The Riddle of The Vas Bene Clausum

It Was the Belief of the alchemists that the process of transformation they were involved with must take place in a well-sealed vessel, or vas bene clausum. Jung, because he viewed alchemy symbolically, was able to go forward and discover its psychological meaning. Thus, for example, what alchemically speaking are processes of transformation, psychologically are viewed in toto as the process of individuation. The alchemical vessel also underwent psychological transformation. And just as the concept of the vas bene clausum was crucial to the alchemical opus so in turn it became equally so for analytical psychotherapy. It is our intention to examine more closely the nature and function of this alchemical symbol and its psychological correlative, drawing particular attention to several riddles that have arisen concerning it.

The purpose of the vas bene clausum in alchemy was to create a closed and isolated system. The Latin term vas, from which ‘vase’ and ‘vessel’ derive etymologically, evolved from vasum and resembles the Sanskrit vāsana of which the original sense is probably ‘case’, or ‘protecting cover’. As such it is also allied to our terms, ‘vest’, ‘vestiary’, ‘vascular’, etc. (SKEAT 24). The German word for vessel is Gefäss of which the verbal form is fassen, meaning ‘to set, to contain, to take hold of’. Gefasstheit means ‘composure’ and ‘calm(ness)’, and the adjectival form, gefasst, means ‘ready, composed, collected, written’. In Biblical usage, the Latin vas and the Greek skeuos referred to a human body or person regarded as having the containing capacity or function of a vessel (Cf. ONIONS 21).

The purpose of the vas bene clausum was to ‘protect what is within from the intrusion and admixture of what is without, as well as to prevent it from escaping’ (JUNG 12, p. 167). From this we see that the vessel served a ‘precautionary’ capacity by maintaining the integrity of the content, as well as its own potential lines of development, the theory being tha