Magnet

The magnet attracts iron and steel with an invisible and possibly incomprehensible force, which has led us to associate it with magic, power, and supernatural forces. According to alchemists, the magnet was the true prima materia of steel. The magnet functions as a secret center in the world, the very pole that attracts everything. (See also North Pole.)

The Self or prima materia is sometimes described as something extremely small in the vast sea of the world, and therefore impossible to find. However, the adept can use "the magnet of the wise" (a theory learned from their master) to draw the content to themselves, that is, to make it conscious. One must find what is needed for the work, and the master's theories make this possible. The alchemists' "magnet" is, of course, not "the ordinary magnet."

Psychologically, the magnet can be the archetype and the iron the object of projection; the archetype (and the complex) has a "magical" attraction; according to the alchemists and Gnostics, the doctrine is the magnet that allows for the integration of the person and the lapis, by attracting what belongs to them.

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