The Unfinished Side of the Bollingen Stone:

(Almost Merlin/Mercurius)

Photo: Kornelia Grabinska, 2011

(That Jung left one side of the stone blank was a statement in itself — he left it to the unconscious, the unknown, the mercurial…)

Le Cri De Merlin

Do you know what I wanted to chisel into the back face of the stone?

“Le cri de Merlin!”

For what the stone expressed reminded me of Merlin’s life in the forest, after he had vanished from the world.

Men still hear his cries, so the legend runs, but they cannot understand or interpret them.

Merlin represents an attempt by the medieval unconscious to create a parallel figure to Parsifal.

Parsifal is a Christian hero, and Merlin, son of the devil and a pure virgin, is his dark brother.

In the twelfth century, when the legend arose, there were as yet no premises by which his intrinsic meaning could be understood.

Hence he ended in exile, and hence “le cri de Merlin” which still sounded from the forest after his death.

This cry that no one could understand implies that he lives on in unredeemed form.

His story is not yet finished, and he still walks abroad.

It might be said that the secret of Merlin was carried on by alchemy, primarily in the figure of Mercurius.

Then Merlin was taken up again in my psychology of the unconscious and remains uncomprehended to this day.

That is because most people find it quite beyond them to live on close terms with the unconscious.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Page 277