Jung Baader

1
Theosophy and Gnosticism: Jung and Franz von Baader

by
Dr. J. Glenn Friesen
2008
Revised notes from lectures given at the C.G. Jung Institute, Ksnacht (June 21-22, 2005)
I.
Introduction
In Lecture 1 of this series, we saw that Jungs idea of individuation needs to be understood in
relation to his idea of totality. Totality is the center beyond time that is both the source and the
goal of all temporal functions. And individuation, which is the purpose and goal of Jungian
analysis, is not to be understood in terms of individualism, but in terms of our relating our
temporal ego to our supratemporal, supra-individual and central selfhood.
In this second lecture I will look at how this idea of totality is related to the philosophy of the
German Christian theosophist Franz von Baader (1765-1841), and how this Christian theosophy
differs from Gnosticism.
The Philosophy of Totality is related to a renaissance in interest in Baaders philosophy. In the
1920s, many of Baaders works were republished, and Jung read Baader at that time. As we
shall see, many of Jungs ideas are related to Baader. This does not just apply to the idea of
totality and individuation, but also to Jungs ideas of alchemy and quaternity. We will also
examine Jungs relation to Gnosticism and to Kabbalah, and how those ideas compare with
Christian theosophy.
II.
Who was Baader?
Franz von Baader is known for his Christian philosophy, or more accurately, for his Christian
theosophy. It has been said that he was the only Christian philosopher in the grand style that
Germany ever had.1 Baader was a Roman Catholic, but he believed that the Russian Orthodox
Church represented the best Christian path. He considered Protestantism to be too literal and
rationalistic, and he found Catholicism too rigid and petrified.
We can see in Baader the ideas that became so prominent in the philosophy of totality, and that
we discussed in Lecture 1: the rejection of mechanistic atomism, the idea of an organic whole,
the emphasis on center and periphery and the idea of heart as the center.
Baader opposed the Enlightenments mechanistic and atomistic idea of nature.2 He is therefore
sometimes referred to as a philosopher of Romanticism, which also opposed an over-use of
1
Hugo Ball, cited by Poppe: Afterword to Franz von Baader: ber die Begrndung der Ethik
durch die Physik (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1969), 108. [Begrndung]. References
in my article will be to this edition, although it is also found in Vol 5 of Baaders Collected
Works, which will be referred to as Werke.
2
Werke 3, 317 fn4: Baader opposed what was atomistic, mechanical; Werke 3, 329: integration is
wholeness = holiness [Baader writes in English, using this spelling].
2008 J. Glenn Friesen
2
science and emphasized our ability to have direct, unmediated knowledge by our intuitive
experience. But Baaders Romanticism must not be understood as irrationalism or emotionalism.
Unlike an irrationalist Romanticism, Baader emphasizes the importance of theory when it is seen
in its proper relation to our experience.
Baader was strongly opposed to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but he was also opposed to
any pietistic flight away from rationality. Pietism, especially within Protestantism, sometimes
took on a very irrational and subjectivistic nature.
Baader kept alive within the western philosophical tradition the mystical philosophy of Jakob
Boehme and Meister Eckhart. He introduced the philosopher Schelling to the ideas of Boehme.
And he introduced Hegel to the ideas of Meister Eckhart. But Baader disagreed with the use
made by Schelling and Hegel of these ideas. In Lecture 3 of this series, we will look at Boehme
and Eckhart in more detail.
Baaders most important influences were Jakob Boehme, Meister Eckhart and St. Martin.3 He
also studied Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck, Paracelsus, Kepler, Aquinas, Anselm, Eriugena,
Augustine, the Church Fathers, Angelus Silesius, Oetinger and Swedenborg.
Jung read and refers to many of these same writers. It is not generally known that Jung read all
the works of Swedenborg, who had a vision of the Stockholm fire when he was not in Stockholm
and could not have otherwise known about it. And not generally known that Jungs appreciation
of the philosopher of Kant is probably more due to Kants book on Swedenborg, Dreams of a
Spirit-Seer than to Kants major philosophical works.
Baader derived his ideas not only from Christian sources, but also from hermetic and alchemical
thought, and from the Jewish Kabbalah.4
Baaders writings are extremely difficult to read, even for German readers. He uses theosophical
language, he frequently uses untranslated words from other languages such as French, and he
sometimes invents new words. He often uses symbols and analogies. His writings are not
systematic, but merely aphoristic. Baader said he did not mind if his work was regarded as
unsystematic; he saw his own work in more organic terms, as ferment, or seeds.5
Louis Claude de St. Martin (1743-1803) wrote under the name of the Unknown Philosopher
(le philosophe inconnu). He was the author of Des erreurs et de la vrit and Le Tableau
Naturel. Le Tableau Naturel showed the relations between God, Man and the universe. St.
Martin is not to be confused with the Jewish mystic Martines Pasqualis, who also influenced
Baader.
4
Baader regarded the Sefer Yetsirah [The Book of Creation] as an original revelation to the
Jews. But Baader had only a superficial knowledge of Kabbalah. See David Baumgardt: Franz
von Baader und die Philosophische Romantik (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1927), 35
[Baumgaradt].
5
Franz von Baader: Smtliche Werke, ed. Franz Hoffmann (Leipzig, 1851-1860) [Werke], 1,
153f. The title of Baaders 1822 work, Fermenta Cognitionis, reflects this view. This work has
been translated into French: Franz von Baader: Fermenta Cognitionis, tr. Eugne Susini (Paris:
Albin Michel, 1985). The original is found in volume 2 of Werke.
3
There is very little available in English regarding Baader, although his Collected Works are 16
large volumesabout the same as Jungs work. Ramon J. Betanzos has written one of the few
books in English on Baader: Franz von Baaders Philosophy of Love.6
See also my translations of three of Baaders works:
1. Concerning the conflict of religious faith and knowledge as the spiritual root of
the decline of religious and political society in our time as in every time (1833)
[ber den Zwiespalt des Religisen Glaubens und Wissens als die geistige
Wurzel des Verfalls der religisen und politischen Societt in unserer wie in jeder
Zeit]7
2. Concerning the Concept of Time (1818) [ber den Begriff der Zeit]8
3. Elementary concepts concerning Time: As Introduction to the Philosophy of
Society and History (1831) [Elementarbegriffe ber die Zeit: als Einleitung zur
Philosophie der Soziett und Geschichte]9
III. Baaders Influence
Baader had an important influence on his contemporaries Schelling, Hegel, Goethe, Jacobi,
Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Jean Paul, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Clemens Brentano.10 He
visited Friedrich Schleiermacher several times.11
However, Baader became isolated towards the end of his life, and after his death was for a time
nearly forgotten. His obscurity is partly due to his dispute with Schelling late in life. After
Baaders death, Schelling even tried to prevent publication of Baaders Collected Works.
Nevertheless, Baaders writings continued to exert an influence on later writers such as Max
Scheler,12 A.W. Schlegel, Kierkegaard and Berdyaev.13
Ramon J. Betanzos: Franz von Baaders Philosophy of Love (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1998).
Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zwiespalt.html].
Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zeit.html].
Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Elementar.html].
10
Baumgardt, 5-7. Baader introduced Hegel to the thought of Meister Eckhart (Werke 15, 159;
Baumgardt, 34), and he introduced Schelling to the thought of Boehme, thereby changing
Schellings orientation from pantheism to theism (Baumgardt, 41). But influence does not
necessarily mean agreement; Baader disagreed with Hegel, Schelling, as well as others that he
influenced.
11
Werke 15, 105; Betanzos, 72.
12
Betanzos, 12, 25; Eugne Susini: Franz von Baader et le romantisme mystique (Paris: J. Vrin,
1942), 6 [Susini].
13
Poppe, Afterword to Begrndung, 107-8. In his Concept of Dread, Kierkegaard refers to the
customary power and validity of Baaders ideas. (Baumgardt, 7 and 398). Friedrich Heer
thought that Berdyaevs ideas were based completely on Baader (Betanzos, 294). Berdyaev
4
Baader had an important influence on his contemporaries like Schelling, Hegel and Goethe.
After his death he influenced others like Kierkegaard and the Russian Berdyaev. There was a
tremendous renaissance of interest in Baader in the years following the World War I.14 And that
is of course the time that Jung was developing his psychology. And we know that Jung read
Baader.
IV. Jungs Knowledge of Baader
Deirdre Bairs biography of Jung confirms that Jung read Franz von Baader. She reports that
after 1920, Jung turned to Baader. Jung concluded that Baader had damned little to say. He
later read J.J. von Grres, whom he said was exactly the same.15 Bair expresses the opinion
that none of these writers touched upon the dark substance, the dark side to which Jung had
always been attracted. Bair links Jungs disappointment to his childhood dream of God shitting
on the church. Bair gives the following detail of this dream, which is not included in Jungs
autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
from under [Gods] throne an enormous turd falls upon the sparkling new roof,
shatters it, and breaks the walls of the Cathedral asunder, so big that the roof
collapses under this load (Bair, 34)
Jung had another dream where he was about to enter into ecstasy, opened a door and saw a pile
of manure. So Jungs disappointment with Baader may relate to his idea of evil. If Jung were
looking for confirmation that evil exists in God, he would not find that idea in Baader! We will
examine the problem of evil as it is discussed in Christian theosophy and in Gnosticism, and how
Jung and Baader differ in their idea of evil.
Jung does refer to Baader, but only a couple of times.
(1) Jung refers to Baader in relation to alchemy and hypnotism:
Some day we shall be able to see by what tortuous paths modern psychology has
made its way from the dingy laboratories of the alchemists, via mesmerism and
magnetism (Kerner, Ennemoser, Eschimayer, Baader, Pasavant, and others), to
the philosophical anticipations of Schopenhauer, Carus, and von Hartmann; and
how, from the native soil of everyday experience in Libasult and, still earlier, in
Quimby (the spiritual father of Christian Science), it finally reached Freud
through the teachings of the French hypnotists.16
(2) Jung refers to the influence of Boehme on Baader in relation to androgyny: the original unity
of feminine and masculine (CW 14, 58n). Adam lost this androgyny. Adam was supposed to
bring forth without Eve just as Mary later was a virgin. The creation of Eve was as counterinstitution to help prevent a deeper descent of man.
wrote on Baader. See N.A. Berdyaev: Studies concerning Jacob Boehme online at
[http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1930_349.html].
14
Introduction to Fermenta Cognitionis, tr. Eugne Susini (Paris: Albin, 1985), 9.
15
Deirdre Bair: Jung: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2003), 397 [Bair].
16
C.G. Jung: CW 4, 748. He cites Baaders Werke 7, 229: "He who was born in the Virgin Mary
is the same who had to depart Adam on account of his fall."
5
Those two quotations are important in themselves in showing Baaders influence. But there are
many other similarities between Baader and Jung. We must therefore question Jungs statement
that he found little of relevance in Baader.
It is possible that Baader directly influenced Jung, even where Jung does not specifically
mention him in the text. Jungs books did not go through a peer review process, and he may not
have been scrupulous in acknowledging his sources.
But it is also possible that there were indirect influences and sources that were common to both
Baader and Jung. Baader was so important in reviving interest in Meister Eckhart and Jakob
Boehme. As we shall see in Lecture 3, Jung frequently refers to Eckhart and Boehme, and so
these western mystics are an important common source for Baader and Jung. Baader was also
important in providing some of the formative ideas of Romanticism and its quest for wholeness.
Many people have shown similarities between Jung and Romanticism.
Other common sources include Angelus Silesius, Lazarus Zetzners Theatrum Chemicum (a
compendium of alchemical works), and Justinus Kerner, the Seer of Prevorst.
V. Similarities between Jung and Baader
When I first started reading Baader, I noticed some similarities to Jung. I have since found one
other article making comparisons between Baader and Jung. It is by Hans Grassl.17 Grassl
concentrates on similarities with the idea of quaternity. But there are many more similarities.
Here are some of the similarities, which we will examine in detail:
Supratemporal selfhood
Totality, Center and organism
God-image
Shadow
Unconscious
Introversion and Extraversion
Reconciliation of opposites
Androgyny
Alchemy
Archetypes
Quaternity
Let us look at these similarities in more detail.
17
Hans Grassl: Baaders Lehre vom Quaternar im Vergleich mit der Polaritt Schellings und der
Dialektik Hegels; Mit einem Nachtrag: Baader und C.G. Jung., in Peter Koslowski, ed.: Die
Philosophie, Theologie und Gnosis Franz von Baaders (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1993).
6
A. Supratemporal Selfhood
In Lecture 1, we discussed how Jung regards the Selfhood as supratemporal. The
supratemporality of the Self is also a central theme for Baader. Baader distinguishes this
supratemporality from both the temporality of the world and from the eternity of God. The
supratemporal is therefore in between the temporal and the eternal. Baader has another category,
the infernal, which is below even the temporal. I am not aware of Jungs use of that category.
B. Totality, Center and Organism
In Lecture 1, we saw how Jungs psychology is related to the Philosophy of Totality. The
Philosophy of Totality, as it developed in the 1920s, and the same ideas that we saw in Jung can
be found in Baader:
(1) Totality is more than a sum of its parts
(2) Opposition to mechanical, atomistic view.
(3) The idea of an organic whole
(4) Innerness and meaningfulness
(5) Totality is a center related to a periphery
Baader says that our outer perception is just mechanical addition and subtraction. But inner
perception is dynamic through multiplication, exponential increase, division, and extraction of
roots. The explanations of physics with its dead arithmetic, are a mechanical next to and to and
from each other. But the dynamic is in and out of each other. The mechanical is just the
shadow of the dynamic. You cannot remain with the construction of the outer. What is worse is
to drag the mechanical over to the inner sense.
With respect to the idea of Center and periphery, Baader says that the Center is not identical with
the sum of its Radii (Anal d. Erk, Werke 1, 42). Baader refers to the same quotation that Jung
often uses:
God is a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
Deus est sphaera, cuius centrum ubique, circumfrentia nusquam (Werke 8, 283;
11, 371).
The resting in the Center is what determines the free movement in the periphery.18 Baader
emphasizes that the Center is the source of its temporal members, which all exist in potential in
the Center.19 Baader also speaks of the Center in terms of the Pleroma, or fulfillment.
(Anthropoph., Werke 4, 227). And as we have seen, Pleroma is also an idea emphasized by
Jung. The relation between Center and periphery is that also of Idea and Nature, Ideal and Real,
the one who eats and his food, fire and water, man and wife [Esser und Speise, Feuer und
Wasser, Mann und Weib]. (Sold Verb, Werke 4, 300).
18
Die Ruhe des Centrums bedingt die freie Bewegung in der Peripherie. (Zeitbegr Werke 2,
53).
19
Ausgangspunkt eines Organismus, worin die einzelnen Glieder vorerst noch ungeschieden
(in potentia) liegen. (Geistersch, Werke 4, 214).
7
C. The Self as God-image
As we have seen in Lecture 1, Jung refers to the Self as the God-Image. The idea of the Godimage is enormously important in Baaders philosophy.
(1) The image of God is the deepest mystery in us (Tageb, Werke 11, 61), the soul of our soul
(Werke 12, 283).
(2) The image of God is Idea, Sophia, the Virgin (Spec Dog., Werke 8, 291). The Logos is the
male power (interior) and distinguished from the Word of life, which is female power (exterior).
(3) Jung acknowledges the Upanishads as the source for his idea of the Self. Baader links
Brahmanism with Boehme. He says that the oldest Brahmanic religion has much in common
with Boehme (Fermenta, Werke 2, 301). According to Baader, this original Brahmanic religion
was not pantheistic, but an acknowledgement that something human expressed itself in all
phenomena of nature (J.B. Theol, Werke 3, 361 ff). Elsewhere, Baader says that selfconsciousness is knowing myself in something and knowing something is in me (these are the
same thing) (Fermenta, Werke 2, 76).
(4) We are not yet the image of God, but the seed is created in us (Espr, Werke 12, 347).
(5) Our sinking in God is the giving up of our false selfhood (Werke 12, 346).
(6) Baader sees this God-image in dynamic terms. Just as there is a development in God, so there
is a development in the Self. But these two dynamics must be distinguished. We will discuss this
important distinction in Lecture 3.
D. Shadow
The Shadow is of course one of Jungs main ideas. But references to the shadow are also found
in Baader. He says that light cannot exist except by the shadow. We do not serve the flame well
if we remove the black carbon, nor do we serve the plant well if we take out its subterranean
roots (Werke 1, 66).
Baader refers to phenomena that come and go, without our knowledge or will. They can lift us
up to heaven or throw us into hell: The Spirit as well as the body throws its shadows (Werke 4,
98 ff).
E. Unconscious
Jung was not the discoverer of the unconscious. Baader makes many references to it.
(1) Self-consciousness is not the root (Wurzel) itself, but the first growth (Erstgezeugte, Erste
Gewchste) (ber der Urternar, Werke 7, 35-6).
(2) Spirit [Geist] is conscious; Nature is unconscious. Nature feeds us (Begrndung, Werke 5,
18).
(3) True genius is unconscious, instinctive (Fermenta IV, 12; Werke 2, 294). When we are
detached from idea, the law appears external to us, as something without liberty opposed to my
artistic liberty, which is free of all law. True genius is unconscious, instinctive; this is an
independent activity
(4) Supernaturalism wrongly wants to separate the will from its unconscious drives The
supernaturalists see the coherence between Nature and Spirit (Geist) as contingent. They want to
separate the will from its unconscious drives, whereby the creature outside of all nature becomes
8
pure Intelligence, as Will and a Reason without desires or senses. Morals are divorced from God
and nature, because these are built on the concept of a pure autonomy (Begrndung, Werke 5,
18).
F. Introversion and Extraversion
Jungs first use of these terms is in his 1921 book Psychological Types:
Activity itself, as a fundamental trait of character, can sometimes be introverted; it
is then all directed inwards, developing a lively activity of thought or feeling
behind an outward mask of profound repose. Or else it can be extraverted,
showing itself a vigorous action while behind the scenes there stands a firm
unmoved thought or untroubled feeling (Psychological Types, CW 6, para. 247).
(1) Baader uses the same terms extraversion and introversion, with the same spelling (he writes
this in French):
Les sages rconnoissent cette matrialisation infrieure comme leffet dune
translocation du principe divin ou de lumire par rapport celui de la nature.
Cest a dire par une introversion du principe de la lumire et par une extraversion
de celui de la nature, comme la clarification de la crature (laquelle proprement
proprement nest que son accomplissement) se fait par lExtraversion de la
lumire, laquelle ne peut se raliser que par lintroversion (ou le sacrifice) du
principe naturel. Au reste il faut rmarquer, quun tre actif comme lhomme
nouvre son ame un attirement quautant quil se laisse saisir par cette force
attirante, c..d., quil se rende saisiisable (passif) pour elle, ou pour ainsi dire,
matire, dans laqualle le Principe attirant (le Pre) puisse imprimer sa forme (son
image). (Sur lEucharistie, Werke 7, 6n).
[The sages recognized this inferior materialization as the effect of a translocation
of the divine or light principle with respect to the principle of nature. That is to
say, by an introversion of the principle of light and by an extraversion of the
principle of nature, just as the clarification of the creature (who is properly
nothing but its accomplishment) is accomplished by the extraversion of light,
which cannot realize itself except by introversion (or by sacrifice) of the natural
principle. It must also be said that an active being such as man does not open his
soul to an attraction except insofar as he allows himself to be seized by this
attractive force, that is to say, that he allows himself to be captured (passive) by it,
or in other words, [to become] matter, in which the attracting Principle (the
Father) may may imprint his form (his image).] [my translation]
Baader here contrasts inferior materialization with clarification or superior materialization. The
first is when the principle of light is introverted and the principle of matter is extraverted. The
second is when the principle of light is extraverted and matter is introverted. To understand this,
we need to see how he uses these terms in relation to center and periphery.
(2) Baader uses the terms introversion and extraversion in relation to the ideas of center and
periphery. Extraversion is being the center for something; introversion is the acceptance of the
light of the center. In introversion we accept the light of the center. But the central light that we
accept is an extraverted light. And the acceptance of the center can only take place by what
9
Baader calls the sacrifice of the natural principle. This is done when we just let ourselves be
attracted by attractive force, we are passive, allow ourselves to be seized by it. Such a proper
balance clarifies the creature. As I understand this, introversion is human acceptance of a light
that is given for us as our center; extraversion is our acting as the center for other creatures and
the world around us. When we act as this center for the world, we are imaging God from Whom
we receive our light, and we can only be truly extravertive when we have been truly introvertive.
(3) Baader refers to proper and improper uses of extraversion and introversion (balance and
imbalance). Improper extraversion is where we make the center temporal, instead of opening
ourselves to the supratemporal center. This is an extraversion of nature, instead of the needed
introversion of nature. In other words, nature should seek its center in man as supratemporal.
Not to do so is to seek the periphery at the expense of the center. Recall what we discussed in
Lecture 1 about what Jung says about idols.
(4) Improper introversion is a flight from the periphery, seeking the center at the expense of the
periphery [pietism]. It seems to me that this spiritualistic pietism, the fleeing of the world at the
expense of the periphery, was the world of Jungs father, who was a pastor.
(5) It is beyond the scope of these lectures, but I believe that Baaders use of these terms in this
way greatly clarifies the meaning that Jung gives to these terms. Could we say that in
extraversion, we act as the center of the world that we perceive? And that introversion is our
acceptance of the light from our supratemporal center? And that both need to be in the right
balance? Introversion and extraversion are then not just temporal functions as in a Myers-Briggs
test. They are not just a matter of temporal types, of preferences of behaviour. e.g. a desire of
being alone. But they refer to how we relate to our center. They are attitudes with respect to
center and periphery. We will see this again when we discuss the idea of quaternity.
G. The reconciliation of opposites
Jung believed that mental energy is created through the conflict of opposites. He said, "there is
no energy unless there is a tension of opposites" (Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,
CW, Vol. 7, 63). He called this energy libido.
Jung's last great work Mysterium Coniunctionis was devoted to the alchemical symbol of the
conjunction. The conjunction was a point at which two opposites were joined, were dissolved, to
in turn create a third, a new level of understanding. Jung saw in the conjunction a symbol of the
process of individuation. But this idea of reconciliation of opposites is also in Baader:
(1) There is a polarity in all of existence (Polaritt alles Daseienden. Spec Dogm, Werke 9,
231f). Each polarity has three moments: involution, opposition, subordination (Ferm, Werke 2,
255). There are three principles in man just as in other creatures: the heavenly or Light Principle,
the dark or fiery Nature Principle and the temporal-earthly principle (Spec Dog, Werke 8,100).
At the acme of the opposites there is a depotentiation and a transformation [Depotenzirung and
Umwandelung] (Blitz, Werke 2, 39ff).
(2) The existence of the creature brings with it an inner contradiction and duality. For Baader,
this is due to our fall into temporality. (Blitz, Werke 2, 33: mit der Enstehung (dem Setzen)
der Kreatur is ihr innerer Widerspruch (Zweiheit oder Entzweiung) schon gegeben). The
10
opposition between one and many, light and darkness, joy and fear, organic and anorganic is the
limitation [Bedingung] of all Life (Starr. u. Fliess., Werke 3, 275).
(3) There is a conjunction of the Eternal and the temporal (Segen u fl, Werke 7, 142).
(5) The Pleroma is fulfillment. The soul is fulfillment of the spirit, and the body is the
fulfillment of soul. (Pleroma=Erfllung. Die Seele ist pleroma dem Geist, der Leib der Seele.
Antrhopoph., Werke 4, 227).
(6) The symbolism of the cross. For both Jung and Baader, the cross is related to our experience
of quaternity. Jung refers to the cross as a symbol of the reconciliation of opposites:
The factors which come together in the coniunctio are conceived as opposites,
either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another in love. To
begin with they form a dualism; for instance the opposites are humidum (moist) /
sicum (dry), frigidum (cold) / calidum (warm), superiora (upper, higher) /
inferiora (lower), spiritus-anima (spirit-soul) / corpus (body), coelum (heaven) /
terra (earth), ignis (fire) / aqua (water), bright / dark, agens (active) / patiens
(passive), volatile (volatile, gaseous) / fixum (solid), pretiosum (precious, costly;
also carum , dear) / vile (cheap, common), bonum (good) / malum (evil),
manifestum (open) / occultum (occult; also celatum , hidden), oriens (East) /
occidens (West), vivum (living) / mortuum (dead, inert), masculus (masculine) /
foemina (feminine)., Sol / Luna. Often the polarity is arranged as a quaternio
(quaternity), with the two opposites crossing one another, as for instance the four
elements or the four qualities (moist, dry, cold, warm), or the four directions and
seasons, thus producing the cross as an emblem of the four elements and symbol
of the sublunary physical world. This fourfold Physis, the cross, also appears in
the signs for earth, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter. (M y s t e r i u m
Coniunctionis, CW 14, para. 1).
Baader also refers to the cross as the symbol of union of opposites. There is an androgyny of the
spirit. The feminine element in the soul is vitality. The masculine element gives soul or
plnitude intrieure, and the cross shows the union of the two (Fermenta V, 1; Werke 3, 325).
Baader also relates the cross to Pythagoras and the idea of quaternity:
diese Kreuz meinte schon Pythagoras mit seiner Tetras, wie denn auch das
zahlzeichen 4 Selves bezeichnet, und worber (nemlich uber den Quaternar als
vierte Naturgestalt und Lichtwurzel) J. Bhme die tiefste eingsicht gewonnen hat.
(Spec Dogm, Werke, 8, 261).
We will discuss the idea of quaternity in more detail below.
H. Androgyny
As already mentioned, Jung specifically refers to Baader in relation to the idea of androgyny.
(1) Baader says that Man was originally an androgynous being. The division into the different
sexes was occasioned by the fall (Genesis, Werke 7, 238).
(2) Christ is the restorer of our androgynous nature (Genesis, Werke 7, 238). (3) Our mind has
an originally androgynous nature: i.e., every mind, as such, contains its nature (Terre) within
itself, not outside itself (Werke 4, 194; Betanzos 272).
11
(4) Androgyny of the spirit. The feminine element in the soul is vitality. The masculine element
gives soul or interior plenitude. And the cross shows the union of the two (Fermenta V, 1;
Werke 3, 327).
(5) Love and eros as the relation of two people to something higher that they have in common:
Baader refers to the wonderful alchemy of love (Relig. Phil, Werke 1, 229). Baader wrote
Propositions from the erotic philosophy (Stze aus der erotischen Philosophie).20 Here are
two of those propositions:
#1. Wenn man das Wesen der Liebe mit Recht in das Vereint- und
Ausgeglichensein, in die Vollendung und wechselseitige Ergnzung der
Einzelnen durch ihren Eingang und Subjektion unter ein gemeinschaftlich
Hheres den Eros setzt, denn jede Union kmmt nur in einer Subjektion
zustande
#18. J. Bhme hat nachgewiesen, da und wie, nachdem der Mensch ins Irdische
gelstend und aus seinem jungfrulichen (Gottes-) Bild in das Mannes- und
Weibesbild verstaltet und verbildet ward, ihm doch diese Jungfrau (Sophia oder
himmlische Menschheit) sich wieder ins Lebenslicht als ein in der Nacht
leuchtend Gestirn (Engel oder Guide) einsetzte oder vorstellte, als ihn in und aus
seinem Elend (Fremde) zur verlornen Heimat wieder weisend (Weisheit ist
Weiserin).
In the extasis of love, we achieve a view of unity [Silberblick] through the heavenly Virgin. The
Silberblick, an experience of unity,21 is achieved by our intuition (Anschauen). Ecstasy is also an
anticipation of this integrity (Concerning the Concept of Time, 58, fn 14).
(6) The influence of the idea of androgyny in romanticism:
Baumgardt refers to other sources of this idea of androgyny: androgyny in Philo, Gregory of
Nyssa, Maximus Confessor, Eriugena, Kabbalah, Novalis (Baumgardt 295).
(7) The idea of androgyny in alchemy:
The Hermaphrodite as symbol of wholeness plays a great role in alchemy.22 Jung says:
Biologically, therefore, a man contains female-producing elements, a woman
male-producing elements, a fact of which each, as a rule, is quite unaware.
Certainly there are few men who could or would care to tell us what they would
be like if they were females. Yet all men must have more or less latent female
20
Franz von Baader: Stze aus der erotischen P h i l o s o p h i e , online at

[http://www.anthroposophie.net/bibliothek/religion/mystik/baader/bib_baader_eros.htm].
21
The Silberblick, or experience of unity, is similar to what Stace called extravertive

mysticisma feeling of unity with all of nature.
22
Jolande Jacobi: The Way of Individuation, tr. R.F.C. Hall (New York: Meridian, 1983,
originally published 1965), 150. See also Jolande Jacobi: Complex, Archetype, Symbol in the
Psychology of C.G. Jung (Princeton, 1959), 96, 144-45.
12
components if it is true that the female-forming elements continue to live and
perpetuate themselves throughout the body cells of the entire male organism.23
He continues:
Should you study this world-wide experience with due attention, and regard the
other side as a trait of character, you will produce a picture that shows what I
mean by the anima, the woman in a man, and the animus, the man in a woman.
I. Alchemy
1. Jungs views on alchemy
Alchemy is the attempt to transmute base metals, such as lead, into silver or gold. Alchemists
tried to discover a substance called the philosopher's stone, which would enable such a
transformation.
Sanford L. Drob gives an interesting explanation of how Jung viewed alchemy.24 He cites Jung,
that what the alchemist sees in matter, and understands in his formulas for the transmutation of
metals and the derivation of the prima materia, is chiefly the data of his own unconscious
which he is projecting into it. The alchemists efforts to bring about a union of opposites in the
laboratory and to perform what is spoken of in alchemy as a chymical wedding are understood
by Jung as attempts to forge a unity, e.g., between masculine and feminine, or good and evil
aspects of the psyche. Jung says, The alchemical opus deals in the main not just with chemical
experiments as such, but with something resembling psychic processes expressed in
pseudochemical language.
Jolande Jacobi also gives a good description of Jungs use of alchemical symbols.25 The
alchemical work (or opus) starts with prima materia; using the principle of dissolve and
coagulate, one separates and combines the material of the conscious and unconscious. The
confrontation with shadow represented by the state of blackness or negredo, after division of
prima materia into four parts. The typological dominant function is differentiated; shadow
integrated: corresponds to the crystallization of the ego. This is followed by a second negredo
23
C.G. Jung: The Meaning of Individuation, The Integration of the Personality, tr. Stanley M.
Dell
(New
York:
Farrar
&
Rinehart,
1939).
Online
at
[http://www.jungland.ru/Library/EngMeanInd.htm]. This lecture was later revised and enlarged
as A Study in the Process of Individuation, Mandala Symbolism (Princeton, 1959). See CW,
Vol. 11.
24
Sanford L. Drob: Jung and the Kabbalah, History of Psychology. May, 1999 Vol 2(2), pp.
102-118.http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html [Drob]
25
Jolande Jacobi: The Way of Individuation, tr. R.F.C. Hall (New York: Meridian, 1983,
originally published 1965).
13
stage: descent of the ego into the underworld. After this death, the reascent begins: anima and
animus qualities are made conscious. Distillation or purification follows; what was originally one
is again divided and reunited. Coagulatio can take place; this is analogous to confrontation with
the archetypal figures, the mana-personalities. The opus ends with transmutation of lead into
gold; the birth of philosophers stone, the lapis.
Mark Dotson describes the alchemical process this way:
If a patient is in a state of deep depression, Jung would say that it corresponds to
the alchemical stage of nigredo, or blackness. Just as the prima materia (the
substance being worked on) must be washed and distilled before it is purified, so
also the individual must undergo a process of cleansing and distillation before
achieving wholeness (individuation). The purified state is known as albedo, or
whiteness. The process, according to Jung, usually begins at the nigredo stage,
which is characterized by self-reflection and a state of dissolution. In alchemical
literature, the procedure moves through various stages of distillation and
purification. To Jung, this means that a patient will gradually gain sufficient
knowledge of the unconscious until one's inner life becomes integrated and
balanced (all projections are withdrawn). When this occurs, one enters a state of
great peace and tranquility. Jung claims that this is the pure gold spoken of by the
alchemists.26
2. The development of Jungs ideas of alchemy:
Jung describes the development of these ideas:
Alchemy is not an old hobby of mine; I began a thorough study of the subject
only within the last few years. My reason for making a fairly extensive use of
alchemistic parallels is that in my Psychological practice I have observed quite a
number of actual patients cases which show unmistakable similarities to
alchemistic symbolism. In my next chapter I deal with one of those cases.
Because a psychologist must be particularly careful not to suggest his own
theories to a patient, I wish to point out that none of the cases mentioned were
under my care after I had begun the study of alchemy.
The reason it took me so long to bridge the gulf between Gnosticism and modern
psychology was my profound ignorance of Greek and Latin alchemy and its
symbolism. The little I knew of German alchemistic treatises did not do much to
enlighten me about their abstruse symbolism. At all events, I was unable to make
the connection with what I knew of psychological individuation. That the parallel
dawned upon me at all is due to the visionary dreams contained in the next
chapter. I must confess that it cost me quite a struggle to overcome the prejudice,
which I shared with many others, against the seeming absurdity of alchemy.27
26
Mark L. Dotson: Jung and Alchemy,

[http://members.core.com/~ascensus/docs/jung3.html]
27
Spring,
C.G. Jung: The Meaning of Individuation (see endnote 23 above).
1996,
online
at
14
In 1929, Jung wrote a commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower, which he said was not
only a Taoist text concerned with Chinese Yoga, but is also an alchemical treatise.28 As a result,
he began to collect alchemical writings. Some years later, Jung began to see parallels between
the writings of the alchemists and his own psychological theories. He says, I had stumbled
upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious.29 He said that the
alchemists were not writing in a literal fashion, but in symbols. According to Jung, these symbols
assisted him in understanding process of psychological development:
When I pored over these old texts everything fell into place: the fantasy images,
the empirical material I had gathered . . . and the conclusions I had drawn from it.
I now began to see what these psychic contents meant when seen in historical
perspective.30
But it should be noted that Jung read these texts many years after he had read Baader. And
Baader makes the same use of alchemical symbols.
Centuries before Jung, and even before Baader, Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) was already
reading alchemy psychologically. Silesius says in Cherubinischer Wandersmann:
Ich selbst bin das Metall, der Geist ist Feur und Herd,
Messias die Tinktur, die Leib und Seel verklrt.31
Baader cites this same work (Br., Werke 15, 236, 238), but also makes many other references
to alchemy. Jung was not the first to link alchemy to the development of our psyche.
3. Baaders ideas of alchemy:
As already noted, Jung specifically refers to Baader in relation to alchemy. But did he give
Baader enough credit for these ideas? First, it should be noted how alchemy is linked to the idea
of totality. Jung himself makes this link:
Thus the symbolism of the alchemical process represents a centralising and
unifying instinct which culminates in the production of the self as a new centre of
totality.32
But apart from this general link to the Philosophy of Totality, consider the many specific
references by Baader to alchemy:
(1) Baader refers to alchemy as the divine art; it is determined by the idea that redemption of
the God-image (man) must also lead to the redemption of nature (Euch., Werke 7, 25; Spec.
Dogm., Werke 8, 47n). The possibility of acting as mediators is given in time. Time gives us
28
C.G. Jung: Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower, Psychology and the East
(Princeton, 1978), Foreword, p. 6, and p. 23; CW 13, para. 29.
29
C.G. Jung; Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Anniela Jaff (New York: Vintage Books,
1965), 205.
30
31
Ibid.
Cited by Rufus Jones in introduction to Boehmes Way to Christ (New York: Harper, 1947).
32
C.G. Jung: Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton,
1970), 115.
15
the possibility of conferring a substance on that which does not possess it. (Fermenta I, 3; Werke
2, 153; Susini II 351). It is a freeing from its binding within time. Baader refers this process to
the older teaching of the alchemists. In this way, we can free these beings from the bounds of
their temporal individuality.
(2) Transmutation is the key of Christendom and of the higher physics (alchemy) (Br., Werke
15, 598, 654, 657). The purpose of physics is to make earthly material more divine (Gottfrmig)
so that the prima materia, the Light substance could live in it purely and unmixed.33
(3) Baader cites Paracelcus, that there are three chemical attributes or chemical bases that are
found in each of the four elements: Sulfur, mercury, and salt. (Spec. Dogm., Werke 8, 252, 9,
127).
(4) Baader finds the basic idea of alchemy in Boehmes Signatura rerum (Br., Werke 15, 659).
Alchemy is the art of transforming Gold (the divine substance or the active and higher nature)
from the earthly substances.
(5) The philosophers stone, sought by the alchemists, is the one element dwelling within the
four elements. (Gnadenw., Werke 13, 266)
(6) In his theory of sacrifice, Baader speaks of tinctures or essences in the world, which help man
and ensoul him. Baader distinguishes between tincture and fire. The tincture is light, that makes
essence as against fire, which takes away essence (Studienb., Werke 13, 342, 345).
The white and the red tinctures (the life giving water of the moon and the life-giving blood of the
Son), unite inseparably (S. Tinctur. Opf., Werke 7, 400 fn). He refers to the red fiery lion and
the white lamb (Br., Werke 15, 646). After maturation of the Tincture, God as Alchymicus or
Spagyricus does not throw away the earthenware, but glorifies (verherrlicht) it. (Br., Werke
15, 312 ff).
(7) Verjngung or Rejuvenation: the reintegration of a being in its principle
Cosmic time is a suspension of the eternal. Everything temporal has a beginning and end, and
is fully seen in the nontemporal. Each particular now and here is only seen in the always and
everywhere (als begriffen geschaut). Everything proceeds out of eternity, has its time, and must
make its way through time in order to return to eternity. The return to eternity is the
reintegration of a being in its principle:
Die Reduktion oder Reintegration eines Wesens in seinem Prinzip hiessen na
mlich die alten Chemiker die Verjngung, weil jung ist, was seinem Ursprunge
nahe steht, und alt, was ihm enfernt ist (Elementarbegriffe 537).
[The reduction or reintegration of a being into its principle was referred to as a
rejuvenation by the old alchemists, because whatever stands near to its origin is
young, and whatever is distant from its origin is old].
He refers to this reintegration by the alchemical expression Verjngung. (rejuvenation). There
is either progress or regress in time: one cannot just stand still (Elementarbegriffe, 537, 538).
(8) Baader refers to Hermeticism as the foundation of alchemical wisdom (Tabl, Werke 12, 177).
33
Poppe, Afterword to Begrndung, 122.
16
K. Archetypes
(1) In Elementarbegriffe, Baader refers to the mundum archetypum [archetypal world] as an
emanation (Aziloth). For Baader, the archetypal world is followed by the angelic, sidereal and
elemental worlds. He uses Kabbalistic terminology to distinguish emanations from that which is
created, formed, and made. Support for these distinctions is found in Isaiah 43:7 (for I have
created him for my glory, I have formed him, yea I have made him; KJV translation). So in
addition to the mundum archetypum, there also exist three lower worlds:
the mundum angelicum [angelic world], which was created ( Briah )
the mundum sidereum [sidereal world], which was formed ( Pezirah ), and
the mundum elementarem [elementary world] , which was made ( Asiah )
(2) Man, who appears last, is more closely related to the mundum acrchetypus (the Sophia) than
are the created angels. The mundus archetypus has here the meaning of gloria (doxa) dei [the
Glory of God], or His Shekinah. Therefore, Isaiahs words cover all four worlds, within the
meaning of the Kabbalah.
(3) Archetypes are the Wisdom of God, His Sophia, the fourth in the Quaternity, or His Shekinah
(Glory of God).
(4) Archetypes are ideals, goals of perfection or ends. As we have seen in Lecture 1, one of the
meanings of archetype is goals. But Jung also uses archetype to refer to the past, from
where we came, as in ancestral images.
In Lecture 1, I referred to Ken Wilbers criticism of Jungs confusion between past archetypes
and archetypes as future goals as the pre-trans fallacy. Why are past archetypes not the same as
archetypes in the sense of future goals? My answer is that for Baader, the past is a fallen
reflection of the archetypes. To merely go back to past forms is a regression.
L. Quaternity
1. Quaternity is a central idea for both Baader and Jung
Grassl observes that the idea of quaternity is central to both the work of Jung and of Baader.34
There are some similarities in the ways that Baader and Jung use the idea of quaternity. But as
we shall see, there are also differences.
The issues are complex, and deserve a more extended treatment. But the following comparisons
will give some guidance for the further research that is required on this point.
Grassl says that for Baader, quaternity was a figure of thought taken from neo-Platonic and
alchemical traditions. It is a Pythagorean inheritance that is simply there or given. It is not an
idea that Baader obtained deductively (Grassl 45). Baader circles aground the idea, giving ever
more variations to it.
34
Hans Grassl: Baaders Lehre vom Quaternar im Vergleich mit der Polaritt Schellings und der
Dialektik Hegels; Mit einem Nachtrag: Baader und C.G. Jung., in Peter Koslowski, ed.: Die
Philosophie, Theologie und Gnosis Franz von Baaders (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1993).
17
Baader first developed the idea of quaternity in his ber das pythagorische Quadrat in der
Natur oder die vier Weltgegenden (Pyth. Quadr. Werke 3, 247-268). In a letter to F. Schiller of
August, 1800, Goethe expressed his pleasure in reading it.35 As we shall see in Lecture 3,
Baader finds the idea of the quadrat or quaternity in Jakob Boehme. And so does Jung, who
refers to Boehmes mandalas.
Jung says, It makes an enormous practical difference whether your dominant idea of totality is
three or four. (CW 18, par 1610). He attributes the idea of quaternity to Plato and Pythagoras:
ever since the opening Platos Timaeus (one, too, three but where, my dear
Socrates, is the fourth?) And right up to the Cabiri scene in Faust, the motif of
four as three and one was the ever-recurring preoccupation of Alchemy.36
Jung also refers to Goethes use of the idea of quaternity CW 9, para 425), but seems unaware of
how Goethe was influenced by Baader.
Apart from Pythagoras and Goethe, another common source for the idea of quaternity in Baader
and Jung is Justinus Kerner, the Seer of Prevorst. Kerner is important for the view that images of
quaternity are laden with numinosity or psychical energy. Grassl refers to Jungs 1961 Symbole
und Traumdeutung. This book shows that Jung studied Kerners Bltter aus Prevorst. Kerner
wrote about possession and the occult. He used blots of ink on folded paper in order to
recognize live figures of ghosts, and then he wrote poems about these figures.37
Jung regarded Kerner as a forerunner of clinical psychology. Alchemists were similar to clinical
psychology in their emphasis on the living life experience of the quaternity. Baader was also
interested in Kerners Bltter aus Prevorst (Grassl, 24, 47).
Another common influence is Lazarus Zetzners 17th century work, the Theatrum chemicum. It
is a compendium of alchemical and hermetical writings. Jung refers to it in his 1944 work
Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process.38 One of the references is in the way that one
leads to the four. Eins und es ist zwei, und zwei und es sind drei, und drei und es sind vier und
vier und es sin drei, und drei und es sind zwei und zwei und es ist eins. Jung comments that this
is the Vierteilung (Tetramerie), or division of the One, and the synthesis of the four into One.
Baader also refers frequently to this same work Theatrum chemicum and to the same statement.
(See Grassl 46).
2. Quaternity and Trinity
a) Jungs early questions
The relation between quaternity and trinity has not been sufficiently explored in Jungs writings.
Jung was interested in the doctrine of the Trinity from a very early age. He asked his father, a
pastor, about the doctrine:
35
J.W. v. Goethe: Gedenkausgabe, Vol. 20 (Zurich: Artimis, 1950), 809. Cited by Grassl 31.
36
C.G. Jung: Mandala Symbolism (Princeton, 1959), p. 4, para 715. CW 9, para. 715.
37
See discussion at [http://members.tripod.com/vismath9/ljkocic/artel2.htm].
38
C.G. Jung: Traum und Traumdeutung (Munich, 1990), 240.
18
One day I was leafing through the catechism, hoping to find something besides
the sentimental-sounding and usually incomprehensible as well as uninteresting
expatiations on Lord Jesus. I came across the paragraph on the Trinity, here was
something that challenged my interest; a oneness which was simultaneously a
threeness. This was a problem that fascinated me because of its inner
contradiction. I waited longingly for the moment we would reach this question.
But when we got that far, my father said, "We now come to the Trinity, but we'll
skip that, for I really understand nothing of it myself." I admired my father's
honesty, but on the other hand I was profoundly disappointed.... (Memories,
Dreams, Reflections, 52-53).
One wonders what would have happened if Jungs father had attempted to answer the question
that for Jung was so important.
Later in life, Jung gave a psychological explanation of the Christian dogma of the Trinity. It
represents a symbol for the collective psyche: the Father symbolizes a primitive phase; the Son
an intermediate and reflective phase; and the Spirit a third phase in which one returns to the
original phase, though enriching it through the intermediate reflections.39 But Jung also argued
that Trinity is incomplete, and must be completed as a quaternity? What does he mean? That
there is a center to the Trinity, as in Baaders view? Or that there is a fourth personality to be
added? What is the relation between three and four, between Trinity and quaternity? Let us look
at this in more detail, first examining Baaders views and then Jungs.
b) Baaders idea that the Tetras (four) is prior to the Trias (three)
Baader says that the Tetras (the Quadrat or Quaternity) is earlier than the Trias (triangle) (Br.,
Werke 15, 109). A trinity or triad is also referred to as a Ternar. Examples of Ternars are Fire,
Air and Sun (Light) (Rel Phil, Werke, 1, 299). In the first volume of his Spekulativen
Dogmatik, Baader gives examples of 23 such Ternars. A Ternar or trinity has a center, and that
center is the fourth. Thus, a quaternity is not a series of four, but rather three with a center.40
Baaders symbol for quaternity is a triangle with a dot in the center (Pyth. Quadr. Werke 3,
266).
Baader uses the idea of quaternity to give a different explanation of nature and the four elements.
There are three forces within bodies, penetrated by a fourth power. The fourth power is what
gives it life. Without it, nature would remain at rest. The inner powers are fire, water and earth,
the outer power is air. In alchemical terms, the first three are sulfur, mercury and salt (Werke 8,
252). The outer force works from within. There is a reciprocity of forces. The third element
unifies the first two (contraries). It separates in order to unite. But this third is not the fourth
(Pyth Quadr. Werke 3, 263, 267).
39
Italian newspaper L'Europeo 5 December 1948, The Psychoanalyst Jung Teaches How to
Tame the Devil. Cited by Michael J. Brabazon: Carl Jung and the Trinitarian Self, Quodlibet
Journal 4 (2002), online at [http://www.quodlibet.net/brabazon-jung.shtml]. [Brabazon]
40
See Baaders letter to Jacobi of Feb 8, 1798 (Br., Werke 15, 181f). Baader says that the
philosophies of Kant, Fichte and Schelling have only two sides. They must first be three and
then find the point in the middle, the relation of the active elements to the three passive ones.
19
Similarly, Baader uses quaternity to contrast a mechanical view of man with an organic view. He
says that we have three inborn powers (thinking, willing, and acting), and three attributes or
organs (spirit, soul and body), which are permeated throughout by a fourth power (Spec
Dogmatik, Werke 8, 252). The unity of our powers comes only through organ-ization
(Gliederung), and such organization is only possible out of One Principle. There is a systematic
division of labour of its functions; the central One Principle uses the outer three as its organs.
Such organ-ization cannot be done in the outer sense of juxtaposition, but only in the inner
sense, in the unity of time by Intus susceptionem (Werke 215-16). Just as air penetrates the three
other elements, so what Paul refers to as our spiritual body [Geistleib] penetrates the other three
forces and attributes of our nature. Elsewhere, Baader refers to this spiritual body, our central
inner being, as our heart (Werke 7, 232). Creatures with a self (man and angels) have such a
center (animals do not have such a center). It is the purpose of creatures with a selfhood to raise
up this center to its ground, and to fix it there, thus fulfilling it. Baader refers here to Tauler and
Eckhart (Spec Dog. Werke 8, 131) and to Boehme (Werke 8,134).
Thus, for Baader, quaternity involves both immanent and emanent powers or principles (Grassl
33). The triangle represents the immanent play [Wechselspeil] of the principles. It flows back
into itself. But the fourth element, the spiritual body, gives the inner point of the surrounding
spheres, and is emanent. This central inner point is not to be confused with any duality of
powers in the circumference. This central point is spontaneity.
Baaders idea of quaternity helps to distinguish his philosophy from that of Schelling and Hegel.
He says that Schellings natural philosophy has correctly understood the dualism of nature (its
inner polarity or Zwiespalt). Schellings first principle is that of polarity and dualism; he speaks
of an original dualism [rprunglichen Duplicitt] which arises from an absolute identity (or
One). Schellings idea of the world Soul [Weltseele] remains caught in this viewpoint. But
Baader objects that dualism or polarity only count to two. Baader wants to count to four (Grassl
34; Pyth. Quadr. Werke 3, 249). Instead of two, there is an interaction of three in a Ternar.
Trinity overcomes duality (Werke 1,205; 2,105; 7,159; 12,505; 15,447). And the Ternar is
permeated by a transcendent fourth. Let us look at this in more detail.
For Baader, the idea of trinity is not contradictory. Multiplicity and unity are not polar opposites,
but can only be thought as deriving from a common third. This is a circular kind of thought,
instead of Schellings linear idea of two polar opposites. The members of a trinity have three
oppositions against each other; there is a dynamic relation among the three. But with an inner
fourth point, three further possible oppositions appear (between that fourth point and each
member of the trinity). Quaternity can be thought of as divided in an active Ternar and in a
Recipiens (Spec Dogm Werke 8, 68).
The third is that without which neither of the other two can be thought. The third is thus a kind
of middle [Mitte] of the other two. But middle is not the same as the transcendent center or
Ground, which is the fourth that permeates the entire Ternar. Nor is this opposition of the fourth
to the other three the same as a dualism in the sense of Schellings polarity of only two (Pyth.
Quadr. Werke 3, 267).
Quaternity is also important for Baaders ideas of subject and object. Here he uses a diamond
shape. At the top point, both subject and object are sublated; on the corners of both sides, the
object is in the subject and the subject is in the object; on the bottom point of the diamond,
subject and object are not sublated. He points out four possibilities: opposed reciprocity, in rest,
20
and in the action forcing outwards. But the four can be understood in 3: (1) where both
moments (innerness and outerness) are sublated in each other (at rest) 2) where both are
separated and sublated (active) and 3) where both at the same time unsublated (active). (Spec
Dogm Werke 8, 66).
c) Jungs idea of quaternity as 3 + 1
For Jung, as for Baader, quaternity involves a relation between three and four. There is an
opposition between three and four; threeness or Trinity is incomplete, but fourness is
wholeness. Threeness or trinity denotes polarity, and one triad always presupposes another triad.
(The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, CW 9, paras 425-6). The vacillation between
three and four is a vacillation between the spiritual and the physical (CW 12, para. 31).
This idea that Trinity is related to polarity reminds us of what Baader says about two being
related to duality, and needing a Ternar in order to find a middle that both relate to. The fourth
brings wholeness.
So three needs to be completed by four. The fourth brings wholeness, but the fourth is different
from the other three. Jung says that the oldest representation of this problem is
that of the four sons of Horus, three of whom are occasionally depicted with the
heads of animals and the other with the head of a man. Chronologically this links
up with Ezekiels vision of the four creatures, which then reappear in the attribute
of the four evangelists. Three have animal heads and one a human head (CW 9,
para 425, fn 39).
In The Symbolic Life, he speaks of the empirical quaternary structure in terms of a 3+1
structure (CW 18, paragraphs 1603-4). And he specifically refers to a quaternity with a 3 +1
structure, the One differentiated from the Three (CW 10: 750-51). Jung also refers to an
alchemical diagram showing the Three and the One, the Alchemical Quaternity (CW 12,
para. 29, fig. 235).
We can therefore refer to quaternity as having a 3 + 1 structure. There are three and a fourth
that is different. This is reminiscent of Baaders idea of a triangle with a dot in the centre.
(d) Jungs theory of types
The 3 + 1 structure of quaternity is important for understanding Jungs Ideas of Personality
Types. But first we must distinguish his Theory of Types from the Myers-Briggs view of
personality. Myers-Briggs uses 16 different categories, using 8 different contrasts:
introvertive/extravertive, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. The final
contrast judging/perceiving is not in Jung, but was added by Myers-Briggs. The first contrast
introvertive/extravertive is important for Jung, and we have already discussed it. But it is not
what Jung uses in his idea of quaternity for personality. For that, Jung uses only the two
contrasts intuitive/sensing and thinking/feeling.
Of those four categories, one function is dominant in a personality, two are auxiliary to that
function and only partially differentiated, and the fourth is inferior and not differentiated at all,
but unconscious. Jung illustrates in a diagram how, if the thinking function is dominant, the
function of feeling is wholly unconscious, and the other two functions are partly conscious (CW
12, para. 137, fig. 49). Although three functions are differentiated, only one is successfully
differentiatedthe superior or main function has associated with it 2 partially differentiated
21
auxiliary functions (C W 9 par 426). The inferior function is contaminated with the
unconscious, and thus has the ability to help us bridge the conscious and the unconscious (CW 9
par 582).
Sometimes Jung refers to the three differentiated functions in contrast to the one undifferentiated
one. At other times, he refers to the dominant function, which is the only one that is successfully
differentiated, in contrast to the three partially or wholly unconscious functions. In Flying
saucers, Jung refers to these two ways of looking at a quaternity with a 3 + 1 structure.
the One differentiated from the Three, the one differentiated function
contrasted with the three undifferentiated functions and hence the main function
(or, alternatively the inferior function). The four together form an unfolded
totality symbol, the self in its empirical aspect. (CW 10: 750-51).
In any event, in Jungs theory of types, the fourth element is not on the same level as the other
three. This is something that is not often understood by those who refer to Jungs theory of
personality types. One analyst who did understand that distinction was Marie Louise von
Franz.41
Jungs quaternity of types therefore has a 3 + 1 structure. But is this similar to Baaders view of
quaternity as a Ternar with a center, a triangle with a dot in the center? There is an important
difference in that for Baader, the Center is unique, and never a part of the periphery. In Jungs
case, at least in his theory of personality types, the inferior function can be any one of the four
functions. Thus, a function that is dominant for one person may be inferior for another. Perhaps
this can be reconciled if we regard the fourth not as a supratemporal center, like the Selfhood,
but as a center in the temporal personality. Jung indeed seems to say that that is the case. The
four personality types in the quaternity appear only in the temporal differentiation from the ego,
and do not represent the undifferentiated ego itself. This is evident from the following:
In psychological language we should say that when the unconscious wholeness
becomes manifest, i.e. leaves the unconscious and crosses over into the sphere of
consciousness, one of the four remains behind, held fast by the horror vacui of the
unconscious. There thus rises a triad which .constellates a corresponding triad
in opposition to it. (CW 9 par 426)
The unconscious wholeness or Totality is not the same as the inferior fourth. The fourth is a part
of that original wholeness. But the problem of the fourth and the two triads arises only in the
temporal manifestation of the unconscious wholeness.
The totality appears in quaternary form only when it is not just an unconscious
fact but a conscious and differentiated totality (CW 14, par. 261).
We could therefore argue that a personal type is not a primary quaternity, like Baaders
supratemporal/temporal quaternity, but rather a secondary quaternity that only arises when the
original ego is manifested in temporal consciousness. For Jung does not identify the inferior
function with the selfhood per se. The selfhood, as we saw in Lecture 1, is a totality of
everything, including inferior and dominant functions. Certainly the inferior function is not the
same as the ego.
41
Marie Louise von Franz: Jungs Typology (Woodstock: Spring Publications, 1986).
22
(e) Quaternity and Mandalas
But what about mandalas? Are they not a quaternity? How do they fit in with this theory of a
quaternity as 3 + 1? For do not mandalas have four sides? Jung says that the sacred quaternity
symbolised by the square may actually be none other than a pair of triangles:
If one imagines the quaternity as a square divided into two halves by a diagonal,
one gets two triangles whose apices point in opposite directions. One could
therefore say metaphorically that the wholeness symbolised by the quaternity is
divided into equal halves, it produces two opposing triads. [The Archetypes and
the Collective Unconscious, CW, vol 9, par. 426.]
A quaternity is then made up of two opposing triads, each pointing in opposite directions.
Elsewhere, Jung relates this idea of two triangles to the Star of David symbol (CW 10, para 771).
But here he relates the double triad to the alchemists:
Among the alchemists we can see clearly how the divine Trinity has its
counterpart in a lower chthonic triad (similar to Dantes three-headed devil) (Ibid,
para. 425).
And elsewhere he refers to this as a result of an original pleromatic split:
the doubling and separation of the quaternity into an upper and a lower one,
like the exclusion of the Satans from the heavenly court, points to a metaphysical
split that had already taken place pleromatic split (CW 11, par. 675).
In relation to such double triads, he mentions that there can be an upper triad with evil in the
unconscious, and a lower triad with good in the unconscious. So again we have a triangle with
something unconscious making up a quaternity (The Symbolic Life, CW 18, para. 1604).
The implication seems to be that each of these triads has a fourth that completes it. This is
confirmed elsewhere where he refers to two triads, each completed by a fourth. The first is a
triad of good, completed by a fourth of evil, and the second is a lower triad where 1 is good
and the three are evil (The Symbolic Life, CW 18, para. 1604).
Jung uses symbols of both trinity and quaternity. Michael J. Brabazon refers to the figure of
Mercurius, who is referred to more frequently as a trinity than a quaternity:
Jung's favourite symbol of the collective unconscious was the spirit Mercurius,
the central figure of alchemical experience and speculation. Jung admits that
Mercurius is referred to more times as a trinity than a quaternity, which accords
with the Taoist alchemical, meditative practice of uniting the three golden
flowers. At one point Jung describes him thus: ....his positive aspect relates him
not only to the Holy Spirit, but....also to Christ and, as a triad, even to the
Trinity. (CW 13, par 289) 42
Edinger discovered the same reference to trinities in Jungs descriptions of quaternities:
42
Michael J. Brabazon: Carl Jung and the Trinitarian Self, Quodlibet Journal 4 (2002), online
at [http://www.quodlibet.net/brabazon-jung.shtml].
23
I turned to a collection of mandalas published by Jung [in The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious] and was surprised to find how frequently there was
trinitarian imagery embedded in pictures which had been selected to demonstrate
the quaternity.43
Edinger gives the example of the Tibetan world wheel, a mandala with three animals (cock snake
and pig) in the center, with 6 spokes of the wheel and twelve outer divisions. He cites what Jung
says about this mandala:
The incomplete state of existence is, remarkably enough, expressed by a triadic
system, and the complete (spiritual) state by a tetradic system. The relation
between the incomplete and the complete state therefore corresponds to the
proportion of 3:4 (CW 9, par. 644).
And yet if we regard the center of the mandala as the fourth, then we have a 3 + 1 structure, even
in the triadic center. This is evident from Jungs discussion of another mandala in rotation
around a center. He refers to a mandala in a Gothic window in the cathedral at Paderborn,
showing three hares rotating around a center (CW 9 par. 694, fig. 39).
But again we are faced with the same problem that we saw in discussing the quaternity in
relation to personality types. Does Jung regard this fourth as the totality from which the other
three arise? Or is it merely something that completes the other three in an additive way? If so, the
fourth here is not the same as the Selfhood as totality that we discussed in Lecture 1, and so the
parallel with Baader would not be exact. The idea of an additive completion is not the same as
Baaders view of Totality as the center of a Ternar.
(f) Did Jung change his view of the 3 + 1 structure of quaternities?
It must be pointed out that, although Jung speaks of a quaternity in terms of a 3 + 1 structure, he
inconsistently also seems to speak of a quaternity as four things or aspects alongside each other:
The quatemity is an archetype of almost universal occurrence. It forms the logical
basis for any whole judgment. If one wishes to pass such a judgment, it must have
this fourfold aspect. For instance, if you want to describe the horizon as a whole,
you name the four quarters of heaven. . . . There are always four elements, four
prime qualities, four colours, four castes, four ways of spiritual development, etc.
So, too, there are four aspects of psychological orientation ... In order to orient
ourselves, we must have a function which ascertains that something is there
(sensation); a second function which establishes what is (thinking); a third
function which states whether it suits us or not, whether we wish to accept it or
not (feeling), and a fourth function which indicates where it came from and where
it is going (intuition). When this has been done there is nothing more to say. . . .
The ideal of completeness is the circle or sphere, but its natural minimal division
is a quatemity (CW 11, p. 167, para 246).
In an interesting, although incomplete article, Remo F. Roth refers to this inconsistency in Jung.
He argues that Jung moved from a 3 + 1 structure of quaternity to a view of four without a
center. He says,
43
E. Edinger: Ego and Archetype, (Boston: Shambhala, 1992), 189.
24
The trouble with Jung's preference for the quaternity as a symbol of the Self is the
fact that we never know if it is some sort of a (3+1) structure, as in the concept of
his typology, or if he speaks of a fourfold symmetry, in which all members having
equal rights. As we have seen, in his typology the (3+1) structure serves the
distinction between the "trinity" of the conscious functions and its opposite, the
monistic unconscious one. But in his model of the unconscious' center, the socalled Self, he prefers the quaternity in the shape of a square, which means that all
members are equally weighted. Thus, we can already conclude here that this
ambivalence shows a certain unconsciousness of Jung in relation to the problem
of the fourth.44
In support of this accusation of ambivalence in Jung, Roth refers to several letters from
Wolfgang Pauli, in which Pauli criticizes Jungs idea of quaternity and argues for a
psychophysical monism. Roth argues that the fourfold quaternity represents a neo-Platonic
devaluation of matter (as does the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary). In place of this,
Roth argues for the Hermetic view of quaternity, which is a double triad, the Star of David. The
triangle can seek its unity in the One, which is a union or chemical wedding.
Another argument for the double triad as the better interpretation is given in the article by
Brabazon to which I have already referred. But Brabazon does not deal with the 3 + 1 view of
Trinity and Quaternity.
Both Roth and Brabazon raise issues that I believe are worth pursuing, but are beyond the scope
of this lecture. It does seem to me that the 3 + 1 structure of quaternity is more fruitful than a
fourfold symmetry where all members have equal rights. If a quaternity means nothing more
than four members in a group, we get the strange (and in my opinion, superficial) interpretations
of quaternity such as the view that Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and their two sons are a
quaternity45 or that the four cartoon characters the Teletubbies represent a quaternity.46
In my view, the 3 + 1 structure gives a deeper sense of quaternity, showing the relation between
supratemporal and temporal, and between consciousness and the unconscious. It can also be
interpreted more along the lines of Baaders quaternity, the triangle with a dot in the center. But
I would disagree with Roth (and Pauli) that such a center is to be regarded in a monistic way.47
44
Remo F. Roth: The Return of the World Soul: Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung and the Challenge
of the Unified Psychophysical Reality, [http://www.psychovision.ch/synw/
jungneoplatonismaristotlep1.htm].
45
Maureen B. Roberts claims that Charles, William, Harry and Diana form a quaternity whose
feminine fourth has undoubtedly helped awaken the feminine principle along with its attunement
to feeling in the three males. It is surely significant, for instance, that among the Royals at
Diana's funeral, these three were the only ones to openly cry (A corresponding negative
quaternity was evident in the '3+1' configuration that featured in the car crash that killed Diana
and two of her male companions) [http://www.jungcircle.com/diana.html]
46
Rev. Kenneth M. Kafoed: Teletubbies: A Psychoanalytic Perspective,

[http://members.cox.net/sovpont/teletub.htm]
47
See J. Glenn Friesen: Monism, Dualism, Nondualism: Problems with Vollenhovens

Problem-Historical Method, [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Method.html].
25
(g) Completion of the Trinity by Gods Sophia, Wisdom, Virgin
Both Jung and Baader emphasize the role of Sophia [Gods Wisdom] within the quaternity
(Grassl 48-49).
In Answer to Job (CW 11), Jung speaks of the role of Sophia or Wisdom in Gods self-reflection.
Sophia was with God before time and at the end of time will again be bound with God in the
holy wedding. Sophia completes the Trinity. Jung sometimes refers to this as the Virgin, and for
this reason he believed that it was such an important event when the Catholic Church recognized
the Assumption of Mary. At other times, it seems as if it is the feminine that is the fourth that is
being added to the Trinity, and Jung seems to ignore the idea of Sophia, which is so crucial in
Baaders Christian theosophy. For example, he says that woman, as anima, represents the fourth
inferior function, feminine because associated with the unconscious (CW 12, para. 29).
But again we have the problem of whether Sophia as the fourth is a separate being. Jung
acknowledges that it was a heresy for the church to say that there were four persons in the
Godhead, but it is unclear what his own view is.
Baader also refers to the Virgin as completing the Trinity, but says this Virgin or Wisdom is not
a separate personality in God, but the mirror of God:
Der Spiegel (das Auge), sagt J. Bhme ferner erzeugt das Bild nicht, das in ihm
erffnet wird, sondern er hlt stille dem ihn beschattenden, erffnenden Geist und
er nennt diese Idea darum Jungfrau, weil sie gegen den Ternar willenlos und nicht
per se agens ist, folglich nicht etwa eine 4. Persnlichkeit in Gott. Von dieser
Idea (eigentlich von der von ihr aus-, nicht abgehenden und der Creatur
inwohnenden) sagt J. Bhme ferner, da (Br., Werke 15, 448)
[Further, J. Bhme says that the mirror (the eye) does not generate the image that
is opened in it, but it holds still before the overshadowing opening Spirit, and he
therefore calls this Idea Virgin, since it is without a will before the Ternar and
not per se an agent. Therefore, she is not something like a fourth personality in
God. J. Bhme says further about this Idea (or really of that which issues from
her but does not begin there, and which lives within the creature)]
I suppose that Jungs response is that he would not want to speculate about God or the Trinity,
but only about the God-image, which is psychologically and empirically investigated. If by Godimage, Jung means humanity, then it can make sense to say that there are aspects like the
feminine that need to be integrated. But in relating this to dogmas of the Church, like the
Assumption of Mary, Jung seems to be going well beyond a merely psychological interpretation.
This is even more the case when he refers to the fourth as evil within God.
(h) Quaternity and Evil
A further important distinction from Baader is that Baader distinguishes a quaternity within God
(Godhead as the center of Trinity) and a quaternity within humanity (Heart as center of our body,
spirit and soul). Baader says that if we identify the two quaternities, this will lead to pantheism,
and to finding evil within God. We shall discuss both the issue of pantheism and the issue of evil
in more detail in Lecture 3, where we will also look at Jungs discussion of mandalas in the work
of Jakob Boehme. It is interesting to point out that Jung was aware of the alchemical idea of a
double quaternity (CW 8, par. 539), but he does not seem to have followed the idea, at least not
in the way that Baader did.
26
For now, it is sufficient to point out that Jung is inconsistent with respect to the nature of the
fourth term of the Trinity. As we have seen, Jung refers to Sophia or the Virgin as completing the
Trinity. And yet he sometimes says that it is evil that completes the Trinity. This confusion is
evident in the following quotation:
The medieval philosophers of nature undoubtedly meant earth and woman by the
fourth element. The principle of evil was not openly mentioned, but it appears in
the poisonous quality of the prima materia (primeval matter) and in other
allusions. The quaternity in modern dreams is the product of the unconscious...
[The] unconscious is often personified by the anima, a female figure. Apparently
the symbol of the quaternity issues from her. She would be the matrix of the
quaternity, a theotokos or Mater Dei, just as the earth was understood to be the
Mother of God. But since the woman, as well as evil, is excluded from the Deity
in the dogma of the Trinity, the element of evil would also form a part of the
religious symbol, if the latter should be a quaternity. It needs no particular effort
of imagination to guess the far-reaching spiritual consequence of such a
development.48
Jung is clearly speaking not only of the God-image, but of God Himself, the Deity, containing
evil. And so Jung is breaking his own Kantian principles, and engaging in metaphysical
speculation. We will look at the issue of evil in more detail in Lecture 3. But first we will look
at evil in relation to Gnosticism, and how Jungs psychology relates to that.
VI.
Jung and Gnosticism
A. Gnosis and Knowledge

In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung says: The possibility of a
comparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gave
substance to my psychology (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 205).
(1) Etymology. First, lets look at the word gnosis. The g is silent in English, but not in many
other languages. The word gnosis means knowledge, and in fact is related to our word
knowledge. The Greek root of this word gnosis is gno. It is transformed to kno in
knowledge. The k is silent. In other forms of this word, we still pronounce the g as in
ignorance. Or in acknowledge. cognizance. incognito, recognize cognition. Other
derivatives of the word are: canny, uncanny [meaning unknowable], cunning [someone with
powers]
The word gnosis is related to the Sanskrit word jana. That is one of the paths of liberation
in Hindu thought, for jana is a saving knowledge, especially knowledge based on meditation. It
relates to an experiential knowledge that our selfhood and the reality of God or Brahman are one.
(Tat tvam asi. That art thou).
48
C.G. Jung: Psychology and Religion, (Yale University Press, 1938), 76-77. This was originally
given as the Terry Lectures at Yale in 1937. In 1940, Jung revised it, and the revised version is
found in CW 11.
27
(2) Gnosis is an experiential, transforming knowledge. It is a knowledge that itself saves. We
are not talking about logical propositions that we have to believe, but of an experience that
liberates us. Such an experience is not to be seen as a subjective, individualistic experience. For
participation in our selfhood is not individualistic. As discussed in Lecture 1, Jung distinguishes
between our individual ego and our Selfhood as supra-individual totality. So the experience is
one of going beyond our individualistic ego to find our true, transpersonal self. It is a
transforming knowledge.
Experiencing the self means knowing all there is to know about yourself, your life, your destiny,
your meaning, and the meaning of life in general. Quispel said in his 1951 work that Gnosticism
expresses a specific religious experience, which then manifests itself in myth or ritual. For Jung
what was important was the experience of fullness
In his 1959 BBC Interview by John Freeman, Jung expressed just this kind of experiential
knowledge:
Freeman:
Jung:
Freeman:
Jung:
Freeman:
Jung:
And did he make you attend church regularly?

Always, that was quite natural. Everybody went to the church on
Sunday.
And did you believe in God?
Oh yes.
Do you now believe in God?
Yes. Now? [long pause] Difficult to answer. I k n o w . I
needntI dont need to believe. I know.49
There was such a large response to this interview that Jung felt he had to clarify what he had
said. He wrote a letter to The Listener, which was published on January 21, 1960. Here are some
excerpts from that clarification:
I am entirely based upon Christian concepts. I only try to escape their
internal contradictions
I did not say in the broadcast, 'There is a God.' I said 'I do not need to believe
in God; I know.' Which does not mean: I do know a certain God (Zeus, Jahwe,
Allah, the Trinitarian God, etc.) but rather: I do know that I am obviously
confronted with a factor unknown in itself, which I call 'God' in consensu
omnium
This is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path
violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and
intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.
(3) Gnosis is an esoteric or secret knowledge, such as secret revelations of Christ or the
apostles. But secret in what sense? Is it secret in the sense of deliberately kept from others, or
is it secret in the sense that unless one experiences the truth, one cannot understand it? It is
sometimes a claim to have knowledge of the entire visible and invisible world. This is known
only to the elite initiates or gnostikoi.
49
The website of the Jung Society of Atlanta contains an audio recording of this part of the
interview [http://www.jungatlanta.com/audio.html].
28
(4) Gnosticism is a heretical movement within Christianity. The main representatives of that
movement were Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion.
(5) A broader view of Gnosticism is that it includes non-Christian traditions such as
Hermeticism, or the traditions that influenced neo-Platonism.
B. Jungs visions and the Seven Sermons to the Dead
Jungs interest in Gnosticism goes back to at least 1912, when he told Freud about the Gnostic
idea of Sophia. Thus, his interest in Gnosticism was prior to his reading of Baader. This is
interesting, because Baaders theosophy is distinct from Gnosticism50 and Baader may have
influenced Jung to move from a Gnostic to a more theosophical position. We will look at this
later when we discuss Christian theosophy and how Jungs psychology is not really Gnostic.
Beginning in 1914, Jung painted images that he recorded in the Red Book (not yet published,
although Psychological Types was written on the basis of 30 pages of material from the Red
Book). These images were based on visions he had at the time. Jung first had a vision of a
female. He remembered a female voice speaking quietly, but with authority. She referred to
Jungs work and said, That is art. This made him angry, because he thought he was
constructing an empirical science (Bair, 291).
Later in the Protocols (which eventually became Memories, Dreams, Reflections) Jung identified
the female voice as belonging to his patient Maria Moltzer. He thought the patient was inside of
him. Then her voice was taken over by that of a male, Elias. Finally, there was a third separate
male voicethat of Philemon, an old man of simply superior knowledge. When the female
voice returned, he called her Salome.
A. Philemon
Jung painted Philemon with wings on his back, against a background of a brilliant blue sky.
Where did Jung get this image of Philemon? Philemon and his wife Baucis are a couple from
Greek mythology. They offered refuge to Zeus and Hermes, not knowing them to be gods.
Baucis was about to sacrifice her last goose for them, and then the gods made themselves known,
the humble cottage was changed into a temple, and Zeus made them guardians of his temple until
they died. Philemon became an oak tree and his wife a linden tree. Jung relates this
mythological tale, in its Roman form, in Psychology and Alchemy (par 561) as an illustration of
the folly of the Nietzsche-like drive for superhuman power (ego inflation):
Philemon also appears as a character in Goethes Faust. In his urge for superhuman power, Faust
brings about the murder (by Mephistopheles) of Philemon and Baucis.
Jung believed that a special journal was necessary for the language metaphors of Philemon.
Until he wrote Seven Sermons to the Dead, Jung recorded what Philemon told him in the Red
Book (Bair, 292). Shortly before 1920, Jung concluded that Philemon was a Gnostic because
Philemon had esoteric knowledge of spiritual things (Bair 396).
50
See Peter Koslowski: Philosophien der Offenbarung: Antiker Gnostizismus, Franz von
Baader, Schclling (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schningh, 2001).
29
Later that year, Jung dreamt that he was locked in the seventeenth century and could not get out;
he realized that Gnosticism was not relevant because it was all still too far away. Bair says he
could find no intellectual satisfaction in the Gnostic idea that a godhead was responsible for
creating the world, because there was simply too much detail lacking or left unexplained. He
reread scholars who wrote about early religions and various mythologies.
B. Basilides
Jungs Seven Sermons to the Dead purport to be written by Basilides, and written in Alexandria.
So we need to know something about Basilides. He lived in Alexandria in the second century,
and is the oldest Gnostic thinker that we know of. Jungs knowledge of Basilides was based on
the Philosophumena, written by Hippolytus (one of the church fathers). A very different account
is given by Irenaeus, another church father. Although most scholars regard the version in
Irenaeus as more original, recent scholarship would tend favour Hippolytus, the version relied on
by Jung.51
Quispel says that Basilides was a mystic.52 But it is difficult to determine the exact nature of his
teachings. Was he a monist? A dualist?
Basilides speaks of two eternal principles, light and darkness. He divides being into the world
(cosmos) and a transcendent world. He refers to a time before creation, and attempts to introduce
the idea of creatio ex nihilo into gnosis.
His view of the world is that there is a zone of pneuma, a zone of ether and finally a zone of air,
beneath which is the earth. The pneuma is at the same time the Holy Ghost, the ninth sphere
beyond the fixed heavens. It is the highest part of the perceptible world. There are four divine
intellectual entities: the godhead, the total intellect, the intellect of the world, and the intellect of
man.
The Gnostic God is nothingness; it is beyond thought and will; it is unconscious, containing
within it the future universe in a state of unconsciousness. In this Pleroma, thinking and being
cease, because the eternal is without qualities. Man by himself cannot know God; only Christ
reveals the unknown God. Man is already the son of God but does not know it.
There is an antithesis between pneuma (spirit) and psyche (soul): pneuma feels nostalgia for the
transcendent world; psyche remains by nature in this world. It is the job of spirit to perfect the
soul. But the spiritual ascent of the spirit (pneuma) to God is also not possible unless soul frees
itself from matter by asceticism. He therefore teaches a mystic ascent, the freedom of spirit from
the visible world.
C. Abraxas
In 1891, Albrecht Dieterich published a work Abraxas, supreme God of the Gnostics in whom all
opposites and partial realities meet.53 Jung was aware of Dieterichs work.
51
Abraham P. Bos: Basilides as an Aristotelianizing Gnostic (Brill, 2000). Abraham P. Bos:

De Gnosticus Basilides en zijn theologie over de levensfasen van de kosmos, Philosophia
Reformata 70 (2005) 41-63.
52
Gilles Quispel: Gnostic Man: The Doctrine of Basilides, in The Mystic Vision, ed. Joseph
Campbell (Princeton, 1968). This is from the 1948 Eranos lectures.
30
In the Seven Sermons to the Dead Jung, through Basilides, reveals Abraxas to be the true and
ultimate God. Abraxas combines Jesus and Satan, good and evil all in one. This is why Jung
held that Light is followed by shadow, the other side of the Creator.[Memories, Dreams,
Reflections, 328]
Hermann Hesse, who was influenced by Jung, later refers to Abraxas in his book Demian.
Abraxas has a human body, with the head of a rooster and legs like serpents. His hands hands
hold a shield and a whip. The whip is inscribed with the name IAO. The sun and moon shine
overhead. Hoeller suggests that the rooster symbolizes wakefulness, the human torso suggests
logos, and the legs like snakes suggest prudence.
Abraxas is still a being, since he is differentiated from the Pleroma. Hoeller says that if the
Pleroma were capable of having a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation, and that for Jung,
Abraxas was the undifferentiated psychic energy that he later espoused in his Symbols of
Transformation (Hoeller, 96). In Abraxas, both light and darkness are united.
Let us look at Jungs Seven Sermons to the Dead in more detail.
D. The Seven Sermons to the Dead
Later, in 1916, Jung wrote the Seven Sermons to the Dead. The book purports to be by Basilides.
Seven Sermons to the Dead was included in German edition of Memories, Dreams, Reflections,
but not in the English translation. Bair 297 Writing the Red Book and the Seven Sermons
dispelled ghosts from the Jung family household (Bair, 297).
Here is a summary of the Seven Sermons to the Dead. This summary relies to a large extent on
Bairs book.
Sermon 1: the dead [the spiritually dead?] return from Jerusalem without having found the
salvation and peace of mind they had been seeking. They ask the narrator (Basilides) for help. He
begins with the concept of nothingness and expands it into a discussion of the Pleroma, by
which he means the totality of all the qualities found in a supreme being. There is a meditation
on individuation: becoming integrated and whole, which Basilides describes as the essence
of the creature. Jungs technique of active imagination is already evident, as are ideas of the
personal and collective (suprapersonal) unconscious.
In this sermon, Basilides says that the natural striving of the creature tends towards
distinctiveness; it fights against sameness. This is called principium individuationis. But we
are to strive not for difference, but for our own being. The creature must resist both reintegration
in the Pleroma and total separation in one-sided distinctiveness. The qualities of the Pleroma are
the pairs of opposites. In us the Pleroma has been divided in two. The last paragraph of Sermon 1
emphasizes the importance of differentiation and sameness at the same time [we do not lose our
ego, just subordinate it?]
53
Stephen A. Hoeller: The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Wheaton: Quest,
1982), 92 [Hoeller].
31
That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as you
know these, but strive after your true nature.
Sermon 2: questions whether God is dead. It speaks of the Gnostic God Abraxas, described in
Sermon 3 as hard to Know.
Sermons 4 and 5 refer to multiple gods, the Tree of Life and the one god who gives unity through
communion. They also refer to aspects of anima and animus, terms that Jung was later to
develop.
Sermon 6: the daemon of sexuality approacheth from the shadows. This is the unveiled anima
and animus.
Sermon 7: man becomes a united entity in his quest for salvation. There is a final image that
rejects the flaming spectacle of Abraxas and embraces a single god who will lead to ultimate
redemption.
In the Seven Sermons to the Dead, Jung wanted to show the transition from antiquity, with its
multiple gods to Christianity, with its one God. But the Seven Sermons is more than a
monotheistic rejection of multiple gods. It is a guidebook for individuation and peaceful
acceptance of the collective unconscious as Jung understood those ideas at that time. But does
that mean that Jungs ideas are themselves Gnostic? Lets look at some characteristics of
Gnosticism.
E. Some characteristics of Gnosticism
Jungs interest in Gnosticism is undeniable. Jung was important in publishing the Jung Codex,
part of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. Jung said that there were two main representatives of the
Gnostic tradition: Jewish Kabbalah and philosophical alchemy.
But Gnosticism is a collection of themes, only some of which apply to Jung:
1. The goal of Gnosticism is to escape from temporal world, not to accomplish something in it.
As we saw in Lecture 1, Jung believes that individuation involves a relation to the supratemporal
selfhood. But Jung does not advocate escape from the world. Jung emphasizes the importance of
relating the temporal world to the Self, not escaping from the temporal world.
2. In Gnosticism, time is cyclical. There is no linear notion of continuous progress. One must
make an effort to negate time. Gnosticism has the related idea of reincarnation: we are
condemned to be reborn. The only reference in Jung that I am aware of that might refer to
reincarnation is in his Lectures on Kundalini, where he speaks of the importance to be born, to
realize yourself. Jung says that otherwise you must simply be thrown back into the melting pot
and be born again.54
3. For Gnosticism, the evil world was not created by God but by an inferior being.
Is there an idea of a demiurge in Jung? Hoeller says that in Jung, the alienated human ego
functions as this demiurge. It has pulled away from wholeness. The ego proclaims that there is
no other God than itself and that it alone determines existence. But Hoellers interpretation
54
C.G. Jung: the Psychology of Kundalini Yoga (Princeton, 1996), 28. [Kundalini]
32
seems to be a total devaluation of the ego, and I dont think that that is a correct interpretation of
Jung. Hoeller compares this idea to Buddhism. But if we look at Jungs dialogue with the
Buddhist Hisamatsu, we see that Jung disagrees with that idea.55
It is true that Jung, at least in these early writings, differentiates God from the Pleroma. And Jung
does oppose the God of Christ to Yahweh.56
4. Gnosticism emphasizes opposites (binaries or Syzygies). An example is male and female,
which are wholeness rent in two (Hoeller, 74). This is a feature of Jungs work, although other
influences may also be involved, such as Nicholas of Cusa, or Baaders theosophy, emphasizing
androgyny. For there is a difference from Gnosticism, which has no concept of the uniting of
opposites in relation to the visible world and Gods relation to it. For Gnosticism, the uniting is
only beyond this world.
5. Gnosticism is a revolt against science; we do not see God in the world. But Jung emphasizes
the importance of science, and strives to show that his work is scientific and empirical.
6. For Gnosticism, the universe is hierarchical, descending by degrees from celestial beings to
earthly realities. There is some hierarchy in Jung, particularly in the idea that archetypes pull us
higher towards the higher Self. But again, the idea of hierarchy is not restricted to Gnosticism.
7. Gnostics believe that our true self is chained to the world of flesh as a result of a fall. Jung
certainly speaks of our true self. But the idea of being chained to the world of flesh implies a
devaluation of the temporal world that I do not find in Jung. Jung says he got the idea of the self
from the Upanishads, but he also refers to Gnostics in support:
"Self-recollection is a gathering together of the self. It is in this sense that we
have to understand the instructions which Monoimos gives to Theophrastus:
Seek him [God] from out thyself, and learn who it is that taketh possession of
everything in thee, saying: my god, my spirit [nous], my understanding, my
soul, my body; and learn whence is sorrow and joy, and love and hate, and
waking though one would not, and sleeping though one would not, and getting
angry though one would not, and failing in love though one would not. And if
thou shouldst closely investigate these things, thou wilt find Him in thyself, the
One and the Many, like to that little point, for it is from thee that he hath his
origin. [Hippolytus, Elenchos, VIII, 15.]
8. Gnostics seek the divine spark within us. Only our nous is saved and we return to the
Pleroma. In Kundalini, Jung does say something similar: The Self is the Pleroma from which
we came and to which we return (Kundalini, 28). But in Jung, there is an emphasis on
transformation, and not just a return to a previous identity. This idea of transformation is
something that is not found in Gnosticism.
55
Daniel J. Meckel and Robert L. Moore (ed.): Self and Liberation: The Jung/Buddhism
Dialogue (Paulist Press, 1992).
56
See especially Answer to Job. Jung interprets Gnosticism and Christianity as a transition from
the jealous creator God Jahwe to the Salvation God of love
33
9. In Gnosticism, we re-enact the atemporal myths. Certainly, Jung emphasizes the importance of
myth.
10. Gnosticism has a preoccupation with evil. And that is something that also preoccupied Jung.
11. For Gnosticism, liberation from the world is also liberation from laws and rules of the lesser
demiurge. This leads to antinomianism and libertarianism. Wholeness is better than goodness.
There is some affinity here with Jung:
Although in crude form, we find in Gnosticism what was lacking in the centuries
that followed: a belief in the efficacy of individual revelation and individual
knowledge. This belief was rooted in the proud feeling of mans affinity with the
gods, subject to no human law, and so overmastering that it may even subdue the
gods by the sheer power of Gnosis. In Gnosis are to be found the beginnings of
the path that led to the intuitions of German mysticism, so important
psychologically, which came to flower at the time of which we are speaking.57
And yet, as we have seen, Jung also says that liberation requires that we adhere to standards
Jung does refer to Gnosticism, but he emphasized the Christian nature of his Gnosticism. Miguel
Serrano asked Jung at the end of his life about the Gnostic ring that he wore. Jung replied,
It is Egyptian. Here the serpent is carved which symbolizes Christ. Above it, the
face of a woman; below the number 8, which is a symbol of the infinite, of the
Labyrinth, and of the Road to the Unconscious. I have changed one or two things
on the ring so that the symbol will be Christian.58
Jung said that what he had tried to do was to show to the Christian what the Redeemer and the
resurrection really means.
If Jungs psychology differs so much from Gnosticism, how are we to account for the
differences? I suggest that we need to look at Christian Kabbalah and Christian theosophy. We
will look at each of them in turn.
VIII. Kabbalah
A. Kabbalah is not other-worldly like Gnosticism
Although Jung uses Gnostic terminology, most of his ideas are not really Gnostic. Jung says that
the most important thing that someone can do is to become individualized. But for Jung,
becoming individualized means entering fully into the diversity of the world while entering into
the unity of the Self. It does not mean the Gnostic divorce from outer reality.
The influence of Baaders and Boehmes Christian theosophy may be one reason why Jungs
ideas are not Gnostic. Another influence that prevented Jung from adopting Gnostic ideas was
that of Kabbalah (both Jewish and Christian Kabbalah). It is beyond the scope of this lecture to
discuss the history of Kabbalah from its earliest beginnings, the possible influence of neo57
Psychological Types, CW 6, para 409:
58
Miguel Serrano: C.G. Jung and Herman Hesse, (New York: Schocken, 1966), 101.
34
Platonism (via Islamic sources), Kabbalahs influence upon alchemy and the development of
Christian Kabbalah and the later Lurianic Kabbalah. With respect to Christian Kabbalah, it
should be pointed out that Boehme and Baader both had some knowledge of Kabbalah59 and
used these ideas in a Christian sense, as did other writers such as Pico della Mirandola,
Johannnes Reuchlin, and Knorr von Rosenroth. The following diagram shows a specifically
Christian appropriation of the Kabbalistic ideas of Ein-Soph and the Sephiroth:
(Woodcut reproduced in Franois Secret: Les Kabbalistes Chrtiens de la Renaissance (Paris:
Dunod, 1964). The woodcut bears two inscriptions:
1. In principio erat verbum [In the beginning was the Word]
2. Qui expansis in cruce manibus, traxisti omnia ad te saecula. [Lord, you who
have stretched out your hands on the cross, and have drawn the whole world to
you]. The reference is to John 12:32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all [men] unto me.
For other information on Christian Kabbalah, see Joseph Leon Blau: The Christian
Interpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 1944; Kennicott
Press, 1965); Chaim Wirszubski: Pico della Mirandolas Encounter with Jewish mysticism
(Harvard university Press, 1989).
The main point here is to contrast Kabbalah with Gnosticism. Whereas Gnosticism seeks to flee
from temporal reality, Kabbalah is not other-worldly. Kabbalah emphasizes the importance of
collecting the divine sparks in the world. It also has the idea of Tikkun, the restoration of the
world. That is quite different from a flight from temporal reality. For Jung and the alchemists,
the world the ego are necessary and beneficial. Both God and humankind must pass through the
world and redeem it in order to realize their full essence. Drob refers to Segal: far from being the
superfluous, harmful and lamentable conditions envisioned by the Gnostics, are actually
necessary, beneficial and laudable.60
In Lecture 1, we saw how the idea of Totality was important for Jung. Lurianic Kabbalah
emphasizes the same idea in how it views God. According to Scholem, Luria adopted the earlier
Kabbalistic term Ein-sof to designate the primal, all-encompassing Infinite God. This God,
according to the Kabbalists, was the totality of being and also the union of opposites. Even the
idea that God encompasses both good and evil is not specifically Gnostic, but can be found in
Kabbalahs idea of the left and right side of God. Quispel says that the idea that the godhead
encompasses both good and evil is not Gnostic at all.61
59
Baader refers to En soph (Werke 2, 247), the Schechinah (Werke 2, 43) the Zimzum (divine
self-contraction) (Werke 8, 77; 9, 176); ten Sephirot (Werke 3, 385; 7, 192; 14, 32); Adam
Kadmon, original Man (Werke 3, 405; 7, 226).
60
Sanford Drob, citing R. A. Segal: The Gnostic Jung (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992) [Segal].
61
Drob, citing Segal, 236.
35
Sanford Drob believes that Jung is more Kabbalistic than he is Gnostic, and that he is
alchemical mainly because the alchemists borrowed from and relied upon Kabbalistic ideas.
Two of the alchemists that Jung quotes most frequently, Knorr and Khunrath, also wrote on the
Kabbalah. Drob argues that Jung read Gnosticism in such a manner as to transform a radical
anti-cosmic, anti-individualistic doctrine into a world-affirming basis for an individual
psychology. Drob says,
In short, by providing a "this-worldly" interpretation of Gnosticism, and a
spiritual-psychological interpretation of alchemy, Jung arrived at a view which
was in many ways Kabbalistic in spirit. Indeed, Jung, in his interpretation of
alchemy, succeeded remarkably in extracting the Kabbalistic gold which lay
buried in the alchemists texts and methods (to use an alchemical metaphor). His
work can then be profitably understood as falling in the tradition of those thinkers
such as Pico della Mirandola, Johannnes Reuchlin (1983), and Knorr von
Rosenroth who created a distinctively Christian Kabbalah (Scholem, 1974, [pp.
196-201]).62
and
Jung regards the pleroma, within which is contained the undifferentiated unity of
all opposites and contradictions, as nothing but the primal unconscious from
which the human personality will emerge. The "demiurge", whom the Gnostics
disparaged as being ignorant of its pleromatic origins, represents the conscious,
rational ego, which in its arrogance believes that it too is both the creator and
master of the human personality. The spark, or scintilla, which is placed in the
human soul, represents the possibility of the psyche's reunification with the
unconscious, and the primal anthropos (Adam Kadmon or Christ), which is
related to this spark, is symbolic of the "Self", the achieved unification of a
conscious, individuated personality with the full range of oppositions and
archetypes in the unconscious mind. Our aim, Jung tells us, is to create a
wider personality whose centre of gravity does not necessarily coincide with the
ego," but rather "in the hypothetical point between conscious and unconscious
(Jung, 1929/1968, p. 45). Jung sees in the Gnostic (and Kabbalistic) symbol of
Primordial Man a symbol of the goal of his own analytical psychology. (Ibid).
B. Jungs references to Kabbalah:
Jung discovered Lurianic Kabbalah in 1954, around that he was writing Mysterium
Coniunctionis. In a letter to James Kirsch dated Feb. 16, 1974, Jung refers to how Lurianic
Kabbalah seeks to restore the world:
The Jew has the advantage of having long since anticipated the development of
consciousness in his own spiritual history. By this I mean the Lurianic stage of the
Kabbalah, the breaking of the vessels and man's help in restoring them. Here the
thought emerges for the first time that man must help God to repair the damage
62
Sanford L. Drob: Jung and the Kabbalah, History of Psychology. May, 1999 Vol 2(2), pp.
102-118.[http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html]
36
wrought by creation. For the first time man's cosmic responsibility is
acknowledged.63
Mysterium Coniunctionis itself contains many alchemical symbols that were imported into
alchemy from the Kabbalah. These symbols include that of Adam Kadmon, the divine spark in
humanity, the union of the cosmic King and Queen, and the idea of good and evil as both
deriving from God.
Jung himself notes the connection between Kabbalah and alchemy. He makes numerous
references to Kabbalah in Mysteriuim Coniunctionis. There he says:
Directly or indirectly, the Cabala was assimilated into alchemy. Relationships
must have existed between them at a very early date, though it is difficult to trace
them in the sources. (CW 14, para. 19).
Drob comments on this link between alchemy and Kabbalah:
Jung points out that by the end of the 16th century the alchemists began making
direct quotations from the Zohar. For example, he provides a quotation from
Blasius Vigenerus (1523-96) comparing the feminine sefirah Malchut with the
moon turning its face from the intelligible things of heaven (Jung, 1955-6/1963, p.
24). He points to a number of alchemists, including Khunrath and Dorn who made
extensive use of the Kabbalistic notion of Adam Kadmon as early as the 16th
century, and informs us that works by Reuchlin (De Arte Kabalistica, 1517) and
Mirandola had made the Kabbalah accessible to non-Jews at that time (Jung,
1955-6/1963, see also Reuchlin, 1983). Both Vigenerus and Knorr Von
Rosenroth, Jung informs us, attempted to relate the alchemical notion of the lapis
or philosopher_s stone to passages in the Zohar which interpret biblical verses
(Job 38:6, Isaiah, 28:16, Genesis 28:22) as making reference to a stone with
essential, divine and transformative powers (Jung, 1955-6/1963). He also notes
that Paracelsus had introduced the sapphire as an "arcanum" into alchemy from
the Kabbalah.
C. Jungs Kabbalistic vision.
Jung had a vision that he described as the most tremendous and "individuating" experience of his
life. He found himself in the garden of pomegranates. This is an allusion to a Kabbalistic work
of that name by Moses Cordovero. In the vision, Jung identified himself with the union of
Tifereth and Malchuth as it is described in the Kabbalah. Jung describes these visions as
occurring in a state of wakeful ecstasy, as though I were floating in space, as though I were safe
in the womb of the universe. He further describes his experience as one of indescribable
"eternal bliss." He reports:
Everything around me seemed enchanted. At this hour of the night the nurse
brought me some food she had warmed... For a time it seemed to me that she was
an old Jewish woman, much older than she actually was, and that she was
preparing ritual kosher dishes for me. When I looked at her, she seemed to have a
blue halo around her head. I myself was, so it seemed, in the Pardes Rimmonim,
63
C.G. Jung: Letters, 1973, Vol. 2, p. 155, cited by Drob.
37
the garden of pomegranates, and the wedding of Tifereth with Malchuth was
taking place. Or else I was Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, whose wedding in the
afterlife was being celebrated. It was the mystic marriage as it appears in the
Cabbalistic tradition. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. I could only think
continually, "Now this is the garden of pomegranates! Now this is the marriage of
Malchuth with Tifereth!" I do not know exactly what part I played in it. At
bottom it was I myself: I was the marriage. And my beatitude was that of a
blissful wedding. (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 294)
Jung says that the vision changed and that what followed was the Marriage of the Lamb in
Jerusalem, with angels and light. I myself was the marriage of the lamb. In a final image Jung
finds himself in a classical amphitheater situated in a landscape of a verdant chain of hills. Men
and woman dancers came on-stage, and upon a flower-decked couch All-father Zeus
consummated the mystic marriage, as it is described in the Iliad (p. 294). As a result of these
experiences, Jung developed the impression that this life is but a segment of existence. During
the visions, past, present and future fused into one. According to Jung, the visions and
experiences were utterly real; there was nothing subjective about them (p. 295).
VII.
Theosophy is not the same as Gnosticism
Like Kabbalah, Christian theosophy emphasizes our connection to God while at the same time
emphasizing the importance of restoring and redeeming the temporal world. Christian theosophy
is therefore very different from Gnosticism. And it is also very different from some other kinds
of theosophy.
A. Jungs references to theosophy
Jung opposes a theosophy that turns its back on science and gets carried away by Eastern
occultism (Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower CW 13, par. 3). Jung says that the
mistake of theosophy is to confuse the personal with the cosmic, the individual light-spark with
the divine light. If we do this, we undergo a tremendous inflation (Kundalini, 68). This is
interesting, since Gnosticism does confuse the individual light-spark with the divine light in a
pantheistic way. Christian theosophy does not make this confusion. We will examine this in
more detail when we look at Boehme in Lecture 3.
Jung says that theosophy is content with metaphysical ideas instead of experience. While that
may be true of some kinds of theosophy, it is not true of Baaders Christian theosophy, which
emphasizes the importance of experience from out of our selfhood.
B. Baaders Christian theosophy
I have already pointed out the many similarities between Baaders ideas and those of Jung.
Baader is a theosophist. But he is not a theosophist in the sense of Madame Blavatskys
occultism. Scholem says that theosophy should not be understood in the sense of Madame
Blavatskys later movement of that name.
38
Theosophy postulates a kind of divine emanation whereby God, abandoning his
self-contained repose, awakens to mysterious life; further, it maintains that the
mysteries of creation reflect the pulsation of this divine life.64
Baaders theosophy is also very different from Gnosticism. Peter Koslowski has shown how
Baaders ideas are not Gnostic, in contrast to ideas of Hegel and Schelling. Instead, it is a
Christian theosophy, a tradition going back to Eckhart and Boehme. We will look at Eckhart and
Boehme in Lecture 3.
Baader speaks of his philosophy as a true Gnosis, True Gnosis is not a row of concepts, but a
circle of Ideas, all relating to the center. (Spec. Dogma, Werke 8, 11). This opposition of
conceptual to central knowledge is the difference between concept and idea. I like what Johann
Sauter says about theosophy. Sauter says that wants to see the essential wisdom of God in all our
being, and just as much it wants to see eternal wisdom, as in a mirror, the essence of things, the
created and uncreated, the essence of the revealed God to be understood intuitively. The
theosophist always sees (schaut) immediately. This is contrary to Aristotelian method, which
wants to be reflexive, through philosophical analysis of concrete things of the world and then to
ascend to an absolute being, to lead from individual being to absolute being and the highest laws
of being, by analogy, negation and ascent, to get the essential characteristics of God only
mediately.65
C. Characteristics of Christian theosophy
Here are some characteristics of Christian theosophy:
The world was created by God and His Wisdom.
In the world we can see traces of the wisdom of God, although God is not to be identified with
His creation.
The world was created good, but is fallen. Baader says that the error of Gnostics was that they
saw the beginning of good and evil in the Cause (causa) and not in the Ground (Spec. Dogm
Werke 8, 132).
The universe is hierarchical, descending by degrees from celestial beings to earthly realities.
Theosophy does not urge escape from the world
Theosophy does not reject science, but uses it to transform the world
In our self we know God and are at the same time known by God. Kos says that there is a
difference between knowledge of God as mans being known by God in theosophical Gnosis,
and the knowledge of God as the greatest object of human knowledge in Gnosticism (Kos 264).
Baaders Christian theosophy is very much related to the ideas of Jacob Boehme. We will look
at Boehme in more detail in Lecture 3.
64
Gershom G. Scholem: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1961), 206.
65
Afterword to Franz von Baaders Schriften zur Gesellschaftsphilosophie, ed. Joh. Sauter, (Jena:
Gustav Fischer, 1925), 711.
39

Jung Baader

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Jung Baader

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

1

Theosophy and Gnosticism: Jung and Franz von Baader

Who was Baader?

Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zwiespalt.html].

Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zeit.html].

Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Elementar.html].

Werke 15, 105; Betanzos, 72.

Introduction to Fermenta Cognitionis, tr. Eugne Susini (Paris: Albin, 1985), 9.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Franz von Baader: Stze aus der erotischen P h i l o s o p h i e , online at

The Silberblick, or experience of unity, is similar to what Stace called extravertive

Mark L. Dotson: Jung and Alchemy,

C.G. Jung: The Meaning of Individuation (see endnote 23 above).

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Poppe, Afterword to Begrndung, 122.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

See discussion at [http://members.tripod.com/vismath9/ljkocic/artel2.htm].

C.G. Jung: Traum und Traumdeutung (Munich, 1990), 240.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

E. Edinger: Ego and Archetype, (Boston: Shambhala, 1992), 189.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Rev. Kenneth M. Kafoed: Teletubbies: A Psychoanalytic Perspective,

See J. Glenn Friesen: Monism, Dualism, Nondualism: Problems with Vollenhovens

Jung and Gnosticism

A. Gnosis and Knowledge

And did he make you attend church regularly?

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Abraham P. Bos: Basilides as an Aristotelianizing Gnostic (Brill, 2000). Abraham P. Bos:

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Psychological Types, CW 6, para 409:

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Drob, citing Segal, 236.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

C.G. Jung: Letters, 1973, Vol. 2, p. 155, cited by Drob.

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Theosophy is not the same as Gnosticism

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

2008 J. Glenn Friesen

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen