Gnaw

In the back of the Elementary Latin Dictionary is a table of roots where you will find this curious combination gna- strung together.  Gna- forms the root of our gnosis and know. And gnaw perfectly captures the process of transferring energy through the body.

I was keyed into this root by Charles Olson who often jotted it into the marginalia of the books he was reading when he’d find a puzzle piece to the knowledge he was pursuing.

In the following passages from Jung’s Religious Ideas in Alchemy, Olson gnawed heavily on the text.  The marking from paragraphs 375 to 379 are heavily underlined and dated 1/16/66, 1/21/68 and 5/19/69.  It’s clear that Olson was finding a key to his understanding of the importance of analogy, for the marginalia notes include  “analogy is mind working on matter” and “like to like” and  “likeness : analogy.”

Photocopy of Olson's markings on Jung

And these specific passages get marked up:

He must accomplish in his own self the same process that he attributes to matter, “for things are perfected by their like.”  Therefore the operator must participate in the work.  Carl Jung, CW v. 12: Psychology and Alchemy, Religious Ideas in Alchemy, par. 375

Through time and exact definition things are converted into intellect.  Ibid., par. 376

The assumption underlying this train of thought is the causative effect of analogy.  In other words just as in the psyche the multiplicity of sense perceptions produce s the unity and simplicity of an idea, so the primal water finally produces fire, i.e., the ethereal substance – not (and this is the decisive point) as a mere analogy but as the result of the mind’s working on matter.  Ibid., par. 377

and finally:

By studying the philosophers man acquires the skill to attain this stone.  But again, the stone is man.  Thus Dorn cries: “Transform yourselves from dead stones into the living philosophical stones!”  Here he is expressing in the clearest possible way the identity of something in man with something concealed in matter. Ibid., par.378

It’s a great deal to chew on, and Olson’s repeated return to the same pages as he approached his death shows that this content continues to remain vital through repeated visits.  The “something” is the objective psyche we’ve been referring to here as of late…