As Community…
Perhaps most relevant for you and most visceral for us, is to say that the Pelican is a community based in Copenhagen (but present and accessible online), which offers courses, retreats, ceremonies, rituals – laboratories to disclose, explore and refine the psychic material. It is in short a vessel and a container for what we might call “soul–making”.
The work that we do, and the spaces we create, are to a large extent inspired by Jungian psychology – and in particular the practice of active imagination, but with a need for creative elaboration. Which means that we take active imagination out of the strictly clinical and therapeutic setting and explore the imaginal as a way of being-in-the-world; a philosophy of life, you might say, and a way of relating to self, other and the more-than-human web of existence in which we are embedded.
For us, this implies approaching and entering and engaging the realm of the imaginal through music and ritual, through immersion in nature, through alchemical concoctions like ceremonial cacao and through the group as a relational container – ect!..
As Alchemical Vessel…
In the alchemical tradition the Pelican was, among other things, a name for a particular flask, that the alchemist would use for a specific operation called “Circulatio” : a process of distilling a substance in repeated cycles until its essence is purified. The substance is gently heated so that its more volatile parts (often called the “spirit” or “essence”) rise as vapor.
Because the Pelican flask/vessel is sealed, that vapor cools at the top and falls back down onto the material below, repeating the cycle over and over. The substance thus returns to itself again and again, dissolving and recombining until it yields its tincture—the red elixir, the philosopher’s blood. Rather than separating fractions like ordinary distillation, circulation is more about repeated internal refinement, about the movement between “higher” and “lower” states and about returning spirit into matter after it has been separated and purifified .
Symbolically, this points to self-containment, repetition and circulation of psychic material as a way of refining and transmuting psychic material – i.e. a dream, an image, an experience, a complex, an emotion. For example not acting out our emotions and affects in destructive and unconscious ways, and not suppressing them either, but rather containing, circulating and refining them until the hidden gold appears. As Jung writes:
“The Pelican is a distilling vessel, but the distillate, instead of dripping into the receiver, runs back into the belly of the retort. We could take this as illustrating the process of conscious realization and the reapplication of conscious insights to the unconscious.
(Jung, CW9ii §377)
As a sacrificial (minor) gesture…
In old folklore the story goes that a starving Pelican mother would pierce her heart and feed her young with her own blood. This became an allegory for Christ and was used to adorn churches as a symbol of Christ sacrifice. In alchemy this motif was taken up as a gesture of inward sacrifice; the beak, our intellect and thoughts, bending toward the heart, letting it bleed, and re-cognizing the nourishment in the heart-blood as a way of both giving and becoming. Sacrifice not necessarily as self-deprivation, or even giving in the traditional sense, but as a way of becoming ourselves – of materializing and adorning the spirit – through the act of giving.
The image of beak to breast becomes an archetype—not of pain, but of generative sacrifice. It enacts the path of the initiate who, in the fire of spiritual striving, dissolves the hardened ego and distills from it an essence (lapis philosophorum) capable of nourishing the future. This is not ornithology, but soul morphology.
As the name of Jung’s boat…
Last, but not least, the Pelican carries another connotation. Namely, the name of Jung’s old boat that he used to sail the lake of Zurich. It seems the Pelican was quite a significant symbol in Jung’s own life. Not only was it the name of his boat, but if you ever have the chance to visit his house in Kuscnacht (which is now partly a museum) you can admire the impressive furnace of (kachelofen) of the house. The blue/green tiles, or Kacheln, covering the stove are adorned with zodiac motifs and mythical creatures, such as unicorns, and on top sits the Pelican as a crown of the piece.
It seems quite clear to me, that for Jung, the Pelican was not only an alchemical symbol to be studied, but also an esoteric symbol of his own life, and a gesture which he sought to embody. So, when thinking about the Pelican I’m not only transported back into the laboratories of the old alchemist, I’m equally imagining Jung sailing on that stunningly beautiful lake Zurich. And I’m leaning into, not only to his theoretical thoughts, but into the experiences and the imaginative insights – the psycho-cosmology – which was revealed to him in that vessel, and which forms the primal stuff – the prima materia – of his Opus.
“Let all be one, in one circle or vessel.” (...) “For this vessel is the True philosophical Pelican, (...) the garden wherein our Sun rises and sets
About the Facilitator
My name is Nikolaj Knub. I’m a philosopher (MA), systemic nature coach, and Jungian psychotherapist in training to become an analyst. Throughout my training, I’ve facilitated study groups and experiential courses exploring, in particular, Liber Novus and, more broadly, “Jung’s myth for our time.” Currently, my work and interests lie at the intersections of alchemy, active imagination, plant medicines, and ecopsychology — a blend I explore through courses, cacao ceremonies, 1:1 therapy, and nature coaching.
The motivation for establishing The Pelican stems not only from a growing interest in the alchemical tradition, but also from an increasing belief in the power of community: that the “alchemical Opus” does not have to be a strictly solitary project (especially not if we think of it in modern terms as a separate subject’s struggle for self-improvement), but that something tremendously valuable and meaningful can take place in and through the communal vessel.
Working with deep psycho-spiritual processes in groups is not necessarily straightforward, however. I’ve made mistakes, and will probably continue to do so, but I’ve learned a great deal through the process. Over the years, I believe I’ve gained valuable experience facilitating group containers — first at the late Ship of Fools, and later as a learning facilitator for the Psychedelic Practitioner Training at The Synthesis Institute.
A large part of my everyday life these years consists of being a father to two young boys and trying to live a fairly simple and grounded life with my wife and family in Helsingør.
That was a little about me. If you’d like to know more, feel free to explore my personal website and have a look around.
