Alchemical Fires of the Mind

About this poem

One late Spring afternoon in 1983, after returning from work, I greeted my wife who was at home nursing our daughter. With a twinkle in her eye, she cheerfully smiled, informing me that while watching television, she had learned about a man who, in some ways, reminded her much of me, particularly in terms of his curiosity about things arcane, the philosophical, and the metaphysical. She followed up that statement by pointing out that his name was Carl, the same as my first name, which is spelled with the letter K. The gentleman in consideration has his name spelled with the letter C. “Who is this man,?” I enquired. “His name is Carl Jung,” she responded. “”Why, I’ve never heard of him,” I uttered, not thinking much more about the subject. However, returning to work the following morning, and while passing by a book stand selling used books in Jay Street, Brooklyn, by Borough Hall, New York, my attention was drawn to a tattered tiny paperback book bearing the title of “Memories, Dreams, Reflections” authored by Carl Jung. “I suppose it’s meant for me to get this book and read it,” I thought; and that’s what I did, still not recognizing how that seemingly tiny isolated incident would eventually lead me a few years later to write and complete a dissertation entitled “An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s Dear Mili Employing von Franzian Methodological Processes” pertaining to the Jungian individuation development in fairytales, a process that undoubtedly requires and involves archetypal alchemical stages of development. It is that longstanding engagement that remains at the center of my life’s work and activities, and which, in my retirement years, impels me to compose poems, particularly those with a metaphysical expression. This poem, “Alchemical Fires of the Mind,” examines and compares the history and development of human civilization through the lenses of alchemy with its typical four phases regarded from the perspectives of science, philosophy, and psychology. In this particular poem, the human mind is perceived in the guise of a metaphorical image, and operating like an alchemist’s furnace, against a background of history that, through a process of memories, dreams, and reflections, is examined throughout various phases of human civilization in the alchemist’s arcane efforts to advance human consciousness, human knowledge, and human understanding. more »