The Lion Will Become Man

Keiron Le Grice, who is a professor of Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute (PGI), California, also served as Program Chair of the Institute’s Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialisation for many years. With his professional background, he is eminently suited to have written this book, which draws on Carl Jung’s alchemical model of psycho-spiritual transformation.

The seminal experience that makes Grice uniquely placed to write this work is his own transformative realisation of ‘touching the depths’, initiated by a debilitating illness over several years when he was in his twenties. Reflecting on this time, Grice observes, ‘For all the suffering it entailed, I came to recognize that the underworld struggle defined who I am and the work I have had to do in this life’. (p. 192)

In the tradition of Jung’s famous Red Book, which chronicle’s Jung’s encounters with the ‘Spirit of the Depths’ in words and images, Grice courageously blends the personal and theoretical into a narrative that is replete with vivid memories, illuminating dreams, and inspiring synchronicities, all of which are amplified by astute reflections on alchemy and early Christian Gnosticism, thereby making this work a truly alchemical opus. The book’s title alludes to an enigmatic passage found in The Gospel of Thomas from the Nag Hammadi scriptures:

Jesus said:

Happy is the lion which the man will eat,

And the lion will become man;

And abominated is the man whom the lion will eat,

And the lion will become man. (p. 141)

Applying this logion to his own experience, Grice realised that his task was to find a way ‘to express the power of the instinctual unconscious (eat the lion) or this power would possess [him] unconsciously (eaten by the lion)’. (p.141)

Medieval alchemical emblems and Grice’s personal artwork illustrate the psychological trajectory of his alchemical process. Retrospectively, Grice’s artwork and dreams are shown to reveal the alchemical operations and stages that his personal journey describes.

The alchemical emblem on the book’s cover, ‘The Green Lion Devouring the Sun’, originally from the 16^th century alchemical treatise Rosarium Philosophorum, not only gives visual expression to the quoted passage from The Gospel of Thomas but also viscerally conveys Grice’s own insight into his inner transformation. For instance, to show further the interleaving of alchemy and dreams, Grice shares a dream in which a female lion-handler (whom he views as an anima figure) feeds fish to a lion to maintain mastery over the majestic creature. Grice understands this imagery to symbolise ‘a sublimation of instinct such that the energy within it could be harnessed and directed in the pursuit of spiritually informed aims’. (p. 141)

Using alchemical emblems and his own dreams as signposts, Grice tracks his embodied spiritual odyssey from a literal breakdown-to-break-through into a more expansive consciousness. This awareness is reflected in his waking life by a dramatic move from Nottinghamshire, England, to San Francisco, where he would realise his dream to gain a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

As Grice observes, his personal encounter with the numinous power of unconscious contents, illuminated by his later understanding of alchemical and Gnostic teachings, offers a guide to individuals who are undergoing a profound spiritual crisis and who are ‘trying to make sense and find meaning in symptoms and sufferings that might otherwise be deemed pathological’. (p. 12) Through his honest and unsparing portrayal of his own deep suffering and creative renewal, Grice shows his readers how they, too, can develop their own symbolic life, so key to Jung’s understanding of Individuation.

Importantly, Grice’s personal descent into the ‘dark spirit of matter’ and his hard won ‘rebirth’ into a new way of being can give each of us the confidence and courage needed to engage with the dark spirit in ourselves, both individually and collectively, helping us to face the struggles of life and the turbulence of our times.