The Depth Psychology of Transformation

Ken Lakritz, Ph.D. has been a clinical psychologist for 34 years, currently living and practicing in the town of

Sonoma, California

Within each lifetime is an ongoing rhythm of death and rebirth, on the microscopic level

the opening and closing of each new moment, and, on the macroscopic, a full fruition of

development that leads to the peeling away of the skin, a molting of boundaries, that give way

to new, ever emerging presence. With each new moment there is a gestational opportunity

that holds the potential of giving birth to expanded awareness. During each lifetime, the

mystery within which we evolve unfolds into a number distinct incarnations, a multitude of

paradigms, life structures pregnant with unique sets of questions, answers and tasks.

Transformation is the alchemical process that weaves the thread of being in and out of these

various modes and incarnations, reminding us that there is always an end and a new

beginning, and that each new, yet to be, invisible mode transfigures us in novel and

unrecognizable ways. Resistance to the unfolding mystery, the attachment to static ways of

being meant to be in a continuous process of expansion, is part of the human story, and part of

our intrinsic fear of change and death. To begin to comprehend the transformative process we

must leave the horizontal level of linearity of reason and dive vertically into the non-linear world

of archetype, of story, and poetry to uncover the universal alchemical threads which leads us

from the known to the unknown, from one form of being to another.

Mystical models attempting to elucidate the multi leveled nature of reality often assert the

fundamental premise of “as above so below.” The idea is that what takes place in the higher

psychological and spiritual realms also has its counterparts in nature on down to the atomic

and subatomic levels. One such example is the chrysalis. First, the caterpillar digests itself,

releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at

just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. From this amorphous mess the cells

reorganize to create a butterfly. The caterpillar is transformed from one physical state to a

another from the dissolution of its original form. In an alchemical process known as

calcination, an organic substance, perhaps a plant, is heated until the prima materia (original

material) is blackened and broken down, ultimately revealing or releasing the intrinsic, pure

substance that is then separated. We are not meant to remain in our original form, but in order

to transmute and recreate into new and expanded modes of being and consciousness we must

die to what we have known.

Transmutation from one state to another also occurs on psychological and social levels as

it does on that of matter. The mythic story about King Sisyphus of Corinth is instructive with

regard to the archetypal resistance that lives in response to impending death or

transformational change. As the end of life approached, Thanatos (death) appeared to guide

Sisyphus to the underworld. King Sisyphus slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the

chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus seized the opportunity and

trapped Thanatos in the chains instead. Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no

one died on earth. This caused an uproar especially for the god Ares (who was annoyed that

his battles had lost their fun because his opponents would not die), and so he intervened. The

exasperated Ares freed Thanatos and turned King Sisyphus over to Thanatos. As a punishment

for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder endlessly up a steep hill. The

maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief

that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus.

This hubris, represented by the inflated slyness of Sisyphus, exists in all mankind,

particularly when it comes to the safety and security of familiar patterns of being that reflect

ones well established, known identity. Carl Jung once wisely said that each “encounter with

Self is experienced as a defeat by the ego.” We would rather put “death” in prison, resist thisdefeat, and be consigned to the boredom of perpetuating old, no longer adaptive patterns than

surrender to the unknown depths in which new life might become abundant with creative

possibility. By resisting the transformation into new life, we literally do consign ourselves to the

meaningless ennui of enduring same pattern of being for all eternity.

Another relevant and rich story is that of Exodus. The Hebrew slaves, in their

emancipation from Egypt were faced with a similar dilemma. They were leaving generations of

enslavement for a hopeful return to the promised land of Canaan. During their years in the gap

space between the known and the unknown, between Egypt and Canaan, they slid back into

to old pagan rituals and known ways of worship, demonstrating that even when we are

emancipating from the long-suffering of enslavement we continue to be vulnerable to

regressing back to the security of familiar patterns and ways of being.

The “defeat of the ego,” the emancipation from known patterns is an actual death, a

breaking down of known reality that catapults us betwixt and between into the expansive,

chaotic bardo (gap space) of becoming and remembering what had been forgotten. Khalil

Gibran, in The Profit, wrote of this process:

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred

feast.

In alchemy, the whiteness, the purification, is the solution that results from the

dissolution of ego, the conditioned identity. Dissolution provides the chrysalis of self with the

necessary conditions for giving the birth to authentic being when the hard casing of the ego is

released to reveal the Self that lied dormant, waiting for maturity to transfigure us and release

us toward our true destiny. The alchemical fires must maintain a steady heat, however, because

the expansion of being generates continuous spirals of ongoing revolutions of separation and

recombining. These rhythms continue to evolve being through many stages of dissolution,

solution, fermentation, purification, and coagulation until we are transformed fully into the

Essential Self, the pure substance that gave birth to the ego in the first place. From physical

birth until the end of life, these many deaths lead us ultimately to the final transformation,

physical death, one in which the dissolution of the body is just one more opportunity for new

birth and renewal of spirit. TS Elliot, eloquently states:

We shall not cease from exploration

And in the end of all of our exploring

We shall arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time