Axiom of Maria

1. Etymology

Axiom of Maria names an alchemical precept: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” Related: Maria Prophetissa; quaternity; individuation; transcendent-function.

2. Plain summary

Jung reads the Axiom of Maria as a picture of individuation itself. One is original unconscious wholeness; two is the conflict of opposites; three points toward a possible resolution; the third is the transcendent-function; and the one as the fourth is a transformed consciousness—relatively whole and at peace.

It is not a recipe you force. It is a metaphor for how psychic process moves from undivided oneness through conflict and mediating third into a living fourth.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common Axiom-of-Maria motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
one→two→three→one-as-fourth; alchemical precept; Maria Prophetissa; metaphor for individuation; original unconscious wholeness; conflict of opposites; potential resolution; transcendent-function as third; transformed consciousness as fourth; quaternity kinship.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology the Axiom of Maria is process-metaphor—individuation staged as alchemical number-drama. Descent Press keeps Sharp in §4; Samuels has no dedicated head this pass. §5 holds sample CW stamps at CW 12 Introduction.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Axiom of Maria. A precept in alchemy: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” Jung used the axiom of Maria as a metaphor for the whole process of individuation. One is the original state of unconscious wholeness; two signifies the conflict between opposites; three points to a potential resolution; the third is the transcendent function; and the one as the fourth is a transformed state of consciousness, relatively whole and at peace.

(Sharp, 1991)

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated axiom of Maria head (list) this vessel pass:

(No dedicated Samuels head for axiom of Maria.) Related under quaternity / individuation / alchemy.

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

With this statement, which may strike the reader as peculiar, we come to one of the central axioms of alchemy, namely the saying of Maria Prophetissa: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” … Perhaps the most pregnant expression of this is the axiom of Maria Prophetissa quoted above, which runs like a leitmotiv throughout almost the whole of the lifetime of alchemy…
(Jung, 1944/1968, CW 12, pp. 22–23, ¶26)

It must nevertheless be stressed that side by side with the distinct leanings of alchemy (and of the unconscious) towards quaternity there is always a vacillation between three and four which comes out over and over again. Even in the axiom of Maria Prophetissa the quaternity is muffled and alembicated. … the least differentiated or “inferior” function is so much contaminated with the collective unconscious that, on becoming conscious, it brings up among others the archetype of the self as well—τὸ ἓν τὸ τέταρτον, as Maria Prophetissa says.
(Jung, 1944/1968, CW 12, p. 26, ¶31)

See also: individuation; quaternity; transcendent-function; opposites; wholeness; consciousness; self; inferior-function.

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). Introduction to the religious and psychological problems of alchemy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 12, pp. 22–23, 26, ¶¶26, 31). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1944)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.