In the floods of life, in the storm of work,

In Ebb and flow,

In warp and weft,

Cradle and grave,

An eternal sea,

A changing patchwork,

A glowing life,

At the whirring loom of Time I weave

The living clothes of the Deity.

                     ~Goethe, the Earth Spirit to Faust

The unconscious is not a demonical monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral. It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases.
~C.G.Jung The Practical Use Of Dream Analysis, Collected Works Vol. 16

The psychic depths are nature, and nature is creative life. Whatever values in the visible world are destroyed by modern relativism, the psyche will produce their equivalents.
~C.G.Jung, Modern Man in Search Of a Soul

CGJUNG

We, as a species, are "the conscious eyes and ears of a planet." That phrase comes from Joseph Campbell. It's a metaphor for simple human consciousness, that thing that man claims makes him in god's image. It speaks of creatures who use language, beings split off from unconscious Nature into consciousness.

The awareness of this split goes back to a mysticism expressed best perhaps by Philo -- the deep meaning of the logos.

As Jung points out, literal consciousness has distorted that meaning, thinking itself the whole shebang, and we thus have that business of a mutable and evolving relationship with the unconscious, seen as the daimon in all his guises -- be it simply as the benign voice of the unconscious, or the evil tempter, or the connection back to Self -- to wholeness, to the 'god' of nature. These thousand names express our attitude towards the unconscious (some of which I chronicle here).

Diabolos: "Separating coinunctios." (Coinunctio: union/conjunction) Dividing into opposite pairs -- conjugates. This is the condition of being in the field of time space, which is necessarily the field of opposites.

Mythologically / psychologically speaking, this is framing Consciousness as the problem of breaking off from that Eden, that sense of being "One" with "the Creator" (a term reflecting the cause/effect mode of human understanding... I'm not here to promote the legal precedent-setting language of intelligent design). That is, the break with pure Nature into consciousness.

The process of individuation is to re-collect that One in our consciousness, the source that's aligned at your perfect center. And the task of the age is to see it in others.

The attitude towards the unconscious defines an era, certainly an individual's conscious orientation. It's my focal point, my fascination. Jung does make statements equating the uc with Nature. These questions, if asked seriously, work to frame things, are the heart of the matter, and open an approach to Jung that bears a great deal of meaning.

All those dismemberment myths from Dionysus to Christ had God falling into Time and shattering into shards, pieces, the scintilla of soul scattered to make the world, life, etc. These are myths of our own falling out of the unconscious world into the conscious. 'Splitting off from nature', we thought. Long, long ago it was sensed that we also bring that shattered Oneness back together. The cup of remembrance (Er) from Plato, the rituals of ecstasy, the re-collection of the Mass (where priest and congregation are all part of the process... "do this in memory *with* me") -- all are rituals that drew their meaning from the process of individuation, "acting the process out" in varying degrees of consciousness. A movement, a process.

Growth can go either way, as Huxley said. Borgdom is to lose the consciousness of the soul. So is the simple casting off of the soul by the intellect. A penumbra to be sure.

x's
deborah

Late Classical

Macrobius (b. A.D. 360) explains the role of the Greek daemon (analogue to the Roman genius) in the process of the individual’s conception, birth, and destiny in the Saturnalia, a valuable source of information con­cerning pagan beliefs. Each human being, according to the Egyptians, is the product of the conjunction of Eros, Necessity or Fate, a daemon (related to the zodiacal position of the sun at the individual’s birth), and a tyche (related to the position of the moon at the individual’s birth). Macrobius etymologizes “daemon” as either “knowing of the future” or “burning, sharing”; the latter etymology links it with the sun, mens mundi, the regulator of the planets and pivot of the other eleven zodiacal signs (as it always occupies the remaining twelfth sign). When the sun passes through a particular sign of the zodiac at the time of an individual’s birth, it designates a temperament or daemon for him, and establishes, through its position in relation to the moon, his fortune or tyche. Contingent upon the season in which a man is born, i.e., a warm or cold one, indicating the extent of the sun’s warming power and its relationship to other planets and signs, his daemon or genius will be warm or cold, good or bad, jovial or saturnine.  from The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jane Chance Nitzsche

Late Antique thought stressed their (the demonic) ambiguous
and anomalous nature. To Plutarch, writing at the beginning of our period,
it was benign ambiguity: the demons were an "elegant solution" for the
incongruities that arose from joining heaven and earth. In later centuries
their role changed. From intermediate beings, they became an active source
of falsehood and illusion in the human race. They gave dramatic intensity to
doubts about how heaven and earth could be joined and made such doubts a
permanent ingredient in the late Antique universe. The demons were an order
far from perfect, one might even say "anomalous," beings. Their presence in
the "earthly" regions introduced a constant element of indeterminacy and
confusion into the clear structure that linked the rightful agents of the
supernatural to their heavenly source. A few men were linked directly to the
higher, stable regions of the universe; most men, however, partook of the
incomplete, ambiguous quality of the demonic. Thus, with demons, Late
Antique men found themselves flanked by an invisible society that shared
with them all the incongruities and the tensions of their own visible
world."  ~Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity.

 

Platonic,

Symposium

And now, she said, haven't I proved that you're one of the people who don't believe in the divinity of Love?

Yes, but what can he be, then? I asked her. A mortal?

Not by any means.

Well, what then?

What I told you before—halfway between mortal and immortal.

And what do you mean by that, Diotima?

A very powerful daimon, Socrates, and daimons, you know, are halfway between god and man.

What powers have they, then? I asked

They are the envoys and interpreters that ply between heaven and earth, flying upward with our worship and our prayers, and descending with the heavenly answers and commandments, and since they are between the two estates they weld both sides together and merge them into one great whole. They form the medium of the prophetic arts, of the priestly rites of sacrifice, initiation, and incantation, of divination and of sorcery, for the divine will not mingle directly with the human, and it is only through the mediation of the spirit world that man can have any intercourse, whether waking or sleeping, with the gods. And the man who is versed in such matters is said to have spiritual powers, as opposed to the mechanical powers of the man who is expert in the more mundane arts. There are many daimons, and many kinds of daimons, too, and Love is one of them.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/classics/redmonds/H11-CSTS212.html

http://haldjas.folklore.ee/folklore/vol9/plotinus.htm

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/year25/

Plato,

Cratylus

Socrates: Hermogenes, what does the name "spirits" (daimones) really mean? See if you think there is anything in what I am going to say.

Hermogenes: Go on and say it.

Socrates: Do you remember who Hesiod says the spirits are?

Hermogenes: I do not recall it.

Socrates: Nor that he says a golden race was the first race of men to be born?

Hermogenes: Yes, I do know that.

Socrates: Well, he says of it: "But since Fate has covered up this race, They are called holy spirits under the earth, Noble, averters of evil, guardians of mortal men."

Hermogenes: What of that?

Socrates: Why, I think he means that the golden race was not made of gold, but was good and beautiful. And I regard it as a proof of this that he further says we are the iron race.

Hermogenes: True.

Socrates: Don't you suppose that if anyone of our day is good, Hesiod would say he was of that golden race?

Hermogenes: Quite likely.

Socrates: But the good are the wise, are they not?

Hermogenes: Yes, they are the wise.

Socrates: This, then, I think, is what he certainly means to say of the spirits: because they were wise and knowing (daemones) he called them spirits (daimones) and in the old form of our language the two words are the same. Now he and all the other poets are right, who say that when a good man dies he has a great portion and honor among the dead, and becomes a spirit, a name which is in accordance with the other name of wisdom. And so I assert that every good man, whether living or dead, is of spiritual nature, and is rightly called a spirit.

see also Hesse: Demian(at amazon)

MY PAINTED DREAM BIRD was on its way searching for my friend. In what seemed the strangest possible manner a reply reached me.
In my classroom, on my desk, after a break between two lessons I found a
note tucked in my book. It was folded exactly the same as notes classmates
of mine secretly slipped each other during class. I was only surprised to
receive such a note at all, for I had never had that sort of relationship
with any student. I thought it would turn out to be an invitation to some
prank in which I would not participate anyway-I put the note unread in the
front of my book. I came on it again only during the lesson.

Playing with the note I unfolded it carelessly and noticed a few words
written on it. One glance was sufficient. One word stopped me cold; in panic
I read on while cold fear contracted my heart: "The bird fights its way out
of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a
world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas."

After reading over these lines a number of times, I sank into a deep
reverie. There could be no doubt about it, this was Demian's reply. No one
else could know about my painting. He had grasped its meaning and was
helping me interpret it. But how did all of this fit together? And-this
oppressed me most of all-what did Abraxas signify? I had never heard nor
read the word. "That God's name is Abraxas."

The lesson went on without my taking in a word of it. The next began, the
last that morning. It was taught by a young assistant, a Dr. Follens, who
had just completed his university studies, whom we liked simply because he
was young and unpretentious.

Dr. Follens was guiding us through Herodotus -- one of the few subjects that
held any interest for me. But today not even Herodotus could hold my
attention. I opened the book mechanically but did not follow the translation
and remained sunk deep in my own thoughts. Besides, I had frequently
confirmed what Demian had told me once during our Confirmation classes: you can achieve anything you desire passionately enough. If I happened to be involved with my own thoughts during a lesson I did not have to worry that the teacher would call on me. If I was distracted or listless, then he would suddenly appear beside me. That had already happened to me. But if I really concentrated, completely wrapped up in a thought of my own, then I was protected. I had also experimented with the trick of staring a person down and had found that it worked. When still with Demian, I had not succeeded in this; now I often felt that a good deal could be accomplished by a sharp glance, and thought.

I was at present nowhere near Herodotus or school. Suddenly the teacher's
voice shot like lightning into my consciousness and I awoke terrified. I
heard his voice, he practically stood next to me, I even thought he had
called my name. But he was not looking at me. I relaxed.

Then I heard his voice again. Loudly it pronounced the word "Abraxas."

In the course of a long explanation, whose beginning I had missed, Dr.
Follens went on: "We ought not consider the opinions of those sects and
mystical societies as naive as they appear from the rationalist point of
view. Science as we know it today was unknown to antiquity. Instead there
existed a preoccupation with philosophical and mystical truths which was
highly developed. What grew out of this preoccupation was to some extent
merely pedestrian magic and frivolity; perhaps it frequently led to
deceptions and crimes, but this magic, too, had noble antecedents in a
profound philosophy. As, for instance, the teachings concerning Abraxas
which I cited a moment ago. This name occurs in connection with Greek
magical formulas and is frequently considered the name of some magician's
helper such as certain uncivilized tribes believe in even at present. But it
appears that Abraxas has a much deeper significance. We may conceive of the
name as that of a godhead whose symbolic task is the uniting of godly and
devilish elements."

The learned little man spoke with intelligence and eagerness but no one paid
much attention, and as the name Abraxas did not recur, my thoughts turned
back to my own affairs.

"Uniting of godly and devilish elements" resounded within me. Here was
something for my thoughts to cling to. This idea was familiar to me from
conversations with Demian. During the last period of our friendship he had
said that we had been given a god to worship who represented only one
arbitrarily separated half of the world (it was the official, sanctioned,
luminous world), but that we ought to be able to worship the whole world;
this meant that we would either have to have a god who was also a devil or
institute a cult of the devil alongside the cult of god. And now Abraxas was
the god who was both god and devil.

For a time I pursued this thought eagerly but without making any headway. I
even pored over a whole library full of books seeking a mention of Abraxas.
However, my nature had never been disposed to this kind of direct and
conscious investigation where at first one finds only truths that are so
much dead weight in one's hand.

The figure of Beatrice with which I had occupied myself so intimately and
fervently gradually became submerged or, rather, was slowly receding,
approaching the horizon more and more, becoming more shadowy and remote,
paler. She no longer satisfied the longings of my soul.

In the peculiar self-made isolation in which I existed like a sleepwalker, a
new growth began to take shape within me. The longing for life grew--or
rather the longing for love. My sexual drive, which I had sublimated for a
time in the veneration of Beatrice, demanded new images and objects. But my
desires remained unfulfilled and it was more impossible than ever for me to
deceive my longings and hope for something from the women with whom my
comrades tried their luck. I dreamed vividly again, more in fact by day than
at night. Images, pictures, desires arose freely within me, drew me away
from the outside world so that I had a more substantial and livelier
relationship with the world of my own creation, with these images and dreams
and shadows, than with the actual world around me.

A certain dream, or fantasy, that kept recurring gained in meaning for me.
The dream, the most important and enduringly significant of my life, went
something like this: I was returning to my father's house-above the entrance
glowed the heraldic bird, yellow on a blue back-ground; in the house itself
my mother was coming toward me--but as I entered and wanted to embrace her,
it was not she but a form I had never set eyes on before, tall and strong,
resembling Max Demian and the picture I had painted; yet different, for
despite its strength it was completely feminine. This form drew me to itself
and enveloped me in a deep, tremulous embrace. I felt a mixture of ecstasy
and horror--the embrace was at once an act of divine worship and a crime.
Too many associations with my mother and friend co-mingled with this figure
embracing me. Its embrace violated all sense of reverence, yet it was bliss.
Sometimes I awoke from this dream with a feeling of profound ecstasy, at
others in mortal fear and with a racked conscience as though I had committed
some terrible crime.

Only gradually and unconsciously did this very intimate image become linked
with the hint about the God I was to search for, the hint that had come to
me from the outside. The link grew closer and more intimate and I began to
sense that I was calling on Abraxas particularly in this
dreamed presentiment. Delight and horror, man and woman co-mingled, the
holiest and most shocking were inter-twined, deep guilt flashing through
most delicate innocence:
that was the appearance of my love-dream image and Abraxas, too. Love had
ceased to be the dark animalistic drive I had experienced at first with
fright, nor was it any longer the devout transfiguration I had offered to
Beatrice. It was both, and yet much more. It was the image of an angel and
Satan, man and woman in one flesh, man and beast, the highest good and the
worst evil. It seemed that I was destined to live in this fashion, this
seemed my pre-ordained fate. I yearned for it but feared it at the same
time. It was ever-present, hovering constantly above me.

The following spring I was to leave the preparatory school and enter a
university. I was still undecided, however, as to where and what I was to
study. I had grown a thin mustache, I was a full-grown man, and yet I was
completely helpless and without a goal in life. Only one thing was certain:
the voice within me, the dream image. I felt the duty to follow this voice
blindly wherever it might lead me. But it was difficult and each day I
rebelled against it anew. Perhaps I was mad, as I thought at moments;
perhaps I was not like other men? But I was able to do the same things the
others did; with a little effort and industry I could read Plato, was able
to solve problems in trigonometry or follow a chemical analysis. There was
only one thing I could not do: wrest the dark secret goal from myself and
keep it before me as others did who knew exactly what they wanted to
be-professors, lawyers, doctors, artists, however long this would take them
and whatever difficulties and advantages this decision would bear in its
wake. This I could not do. Perhaps I would become something similar, but how was I to know? Perhaps I would have to continue my search for years on end and would not become anything, and would not reach a goal. Perhaps I would reach this goal but it would turn out to be an evil, dangerous, horrible one?
I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from
my true self. Why was that so very difficult?

I made frequent attempts to paint the mighty love apparition of my dream. I
never succeeded. If I had I would have sent the painting to Demian. Where he was I had no idea. I only knew that we were linked. When would we meet
again?

The tranquility of the weeks and months of my Beatrice period had long
since passed. At that time I felt I had reached a safe harbor, an island of
peace. But as always, as soon as I had become accustomed to my condition, as soon as a dream had given me hope, it wilted and became useless. It was futile to sorrow after the loss. I now lived within a fire of unsatisfied longing, of tense expectancy that often drove me completely wild. I often saw the beloved apparition of my dream with a clarity greater than life, more distinct than my own hand, spoke with it, wept before it, cursed it. I called it mother and knelt down in front of it in tears. I called it my beloved and had a premonition of its ripe all fulfilling kiss. I called it
devil and whore, vampire and murderer. It enticed me to the gentlest
love-dreams and to devastating shameless-ness, nothing was too good and
precious, nothing was too wicked and low for it.

I experienced the whole of that winter as one unending inner turbulence,
which I find difficult to describe. I had long since become used to my
loneliness-that did not oppress me: I lived with Demian, the sparrow hawk,
with the mighty apparition of my dream that was both my fate and my beloved. This was enough to sustain me, for every-thing pointed toward vastness and space-it all pointed toward Abraxas. But none of these dreams, none of these thoughts obeyed me, none were at my beck and call, I could color none of them as I pleased. They came and took me I was ruled by them, was their vessel.

Demian ~Hesse
 

Gnostic*

It was a widespread tradition among early Christians that Jesus had a twin brother who resembled him in every detail. This caused Literalists a great many problems, as the obvious objection to their claims that Jesus had liter­ally resurrected from the dead was that his twin brother had been crucified in his place. This has led some scholars to conclude that this legend must be based on historical fact, for “what Christian would have been foolish enough to invent such a legend, seeing that it is most apt to undermine the very basis of the orthodox tradition concerning the resuscitation of Jesus? The answer is that the Gnostics invented the tradition of Jesus’ twin brother as an allegory for the ancient Daemon/eidolon doctrine.

[....]

In The Acts of John Jesus explains:

 You heard that I suffered, but I suffered not.

An unsuffering one was I, yet suffered.

One pierced was I, yet I was not abused.

One hanged was I, and yet not hanged.

Blood flowed from me, yet did not flow.43

 How is it that Jesus can both suffer and not suffer? Because, as he explains, “I distinguish the man from myself.” He identifies with his transcendent Higher Self, the Daemon, not his suffering lower self, the eidolon.

 The purpose of Gnostic initiation was to free initiates from all suffering through the realization that their true identity is not the eidolon bound to the cross of matter, but the Daemon that witnesses life as a passing illusion. Thus the Gnostic Jesus teaches:

 Had you known how to suffer, you would have been able not to suffer.

See through suffering, and you will have non-suffering.

 So, the eidolon of Jesus seems to suffer and die, but the real Jesus—the Dae­mon—cannot suffer or die.

 Five hundred years previously Euripides portrayed King Pentheus as binding Dionysus, while actually he was not. As Dionysus says:

 There I made a mockery of him. He thought he was binding me; But he neither held nor touched me~ save in his deluded mind.

 

In The Apocalypse of Peter, Peter sees Jesus “glad and laughing” on the cross while the nails are bring driven into his hands and feet, and Jesus explains:

 He whom you see on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus. But this one into whose hands and feet they drive nails is his fleshy part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me.’

 In some Pagan myths it is not the godman who suffers and dies, but a substitute figure who represents the eidolon. In The Bacchae, King Pentheus whose name means “Man of Suffering,” is raised up on a tree and torn to shreds in the place of Dionysus. Similarly, in certain Gnostic myths it is Simon of Gyrene who dies on the cross, while Jesus watches laughing from a distance. In The Second Treatise of the Creat Seth, Jesus explains:

 It was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoic­ing in the height and laughing at their ignorance.

 Simon of Cyrene, like King Pentheus in the Pagan version of the myth, repre­sents the eidolon, which suffers and dies. The laughing figure of Jesus, like the triumphant Dionysus, represents the Daemon, the witnessing Spirit. The Gnostic sage Basilides teaches that “because he was Mind, Jesus did not suf­fer” but Simon of Cyrene suffered in his stead, while Jesus laughed “because he could not be held and was invisible to all.”

 The Gnostics did not believe that Jesus only seemed to exist, or that he magically avoided suffering on the cross, or, more sinisterly, that he had him­self replaced by Simon of Cyrene, who was crucified instead while Jesus stood safely at a distance laughing. Such doctrines would, as the Literalists claimed, be distasteful and ridiculous. But this is a misunderstanding (or likely a conscious distortion!) of Gnostic teachings. In fact, “Illusion­ism” is simply part of understanding the crucifixion story as an initiation allegory, which encodes the ancient Pagan Daemon/eidolon doctrine.

 A fragment of these teachings has survived in the New Testament Gospel of Mark in which Simon of Cyrene is inexplicably dragooned into carrying Jesus’ cross for him. The name Simon here links this figure symbolically to the disciple called Simon “Peter” or “Rock,” who also symbolizes the eidolon in many Gnostic myths.

An echo of this Gnostic doctrine also survives in the Muslim Qur’an which, when dealing with the supposed death of Jesus, declares:

 But they did not kill him, neither did they crucify him, but a similitude was made for them.

 

THE SACRED MARRIAGE

 An important mythical motif in the Pagan Mysteries was the sacred marriage between the godman and the goddess, symbolizing the mystical union of opposites.70 In Crete they celebrated the marriage of the goddess Demeter and the godman Iasion. Upon his yearly “arrival” in Athens, Dionysus was hailed as “Bridal One” and his marriage to the queen of the city, who repre­sented the goddess, was ritually celebrated.

 In Mystery initiations, the initiate was often portrayed as the bride of Osiris-Dionysus. Initiations were carried out in special “bridal chambers” which have been found at Pagan sanctuaries. An ancient fresco shows scenes of those preparing for initiation being dressed in the attire of brides. After their initiation they were hailed as “brides.”

 The bride represented the incarnate self or eidolon and Osiris-Dionysus represented the disincarnate Self or Daemon. The sacred marriage ritually united these two opposing parts of the initiate. Epiphanius tells us:

 Some prepare a bridal chamber and perform a mystic rite accompa­nied by certain words used to the initiated, and they allege that it is a spiritual marriage.

 The Pagan Mystery motif of the sacred marriage is missing from orthodox Christianity, but was important in Gnostic Christianity, which celebrated the sacred marriage between Jesus and Sophia. In Gnostic myth, Sophia is portrayed in a “fallen” state as representing the incarnate self. She is pictured as lost in the world searching for the ineffable Source. Looking for love in all the wrong places, she becomes a prostitute. Finally she begs God the Father for help and He sends her as a bridegroom the Firstborn Son of God, her brother Jesus. When the bridegroom arrives they make love passionately to become One.

This is an allegory of the Daemon or Spirit coming to the rescue of the incarnate self or psyche. According to The Gospel of Philip, only the person who has “remarried” the psyche with the Spirit becomes capable of with­standing physical and emotional impulses that, unchecked, could drive them toward self-destruction and evil.

The sacred marriage is a symbol of mystical unity, which was the goal of Gnosticism. In The Gospel of Thomas Jesus teaches his disciples:

 

When you make the two one, and when you make the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male be not male nor the female female then will you enter the kingdom.

 Some Gnostic groups ritually celebrated the sacred marriage as part of their rites of initiation. Irenaeus tells us: “They prepare a bridal chamber and celebrate Mysteries.” The followers of the Gnostic sage Marcus performed an initiatory rite “with certain formulae, and they term this a spiritual mar­riage.”84 We are told that the followers of the Gnostic poet Valentinus practiced the rite of a spiritual marriage with angels in a nuptial chamber.” The Naassenes taught that the initiated “must cast off their garments and all become brides pregnant by the Virgin Spirit.” The Gospel of Philip explains that the process of initiation climaxed in the “bridal chamber” of mystical union, for “The holy of the holies is the bridal chamber. The redemption takes place in the bridal chamber.”

 In the Jesus story, the fallen Sophia (the psyche) is represented by the figure of Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus (the Daemon) redeems from prostitution. According to the Gnostic sage Heracleon, this motif of a sacred marriage also appears in the Jesus story as the marriage feast in Cana where Jesus, like Dionysus before him, changes water into intoxicating wine. This miracle, Heracleon tells us, symbolizes that “divine marriage,” which transforms what is merely human into the divine.” The motif also occurs in a passage from the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus explains that reaching the kingdom of Heaven will be like a maiden going to meet “the Bridegroom.”

 In The Gospel of Thomas Jesus teaches that to experience this final level of initiation into mystical union, each initiate must enter the bridal chamber alone:

 Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber.

from Freke & Gandy The Jesus Mysteries

chapter:  JESUS THE DAIMON

click to enlarge picture: DGRossetti, Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee

Sonnets on Pictures. II. Mary Magdalene

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82)

At the Door of Simon the Pharisee. For a Drawing by D. G. R.)

“WHY wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?   Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreath, lips, and cheek.   Nay, not this house,—that banquet-house we seek;   See how they kiss and enter; come thou there.   This delicate day of love we two will share         5 Till at our ear love’s whispering night shall speak.   What, sweet one,—hold’st thou still the foolish freak?   Nay, when I kiss thy feet they ’ll leave the stair.”   “Oh loose me! Seest thou not my Bridegroom’s face   That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,         10 My hair, my tears He craves to-day:—and oh!   What words can tell what other day and place   Shall see me clasp those blood-stain’d feet of His?   He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!”

 

 

The God Who Wasn't There

"Separating coinunctios." (Coinunctio: union/conjunction)  Dividing into opposite pairs -- conjugates.
This is the condition of being in the field of time space : the field of opposites.

Consciousness as the problem of (mythologically, psychologically speaking) breaking off from that Eden, from sense of being "One" with the Creator. Life is about moving, and that means a necessary *action potential.* "All things flow." ~Heracltus We also have ambiguity. Ambi-valence.

But this process of individuation is to re-collect that One, the source, aligned at your perfect center. And the task of the age to see it in others. 

deborah

 JUNG on the SHADOW

The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man

In: CGJUNG, CW v. 10: Civilization in Transition (p. 134-156).

abstract:
Popular misconceptions about psychology are discussed as a prelude to an exposition of the basic tenets of psychology. The common assumption that everyone's psychology is the same, contradicted by clinical experience, led to an investigation of the basis for this belief. It was discovered that primitive man is characterized by a group psychology. Though modern man has learned to differentiate himself from this group mentality, individual consciousness still must develop out of the collective unconscious. With individual consciousness, however, came discontent. This discontent is seen as an unconscious reaction to the stress produced by differentiation. It is an axiom of psychology that every psychic phenomenon is compensated for by another. Thus the discontent of the present age can be seen as the tension produced by evolution through the synthesis of opposites. The problem modern man has with psychology is that he refuses to admit its basic tenet: that the psyche transcends man and is, ultimately, unknowable. Instead of demanding from psychology a cure for his discontent , modem man is better advised to look within himself for the germ of unity. Dreams, the spontaneous products of the psyche that compensate for the onesidedness of the conscious mind, are guides to the workings of the unconscious. Their correct interpretation is an invaluable aid in the assimilation of unconscious contents by the conscious mind. The art of dream interpretation is discussed. It is concluded that no one method for interpretation is applicable to all dreams.

 

 

 

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[Aside.] This has been quite a portkey... Reflecting on it I see I am only reflecting, floating on a pond very deep, a pond with a surface tension that creates a blinding light. I am aware only of the daimons speaking, and only at the stage -- Western culture only at the stage -- of becoming aware that the relationship and perspective of a being's interpretation and awareness of this very daimon is what determines experience itself. Typology comes to play, giving some needed suspicions that may cumulate in humility, if Fortune be with me.

Compensation is a useful model, giving you four mirrors to see into... like trying on a clothes at a department store. ("Does my hair really look like that from the back?" Hermione asks.) Studying myth -- Medea and her thumos, Achilles and his rage, Psyche and her puzzling, paradoxical relationship with Eros, Christ as archetype, archetype itself: more mirrors. 

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What is the use of a religion without a mythos, since religion means, if anything, precisely that function which links us back to eternal myth?  ~CGJung

 

"I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions - not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being."

- C. G. Jung

 

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