Critical Notice

Marie-Louise Von Franz (Ed., with commentary). Translated by R. F. C. Hull and A. S. B. Glover. Aurora consurgens, A document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the problem of opposites in alchemy. London,  Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966. pp.  xv + 555.  45s.

The two volumes of Jung's last major work (apart from his memoirs) Mysterium coniunctionis, appeared in German in 1955 and 1956. A year later Dr von Franz added as a third volume the present study of which an English edition has only now become available. Von Franz was Jung's collaborator in Mysterium coniunctionis, and it may be assumed that she was responsible for a substantial part of the research that had gone into that work. It was on Jung's own suggestion that she undertook to edit and offer a commentary on Aurora consurgens.

Her wide knowledge of Scripture, of biblical and ecclesiastical literature, and of alchemical tracts made her eminently suited for this task. Her work represents one of the trends developing in analytical psychology after Jung. To gauge these trends is, I believe, of vital importance and I shall therefore draw some comparisons between the respective approaches of master and disciple but wish it to be understood that I consider von Franz a master in her own right.

This work comprises an annotated Latin version of the text with English translation facing, an appendix with additional material in Latin, a critical apparatus, and a 43-page bibliography. The core is a 250-page running commentary, followed by an exciting chapter on the question of St Thomas' authorship of the document.

Aurora consurgens itself is a comparatively short treatise, blending alchemical theory with a glowing if not sensuous description of a transformation process that culminates in the coniunctio, and numerous biblical quotations mainly from the Song of Songs, i.e. it is fundamentally synchretistic in character. Though it contains little of alchemical practice, it quotes profusely from alchemical writers who are cited by nam