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Stephanie Thomas Berry's avatar

I came to this post after having an alchemical haunting dream: a terrifying ghost was in a separate bedroom of a recurring dream house, wrapped in sheer curtains. Drenched in terror, I asked her why she was here, and she became the head of a goddess statue that was grossly animate. The ghost had injured and/or decapitated a man, and I realized she was dangerous and I had to get her out of my house. I put her head in a pot, smashed it with a stone, then buried it outside. But instead of getting rid of her, I was horrified to see that she reemerged with short gruesome legs, turned a light gray, and was walking stiffly around. So I knew I would have to invite her back inside my house, because it was her house too. So then she became a normal woman, like myself, and was in my bedroom, once again wrapped in sheer curtains.

This is by far the most fascinating haunting dream I’ve ever had, because of the alchemical transformation, and I am going to give you some credit for it, because you queued up in my psyche the alchemical process when looking at my raviolis (what a hysterical sentence!). And now I’m eager to hold a seance with this transformed ghost, to see what she has to say.

Thank you so much for all your work with this Substack! It has recharged my lifetime dreamwork practice and I am immensely grateful.

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Alyssa Polizzi's avatar

This is truly something, and yes, the alchemical interplay continues!!

I am noticing the death moves of decapitation, pulverization and the burying. All are characteristic of the nigredo, and in particular, the operation of mortificatio (dying/killing). The death act on the goddess statue leads to a shift not only in her shape but in her coloring (!!!). This is so classically alchemical that I am just reeling with delight and excitement. Perhaps the nigredo is moving into albedo?

I had an inclination to pull up Hillman's Alchemical Psychology and found this very interesting and fitting quote:

"The tortured and symptomatic aspect of mortification – flaying oneself, pulverizing old structures, decapitation of the head-strong will, the rat and rot in one’s personal cellar give way to mourning....

As even the darkest blue is not black, so even the deepest despair is not the mortificatio, which means death of soul. The mortificatio is more driven, images locked compulsively in behavior, visibility zero, psyche trapped in the inertia and extension of matter. A mortificatio is a time of symptoms. These inexplicable, utterly materialized tortures of psyche in physis are relieved, according to the procession of colors, by a movement toward melancholy, which can commence as a mournful regret even over the lost symptom: “It was better when it hurt physically – now I only cry.”

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