English

THE LADY OF ELCHE AND THE HOLY CHALICE OF VALENCIA: SYMBOLS OF THE FEMENINE ANTHROPOS AND EROS, IN THE ARCHETYPICAL BACKGROUND OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IN OUR TIME

I had the privilege of a personal collaboration with Dr. Marie-Louise von Franz during the last five years of her life. For this honor I would like to thank Dr. José Zavala and Dr. Dieter Baumann. And, in particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Ms. Barbara Davies who, due to Dr. von Franz's limited physical capacities during these years, assisted us in our correspondence.

Everyone who knew Marie-Louise von Franz knows how much she developed Eros in her own personal life. In an article on the life and work of Dr. von Franz, Barbara Davies writes that von Franz's work will re­main forever as a living symbol of the feminine and its redemption in our time 1. In one of the her last books, entitled The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption (pub­lished after her death in 1999)2, von Franz interprets a Rumanian fairy tale and develops the idea that, through the realization of the feminine principle, a deep transformation will take place concurring with the zodiacal developments of our era. According to her version, the feminine principle of Eros, inspiration and rational understanding would unite and have the ability to cure the wounds that had arisen from a one-sided patriarchal conception of life.

In a similar vein, Dr. von Franz and I often reflected in our corre­spondence on the independent and spontaneous manifestations of the unconscious (as witnessed in events, dreams, and synchronicities) that were apparently related to the mysterious process of the integration of the feminine principle in the collective consciousness of our contempo­rary society and which seemed full of hope for the future. The radiance of the archetypal content of the feminine is constellated in our time, and it is waiting to be embodied in our contemporary culture where it is ac­tually being realized more and more. The embodiment of the feminine is expressed in a multitude of ways both on collective as well as individ­ual levels. We see its powerful expression, for example, in the feminist movements, in the awakening of an ecological conscience, in the spon­taneous movements opposing globalization, in outspoken pacifism, in movements of solidarity with our fellow men and women, and in move­ments defending human rights. On the personal level, this impulse is also expressed in dreams and visions and in the individual realization of feminine values such as sensitivity, tolerance, understanding, feeling differentiation and openness, and an appreciation and respect for the small things of daily life. In male psychology, it corresponds to the archetype of the anima, that inner feminine aspect of the male psyche, which, when developed, is transformed from a bothersome adversary into a functional relationship role between the conscious and the unconscious.

A synchronistic-like occurrence that took place in the context of our relationship, happened after relating a dream to her in which “... The King of Spain, D. Juan Carlos of Borbón, went to greet the members of the analytical psychology group in Valencia...”, and when, a short time later, after other significant events, a gold coin was struck in commemoration of the first centennial of the discovery of the bust of “The Lady of Elche” on whose reverse side figured the effigy of the King himself. 3

The Lady of Elche is a stone sculpture discovered in August 1897, by a young man digging, near an archeological site in Alcudia of Elche in the province of Alicante, Spain. The village of Elche lies approximately 200 kilometers south of Valencia on the Costa Blanca, on the Mediterranean coast. The sculpture constitutes one of the most important master works of Iberian art ever to be found and appears on the first one peseta banknote issued by the Spanish Central Bank in 1948 as well as on a postage stamp issued in 1969. The Lady of Elche is a magnificent bust of a serene and digni­fied woman wearing necklaces and a complex headdress with elaborate coils on each side of her face. On the back of the sculpture is a bale possibly used for the deposit of the ashes of the deceased. lt could therefore be an example of a cinerary urn typical of Iberian funeral rituals. Some scholars date its production to the fourth century B.C. while others date it to the Helle­nistic or Roman periods.

After its discovery, this enigmatic figure of the Lady of Elche was populary known as the “Moor Queen”4. Hypotheses regarding its mysterious origin range from the belief that it could have been the sculpture mother goddess from antiquity such as Isis, Tanit, Cibeles, or Juno, or that it could be that of an Iberian priestess or even of a bride adorned in the ceremonial robes of that time, to a that other they also thought that maybe it could be a representation of the god Apollo-Miter.

Symbolically seen, these synchronistic events could represent a form of compensation from the unconscious indicating the necessity that the dominant of the collective conscious, represented by the symbol of the king, must stay in connection with the unconscious. We see these indi­cations first in the dream, then through the psychology group, and then through the archetypal figure, the Lady of Elche, all of which point in the direction of a conscious integration of the feminine principle and - Deo concedente (with the grace and consent of God) - toward the realization of a new symbol of the unification of the opposites.

In my letter on the occasion of the commemoration, I mentioned to Marie-Louise von Franz the dream of an old arborist, Antonio Masiá, a modest and humble man ninety-five years of age who had, as a self-proclaimed "physician of fruit-bearing trees," spent his life pruning the citrus orchards of Valencia. He had lived in solitude and ignorance of the world but had attained an exceptional degree of ethical reflection. He also radiated an intense aura of love. He felt that the world was far behind in matters of love, and he showed an exceptional sensi­tivity and respect for the dignity of women, convinced that the only thing missing in the world was equality for women vis-à-vis men. He also was deeply impressed that Pope John Paul II had forgiven his po­tential assassin Ali Agca. Some people had even named Masiá "the new Christ" because he said he had been born of love and was said to have gone beyond the Ten Commandments, which beseech man to "love thy neighbor as thyself," as Masiá loved his neighbor even more than him­self. Antonio Masiá had finished his lifework blessed by the affection and respect of those around him. I had the privilege of listening to his inspired words as well as some of his dreams. At the very time I mentioned to Marie­-Louise von Franz my dream of the King of Spain, curiously, he told me a dream of his about the King which had brought him deepest intrinsic happiness. In this dream:

“... A joyous multitude of people went to Antonio's house. The King of Spain had said that they were to express gratitude to Antonio because he had been able to summon all the rulers of the world to declare the wish for peace. Antonio held a book in his hands with the signatures of them all expressing their desire and commitment to strive for peace throughout the world. The people in the street worshipped Antonio as a Savior, but he spoke to them there and told them that he was but a simple man and that the only thing he had done was to take “The Book of Peace”, first to the King of Spain, and then to each of the rulers of all the other nations of the world, and it was all due to God; that there was but one God, and that he was the Creator of all living things...”

Just a few days prior to his death, which he awaited eagerly in full conscious clar­ity, Antonio told me that he believed there could not have been a hap­pier man than he, and he asked me never to forget "The Book of Peace".In Antonio Masiá we have the simple man, the horno simplicimus, who had been a caretaker and lover of trees, a man who remained in harmony with the vegetative world, the emotions and instincts, and who attained in his personal process of individuation a symbol of the Self and the union of opposites, which is seen in "The Book of Peace". This motif was also portrayed in one of his final dreams. In the dream, “...he found himself standing in the orchards at home with his family, and next to them was the Great Tree that gave form to all orange trees and which united them into a single tree...” He maintained in his life a living connection to the Self, the archetype of totality, and as Marie-Louise von Franz says, when one is in harmony with the Self, there is a sensation of peace and absolute happiness.5 Others can judge him any way they want, they can apply destructive intellectual theories, but these cannot harm him because when one is in harmony with the Self, one becomes indestructible. Un­conscious and consciousness are one, are reciprocally in peace, free and transcending the destructive attack of the emotions from within and without.

At that time Marie-Louise von Franz was concerned about the con­tinued crisis in the old Yugoslavia. We spoke not only about her concern but also about the remote Yugoslavian village of Medjugorge where the Blessed Virgin Mary had been making daily appearances to six young shepherds since June 1981, bringing the message that "God is the fullness of life" and “to enjoy the fullness and obtain peace, you must return to God”. To them the Virgin was announced as the "Queen of Peace", and two months later the word mir (peace) was seen by numerous people of the region written across the sky above the cross on top of Mount Krizevac.6

On an individual level, the union of opposites occurred for Antonio Masiá in the personal symbols of his "Book of Peace" and in the dream of “The Great Tree”. On a collective level, however, it seems to me that, by necessity, symbolic expressions of the "Queen of Peace" were occurring in ex-Yugoslavia, reflecting the impulse in the unconscious evolving toward a reconciliation and union of the opposites. In a similar vein today, collective symbols may - or even urgently need to - arise in re­sponse to the present situation. In her article "Nike and the Waters of Styx"7, von Franz notes that new impulses are arising from the depths of the collective unconscious bringing forth new attitudes, embodying the potential to unify the opposites, and containing a creative force that may counteract the forces of destruction thus enabling Eros and humanity to prevail.

In but a few days after I sent my letter describing the events and dreams of Antonio Masiá, von Franz replied expressing her apprecia­tion of what I had shared with her. In that letter she then drew the parallel between the Black Madonna in the Benedictine Abbey in Einsiedeln 8 and the Lady of Elche and related a dream of hers from the previous year.


Küsnacht 16, Mars, 1995

...Merci pour les nouvelles synchronistiques. L´année dernière jái rêvé que Jung allait faire quelque chose pour la paix sur terre, en collaboration avec la Madone Noire d´Einsiedeln ( une parallèle de La Dama de Elche ). Moi-même j´etais servante privilégiée de pouvoir voir cela...

(...Thank you for your news of synchronistic events. Last year I dreamed that Jung, in collaboration with the 'Black Madonna' of Einsiedeln - a parallel of the Lady of Elche - would undertake something for peace in the world. And I was honored to be a witness...)

This letter was then followed by another synchronistic coincidence which happened to me at the inauguration of the Museo de Prehistoria, the museum of prehistoric art in Valencia. During the festivities, a holo­graphic reproduction of the Lady of Elche was projected; its vividness and color were so exceptional that it was as though the spirit of the lady herself was among us. (The impressive three-dimensionality of the image recalled to me a statement from Dr. José Zavala who said that Freud's vision was more two-dimensional while Jung's added a third di­mension to symbolic thinking, namely, the feeling function which cen­ters on the emotional effect and resonance that such events have on us.)

A short time later, another synchronistic event took place during the popular Fallas festival in Valencia in 1996. The Fallas is a springtime celebration in Valencia, during which gigantic, highly elaborate wood and cardboard constructions ("Fallas") characterizing people and figures in sundry dramatic forms of a satirical nature, are erected throughout the city during four days of carnival-like celebration.The celebration has a distinct character of renewal and new life. The festivi­ties culminate on the last dary with the celebration of the cremá on the night of San José when they are consumed by fire to "burn off the winter." The King and Queen of Spain went to Valencia on that occasion to attend the mascletá, one of the acts that take place in the square of the City Council. Here, a real pyrotechnic production couples ever-intensifying rhythms with such great quan­tities of gunpowder that the whole earth vibrates with a startling roar. According to the press on the following day, the "King of Queen of Spain" who had attended the mascletá were deeply impressed by the unforgettable experience, an event that they compared to an earthquake. The astonishing thing was that on the front page of the local paper in which this declaration appeared accompanied by a photo of the King and Queen at the mascletá, there was also a picture of the Lady of Elche with the announcement of the inclusion that day, with each copy of the newspaper 9, of a small reproduction of the picture and a miniature statue (4x5 cm), as well as a publication describing its historical and archeological value, alluding to Iberian culture as pertaining to the mystery religion, based on vegetative cycles of nature and the renovation of life. This bust of the Lady of Elche would express visually the idea of the return to the kingdom of the light of divinities coming from the sepulchral sphere who had previously descended into mother earth down to the infernal regions, to return later to the living world, the ascension being a revitalising process. In this sense, the bust of the Lady of Elche would represent a “Goddess springing from the earth”, ascending out of darkness, to appear to humans and be present before them as the Great Goddess of Elche, who had lived there since ancient times like the regenerative powers of the Great Mother goddesses reemerging in spring.

In the context of the intense emotional impact of the mascletá, that roaring inferno, coupled with the popular festivities, it seemed as though the goddess of Elche had arisen again out of the depths of the earth and realized her destiny that day by entering the households of tens of thou­sands of Valencians as a living symbol of the feminine Anthropos, a liv­ing archetype emerging directly out of the unconscious symbolizing the material feminine body, emotionality, and instinctiveness. (Here she is much like Sophía, her archetypal gnostic parallel who, imprisoned in matter, awaited liberation.) And on this day, she rose toward the world of light and human consciousness with the hope of integration – this time on the individual and personal level.

A similar process has been discussed by Dr. José Zavala 10 in his inter­pretation of Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth 10. Zavala discusses the motif: The fire muse that ascends into the brilliant heavens of invention, toward the conscience of the masculine spirit, like an expression of the necessity that the feminine principle and the principle of Eros unite with their contrary one, and be integrated, also the instinctive aspect of the spirit that unifies, allowing to put in relation to the contrary one.

Dr. Dieter Baumann, in his presentation on the Dialas, feminine spirits of nature,11 spoke to us about the present historical moment in which the feminine principle of nature wants to become human, corresponding to the phenomenon two thousand years ago of God wanting to become Man, adding that the transcendent question abaut the survival of the world was in connection with this problem; if it will be possible to carry out this process; if the feminine deity will become human or not.

During the writing of this article, an event took place which, given its archetypal background, is worth mentioning. It is well-known that brilliant creators and artists of whatever discipline, are receptive to the influence of the unconscious, and it is transmitted through their works – the spirit of the time. Well, I got to know of a project that had been presented in 1998 by a patron of our city consisting of the instalation of a major work in a new and grand avenue, as an example of cultural lendership destined to become an outstanding emblematic reference of our city, of the size of the enigmatic Sphinx by its grand dimensions: height: 20m, base: 18m., and weight: 50 tons, to be constructed in a “fallero workshop”. It would rest on a pedestal and be surrounded by a fountain. The work would be by the Valencian Manuel Valdés, considered to be one of the most important contemporary artists, a printer, sculptor and engraver, who had designed a large sculpture of an “ Iberian Lady” whose singularities is that it is formed of 22.000 small heads, each one 20 cm. and identical to the resulting large head, made of glazed ceramics of the same blue colour as the domes of ancient churches, assembled on a metallic structure, reflecting distinct shades of blue according as this day advanced and to the position of the sun.

Shortly after the dramatic events of 11 September, Valdés installed one of his emblematic works, called “The Lady”, in the very heart of Manhattan, consisting of a monumental sculpure in bronze as a personal and modern interpretation of “The Lady of Elche”, (to the one that is here significant to remember that it also denominated she in their day "The Moorish Queen"), by whom this artist was said to feel captivated, and, for unkown readsons, to seem attracted by the heads and faces of women, which represent a constant image in his works of recent years.

With respect to the motif of the Black Madonna, a parallel symbol to the Lady of Elche, Marie-Louise von Franz said on one occasión that popular devotion to images of her arose in the twelfth cen­tury and had thrived to this day as an expression of the need to acknowl­edge, integrate, and give religious form to the dark side of the archetypal feminine divinity. This need is due to the fact that in Christianity the Virgin Mary came to idealize only the luminous side of the deity, thus robbing her of her dark, instinctive, emotional, and corporeal aspects.

In a similar vein, C. G. Jung considered the corporeal assumption of Mary the most significant Christian religious event since the Reforma­tion. (On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary” was now a dogma of the Catholic faith. Likewise, the Second Vatican Council taught in the dog­matic constitution Lumen Gentium that "the Immaculate Virgin, pre­served free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory when her earthly life was ayer and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things.") This declaration, based on an oral tradition well over one thousand years old, united the celestial queen with the celestial king, the celestial wife with her celestial husband, a symbolic act that Jung considered highly significant psychologically and commented on at length in his book Answer to Job12. I will refer here to a few of his thoughts, as they are of great interest.

For Jung, the Assumptio was a sign of the times pointing toward the equality of women, women's rights, and how this equality had been finally and officially raised to the metaphysical realm in the figure of the divine woman. Here she was positioned next to the sacred trinity, Mary being received in the heavenly court as queen of the heavens and wife of Christ.This dogma gave comforting expression to the desire, the hope, and the anticipation of divine intervention arising from the depths of the collective unconscious as seen in the Assumptio of the Catholic Church as well as in popular religious movements and the frequent epiphanies of the Virgin. For Jung, these were powerful signs of the emerging archetype developed in both the soul of the individual as well as in the collective, serving as a compensation to the rather apocalyptic world situation of that time. For Jung, this dogma completed St. John's apocalyptic marriage of the lamb, and referred as well to the coniunctio of the heavenly bride and heavenly bridegroom prophesied in the day of judgment.This coniunctio was prefigured in the Old Testament by Sophia 13, a feminine figure of “Wisdom” who we meet, also in the Song of Songs standing by God's side (in essence as his wife) before the Creation, and that, in these three cases, he said, the incarnation of God was announced. I will return to this theme later.

Jung points out that this hierosgamos, the sacred marriage, takes place in the heavens where “nothing impure” from the earthly realm can enter and contaminate this coniunctio. Jung felt that it is here that light unites with light, fulfilling the preordained plan of the Christian era that began in Christ and has continued onward to be completed before God can be incarnated in empirical man.

He further pointed out that when a longing for the exaltation of the Mother of God passes through the people, this tendency, if thought out to its logical conclusion, means the desire for the birth of a savior, a peacemaker, a mediator pacem faciens inter inimicos, a mediator making peace between enemies.14 Although the savior has always existed in the pleroma, its birth in time cannot occur if it is not perceived, acknowl­edged, and declared by man. Pope Pius XII recognized this truth and, apparently moved by the spirit, proclaimed - much to the astonishment of the rationalists - the transcendental declaratio solemnis of the new dogma of the Assumptio Mariae.15 Incidentally, he himself is rumored to have had several visions of the Mother of God on the occasion of the declaration.

Jung concludes his Answer to Job with a discussion of the dogma of the Assumptio Mariae and its expression of a renewed hope for the ful­fiIlment of that yearning for peace which stirs deep down within the soul seeking a resolution of the threatening tension between the opposites. Everyone shares this tension and everyone experiences it in his or her individual form of unrest; the more rationalistic the point of view, the less one sees the possibility of getting rid of it by rational means.16 The dog­matization of the Assumptio Mariae points to the hierosgamos in the pleroma, and this in turn implies the future birth of the divine child who, in accordance with the divine trend toward incarnation, will choose as his birthplace the empirical man. This metaphysical process is known in the psychology of the unconscious as the individuation process. If this process is to become conscious, one has to face the unconscious and seek a balance between the opposites. The symbols that make the irrational union of opposites possible arise out of this confrontation, are produced spontaneously by the unconscious, and are amplified by the conscious mind. The central symbols of this process describe the Self, which is man's totality, consisting on the one hand of that which is conscious to him and on the other hand of the contents of the unconscious. The Self is the whole man, whose symbols include the Divine Child, or its synonyms, such as filius solis et lunae, mediator and intermedius. Habet mille nomina ( it has a thousand names) the alchemists said, wanting to indicate that the source from which the individuation process arises and the goal toward which it aims is nameless, ineffable.17

Returning again to the motif of the Lady of Elche, I mentioned to Marie­-Louise von Franz that here another significant coincidence occurs. In the very same soil out of which its ancestral goddess was unearthed and, in one sense, reborn at the end of the last century, we find a centuries­ old traditional celebration.The nucleus of all this merrymaking is the medieval Festa or Misteri d'Elig, the Mystery of Elche so to speak. Represented for the last seven centuries in the Basilica of Santa María, the Misteri is a lyrical drama from the late Middle Ages centered on nothing less than the Assumptio Mariae. The legend behind this grand two-day celebra­tion recounts that, in May 1266, a mysterious ark landed on the beach at Elche with the inscription "Soc per Elig" ("I am for Elche"). The ark con­tained the image of the Holy Virgin and a book detailing the liturgical festival and explaining the death, the heavenly assumption, and the heavenly coronation of the Virgin. Here we see how a collective symbol, brought forth by the unconscious, took hold in the populace, engender­ing the devotion to a mystery that thrives even unto our day. And that this tradition has again been revitalized by the discovery of a represen­tation of the Lady of Elche, a tradition that has now extended well beyond the boundaries of a local festival. UNESCO recently granted this “Mystery of Elche”, the status of Human Heritage, along with the Millennia Palm Tree of the city of Elche. 18

Here is another curious coincidence, as the palm tree is symbolically related in antiquity to the motif of wisdom and is found in the Semitic mother goddesses and lave goddesses such as Ishtar and Cibeles. More­over, the palm tree is one of the attributes of the Virgin Mary. In the Koran (XIX Sura.23) it is said that She gave birth to her Child under a palm tree and later was fed of its fruits.

Another point we need to consider is the surprisng event that happened on the significant day, Christmas Eve, December 24, 1858, in the area of Molina de Segura (not far from Elche), a 144-kilogram me­teor fell to the earth. This is the largest and most well-known meteor in Spain. From earliest times, the falling to earth of celestial bodies has been associated with premonitions announcing the presence of won­drous and portentous events. And celestial stones have been the cult ob­jects of many femenine divinities. It would be of interest here also to mention the Black Stone of Mecca, an exalted Muslim object of personal (not dog­matic) veneration built into the eastern wall of the Kaaba, a small shrine built within the Creat Mosque of Mecca.It dates probably from the pre­-Islamic religion of the Arabs where it was worshiped, among diverse divinities, as the quaternity formed by Allah and bis three daughters, the goddesses al-Lat, al-Manat, and al-Uzzá, represented by large stones, as symbols of fertility19. After Mohammed, legend then associated the stone with the fostering of brotherly fidelity and peace among tribes.19 We will discuss this Islamic-Arab connection in more detail below.

The Virgin of Lledó, the patron saint of Castellón, a large city north of Valencia, represents a sin­gular synergy uniting the chthonic pagan and the luminous Christian aspects of the Female Divinity. Here is one of the few testimonies in the world to the passage from a primitive goddess cult to that of the Chris­tian Holy Mary, for in this reliquary of the Virgin there is a small niche in the interior in which a small white stone sculpture of a female figure is kept, that possibly represent­ing a pagan goddess.The archeological dating of this figure is imprecise, although it purportedly originated in the Neolithic era. The legend of this stone holds that it is an image of the Virgin Mary found by a peasant plowing with an ox in 1366. The white stone was found under a dark stone next to a lledó tree (almez), the medium-sized deciduous European nettle tree. Symbolically, the image of the Virgin of Lledó represents a process of transition and a unification of two different principles of the divine feminine. She expresses the emergence and ascension of the pri­mordial feminine aspect which we see represented in the small figure carved in the twilight of the Neolithic era, then sheltered in Mother Earth (the womb of the unconscious), and after thousands of years of gesta­tion, it was reborn, arising renewed, into the light of consciousness.

Black statues of the Egyptian goddess Isis portrayed with her son Horus in her arms are well known. "The One with a thousand names" (as the Romans called her) was also considered to be the Virgin Mary with child in Christian locations, and this may have led to the origin of the cults of the Black Virgin. Similar to the Virgin Mary, Isis was un­derstanding and kind, able to perform miraculous cures; but unlike Mary, Isis was also associated with destructive aspects of the Supreme Feminine.20

Marie-Louise von Franz noted that the new principle would not be opposed to the Christianity but rather it would be “vertical” to him.21 As an archetypal development, it portrays the ascent of moral conscience and the emotional contents of the un­conscious moving along an axis that reaches clown into the lower, infe­rior dimensions yet ascends upward to the upper dimensions uniting the feminine principle of Eros with the masculine principle of Logos. We also see this theme in Dante's Divine Comedy, inspired by Virgil, where he had to pass through fire to reach Beatrice in her radiant splendor on the summit of the mountain.

The motif of the vertical axis also appears reflected in the legend of the origin of the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, which was the first cathedral dedicated to the Virgin. Legend has it that around 40 A.D. Mary ap­peared to the apostle James who was sitting on the bank of the river Ebro, the longest river in Spain, in what is today the city of Zaragoza in the northeastern region of the Iberian peninsula. She appeared sitting on a pillar between clouds where she requested him to build a chapel for her culto. Another example is the monumental project sought to be carried out after the establishment of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception through the initiative of a canon in the the Cathedral of Valencia, and, in which Queen Isabel II of Spain later became interested; consisted in completing the last 50 meters of the “unfinished” bell tower, the Miguelete culminating at a height of 150 meters, as a monument to the Immaculate Conception, the plans of which remained on view in the Cathedral until 1936. Also, just as the great domed tower of the Cathedral or Turin was built as a monument to house the Holy Shroud, so in Valencia the Miguelete tower would serve to exalt and reveal to the world the Holy Chalice that for centuries there is kept in that temple as a symbol of union between all the Peoples of the Earth. The Cathedral would come to be known as “The Cathedral of the Holy Grail”, making this chalice more celebrated than it was formerly in legends.22

In this way, we see how the feminine, instinctive part of the spirit wants to become accessible and assimilated by consciousness, thereby bringing to fruition a new integrative vision that allows the feminine principle and the functions of feeling to be united with development of symbolic thinking, thereby enabling the individual to find personal meaning. This meaning then serves to heal and unify the internal struggle expressed through all types of anguish, tension, and personal conflict characteristic of daily life. At the same time, when on the collec­tive level this relationship function is applied to a broad range of knowledge, it serves to endow sense and meaning to the disparate and diverse events of human history, to philosophy and thought, and to the manifestations of the arts and sciences.

In an article about C. G. Jung and the contemporary problems of women 23, Marie-Louise von Franz comments that in her therapeutic hours she herself as witnessed a considerable number of dreams of both Catholics and Protestants regarding the image of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln. During my very last visit with her, she related another dream in which “...she and C. G. Jung were preparing food in the kitchen of the monastery of the Sanctuary of the Black Madonna in Ein­siedeln...”24. It seemed as if the two, who had dedicated their life's work to the unconscious, and had bequeathed to us their immense creative work in which was incorporated the whole affective aspect of feeling coupled with the whold weight of intellectual arguments, were helping in this way to give “voice” and form to the new that was trying to emerge into life and consciousness being able later to became ”food” for others; that is to say, as if this psychology enabled us to “integrate” the contents of our unconsciuous. And in so doing, it is as if they are preparing food for the "pilgrims to the Black Madonna", leaving the door open so that, with the correct religious attitude (that which observes with attention and respect the manifestations of the unconscious and personal experience) “the subterranean God”, the personal symbol, can emerge so that this individual psychic content might be shown to be accessible to understanding, to conscious assimilation and to its concrete reali­zation.

José Zavala once told me that Jung and von Franz had always asked nature “what is nature trying to tell us?”. They made every effort to bring no preconceived notions of what that may be. Thus, they maintained a living relationship with nature, and a living and feeling relationship with the objects around them which constitutes the very essence of the legacy they left us. They showed us the way to confront psychic and material reality with a strong, conscious ego, not letting ourselves be trapped by emotion or fascination, but at the same time, not seperating ourselves from them, always aware of the emotional relationship, so as to carry out the objectivity of the psyche and enable the transformation of psychic contents into symbols that can be integrated by the conscious, unlike Freud who put us in contact with a technique, Jung connected us with the unknown, encouraging us to confront it, leaving us neither a tech­nique nor a doctrine, but solely asking us questions: How do events act in me?. What effect do they have on me?. What meaning do they have for me? Such questions enabled us to enlarge our consciousness and act responsibly to it, in the same way that, in the legend of the Holy Grail, Perceval ought to have framed a question about the suffering of the King of the Holy Grai, such that he could have recovered from his illness.

Three months after this final visit, Marie-Louise von Franz passed away. During the funeral eulogies in Küsnacht, after the intervention of a representative of the Polytechnic University of Zürich, for the “Fundation for the study of Synchronicity”, a very significant event oc­curred for me. In his tribute to von Franz, Dr. Gottlieb Isler mentioned 25 one of her dreams about the abbey at Einsiedeln that I had not known, some details and aspects of which, Marie-Louise von Franz had not included when relating the dream to me previously. It seems that in the summer of 1994, Marie-Louise von Franz was visited by a medium who wanted to persuade von Franz to collabo­rate with her, as she was convinced that the Christian and Buddhist spirits were united in “the great beyond”, and thus the world could be saved. Von Franz did not answer the woman at the time wanting, first, to see what she dreamed; and the following night she had this dream:

“...She (von Franz) was working in the laundry at the monastery at Einsiedeln. She was told that Jung would return from the heavens for the wedding of the Black Virgin. And that she would belong to the one hundred elect that would participate in the festivities...”

Her reflections on the dream were that the unconscious was indeed preparing a type of help for the world, a union, not a union up in the ethereal realms of the spirit, but a union between above and below, a union of the spirit with matter. The Black Madonna was considered from earliest times to be of the earth, the Black Virgin being a goddess of nature. And yet now the union was actually taking place within the Christian context, a setting which she herself up until now had never accepted. The dream filled her with profound joy.

The rehabilitation of Eros relatedness-coupled with the relationship to feeling and openness to transcendence-was the subject of Marie-Louise von Franz's last public lecture, entitled "Jung's Rehabili­tation of the Feeling Function in Our Contemporary Civilization"26. She noted here that we must counter the extreme polarities and conflicts of our age with the development and integration of the feminine di­mensions of the psyche, with the hope that -Deo concedente - symbols of a unifying nature can emerge to the psyche that can bridge the gap between psyche and matter so that the two worlds can complement and supplement each other, progressively fostering psychic transformation both on the indi­vidual and on the collective level.

This theme was taken up again by Marie-Louise von Franz in her last letter to me a few months prior to her death in which she expressed her personal conviction that a reconciliation between Christianity and Is­lam would undoubtedly be the task for the future. She felt that alchemy would provide the means for this reconciliation:


Küsnacht, 9 Juin, 1997

“... La réconciliation entre l´Islam et le Christianisme est sure le progamme dans l´ avenir. L’alchimie est le moyen pour parvenir à cette rèconciliation...”

This comment about the unification of these two religions also referred to a discussion I had had with her regarding the sacred chalice of the Last Supper, wor­shipped in the Cathedral of Valencia, one of the most important sym­bols in occidental spirituality.This relic reappeared in the Aragonese Pyrenees dur­ing the time of the grail legends that arose with the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, where it is said that José of Arimatea gathered the blood of Christ at the crucifixion in the chalice used at the Last Supper, and from there it made its way to the Occident. The poetic nature of this legend and the inherent symbolism were, for Marie-Louise von Franz, illustra­tive of the unconscious psychic processes preparing the way at that time and presaging the religious problem of modern man.

This sacred chalice is formed of three distinct parts, corresponding to three different epochs. In its entirety it is 17 cm high and 9.5 cm in diameter. The upper cup, 7 cm high, was originally, carefully wrought from a single piece of oriental cor­nelian agate, reddish in color. This cup is connected to its upturned vessel base by a gold structure: a central hexag­anal column with a round nut in the middle and a small plate at each end, the upper one holding the holy chalice and the lower one resting on the structure's base. The two lateral serpentine-shaped handles (hexagonally wrought) and the garniture of the base are also of gold. The upper one holding the holy chalice and the lower one sup­porting the structure's base. The upper cup is purportedly the very chalice in which Jesus Christ consecrated the wine on the Thursday Night of the Supper. Archeological studies reveal the work was done in a Palestinian or Egyptian workshop between the fourth and first century B.C..27

The chalice has the paradoxical peculiarity of being formed of two well-differentiated cup­like elements, connected with two arms and a central post, all of ornate Mozarabic gold craftsmanship; on the one hand, the upper part, a half sphere, purportedly an older Greek vessel, and on the other hand, the lower part, the enigmatic base of the chalice that will be commented on below. Historically, there is nothing against the possibility of the upper cup alone - without the extensive ornamentation - having been used for the inauguration of the Eucharist.

The tradition relates that this upper cup was taken to Rome by St. Peter. In the year 258, during the persecution of the Christians by the Roman emperor Valerian to protect it from danger, Pope Sixtus II, shortly before his death, gave it, together with others relics and treasures, to his deacon St. Lawrence, who, before being martyred, sent it to his native city, Huesca in Spain, where it remained until the Moslem invasion. It was then hidden in the cave of Mount Pano where lived the hermit John of Atares, and where later would be founded the Monastery of St. John de la Peña which later became an importan focus of the Mozarabic movements that was opposed to the Carolingian influence. The presence of the Sacred Chalice in the monastery of St. John de la Peña is attested to in a document dated December 14, 1134. The relic was taken to Zaragoza in 1399 by Martin the Humane, King of Aragon and Valencia. Later, during the reign of Alfonso V the Magnanimous, it was transferred to Valencia, wher ever since March 14, 1428 it has been kept in the Cathedral of that city, which was raised on the ancient Mosque.

The lower part of the chalice consists of a gold crown which rests on an inverted oval cup of reddish oriental cornelian agate, similar to the upper cup. The border of the crown is adorned with most of the twenty-eight pearls; two ruby like balases and two emeralds and the remaining pearls adorn the other gold surfaces of the crown, concerning which the sensational discovery was recently made of an enigmatic inscription in Cufic Arabic 28. It had probably been used as a censer somewhere in Muslim Spain or al-Andalus ( the name the Arabs gave to the Iberian Peninsular). In this way, altogether, the Chalice constitutes a symbolic representation of the union of opposites, in which elements of Christianity and Islam were surprisingly interlaced.

On the occasion of the archaeological study, carried out in 1959, a 1,5 cm Arabic inscription was identified on the base. But, on the origin of this vessel and the meaning of its inscription, various hypotheses, have been put forward such as that it was probably of Cordovan workmanship and was one of the treasures of the city “al-Madina al-Zahira” (“The Flourising City”), that Almanzor in Cordoba ordered to be built in the year 978; this hypothesis is based on the transcription of the inscription as “Lilzahira”, which could be translated as “for the one that shines”, “for the most flourishing”,“for the one that glitters”.According to another interpretations, it could be “Almagd limariam”, whose translation could be “Glory to Maria”, and whose author could be a Mozarab. It is also argued that this cup was presented by the Sultan of Egypt, Abulfat Mahomet, to King Alphonso II in 1322, who had asked him for it through the mission of an embassy, on hearing of the existence of a cup considered to be the Chalice of the Last Supper. Lastly, a German investigator 29 also has to be mentioned who contributed a discovery of enormous interest on reading it as “al-Labsit”, “as-Silis” , and comparing these words with the mysterious name of the Grail, which appears in Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach. He concluded that in the Middle Ages, a Chalice existed in Spain, which in Arabic was called by the same name that Eschenbach gave to the Holy Grail: lapis exilis and it also had a mysterious inscription on the base of the sacred object: “…hear how it is known who is summoned to the Grail. On the border of the stone, an inscription, in celestial letters, indicates the name and the origin, be it girl or boy, of who is destined to make this journey of salvation. There is no need to erase the inscription, because, as soon as it is read, it disappears from sight …” 30
From a psychological point of view, these interpretations that have been given of the inscription, also confirm the aspect of the cup as a feminine symbol, because they allude as much to the lapis exilis as to “Glory to Maria”, or “for the most flourishing”; or the allusion “for the one that shines” or “for the one that glitters”, which in the Cabbala were attributes of Shekhinah, the feminine part of God, who was considered the splendour, the gret radiance, and original light of the divine glory of wisdom, and "personified" not only as the heavenly "Queen" and "daughter", but also as the actual "bride of God“ 31.
This Chalice, owing to its particular characteristics, could be related to the Mozarabic culture 32, that developed in al-Andalus, thanks to the pacts of coexistence between Hispanic-Christians and Hispanic-Moslems, and reached its maximum splendor in the eleventh century. Although, sadly, this splendor was not able to endure, it did forge a link of union between Christianity and Islam. It was with the contribution of these Islamized Christians, known as Mozarabs, who lived among Muslims and continued to practise their Christian religion, that the society of al-Andalus, a celebrated miscegenation of three cultures, reached a cultural splendor without precedents. When the Muslims first entered southern al-Andalus, barbarians from the north had already overrun Europe, and the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome had gone into eclipse. Afterward, Islamic Spain was to become a bridge whereby the scientific, technological, and philosophical legacy, as well as the Judeo-Christian and Islamic theologies were preserved, to be reintegrated later into Europe at the time of the Renaissance. Al-Andalus was, in fact, a cultural crossroads during the Middle Ages where Christianity, Islam and Judaism cohabitated for almost eight centuries, creating one of the most splendid civilizations in history, which produced music, poetry and mystic writings of incredible refinement, and where the highest conception of Man and his final purpose flourished33.
Within this culture synthesis, the spirit of Eros thrived for centuries. There were the Mozarabic poets with their lyrical tradition of songs put into the mouths of maidens in love 34 ; and among the Muslims, texts such as The Necklace of the Dove, the celebrated book about love and lovers by Ibn Hazm of Cordoba (994-1063) scientist, scholar, jurist and philosopher; or the countless poets of that society, who, remaining autonomous and independent of the authority of Bagdad, are thus considered to be the predecessors of the European troubadours, and of courtly love.On this theme Marie-Louise von Franz said that this synthesis of traditions acknowledged and extolled the Anima of man and the individuality of woman, but that later, the Church replaced it with a collective symbol, which was the worship of the Virgin Mary.

From there, the Iberian peninsular, the spiritual current of Alchemy, which was an attempt to penetrate the mysteries of nature with the help of principle of Eros, was transmitted to the rest of the European continent. Also, the Cabbala reached its summit with Mose de Leon (1240-1305), and his book, the cabbalistic Zohar, which for centuries remained on the same level of spirituality as the Bible and the Talmud, in which he situated the rehabilitation of Shekhinah, the feminine personification of divine wisdom, and her union with God, in the center of his ethical and theosophical system, so that the world might attain harmony 35.There to, the mystic Sufi, Ibn Arabi (1165-1241), born in Murcia in southeast Spain, who based his great doctrine of love on a seminal vision he had as a student, in which he met and received instruction from Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed, was able to write in his work, The Interpretation of Burning Desires, such splendid verses as these: “ ... Oh marvel! A garden amidst the flames! My heart has become capable of accepting everything: a meadow for gazelles, a monastery for monks, a temple for idols, and the Ka'bah for pilgrims, the Tablets of the Torah and the Book of the Koran. I profess the religion of Love, and in whatever tongue . . . Love is my religion and my faith....” 36

With respect to the manner in which the spirit of Eros was expressed in that society, it is highly significant that after the discovery of the bust of the Lady of Elche, she became known popularly as the "Moor Queen", which from the psychological point of view, would represent a manifestation of that Islamic Eros, which had remained alive for centuries in the Spanish collective unconscious.

In that three-fold culture of Spain, we also find Ibn Tufayl of Cordoba (1100-1185), philosopher and physician, who carried on the tradition of Avempace (the Spanish-Arabian philosopher, physician, astronomer, mathematician, and poet) and who, in his turn, passed it on to Averroes, (the Spanish-Arabian philosopher, astronomer, and writer on jurisprudence, who would contribute a non dogmatic, though critical, conception, of Islamic thought). In his work, The Autodidactic Philosopher 37, Ibn Tufayl as a precaution against the decadence that was arising, at that time, testifies to the ethical heights attained by some members of that society which transcended collective religions, in favor of the value of the individual, and being receptive to direct, individual experience of the unconscious, like an inner religion, anticipating by nine centuries the task that present-day psychology proposes, namely, the quest for the personal symbol.

Unfortunately, the Christian spirit of the “crusade”, was imposed in the reconquest of al-Andalus, and in our legendary history, with the cry of “¡Santiago y cierra España!” (“James and close Spain!”) was invoked the apostle, patron saint of Spain, like a “God of war” 38, who was known as Santiago “Matamoros” (“Moor killer”) and whose spirit was also to accompany the Spaniards, later, in the conquest of the Americas. Their legend abaut him relates that Charlemagne discovered his sepulcher and defeated the muslims, so as to open the pilgrim’s road to Santiago, from France to Compostela, and later, in the year 844, Santiago was to appear in dreams to king Ramiro I of Asturias, after a defeat that he had suffered, encouraging him to continue in the fight, and it was Santiago himself, clothed in white, killing Moors with his sword, riding a white horse, who brought about victory in the battle of Clavijo.

In this way, with the reconquest and entrenched traditionalism of both sides, the multifaceted Mozarabic culture was extinguished, but later, the Inquisition, the burning of thousands of Arabic manuscripts, the expulsion, first, of the Jews and later, of the Christianized Moors (Moriscos), culminated in the terrible suffering occasioned by the split of the collective soul of the Spain of the three cultures, giving rise to one aspect of the configuration of the problem of the collective shadow, which also spread throughout all western Christendom, even remaining until our day, in the hope, still, of being confronted and integrated into our consciousness. This is because from the psychological point of view, the suppression or repression of the shadow, whose influence could be as much positive as negative, leads to dangerous unfoldings. For that reason, it is highly significant that in numerous cities of Spain, the majority of them in our Valencian region, festivals of “Moors and Christians” are held annually, in which those confrontations are still recalled today, in a popular form; in this way, enabling the relationship with this aspect of our shadow to be kept alive.

In his memoirs,39 C. G. Jung speaks about his visit to Mountain Lake, the chief of the Pueblos in Taos, New Mexico, who so well described the impression that the white man has made on the Native American. This chief put his finger right on the blind spot of the white man's perspec­tive. Later, while reflecting on these issues, Jung was overwhelmed by numerous brutal images of the history of humanity. Among these, he saw the criminal and ravaging devastation at the hands of the crusaders. He saw the other face of what we describe and justify as colonization, missions, and the dissemination of civilization, that thin-eyed, thin-lipped face of the preying eagle that watches avidly and cruelly over its distant booty, a face of pirates and hijackers, robber barons and murderers: the white man on the American continents. And in the devastation of the Crusades and the Inquisition, Eros and the romantic vision disappeared.
Today, this face is familiar to us, for it is this very same attitude that prevails in present-day international politics, regarding a possible war in Irak, which, with the excuse of fighting against international terrorism and the so called “axis of evil” under the auspices of George Bush, conceals dark interests on the oil reserves and geostrategic supremacy in the Middle East.
In order to re-establish a new link of union between these very cultures, we must search for the psychological meaning of that historical drama which unleashed the spirit of the Christian crusade against Islam, halting in some aspects, in the Middle Ages, the collective psychic development of humanity. After the latest world events that have shaken our lives and again threaten to cause a confrontation between the Christian west and Islam, in what has been called “a clash of civilizations”, the words of Marie-Louise von Franz seem premonitory with respect to the task for the future, that would be, without doubt, the reconciliation between Christianity and Islam; for that, it is necesary for as to undertake this work of integration without delay.

There have been some attempts in the past to re-establish that union and advance in that direction, as, for example, in the eighteenth century, the writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing´s play, Nathan the Wise,40 whose key scene is when Nathan is forced by Saladin some to declare whether Jews, Muslims, or Christians represented the true faith: he an­swers with the enigma of the parable of the ring, a plea for humility before the love of God, which tells the story of a man who possesses a ring of incalculable value, which has the secret power of making whoever wears it, trusting in it, pleasant in the sight of God and man; but loving his three sons equally he orders two copies to be made, giving a ring to each son secretly before dying. Later the three brothers discuss who has the true one. This allegory, possibly arising in Castille in the eleventh century, sought that the fraternal spirit of the three great religions of the Book, (all of which had in Abraham a common father), would unite, in the future, in a Human Being, tolerant, and capable of unconditional love without prejudices. But to attain that, from a psychological standpoint, it is essential that, firstly, on a personal level, from an introverted, subjective, and individual point of view, reconciliation should be possible between what Judaism, Christianity, and Islam represent in each one of us. Jung, on one occasion, said that the more individuals there were capable of tolerating the opposites in themselves, the fewer possibilities there would be of a third world war occurring.

Jung relates in his memoirs 41 that he experienced this clash with the individual shadow, (the hidden or unconscious aspects of oneself, as much positive as negative, that the ego had repressed or never recognized ), in a dream he had when he was traveling in the North of Africa in 1920, where he had the impression that time had stopped in the Middle Ages. He had not occasion to speak to anyone who could describe the Arab cul­ture, but he was impressed by the emotional and vital essence of that culture, that lived emotionally, without reflection, contrasting with the world of a European with his feeeling of superiority and his nationality, which distances us from the intensity of life, condemning the primitive part of our personality to but a partial underground existence. In his dream, first, he found himself threatened by a forceful and unexpected attack from the unconscious psyche, personified as “a beautiful Arab prince”, with whom he had to fight, and then, the prince, defeated, had to read, seated next to him, a mysterious book of parchment, which gave Jung the impression that he had written it himself.
In the Arabic alchemical text of Ostanes 42, the Lapis (the philosopher’s stone, a metaphor for the archetypal image of wholeness, which, psychologically, expresses a highly nouminous psychic experience), is related to an Egyptian youth and an Andalusian prince, who, initially are shown as enemies. Jung saw in that, the archetypal theme that appears in the epic poem Gilgamesh in which Enkidu, the ctonic man and shadow of Gilgamesh, who had been created by the gods, by the incitement of the offended Isthar, in order to defeat the hero, after fighting him, ending up becoming his friend and companion, which, seen psychologically, said Jung, represented the very great real difficulty, of union with the shadow, since, from that autonomous content, emerged the determinant force of destiny which pushed towar individuation 43.
Two months after sending me her letter, Marie-Louise von Franz dreamed that “....she had completed her eight-volume work on Arabian alchemy. The eight volumes were set in front of her and she was exceed­ingly happy abaut it...”. 44 Barbara Davies recalls that Marie-Louise von Franz under­stood the dream as saying that her life-work was now completed.
During the last ten years of her life, Marie-Louise von Franz had dedicated a considerable amount of her time to the writings of Muhammad Ibn Umail, ( a shiite mystic and alchemits of the tenth century, known also by the name of Senior el Andalusi ), with reference to which writings she completed a great work on the spirit of Eros just as this alchemist had lived it. Shortly after her death, we had the great happines of seeing her work published: Muhammad Ibn Umail's Hall Ar-Rumuz: “Clearing ofEnigmas”- Historical Introduction and Psychological Comment.45 It contains a brilliant historical survey of alchemy since Egyptian times. But above all it is a profound commentary on a newly translated Arabic alchemical text from the tenth century.This alchemical work of Ibn Umail, is a symbolic rendering of his own experience of the inner psy­chic process of transformation, which he considered to be the main objective in life. Due to his extremely introverted lifestyle and his devo­tion toward the inner world, Ibn Umail was able to observe and describe this mysterious process with “substantial symbols” emerging out of the depths of his psyche.

Jung also considered that his researches into the psychological symbolism of the alchemical process, which he considered a parallel to the individuation process, were of the greatest importance for understanding the human psyche. In his memoirs, referring to his great work, Mysterium Coniunctionis, he says that with that work, his life's work was concluded and fulfilled.46

For Jung, alchemy as a medieval philosophy, ought to be understood from the point of view of the history of the spirit, as a compensatory movement of Christianity from the uncoscious, since the realm of nature and matter did not have an adequate place in Christianity, being considered rather as things that ought to be overcome; whil the alchymist, on the contrary, sought to redeem the spirit contained in matter.

In the year 1938, occupied with his studies on alchemy, Jung traveled to India.There he had a dream: “... he found himself with that a group of friends on a small island off the southern coast of England where there was a castle, in which a night-time celebration of the Holy Grail was going to take place; but before that could occur, it would have to be recovered by them...”. Jung relates that it was as if the dream were asking him: “ What are you doing here, in India ? You would do better to search for sacred cup, the Salavator Mundi, for your fellow men, of which they are urgently in need. You are on the point of ruining all that has been built up, down through the centuries.47

Through this dream he understood that whatever the impressions he may have in this eastern land, India was not his mission but a point of passage along his road. He nevertheless contemplated and marveled at what he defined as the secret of Islam, the supreme flower and invaluable jewel of Islamic Eros, the Taj Mahal, that sublime expression of human love for another human being, Eros in its purest form; he said that, like a plant that could not have grown and flourished anywhere else in the world.48 This mausoleum is “enshrined” in a romantic legend in which it is said that the Emperor Shah Jehan ordered it to be built for his wife, the empress Mumtaz Mahal ("the exalted one of the palace"). This was a marriage of true love, and Mumtaz was her husband's insepa­rable companion on all of his journeys and military expeditions. She was his comrade and counselor, and she inspired him to acts of charity and benevolence toward the weak and the needy. She bore him fourteen chil­dren and died in childbirth in 1630 (only three years after his accession to the throne). Overpowered by grief, Shah Jehan was determined to commemorate her mernory for all eternity and decided to build the most beautiful sepulcher in the world, as a monument to eternal love. Thus, over a period of twenty-two years, this magnificent mausoleum of white marble was built on the banks of the river Yumuna in the capital. Shah Jehan planned to erect a bridge of silver, and on the other bank, to build a mausoleum of black marble for himself, but he was unable to conclude his project because one of his own sons raised a rebellion against him and imprisoned him for seven years, in an underground mosque in the palace of Agra. When close to death, he asked to be taken up the tower, where he died, seeing in the distance, the Taj Mahal. Since when, in the actual crypt of this mausoleum, acting as a recipient, their souls have united for all eternity.

The motif of the holder, (the sacred vessel interpreted in depth by Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz in their book The Grail Legend) represents, psychologically seen, the vessel in which the unifying and healing essence of the feminine is integrated and contained.49 The Grail was the sacred object of the quest of generations of European knights and the objective of their highest ideals. And so, perhaps Jung will pass into history as that looked for knight who recovered for society the missing Grail, and with it, the feminine principle of Eros. Parzival, the book written by Wolfram von Eschenbach in the twelfth century, was the first complete romance in prose, in Europe, on the Grail; and it is regarded as one of the great works of western literature. Written in the book, it relates that the original tex of this story had been found, written in Arabic, among various abandoned manuscripts, in Toledo 50 .

This motif of the Grail coincided, for Jung 51, whit the expressions in alchemy on the Unun Vas, the Una Medicina, and the Unus Lapis, with which the alchemists sought bring about the complete union of opposites, considering it essential for the attainement of their goal, and the cure of all ills. This union would be made possible beginning with various types of working with prima materia and indispensable participation of the spirit of Eros, which would have to be contained hermetically in the vas alchemico.But this task of reconciling seemingly incompatible opposites could not occur in a natural way, but instead – Deo concedente – would have to be the fruit of human effort.

A legend parallel to the motif of the Grail or vas alchemico is found among the myths of earliest al-Andalus, which makes reference to the Table of Solomon, 52 the search for which was also undertaken as much by Jews as by Christians and Muslims. According to legend, this wonderful and mysterious emerald table, which was among the treasures found in Toledo when the Arabs arrived, had belonged to King Solomon. It was taken, at some time, from Jerusalem to Rome, and then from there brought to Spain by the Goths in the fifth or sixth cen­tury. The emerald is the stone of Hermes, and it plays a very im­portant role in relation to with the famous treatise, Tabula Smeragdina 53, which captures the essence of the alchemical opus in the thirteen principles of Hermes Trismegistus, the enigmatic Egyptian god and/or wise man, author of the hermetic works, who, according to legend, had bequeathed a table, on which was engraved, in the Greek language, the essence of the wisdom of alchemy. Marie-Louise von Franz says that, in comparison with receptacle, the table has more to do with human effort to develop consciousness, since through it, all the dissociated aspects of personality became conscious, coming together in wholeness. She also points out that the table serves as a base for bearing the Grail. Because of that, a significance, slightly different from the Grail is conferred on the table: that of being more related to human endeavour to attain the synthesis of wholeness than is expresed in the receptacle and in the Grail. So, the table represents, a collective aspect of developing consciousness of the Self.54

Solomon, the son of King David, was an mythical and enigmatic king of antiquity,best known for his poetry and wisdom, (his wisdom posibly exceeding that of all the wise men of Egypt and the Orient). He built the Temple of Jerusalem and acquired celebrity for his encounter with the Queen of Sheba. In his book Book of Proverbs (8:12-31), Solomon extolls wisdom as being the true companion of Yah­weh; she was with the Lord when He prepared the heavens, that is to say before the wa­ters, the earth, the hills and mountains were formed. Solomon ushered in a new era in Judaism, which, in the course of his life, brought peace and harmony to Israel. Many renowned Jewish thinkers saw in the enterprise of Solomon, the prefiguration of the messianic king­dom. in rus philosophy, bis lave, bis wisdom, and his life work.

Thus, viewed psychologically, this motif of the table of Solomon could represent the conscious effort that would need to be employed for the achievement of a symbol of unity between Christianity and Islam.

For Jung, 55 the union of opposites is not only a long and tortuous struggle, but also a loving adventure out of whose fecundity arose the synthesis. In this coniunctio or “Chemical Wedding”, the philosophers searched for “the living being" in the retort, that hermetic vessel, that, like a womb, contained the opposites, and distilled them, preventing the smoky vapor from escaping, which alluded to the spiritual and the evasive nature of the connector Mercury, a vital principle which was a representation of the collective unconscious, a manifestation of Eros and an aspect of the feminine principle and of love, as the only force capable of uniting the opposites. From a psychological point of view, this containment and distilla­tion, represents the necessity that the work of the confrontation of the psychic contents should be carried out in an individual and introverted way, with the in­dispensable participation of the function of relationship or feeling.

With respect, then, to the problem, as much individual as collective, of the shadow, which is a content close to the world of instincts, and which acts in a compensatory manner with regard to consciousness, we must learn, humbly, to accept it and live with it, in the hope that it can be integrated. But this can only be achieved - Deo concedente - if the psychological dimension is included which contains the essence of Eros and the feminine spirit.

Returning to the motif of the Sacred Chalice, and regarding it as a representation of the quintessence of Mozarabic culture, it could be said that this, miraculously, has remained with us to the present time, like an imperishable symbol of the union of opposites, that compensates for the fate of that culture, which was the fruit of the coexistence of Christianity and Islam, which, after starting to develop, sadly ended up dying out.

A glimpse, a premonition of this fate can be observed in the most important document of epic Spanish poetry: El Cantar de mio Cid, a poem written in the mid-twelfth century about the universal paradoxical Spanish hero, "El Cid" the Castilian Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar. He was an important personage who lived as a Mozarab in the Muslim kingdom of Zaragoza, where he found asylum and protection after his banishment, and served, for years, under his kings, Al-Muqtadir, a wise and erudite monarch, praised by Maimonides, and his son, Al-Mutamin, also an ascetic, wise, and lover of books, who put into the hands of Rodrigo the defense and protection of his kingdom. Then it was, probably, that he began to be called by the sobriquet of “Cid” (Sidi, the Hispanic form of Arabic Sayyidi, meaning “My lord”). Later, he it was who occupied the rich Muslim kingdom of Valencia, being besides, the first of the Christian leaders to defeat the Almoravides, people of an Islamic movement that dominated the North of Africa. They were intransigents,strictly observant of Koranic law, and adherents of the holy war,who had come to the Peninsula, in response to an appeal from five of the Hispanic-Muslim kings, to help them, after the capture of Toledo, in the face of the ambitious policy of expansion, subjection and extortion of Alfonso VI, King of Leon and Castile, who, not heeding the advice of his Mozarabic advisor, Sisnando Davídiz 56, on a matter of taxes, “parias”, in the end unleashed the catastrophe, since, conquered by the Almoravides, these returned no more to their lands, but overthrowing the Hispanic-Muslim kings, stayed to dominate al-Andalus, which lost its autonomy forever.

The epic poem is centered 0n the relationship of Cid with Alfonso VI, and at the beginning, referring to he hero, it is said of him: “…God, what a good vassal, if he had a good lord!…”. As in many feudal epics, The Lay of the Cid portrays the breakdown of the vassal-lord relationship due to certain shortcomings of the lord. But what is more interesting to us, is that contrary to Cid, whose intention was to bring his wife to Valencia and marry off his two daughters, Alfonso VI appears in the poem without the company of his queen, and his own nobles deceive, rape and abandon the two daughters of Cid. Jose Zavala on a certain occasion,remarked to me that this problem of the absence of an appropriate relationship with the feminine, was also shown to be evident, down through the centuries in our most characteristic literary myths. Thus, for example, from the sad tale of the love affair between Calixto and Melibea in La Celestina , or in the legend of Los amantes de Teruel, to the myth of Don Juan or the satire of Cervantes directed against books of chivalry, with the imaginary relationship between Don Quijote and Dulcinea.

From the psychological point of view, our Cantar del mio Cid, represents the collective Christian consciousness dominant at that time, symbolized in the figure of King Alfonso VI who subsequently continued invading and conquering al-Andalus – and the rest of Europe, and later on America too – when which not having any relationship with the feminine, was therefore not at the height of its collective task, and because of that, it unleashed, with its unilateral attitude, a confrontation between those cultures, which were becoming progressively more radical, until they came to the point of being irreconcilable.

The reconciliation between the Christian and Islamic cultures in contemporary times will never be carried out on the intellectual and rational level alone, but rather will it be essential to include the reinstatement and incorporation of the feminine principle of Eros in this task which, instilled in us by Marie-Louise von Franz, will have to be commenced in each one of us in an individual and subjective way.

With the help of Analytical Psychology as a key to alchemy which C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz bequeathed so generously to Humanity, we will be able to can foster and promote - Deo concedente - the task that Jung proposed, in his introduction to Symbols of Transformation 57: ”…in the same way that the psychological insight can stimulate the understanding of historical structures, so, historical events can, in their turn, throw new light on questions of individual psychology...”

I want to express my personal, deep-felt gratitude to Marie-Louise von Franz for the encouragement and help that she afforded me to busy myself with these matters, looking for parallels and amplifications, which enabled me to continue with these investigations and, hopefully, may, help to stimulate others in the same direction.



NOTES

1. Barbara Davies, "Zu Leben und Werk van Marie-Louise van Franz," Jungiana, no. 8 (Küsnacht: Verlag Stiftung fur Jung'sche Psychologie, 1998).

2.Von Franz, The Cat. Inner City Books, Toronto, 1999

3. The author uses the word synchronicity to mean two relatively coinciding events which correspond in meaning but which have no casual connection. This reflects the more popular usage of the term which refers not to an actual synchronicity per se, but to the principies of acausal orderedness and the unus mundus, the underlying principies of synchronicity. Jung and van Franz define synchronicity as a special instance of the unus mundus in which a conjunction of psyche and matter appears as a creative act-­and here is the critical point: in a singular mament in time demonstrating a sponta­neGus manifestation ofinner and outer realities which coincide in their meaning. See M-L von Franz, Number and Time: Riflections Leading toward a Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics (Evanston, Ill.. Northwestern University Press, 1974), pp. 6ff, 11f.

4. Rafael Ramos, La Dama de Elche (Valencia: Albatros, 1997), p. 37.

5. Marie-Louise von Franz, Alquimia: Introducción al Simbolismo y a la Psicología (Barcelona: Luciérnaga, 1991), p. 246.

6. Mensajes de la Virgen de Medjugorj (Barcelona: Ed. Obelisco, 1995)
.
7. M-L von Franz, "Nike and the Waters of Styx," in Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), p. 263.

8. The Benedictine Monastery and Cathedral in Einsiedeln harbors a statue of the Black Madonna, a Catholic icon to whom pilgrimages are made throughout the year. The Black Madonna receives adoration and prayers in particular fram childless women seeking assistance in conception and childbirth.

9. Las Provincias, Valencia, March 15, 1996.

10. José Zavala, "Simbolos en el prólogo de Enrique V de Wil1iam Shakespeare," seminar of the Analytical Psychology Group of Valencia, April 1996.

11. Dieter Baumann, "The Dialas: The Voice of Natural Feminine Spirits in the Region of Grisons, Swirzerland," the Analytical Psychology Group of Valencia, IX Meeting, Summer 1994.

12. C. G. Jung, Answer to Job (1952), in Cw, vol. 11 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer­sity Press, 1958), par. 748.

13. For Jung, Sophia represent the fourth stage of the development of the anima after Eve, Helen of Troy, and Mary. In the man, she would be a guide to the inner life bringing a conscience to contents of the unconscious, fostering the search for mean­ing, and being the creative spirit in the life of an artist, scientist, and the like.

14. C. G. Jung, Answer to Job, para 748

15. Ibid., par. 251n. Jung had foreseen the coming declaration of the Assumptio Mariae ten years earlier as an inevitable conclusion of the Catholic doctrine of conclusion pro­babilis followed by the conclusio certa.

16. Ibid., para. 754

17. Ibid., paras. 755f

18. "L'organiasacio de la Festa de Elig a traves del temps," Generalidad Valenciana, 1997. 16. The Mistery of Elche was granted this honor in May 2001, the PaIm Tree of Elche in November 2001.

19. The Romanesque Monastery in Montserrat, Catalonia, is also worth mentioning as one of the most popular shrines to the Black Virgin. The monastery itself was built at the base of spectacular mountainous rock formations and has been the site of pil­grimages for thousands of years.

20. Brigitte Jacobs, "From the Egyptian Goddess Isis to the Christian Mary," Jungiana.

21.I wish to thank Dr. Dieter Baumann for this information.

22.Juan Angel Oñate, El Santo Grial. Su historia, su culto y sus destinos (Valencia, 1972),p.73.

23. Jungiana, no. 6, 1996.

24.I am indebted to Brigitte Jacobs for this information.

25. Zum Tod von Marie-Louise von Franz Ansprachen an der Trauerfeier in Küsnacht am 26 Februar 1998. Junguiana nº 8

26.“C.G.Jung´s Rehabilitation der Gefühlsfunktion in unserer Zivilisation”, published in Beitrage zur Jung'schen Psychologie: Festschrift zum 75. Geburtstag von Marie-Louise von Franz, J. F. Zavala, G. Ruska, and R. Monzo, eds. (Valencia: Víctor Orenga, Editores, S.L., 1991).

27. Salvador Alea Antuñano, "The Mystery of the Holy Grail: Tradition and Legend of the Sacred Chalice." Antuñano is professor of ethics and sacred scripture at the Fran­cisco de Viraría University Center in Madrid. A photo of the chalice can seen at: http://www.catedraldevalencia.es/el-santo-caliz.php.

28. Antonio Beltrán, "El Santo Cáliz de la Catedral de Valencia," Zaragoza, 1960, pags 18,57

29.Schäfer, Hans Wilhelm. Kelch und Stein, Frankfurt am Main-Bern.1983

30.Von Eschenbach, Wolfram, Parcival, Ed. Siruela, Madrid, 199, pag. 231
31. Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books,1961, p. 230.

32. Leopoldo Penarroja, Christianos bajo el Islam (Madrid: Gredos).

33. Garaudy, Roger, El Islam en Occidente: Córdoba, capital del pensamiento unitario, Madrid, 1987, pag. 32

34. Alvaro GaImés De Fuentes, Las Jarchas Mozárabes (Barcelona: Critica, 1994), p. 120.

35. Scholem, Gershom G. Las grandes tendencias de la Mística Judía. Siruela. Madrid 1996, pag 227

36. Ibn Arabi, Tarjuman al-Ashwaq (The Interpreter of Desires),11.12-15;translated by Claude Addas and Peter Kingsley, in The Quest for the Red Su!phur: The life of Ibn 'Arabi. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993, p. 211. A similar idea is expressed by the Sufi master Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: "You are a Christian because you believe in Jesus, and you are a Jew because you believe in all the prophets including Moses. You are a Muslim beca use you believe in Muhammad as a praphet, and you are a Sufi because you believe in the universal teaching of God's love. You are really none of those, but you are all of those because you believe in God. And once you believe in God, there is no religion. Once you divide yourself off with religions, you are separated from your fellowman." See also Miguel Asin Palacios, ed., Amor Humano, Amor Divino: Ibn Arabi (Córdoba: El Almendro, 1990).

37. Ibn Tufayl, The Autodidactic Philosopher, Trotta, Ed. Valladolid, 1995.

38. López-Reyes, Ramón, Los Dialogos de Santiago Matamoros, Hawai, 2001. Awork, still, non-published, therefor, In thank the autor who gave me his griten.

39. C.G.Jung, Recuerdos, sueños y pensamientos Seix Barral, ed., Barcelona, 1964, p. 254.

40. Lessing, G. Ephraim, Natán el sabio. Ed. Espasa-Calpe, Madrid, 1985

41. C.G.Jung, Recuerdos, sueños y pensamientos Seix Barral, ed., Barcelona, 1964, p. 249.

42. Berthelot, La Chimie au Moyen Age, 1893, T. III, p.117

43.Jung, The Philosophical Tree, in Alchemical studies, Collected Works, vol XIII, parg 425-436

44.Davies, Barbara Zu Lebe und Werk von Marie-Louisevon Franz. .Jungiana, no. 8, 1998.

45. Von Franz, “Hall Ar-Rumuz” (Clearig of Enigmas). Historical Introduction and Psychological Coment. Verlag Fotorotar. 1999

46. C.G.Jung .Recuerdos, suenos y pensamientos, Seix Barral, p. 229

36. Ibid., p. 287.

48. C. G. Jung, "The Dreamlike World of India" (1939), in CW, vol. 10 Princeton University Press, 1964, par. 990.

49. Emma Jung and von Franz, The Grial Legend. Sigo Press. Boston, 1986

50. Pierre Ponsoye, El Islam y el Grial, Palma de. Mallorca: Olañeta, 1984, p. 19.

51. C.G.Jung. Recuerdos, sueños y pensamientos, p. 289.

52. Ibn Al-Kardabus, Historia de Al-Andalus , Barcelona: Akal, 1986. pag 64-71

53. Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, pag 165.

54. Ibid.pags. 166-170

55. C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56), CW, vol. XIV (Princeton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1963), pars. 320.

56. Menendez Pidal, Ramón, El Conde Sisnando Davidiz y la política de Alfonso VI con los Taifas, Al-Andalus, 1947, vol.20, pags 28-41

57. C.G.Jung, Symbols of transformation. CW, vol V