A paradigm shift Dreams of alchemy: Love, wonder, and the creative forces that animate the soul References II Mystical sisters Kindred spirits: Varo, Carrington, and the possibilities of woman’s creative power Crookhey Hall: Carrington and the prima materia of childhood Down Below: The onset of war and the female body as alchemical vessel From mayhem to madness: Carrington in the asylum of the patriarchy Destruction as the cause of coming into being Notes References Breaking out: Varo, Carrington, and blackening the patriarchal paradigm The Terrible Mother and the voice of the eternal Feminine Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst: Challenging the authority of the father A feminist Surrealism Exposing the big con and the project of female empowerment References In the footsteps of Virginia Woolf: Humiliated Manhood and the re-visioning of the Feminine A woman’s war: Woolf, words, and the will to power The difference a friendship made Note References Alchemy in exile: Varo and Carrington in Mexico City Stirring the cauldron: Varo and Carrington in the alchemical kitchen Varo’s death: Alchemy and the bath that kills and vivifies Note References The way they loved each other: The crucible of friendship and the unmaking of patriarchy Reclaiming the place of the Feminine The distorted and dislocated Feminine: The surrealism of Wifredo Lam Horns of the goddess: The Minotaur in the work of Varo, Carrington, and Lam Female sexual objectification and other problems of patriarchy Note References III Symbols of transformation Imaginal dialogues: The alchemical treasure of the Feminine

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Raveling: Varo and the transformation of cultural complexes powered by patriarchy
With these depth psychological dynamics in mind, increasingly nuanced reflections on the alchemical transformation Varo painted into Embroidering the Earth’s Mantle can be made. Consciously or unconsciously, the artist paints a moment of transformation: on the stone floor in the center of the...
(Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo: Cultural Complexes and the Redemptive Power of the Abjected Feminine)
The death of Remedios Varo and the science of all things
First Matter The dream of the executioner Remedios Varo recorded ten dreams in her diary. The dreams are undated. Varo titled the last entry in the series, simply, “Dream 10.” The dream: I had discovered an extremely important secret, something like a part of the “absolute...
(Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo: Cultural Complexes and the Redemptive Power of the Abjected Feminine)
Pan stalks America Contemporary American anxieties and cultural complex theory
Sukey Fontelieu Introduction Any theoretical position, such as a depth perspective, when employed to study a subject will necessarily limit the findings, because any method in and of itself serves to focus a search. Albert Einstein wrote “It is nonsense even if 1 said so ... in principle it...
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Cultural complexes
We've already explored the idea of a complex as a personal wound, triggered by a childhood trauma or by an ancestral trauma or pattern. However, in recent years some Jungian analysts and scholars have focused on the idea that complexes may also be cultural, or common to a people or nation.15 In this...
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The orphan archetype within Australia’s cultural complexes
In the same way that some people are born into families in which they feel like an outlier, I have long been perplexed by many common behaviours and attitudes in my culture of birth. And just as some people find it is not easy to separate from their incompatible or dysfunctional families, try as I might,...
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The cultural complex
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Definitions of the cultural complex
Hart (1939, p. 10) defined the culture complex as ‘identifiable through certain psychological uniformities, desires, attitudes, skills, symbols and ideas’ which amount to anthropological traits in specific groups of people. The term, ‘cultural complex’, however, has a special meaning in analytical...
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Introducing corporate cultural complex
When applied to leadership development in business schools and to the corporate world, analytical psychology stimulates self-awareness and authenticity. It supports individual consciousness and enables groups to better collaborate with society and the environment, creating a better and more integrated...
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The corporate cultural complex
In analytic sessions, part of the analyst’s task is to identify and work with the client’s personal complexes with the aim of facilitating the release of psychic energy for creativity, soulful productivity and healthy social interaction. Modem theories now also recognise ‘cultural complexes’...
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A CONTACT ZONE WITH SEVERAL CULTURAL COMPLEXES
However, although a chronological succession is traceable from the beginning of the production economy to the appearance of the first urban centers, it is nevertheless difficult to distinguish any common genetic roots among the various cultural remains. At each historical stage, features of contamination...
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