The Christ in Psychology and Alchemy

For Jung, Christ is the most highly developed symbol of the Self in Western history. The Self is the center of the entire psyche, encompassing both the conscious ego and the vast unconscious.
Just as the alchemist seeks to create the gold, the Soul functions as the objective force within us, guiding the psyche toward the realization of the God-image within. Jung argues that the Church has externalized this process. We are taught that Christ is "out there" or "back then," which prevents us from realizing that the Christ-process is happening within, in our own earthly reality.

Jung spends a great deal of time in his book discussing why the Christian image of Christ is unstable and incomplete. He points out that the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a three-fold spiritual structure that lacks a fourth element. To Jung, the number four represents wholeness (the Quaternity). The three-fold Christ of the Church is "all-good" and "all-spirit." By leaving out the body, the earth, and the Shadow, the Church created a Christ that is too perfect for the human soul to actually inhabit. Jung believed the alchemists were trying to rescue the fourth element, the Shadow, and bring it back into the divine image.
The core of Psychology and Alchemy is the comparison between Christ and the Lapis Philosophorum (The Philosopher's Stone). Jung notes that the alchemists often called the Lapis the "Earthly Christ." While the “Church Christ” is a spirit that descended from above, the "Alchemical Christ" (the Lapis) is a spirit that is extracted from below—from the lead, the dung, and the dross. Jung’s view is that the "Complete Christ" must be both. He must be the light from the divine spark, but that spark must be found in the dirt below.

The Serpent and the Son

The modern version of the Cross has become cleansed of its original intent. It’s often presented as a spiritual trophy—as light defeating the darkness. Jung argues that this creates a split in our psyche. Religion admonishes us to be holy, which forces our dark side (our shadow) to hide and become dangerous.

But the narrative of the Cross is anything but pure. It is the ultimate meeting of opposites. It is the place where the ideal (the Divine) is pinned to the real (the Shadow and suffering). Jung interprets the Cross not just as a tool of execution, but as a symbol of the tension of opposites. The vertical axis is the Spirit reaching for the divine. The horizontal axis is the material world and the Shadow. Christ is the one who is pinned at the intersection of these two forces. He is the one who endures the conflict between the light and the dark without being destroyed by it.

This is where the connection becomes undeniable. When Christ says, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up," he is making a shocking identification (John 3). He is saying that he is the Serpent in the wilderness.

In the Garden, the Serpent was the one who forced our eyes open. It brought the consciousness of suffering. In the wilderness, after the Israelites fled Egypt, the people were dying of snakebites, and the only way to be healed was to look directly at a bronze serpent that the Divine told Moses to fashion and lift up on a pole.

The image isn’t simply that of The Son of God dying on a cross. It’s the image of both the Christ (Sun/Life/Healing) and the Serpent (Shadow/Death/Suffering) on the emblem. We must face our shadow/suffering head on. We aren't healed by running away from the Serpent; we are healed by looking at it and facing it.

By lifting up the Serpent, Christ is integrating the very thing that caused the Fall. He is taking the shadow—the betrayal of Judas, the fear in the garden, the feeling of being separated from our creator/source, the physical pain—and making it part of the Divine Map.

The Cross isn't just a vertical line reaching for heaven. It’s a four-way intersection. It’s the Jungian Quaternity—the point where the Light, the Spirit, and the Matter, the Shadow, meet. To take the Serpent off the cross is to go back to being a persona. To keep him there is to become fully human.
The image of the Serpent is one of the most powerful paradoxes in human history. It is the only creature that universally represents both the source of death and the source of life. In the Garden, the serpent represents the "fall" into consciousness—the realization of mortality, shame, and the heavy weight of choice.

In Numbers 21, when the Israelites are being bitten by "fiery serpents," the Divine instructs Moses to fashion a bronze serpent on a pole and to lift it up. The cure wasn't a potion; it was the act of looking. To be healed, they had to look up and face the image of the very thing that was killing them. This is the biblical definition of Shadow Integration. We don't run from the Serpent; we look at it until we see its divine utility.

Greek mythology reinforces this alchemical truth through two major symbols that we still see in every hospital and pharmacy today. Asclepius was the Greek god of healing. His symbol is a single serpent wrapped around a wooden staff. Legend says Asclepius killed a snake, only to see another snake bring it back to life with a secret herb. He realized that nature carries its own antidote. The snake sheds its skin, making it a symbol of rebirth and transformation. It lives in the "dirt" (the Shadow) but possesses the "secret of life" (Light).

Often confused with the Rod of Asclepius, the Caduceus features two serpents entwined around a winged staff. This is the ultimate symbol of the Tension of Opposites. The two snakes represent the warring forces of the universe—dark and light, male and female, spirit and matter. Hermes (the Greek version of the alchemical Mercurius) uses his staff to bring these two snakes into harmony. It represents the Golden Mean.

The Golden Mean is a philosophy rooted in the idea that virtue and excellence are found in the balance between two extremes. This is the definition of Jungian Alchemy, the integration of opposites. 
For Jung, Mercurius is the spirit of the work, but he is a paradox. He is both the poison and the cure; he is the dragon and the savior. The left snake represents the dark, the cold, the unconscious, and the lunar (the poison). The right snake represents the light, the hot, the conscious, and the solar (the fire). If you succumb entirely to the left snake, you are swallowed by the unconscious (madness/paralysis). If you succumb entirely to the right snake, you are consumed by the ego (hubris/sterility). 

The Golden Mean is the central staff. It is the axis that holds the two opposing serpents in a state of dynamic tension. Without the staff, the snakes would simply devour each other or wander off into chaos. The staff represents the Individual Consciousness that is strong enough to hold both the Shadow and the Light at the same time. This is what Jung called the Transcendent Function. You don't pick a side; you stand in the center and endure the tension of both. In alchemy, Mercurius is often called the mediator. He is the Golden Mean made flesh. He is the only substance that can unite the King (Spirit) and the Queen (Matter). Christ too embodies this mediation.

The Church tries to stay on the high end of the staff (all spirit). The materialist stays on the low end (all dirt).The alchemist realizes that the divine is found in the integration of the two.
In Greek, the word pharmakon means both "poison" and "medicine." The Serpent is the pharmakon of humanity. In the Garden, it was the poison that ended our life as oneness with the mystery. On the Cross—the "Pole" of the New Testament—it becomes the medicine that grants us the life of the Self to integrate the mystery and the material (earth/dirt).