I am not saying that the self is willfully restructured according the designs of the ego. I am saying that it is a semi-autonomous process, to which the ego contributes by providing energy, by modulating the heat with an amount of conscious understanding when it gets to hot, or increasing the heat by symbolic awareness, or simply a contemplative focus. So complementation would mean the very opposite of ego control.
I am averse to the idea that the self, or any archetype for that matter, abides in the unconscious as a ready-made Platonic form. I think the archetype is more organic than that, i.e., that it needs time to grow and formulate itself from simpler elements, in order to blossom out at a point in time. As a matter of fact, Jung says that the anima is not constellated in all ethnic populations. It is generally not present in the Chinese, for instance. Why it has never been able to take root would depend on historic factors.
Carl Jung and M-L von Franz view the population of a country as representing the full range from Stone Age people, via the medieval personality, to the modern individual. M-L von Franz says that she met with a Stone Age man who lived in the Alps, and walked about stark naked during the summer. He lived in unison with the brooks, the trees, and the clouds. The reason why personality is thus rooted in different ages would depend on the structure of the unconscious. In a minor portion of the Western population the anima never constellates. Together with other genetic characteristics, the personality might turn out as a Stone Age man who chooses to live with Mother Nature.
By example, I have tried to communicate with modern alchemists. I am baffled with their fixation on crystal formation and chemical processes in the retort. They also love old cryptic books with many magical signs in them. They seem wholly unable to grasp what I try to communicate to them, whereas I am unable to grasp the extent to which they enrich the chemical process with meaning. I see it as symbolically quite potent, but the alchemists think that it is the Quinta Essentia. This mind-set is perplexing. I have finally come to realize that such people are medieval dwellers that happen to be born in the wrong age.
Arguably, the self as the hermaphrodite, or the rebis, can with time constellate in a population. The process is slow, however, similar to the emergence of the anima. The alchemists argued that they were capable of speeding up the processes of nature in their own laboratory. It would imply that the artifex can assist the constellation of the self in his own unconscious. So this is what I mean by complementation, a way of assisting nature's work of archetypal constellation - to speed up the process, so it doesn't have to take a thousand years, via many generations.
The process occurs relatively independent of consciousness. It is coupled with a different attitude of consciousness. The greedy and gluttonous frame of mind, so typical of the ego, forms the basis of the psychological paradigm, whose central tenet is the integration of the unconscious. The ego thinks that everything in the unconscious belongs to "me". This devouring capacity is denoted as the "synthetic function" in psychoanalysis. As soon as an unconscious content surfaces, the ego immediately appropriates it and claims that the content has been conceived by the ego.
The ego is a dictator that enslaves psychic content. In fairytales there is the well-known motif of being "taken into the mountain". In Scandinavian fairytales it is called "bergtagen" (lit. 'mountain-taken'). Characters in fairytales are captured by the mountain, swallowed by it wholly or party. Occasionally they are stuck with their head, etc. Sometimes they are stuck in a thorny thicket that surrounds the mountain, transfixed on the thorns. Fairytales depict psychic life from the perspective of the unconscious in order to compensate the one-eyed conscious outlook. This evil mountain (glass mountain, golden mountain) portrays the insatiable over-extended ego from the viewpoint of the unconscious.
This covetous, egotistic, attitude is severely criticized in spiritual teachings, not the least in traditional Christianity, while it is inimical to the spontaneity and naturalness of psychic life. The ego should give glory to God and refrain from glorifying itself by taking the credit for all the blessings that are bestowed upon it. Vainglory and self-worship is condemned. But if the psychoanalytic paradigm is taken to its extremes, in terms of the integrative effort, as in Edward Edinger's psychology, the ego has become an evil mountain, inimical to spiritual and instinctual unconscious life. In Christian theology, pride and arrogance is destructive to the workings of the Holy Spirit in the soul.
Complementation, which is denoted 'circular distillation' in medieval alchemy, builds on a different attitude of consciousness. The ego rids itself of its typical illnesses, namely covetousness and pride. A meek and unassuming attitude means that the conscious light burns with less intensity, yet with a clear flame. The ego is no longer fixated on self-satisfaction. It now exalts God instead of itself, and no longer views itself as self-sufficient.
Although the ego is now less energetic, it maintains focus on the unconscious process, which serves to sustain the circular distillation by the addition of a mild heat. The alchemists always said that over-heating the vessel ruins the process. It is imperative to maintain a mild and continuous heat. Some say that the light of the moon is enough. They assert, again and again, that the artifex must maintain a truly pious attitude, otherwise the operation has no chance of success.
What the alchemists had in mind was not first and foremost a process of unconscious integration with consciousness, the way in which Carl Jung understands the alchemical Opus. Rather, it denotes a process of complementation during which the unconscious self emerges out of the 'massa confusa' of the unconscious and takes shape as a complementarian composite of opposites. The process can only go on in mild light, as the strong light of ego consciousness would only transfix the components on its spines. Nor can it go on in total darkness, where the constituents would freeze or regress.
Evidently, the ego must become small and simple, and remain virtuous and modest. This is exactly the standpoint of St John of the Cross, et al., whose teaching Jung rejected out of hand, saying that apophatic mysticism and the 'via negativa' "has nothing to do with individuation". Although Jung, according to my argument, misinterpreted alchemy to a degree, he maintained an attitude of reverence towards the unconscious. It was, in a sense, holy to him. He went as far as saying that, to him, the unconscious is God. This attitude is reflected in his dream, when he bows down before the holy Uriah (see the autobiography). Of course, this attitude made him reluctant to "kill" every psychic content by integration with consciousness.
Nevertheless, this slight misinterpretation has taken a turn for the worse in some of his followers. The unchristian attitude of "killing the unconscious" would also account for much of the pathology in the psychoanalytic school.
Mats Winther