SYMBOLS
& Heraldry
As we can see from the example of Faust, the vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far off beacon.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202
THE TREE OF LIFE IS THE CENTRAL SYMBOL OF MANKIND,
AND THE CENTRAL SYMBOL OF GENEALOGY
& Heraldry
As we can see from the example of Faust, the vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far off beacon.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202
THE TREE OF LIFE IS THE CENTRAL SYMBOL OF MANKIND,
AND THE CENTRAL SYMBOL OF GENEALOGY
But the formation of a symbol cannot take place until the mind has dwelt long enough on the elementary facts, that is to say until the inner or outer necessities of the life-process have brought about a transformation of energy.
~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 47.
What to the causal view is fact to the final view is symbol, and vice versa.
~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 45.
"The sign is always less than the concept it represents, while a symbol always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. Symbols, moreover, are natural and spontaneous products. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or a brush in his hand and said; ‘Now I am going to invent a symbol’. No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by deliberate intent, and then give it ‘symbolic’ form. No matter what fantastic trappings one may put upon an idea of this kind, it will still remain a sign, linked to the conscious thought behind it, not a symbol that hints at something not yet known."
--Carl Jung- Man and His Symbols
"The symbol is the genome of the soul."
~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 47.
What to the causal view is fact to the final view is symbol, and vice versa.
~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 45.
"The sign is always less than the concept it represents, while a symbol always stands for something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. Symbols, moreover, are natural and spontaneous products. No genius has ever sat down with a pen or a brush in his hand and said; ‘Now I am going to invent a symbol’. No one can take a more or less rational thought, reached as a logical conclusion or by deliberate intent, and then give it ‘symbolic’ form. No matter what fantastic trappings one may put upon an idea of this kind, it will still remain a sign, linked to the conscious thought behind it, not a symbol that hints at something not yet known."
--Carl Jung- Man and His Symbols
"The symbol is the genome of the soul."
Symbolism, the Language of the Gods is encoded in symbols and the doctrine of correspondences. We grasp it through meditation and contemplating the interconnectedness of Nature’s relational aspects. One meta-symbol of this process is The Tree of Life.
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 311.
The self, I thought, was like the monad which I am, and which is my world. The mandala represents this monad, and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the soul. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 206 and MDR, Page 221.
Jung insisted that the psyche cannot be understood in conceptual terms, but only through living images or symbols, which are able to contain paradox and ambiguity. Jung often turned to the images of alchemy, mythology and religion to help describe psychic life. For an image to be a living symbol it must refer to something that cannot be otherwise known. All of these use symbols to depict a process of transformation.
A general system of synchronistic correspondences between planets, colors, herbs, minerals, species of animals, signs and symbols, parts of the body, astrological signs, etc. is known as the Doctrine of Signatures. There is a method of symbolism working on the simultaneity of a series of complementary pairs: Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, etc.
Purposively interpreted, it seems like a symbol, seeking to characterize a definite goal with the help of the material at hand, or trace out a line of future psychological development. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 758
The Role of Symbols
http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/mansymbols.html
The vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning with the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far-off beacon. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202
When the medical psychologist takes an interest in symbols, he is primarily concerned with "natural" symbols, as distinct from "cultural" symbols. The former are derived from the unconscious . . . the cultural on the other hand . . . used to express "eternal truths", and . . . still used in many religions. P. 83 . . . cultural symbols . . . retain much of their "spell". One is aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response . . . function the same way as prejudices. P. 83
Such tendencies form an ever-present "shadow" to our conscious mind. This is why well-meaning people are understandably afraid of the unconscious, and incidentally of psychology. P. 83
Modern man does not understand how much his "rationalism . . . has put him at the mercy of the psychic "underworld". He has freed himself from "superstition" (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has been disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in world-wide disorientation and dissociation. P. 84
Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilization. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organization disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. P. 84
As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos, because he is no longer involved with nature and has lost his emotional "unconscious identity" with natural phenomena. P. 85
To be more accurate, the surface of our world seems to be cleansed of all superstitious and irrational elements. P. 86
Because a child is . . . small and its conscious thoughts scarce and simple, we do not realize the far-reaching complications of the infantile mind that are based on its original identity with the prehistoric psyche. That original mind is just as much present and still functioning in the child as the evolutionary stages of mankind are in its embryonic body. P. 89
Psychology is the only science that has to take the factor of value (feelings) into account. Psychology is often accused of not being scientific on this account; but its critics fail to understand the scientific and practical necessity of giving due consideration to feeling. P. 90
“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.” ~Carl G. Jung
How does psychology define this inner dynamic which guides the process of individuation, leading toward the goal of wholeness? In Jungian Psychology, this symbol-forming power of the psyche is called the transcendent function. Before the transforming power of the higher Self is perceived in imagination (personified through one's Angel, Guide, or Guru), it is known as a symbol-forming function.
Its purpose is to mediate between that which is unknown and that which is manifest. It performs its function by creating unifying symbols from pairs of opposites. In this manner, it gradually unites the fragments of psychic life. It creates a series of symbols which transfer consciousness to a higher perspective or awareness by reconciling opposites.
By synthesizing pairs of opposites into a symbol, the transcendent mode creates a method of transition from one set of attitudes to the next. An individual ego may work more effectively with subconscious processes by consciously attaching value to these symbols presented by the transcendent function.
Our task is to discover these transpersonal meanings, whether they are presented to us through dreams, attitudes, or behavior patterns. If the meaning were consciously understood, it would not be presented as a symbol. Therefore, once its meaning is realized over a period of time, another symbol appears to take its place, reflecting the new situation.
The transcendent function (seen as one's Inner Guide, Angel, or Guru), embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion for this inner friend.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process is embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychological opposites (like male/female, good/evil, Sol/Luna) in a synthesis which transcends them both.
The uniting symbol only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life. Fantasy animates both our inner and outer "realities." This is why mystics call time, space, and the ego three great illusions.
The transcendent function, or Inner Guide, restores the balance between the ego and the unconscious. It belongs to neither, yet possesses access to each. It forms a bridge for the soul to ascend, by lying in-between and participating in both inner and outer life. By relating to each independently, it unites ego and the unconscious. --Iona Miller, Modern Alchemist
If one accepts the symbol, it is as if a door opens leading into a new room whose existence one previously did not know. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 311.
The self, I thought, was like the monad which I am, and which is my world. The mandala represents this monad, and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the soul. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 206 and MDR, Page 221.
Jung insisted that the psyche cannot be understood in conceptual terms, but only through living images or symbols, which are able to contain paradox and ambiguity. Jung often turned to the images of alchemy, mythology and religion to help describe psychic life. For an image to be a living symbol it must refer to something that cannot be otherwise known. All of these use symbols to depict a process of transformation.
A general system of synchronistic correspondences between planets, colors, herbs, minerals, species of animals, signs and symbols, parts of the body, astrological signs, etc. is known as the Doctrine of Signatures. There is a method of symbolism working on the simultaneity of a series of complementary pairs: Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, etc.
Purposively interpreted, it seems like a symbol, seeking to characterize a definite goal with the help of the material at hand, or trace out a line of future psychological development. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 758
The Role of Symbols
http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/mansymbols.html
The vision of the symbol is a pointer to the onward course of life, beckoning with the libido towards a still distant goal—but a goal that henceforth will burn unquenchably within him, so that his life, kindled as by a flame, moves steadily towards the far-off beacon. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 202
When the medical psychologist takes an interest in symbols, he is primarily concerned with "natural" symbols, as distinct from "cultural" symbols. The former are derived from the unconscious . . . the cultural on the other hand . . . used to express "eternal truths", and . . . still used in many religions. P. 83 . . . cultural symbols . . . retain much of their "spell". One is aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response . . . function the same way as prejudices. P. 83
Such tendencies form an ever-present "shadow" to our conscious mind. This is why well-meaning people are understandably afraid of the unconscious, and incidentally of psychology. P. 83
Modern man does not understand how much his "rationalism . . . has put him at the mercy of the psychic "underworld". He has freed himself from "superstition" (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has been disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in world-wide disorientation and dissociation. P. 84
Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilization. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organization disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. P. 84
As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos, because he is no longer involved with nature and has lost his emotional "unconscious identity" with natural phenomena. P. 85
To be more accurate, the surface of our world seems to be cleansed of all superstitious and irrational elements. P. 86
Because a child is . . . small and its conscious thoughts scarce and simple, we do not realize the far-reaching complications of the infantile mind that are based on its original identity with the prehistoric psyche. That original mind is just as much present and still functioning in the child as the evolutionary stages of mankind are in its embryonic body. P. 89
Psychology is the only science that has to take the factor of value (feelings) into account. Psychology is often accused of not being scientific on this account; but its critics fail to understand the scientific and practical necessity of giving due consideration to feeling. P. 90
“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.” ~Carl G. Jung
How does psychology define this inner dynamic which guides the process of individuation, leading toward the goal of wholeness? In Jungian Psychology, this symbol-forming power of the psyche is called the transcendent function. Before the transforming power of the higher Self is perceived in imagination (personified through one's Angel, Guide, or Guru), it is known as a symbol-forming function.
Its purpose is to mediate between that which is unknown and that which is manifest. It performs its function by creating unifying symbols from pairs of opposites. In this manner, it gradually unites the fragments of psychic life. It creates a series of symbols which transfer consciousness to a higher perspective or awareness by reconciling opposites.
By synthesizing pairs of opposites into a symbol, the transcendent mode creates a method of transition from one set of attitudes to the next. An individual ego may work more effectively with subconscious processes by consciously attaching value to these symbols presented by the transcendent function.
Our task is to discover these transpersonal meanings, whether they are presented to us through dreams, attitudes, or behavior patterns. If the meaning were consciously understood, it would not be presented as a symbol. Therefore, once its meaning is realized over a period of time, another symbol appears to take its place, reflecting the new situation.
The transcendent function (seen as one's Inner Guide, Angel, or Guru), embodies the transmuting power of the symbol. The personification of the higher Self allows us to take up a relationship with the inner Self, and encourages dialogue and the development of feelings of loving devotion for this inner friend.
All the symbols and archetypal figures in which the transformative process is embodied are vehicles of the transcendent function. It is the union of different pairs of psychological opposites (like male/female, good/evil, Sol/Luna) in a synthesis which transcends them both.
The uniting symbol only appears when the inner psychic life is experienced as just as valid, effective, and psychologically "real" as the world of daily life. Fantasy animates both our inner and outer "realities." This is why mystics call time, space, and the ego three great illusions.
The transcendent function, or Inner Guide, restores the balance between the ego and the unconscious. It belongs to neither, yet possesses access to each. It forms a bridge for the soul to ascend, by lying in-between and participating in both inner and outer life. By relating to each independently, it unites ego and the unconscious. --Iona Miller, Modern Alchemist
The symbol is a living body, corpus et anima; hence the "child" is such an apt formula for the symbol. The uniqueness of the psyche can never enter wholly into reality, it can only be realized approximately, though it still remains the absolute basis of all consciousness. The deeper "layers" of the psyche lose their individual uniqueness as they retreat farther and farther into darkness. "Lower down," that is to say as they approach the autonomous functional systems, they become increasingly collective until they are universalized and extinguished in the body's materiality, i.e., in chemical substances. The body's carbon is simply carbon. Hence "at bottom" the psyche is simply "world." In this sense I hold Kerenyi to be absolutely right when he says that in the symbol the world itself is speaking. The more archaic and "deeper," that is the more physiological, the symbol is, the more collective and universal, the more "material" it is. The more abstract, differentiated, and sp eci 'fie it is, and the more its nature approximates to conscious uniqueness and individuality, the more it sloughs off its universal character. Having finally attained full consciousness, it runs the risk of becoming a mere allegory which nowhere oversteps the bounds of conscious comprehension, and is then exposed to all sorts of attempts at rationalistic and therefore inadequate explanation.
--Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940), CW 9, Part I:
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.291
Symbol-formation, therefore, must obviously be an extremely important biological function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol
and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442
The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443.
A symbol loses its magical or, if you prefer, its redeeming power as soon as its liability to dissolve is recognized. To be effective, a symbol must be by its very nature unassailable.
It must be the best possible expression of the prevailing world-view, an unsurpassed container of meaning; it must also be sufficiently remote from comprehension to resist all attempts of the critical intellect to break it down; and finally, its aesthetic form must appeal so convincingly to our feelings that no argument can be raised against it on that score. --Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
Symbols are not allegories and not signs; they are images of contents which for the most part transcend consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 114
But if the depths have conceived, then the symbol grows out of itself and is born from the mind, as befits a God. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 311.
"The ancients lived their symbols, since the world had not yet become real for them." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 236.
The further development of the individual can be brought about only by means of symbols which represent something far in advance of himself and whose intellectual meanings cannot yet be grasped entirely. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 680
The searcher behind symbols of meaning becomes himself a symbol.
“What takes place between light and darkness, what unites the opposites, always has a share in both sides and can be judged just as well from the left as from the right… the only thing that helps us here is the symbol….with its paradoxical nature it represents the ‘third thing” --Jung, CW 13, pp. 134.
Jung discusses the union or coincidence of opposites (coniunctio oppositorum), the tension of opposites, compensation, complimentarity, enantriodromia and psychic balance. He is not systematic in his use of these terms.The coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is one of the fundamental organizing principles in Jung’s thought. Key concepts such as the self, the god image, the collective unconscious, wholeness and synchronicity are said to be instances of the coincidence of opposites. They unify by converging, superseding, or transcending. A return to Tao means deliverance from the cosmic opposites. It still means living with and enduring Shadow awareness. Jung refers to a ''mysterium coniunctionis'' - an alignment, a joining -- the ability to hold the tension of the opposites. Psyche tries to resolve the tension with balance, wholeness, and connection.
‘Whoever protects himself against what is new an strange and regresses to the past falls into the same neurotic condition as the man who identifies himself with the new and runs away from the past. The only difference is the one has estranged himself from the past and the other from the future. In principle both are doing the same thing: they are reinforcing their narrow range of consciousness instead of shattering it in the tension of opposites and building up a state of wider and higher consciousness.’--Portable Jung
The process of coming to terms with the unconscious is a true labor, a work which involves both action and suffering. It has been named the "transcendent function" because it represents a function based on real and "imaginary," or irrational and rational, data, thus bridging the yawning gulf between conscious and unconscious. It is a natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites, and it consists in a series of fantasy-occurrences which appear spontaneously in dreams and visions (Jung, CW, p.100).
Synthesis is the product of this violent war "between the spirit and the flesh." The transcendent function, through a dialectical synthesis, brings together opposites in a reconciling attempt, coniunctio or conjunction, to regulate the psyche, or the self.
When a person can hold the tension between the conflicting opposites, eventually something will happen in the psyche to resolve the conflict. The outer circumstances may in fact remain the same, but a change takes place in the individual. This change, essentially irrational and unforeseeable, appears as a new attitude to both oneself and others; energy previously locked up in a state of indecision is released and movement becomes possible. Jung calls this the transcendent function, because what happens transcends the conflicting opposites (p.38).
[We must] “stand the tension of the opposites” in order to transcend them... “The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without inner contradiction is either only half a life or else a life in the Beyond... The self is made manifest in the opposites and in the conflict between them.” --C.G. Jung
Nature indeed was not originally regarded as merely material but was fully as much spirit as matter. Nature was permeated with spirit for man in antiquity and the countenance of God still shines forth from nature in the "Theologia naturalis". If we subject the psychical nature of man to a careful analysis, we discover not only physical natural urges in the unconscious, but also spiritual determinants. And as the natural urges are not purely of evil, neither are the spiritual.
This thought then - that the means to higher development is enclosed in the essence of nature itself, and cannot therefore be forced on nature by the will and its rational formulas - is the basis of a spiritual movement in the West, which is of a totally different kind from that with which we became acquainted in the Ignatian exercises.
It is also an exercise in meditation, but of a quite particular kind, which was not usually even recognized as such. For it was a secret, and successfully concealed itself behind a number of misleading designations; it called itself philosophy" quite as often as "alchemy" or the "art of making gold". In its historical outcome it did not flow back into a recognized form of religion but into natural science, which all too often app eared in opposition to faith, and set knowledge and experience against belief. The essence of science is knowledge, it does not know the piety of faith, but that of investigation and of knowledge.
~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Pages 11-18.
The ego changes all the time, it has every kind of illusion, but the Self is as it is, there is nothing we can alter in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
The ego changes all the time, it has every kind of illusion, but the Self is as it is, there is nothing we can alter in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
In the East the Void represents a psychic emptying of all conscious contents through the practice of Yoga. In the western series the chaos, or nigredo, is not thought of as a psychic condition but as a condition of the materia. This is the great difference between the East and the West. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
If one honors God, the sun or the fire, then one honors one’s own vital force, the libido. It is as Seneca says: ” God is near you, he is with you, in you.” God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors. ~Carl Jung.
It is the psyche which, by the divine creative power inherent in it, makes the metaphysical assertion; it posits the distinctions between metaphysical entities. Not only is it the condition of all metaphysical reality, it is that reality.
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 512, Para 856.
We know of no consciousness that is not the relation between images and an ego.
There are, and always have been, those who cannot help but see that the world and its experiences are in the nature of a symbol, and that it really reflects something that lies hidden in the subject himself, in his own transubjective reality. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 521, Para 859.
The symbol becomes my lord and unfailing commander. It will fortify its reign and change itself into a starry and riddling image, whose meaning turns completely inward, and whose pleasure radiates outward like blazing fire, a Buddha in the flames. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 249.
If forethinking and pleasure unite in me, a third arises from them, the divine son, who is the supreme meaning, the symbol, the passing over into a new creation.
I do not myself become the supreme meaning or the symbol, but the symbol becomes in me such that it has its substance, and I mine. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 249.
You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.--Jung, Symbolic Life
Symbols are Parables (Not to Conceal But to Teach)
SYMBOL: A name, term, picture which is familiar in daily life, yet has other connotations besides its conventional and obvious meaning. Implies something vague and partially unknown or hidden, and is never precisely defined. Dream symbols carry messages from the unconscious to the rational mind. Symbols appear in dynamic networks of images.
“{Signs} do no more than denote the objects to which they are attached…A word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its immediate and obvious meaning. {There is} a wider unconscious that is never precisely defined or explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it.” --Jung
“…a symbol is a sign that points past itself to a ground of meaning and being that is one with the consciousness of the beholder.” “Man uses the spoken or written word to express the meaning of what he wants to convey,” said Jung. Language is a universal manifestation of symbolism. While a particular written or spoken language--Aramaic, French, or Sanskrit—is a man made artifact, there is a biological drive that inspired these innovations."
--Joseph Campbell
--Jung, "The Psychology of the Child Archetype" (1940), CW 9, Part I:
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. P.291
Symbol-formation, therefore, must obviously be an extremely important biological function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 402
Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol
and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442
The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443.
A symbol loses its magical or, if you prefer, its redeeming power as soon as its liability to dissolve is recognized. To be effective, a symbol must be by its very nature unassailable.
It must be the best possible expression of the prevailing world-view, an unsurpassed container of meaning; it must also be sufficiently remote from comprehension to resist all attempts of the critical intellect to break it down; and finally, its aesthetic form must appeal so convincingly to our feelings that no argument can be raised against it on that score. --Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 401
Symbols are not allegories and not signs; they are images of contents which for the most part transcend consciousness. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 114
But if the depths have conceived, then the symbol grows out of itself and is born from the mind, as befits a God. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 311.
"The ancients lived their symbols, since the world had not yet become real for them." ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 236.
The further development of the individual can be brought about only by means of symbols which represent something far in advance of himself and whose intellectual meanings cannot yet be grasped entirely. ~Carl Jung, CW 4, Para 680
The searcher behind symbols of meaning becomes himself a symbol.
“What takes place between light and darkness, what unites the opposites, always has a share in both sides and can be judged just as well from the left as from the right… the only thing that helps us here is the symbol….with its paradoxical nature it represents the ‘third thing” --Jung, CW 13, pp. 134.
Jung discusses the union or coincidence of opposites (coniunctio oppositorum), the tension of opposites, compensation, complimentarity, enantriodromia and psychic balance. He is not systematic in his use of these terms.The coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum) is one of the fundamental organizing principles in Jung’s thought. Key concepts such as the self, the god image, the collective unconscious, wholeness and synchronicity are said to be instances of the coincidence of opposites. They unify by converging, superseding, or transcending. A return to Tao means deliverance from the cosmic opposites. It still means living with and enduring Shadow awareness. Jung refers to a ''mysterium coniunctionis'' - an alignment, a joining -- the ability to hold the tension of the opposites. Psyche tries to resolve the tension with balance, wholeness, and connection.
‘Whoever protects himself against what is new an strange and regresses to the past falls into the same neurotic condition as the man who identifies himself with the new and runs away from the past. The only difference is the one has estranged himself from the past and the other from the future. In principle both are doing the same thing: they are reinforcing their narrow range of consciousness instead of shattering it in the tension of opposites and building up a state of wider and higher consciousness.’--Portable Jung
The process of coming to terms with the unconscious is a true labor, a work which involves both action and suffering. It has been named the "transcendent function" because it represents a function based on real and "imaginary," or irrational and rational, data, thus bridging the yawning gulf between conscious and unconscious. It is a natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites, and it consists in a series of fantasy-occurrences which appear spontaneously in dreams and visions (Jung, CW, p.100).
Synthesis is the product of this violent war "between the spirit and the flesh." The transcendent function, through a dialectical synthesis, brings together opposites in a reconciling attempt, coniunctio or conjunction, to regulate the psyche, or the self.
When a person can hold the tension between the conflicting opposites, eventually something will happen in the psyche to resolve the conflict. The outer circumstances may in fact remain the same, but a change takes place in the individual. This change, essentially irrational and unforeseeable, appears as a new attitude to both oneself and others; energy previously locked up in a state of indecision is released and movement becomes possible. Jung calls this the transcendent function, because what happens transcends the conflicting opposites (p.38).
[We must] “stand the tension of the opposites” in order to transcend them... “The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without inner contradiction is either only half a life or else a life in the Beyond... The self is made manifest in the opposites and in the conflict between them.” --C.G. Jung
Nature indeed was not originally regarded as merely material but was fully as much spirit as matter. Nature was permeated with spirit for man in antiquity and the countenance of God still shines forth from nature in the "Theologia naturalis". If we subject the psychical nature of man to a careful analysis, we discover not only physical natural urges in the unconscious, but also spiritual determinants. And as the natural urges are not purely of evil, neither are the spiritual.
This thought then - that the means to higher development is enclosed in the essence of nature itself, and cannot therefore be forced on nature by the will and its rational formulas - is the basis of a spiritual movement in the West, which is of a totally different kind from that with which we became acquainted in the Ignatian exercises.
It is also an exercise in meditation, but of a quite particular kind, which was not usually even recognized as such. For it was a secret, and successfully concealed itself behind a number of misleading designations; it called itself philosophy" quite as often as "alchemy" or the "art of making gold". In its historical outcome it did not flow back into a recognized form of religion but into natural science, which all too often app eared in opposition to faith, and set knowledge and experience against belief. The essence of science is knowledge, it does not know the piety of faith, but that of investigation and of knowledge.
~Carl Jung, Modern Psychology, Pages 11-18.
The ego changes all the time, it has every kind of illusion, but the Self is as it is, there is nothing we can alter in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
The ego changes all the time, it has every kind of illusion, but the Self is as it is, there is nothing we can alter in it. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
In the East the Void represents a psychic emptying of all conscious contents through the practice of Yoga. In the western series the chaos, or nigredo, is not thought of as a psychic condition but as a condition of the materia. This is the great difference between the East and the West. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lecture, Pages 175.
If one honors God, the sun or the fire, then one honors one’s own vital force, the libido. It is as Seneca says: ” God is near you, he is with you, in you.” God is our own longing to which we pay divine honors. ~Carl Jung.
It is the psyche which, by the divine creative power inherent in it, makes the metaphysical assertion; it posits the distinctions between metaphysical entities. Not only is it the condition of all metaphysical reality, it is that reality.
~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 512, Para 856.
We know of no consciousness that is not the relation between images and an ego.
There are, and always have been, those who cannot help but see that the world and its experiences are in the nature of a symbol, and that it really reflects something that lies hidden in the subject himself, in his own transubjective reality. ~Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, Page 521, Para 859.
The symbol becomes my lord and unfailing commander. It will fortify its reign and change itself into a starry and riddling image, whose meaning turns completely inward, and whose pleasure radiates outward like blazing fire, a Buddha in the flames. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 249.
If forethinking and pleasure unite in me, a third arises from them, the divine son, who is the supreme meaning, the symbol, the passing over into a new creation.
I do not myself become the supreme meaning or the symbol, but the symbol becomes in me such that it has its substance, and I mine. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 249.
You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.--Jung, Symbolic Life
Symbols are Parables (Not to Conceal But to Teach)
SYMBOL: A name, term, picture which is familiar in daily life, yet has other connotations besides its conventional and obvious meaning. Implies something vague and partially unknown or hidden, and is never precisely defined. Dream symbols carry messages from the unconscious to the rational mind. Symbols appear in dynamic networks of images.
“{Signs} do no more than denote the objects to which they are attached…A word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its immediate and obvious meaning. {There is} a wider unconscious that is never precisely defined or explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it.” --Jung
“…a symbol is a sign that points past itself to a ground of meaning and being that is one with the consciousness of the beholder.” “Man uses the spoken or written word to express the meaning of what he wants to convey,” said Jung. Language is a universal manifestation of symbolism. While a particular written or spoken language--Aramaic, French, or Sanskrit—is a man made artifact, there is a biological drive that inspired these innovations."
--Joseph Campbell
The Symbolic Life
You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .
Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don't have it; we have no such corner. We have our own room, of course, - but there is a telephone that can ring us up at any time, and we always must be ready. We have no time, no place.
We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul - the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill - this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are "nothing but." . . . Everything is banal; everything is "nothing but," and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, "Thank heaven, now something is going to happen - something bigger than ourselves!"
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.
I once had a talk with the master of ceremonies of a tribe of Pueblo Indians, and he told me something very interesting. He said, "Yes, we are a small tribe, and these Americans, they want to interfere with our religion. They should not do it," he said, "because we are the sons of the Father, the Sun. He who goes there" (pointing to the sun) -- "that is our Father. We must help him daily to rise over the horizon and to walk over heaven. And we don't do it for ourselves only; we do it for America; we do it for the whole world. And if these Americans interfere with our religion through their missions, they will see something. In ten years Father Sun won't rise anymore because we can't help him any more."
Now, you may say, that is just a sort of mild madness. Not at all! These people have no problems. They have their daily life, their symbolic life. They get up in the morning with a feeling of their great and divine responsibility; they are the sons of the Sun, the Father, and their daily duty is to help the Father over the horizon - not for themselves alone, but for the whole world. You should see these fellows; they have a natural fulfilled dignity. And I quite understand when he said to me, "Now look at these Americans; they are always seeking something. They are always full of unrest, always looking for something. What are they looking for? There is nothing to be looked for!" That's perfectly true. You can see them, these traveling tourists, always looking for something, always in thee vain hope of finding something. On my many travels I have found people who were on their third trip around the world - uninterruptedly. Just traveling, traveling; seeking, seeking. I met a woman in central Africa who had come up alone in a car from Cape Town and wanted to go to Cairo. "What for?" I asked. "What are you trying to do that for?" And I was amazed when I looked into her eyes -- the eyes of a hunted, a cornered animal -- seeking, seeking, always in the hope of something. I said, "What in the world are you seeking? What are you waiting for? What are you hunting after?" She is nearly possessed; she is possessed by so many devils that chase her around. And why is she possessed? Because she does not live the life that makes sense. Hers is a life utterly, grotesquely banal, utterly poor, meaningless, with no point in it at all. If she is killed today, nothing has happened, nothing has vanished - because she was nothing! But if she could say, "I am the daughter of the Moon. Every night I must help the moon, my Mother, over the horizon" - ah, that is something else! Then she lives; then her life makes sense, and makes sense in all continuity, and for the whole of humanity. That gives peace, when people feel that they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama. That gives the only meaning to human life; everything else is banal and you can dismiss it. A career, producing of children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful.
“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.” ―Jung
Theory of Symbols
Jung believed that symbol creation was a key in understanding human nature. Symbol is the best possible expression for something essentially unknown. He investigated the similarity of symbols that are located in different religious, mythological, and magical systems which occur in many cultures and time periods. To account for these similar symbols occurring across different cultures and time periods he suggested the existence of two layers of the unconscious psyche. 1). the personal unconscious. It contains what the individual has acquired in his or her life, but has been forgotten or repressed. 2). the collective unconscious which contains the memory traces common to all humankind. These experiences form archetypes. These are innate predispositions to experience and symbolize certain situations in a distinct way.
There are many archetypes such as having parents, finding a mate, having children, and confronting death. Very complex archetypes are found in all mythological and religious systems. Near the end of his life Jung added that the deepest layers of the unconscious function independently of the laws of space, time and causality. This is what gives rise to paranormal phenomena. The introvert and the extrovert are the main components of personality according to Jung. The introvert is quiet, internal, withdrawn and interested in ideas rather than people. While the extrovert is outgoing and socially oriented. For Jung a person that had a healthy personality can realize these opposite tendencies within himself/herself and can express each. Dreams compensate neglected parts of the personality - source of new thoughts and creative ideals, and produces meaningful individual and collective symbols.
Symbols - Three reoccurring symbols are stones, animals, and the circle according to Jung. We find these in the arts and literature across the ages. Symbols can, and usually do, reflect a multitude of meanings.
Stones - The Old Testament (Torah) speak of stones in many places. Often as sacred stones or sacred places. As Jacob traveled toward Haran and used the stones in a certain place along the was as a pillow. God appeared to him in a dream telling him of the land he would give Jacob and his descendants. A stone was an integral part of his dream.
The human being is as different as possible from a stone, yet man's innermost center is in a strange and special way akin to it (perhaps because the stone symbolizes mere existence at the farthest remove from emotions, feelings, fantasies, and reasoning by the ego-consciousness).
In this sense the stone symbolizes what is perhaps the deepest experience - the experience of something that is eternal that man can have in those moments when he feels immortal and unalterable.
Animals - Animal symbols are found in the earliest of cave drawings. Not only were they hunted, they were revered, if not worshiped. Each animal symbolizes something in terms of its strength--and weakness. The weakness is its shadow.
Animal symbols characterize our nations, our sports teams, our schools and colleges, and many other things even in today's world. Rome's and the US's symbol is the Eagle.
The profusion of animal symbols in the arts point to the importance of integrating our instinctual parts of ourselves with the conscious part of ourselves. This process Jung referred to as individuation. Animal symbols are also archetypes. As stated above, each archetype has a shadow side.
Animals also symbolize our instinctual sides. In itself a particular animal is neither good nor bad. It is part of nature, just as our instincts are part of our nature. As such, they often symbolize our shadow sides.
Man uses the spoken or written word to express the meaning of what he wants to convey. His language is full of symbols. . . What we call a symbol is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning.
. . . eagles, lions, and oxen in old churches. . . symbols . . . derived from the vision of Ezekiel, and that this . . . has an analogy to the Egyptian sun god Horus and his four sons. P3
When, with all our intellectual limitations, we call something "divine", we have merely given it a name, which may be based on a creed, but never on factual evidence. P.4
. . . we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend. This is one of the reasons why all religions employ symbolic language or images. P. 4
Man . . . never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely. He can see, hear, touch, and taste; but how far he sees, how well he hears, what his touch tells him, and what he tastes depend upon the number and quality of his senses. These limit his perception of the world around him. P. 4
Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to reach the civilized state (which is arbitrarily dated from the invention of script in about 4000 B. C.). And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness. P. 6
Whoever denies the existence of the unconscious is in fact assuming that our present knowledge of the psyche is total. P. 6
Consciousness is a very recent acquisition of nature, and it is still in an "experimental" state. It is frail . . . and easily injured. P. 6
You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .
Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don't have it; we have no such corner. We have our own room, of course, - but there is a telephone that can ring us up at any time, and we always must be ready. We have no time, no place.
We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul - the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill - this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are "nothing but." . . . Everything is banal; everything is "nothing but," and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, "Thank heaven, now something is going to happen - something bigger than ourselves!"
These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.
I once had a talk with the master of ceremonies of a tribe of Pueblo Indians, and he told me something very interesting. He said, "Yes, we are a small tribe, and these Americans, they want to interfere with our religion. They should not do it," he said, "because we are the sons of the Father, the Sun. He who goes there" (pointing to the sun) -- "that is our Father. We must help him daily to rise over the horizon and to walk over heaven. And we don't do it for ourselves only; we do it for America; we do it for the whole world. And if these Americans interfere with our religion through their missions, they will see something. In ten years Father Sun won't rise anymore because we can't help him any more."
Now, you may say, that is just a sort of mild madness. Not at all! These people have no problems. They have their daily life, their symbolic life. They get up in the morning with a feeling of their great and divine responsibility; they are the sons of the Sun, the Father, and their daily duty is to help the Father over the horizon - not for themselves alone, but for the whole world. You should see these fellows; they have a natural fulfilled dignity. And I quite understand when he said to me, "Now look at these Americans; they are always seeking something. They are always full of unrest, always looking for something. What are they looking for? There is nothing to be looked for!" That's perfectly true. You can see them, these traveling tourists, always looking for something, always in thee vain hope of finding something. On my many travels I have found people who were on their third trip around the world - uninterruptedly. Just traveling, traveling; seeking, seeking. I met a woman in central Africa who had come up alone in a car from Cape Town and wanted to go to Cairo. "What for?" I asked. "What are you trying to do that for?" And I was amazed when I looked into her eyes -- the eyes of a hunted, a cornered animal -- seeking, seeking, always in the hope of something. I said, "What in the world are you seeking? What are you waiting for? What are you hunting after?" She is nearly possessed; she is possessed by so many devils that chase her around. And why is she possessed? Because she does not live the life that makes sense. Hers is a life utterly, grotesquely banal, utterly poor, meaningless, with no point in it at all. If she is killed today, nothing has happened, nothing has vanished - because she was nothing! But if she could say, "I am the daughter of the Moon. Every night I must help the moon, my Mother, over the horizon" - ah, that is something else! Then she lives; then her life makes sense, and makes sense in all continuity, and for the whole of humanity. That gives peace, when people feel that they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama. That gives the only meaning to human life; everything else is banal and you can dismiss it. A career, producing of children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful.
“There is a thinking in primordial images, in symbols which are older than the historical man, which are inborn in him from the earliest times, eternally living, outlasting all generations, still make up the groundwork of the human psyche. It is only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols; wisdom is a return to them.” ―Jung
Theory of Symbols
Jung believed that symbol creation was a key in understanding human nature. Symbol is the best possible expression for something essentially unknown. He investigated the similarity of symbols that are located in different religious, mythological, and magical systems which occur in many cultures and time periods. To account for these similar symbols occurring across different cultures and time periods he suggested the existence of two layers of the unconscious psyche. 1). the personal unconscious. It contains what the individual has acquired in his or her life, but has been forgotten or repressed. 2). the collective unconscious which contains the memory traces common to all humankind. These experiences form archetypes. These are innate predispositions to experience and symbolize certain situations in a distinct way.
There are many archetypes such as having parents, finding a mate, having children, and confronting death. Very complex archetypes are found in all mythological and religious systems. Near the end of his life Jung added that the deepest layers of the unconscious function independently of the laws of space, time and causality. This is what gives rise to paranormal phenomena. The introvert and the extrovert are the main components of personality according to Jung. The introvert is quiet, internal, withdrawn and interested in ideas rather than people. While the extrovert is outgoing and socially oriented. For Jung a person that had a healthy personality can realize these opposite tendencies within himself/herself and can express each. Dreams compensate neglected parts of the personality - source of new thoughts and creative ideals, and produces meaningful individual and collective symbols.
Symbols - Three reoccurring symbols are stones, animals, and the circle according to Jung. We find these in the arts and literature across the ages. Symbols can, and usually do, reflect a multitude of meanings.
Stones - The Old Testament (Torah) speak of stones in many places. Often as sacred stones or sacred places. As Jacob traveled toward Haran and used the stones in a certain place along the was as a pillow. God appeared to him in a dream telling him of the land he would give Jacob and his descendants. A stone was an integral part of his dream.
The human being is as different as possible from a stone, yet man's innermost center is in a strange and special way akin to it (perhaps because the stone symbolizes mere existence at the farthest remove from emotions, feelings, fantasies, and reasoning by the ego-consciousness).
In this sense the stone symbolizes what is perhaps the deepest experience - the experience of something that is eternal that man can have in those moments when he feels immortal and unalterable.
Animals - Animal symbols are found in the earliest of cave drawings. Not only were they hunted, they were revered, if not worshiped. Each animal symbolizes something in terms of its strength--and weakness. The weakness is its shadow.
Animal symbols characterize our nations, our sports teams, our schools and colleges, and many other things even in today's world. Rome's and the US's symbol is the Eagle.
The profusion of animal symbols in the arts point to the importance of integrating our instinctual parts of ourselves with the conscious part of ourselves. This process Jung referred to as individuation. Animal symbols are also archetypes. As stated above, each archetype has a shadow side.
Animals also symbolize our instinctual sides. In itself a particular animal is neither good nor bad. It is part of nature, just as our instincts are part of our nature. As such, they often symbolize our shadow sides.
Man uses the spoken or written word to express the meaning of what he wants to convey. His language is full of symbols. . . What we call a symbol is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning.
. . . eagles, lions, and oxen in old churches. . . symbols . . . derived from the vision of Ezekiel, and that this . . . has an analogy to the Egyptian sun god Horus and his four sons. P3
When, with all our intellectual limitations, we call something "divine", we have merely given it a name, which may be based on a creed, but never on factual evidence. P.4
. . . we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend. This is one of the reasons why all religions employ symbolic language or images. P. 4
Man . . . never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely. He can see, hear, touch, and taste; but how far he sees, how well he hears, what his touch tells him, and what he tastes depend upon the number and quality of his senses. These limit his perception of the world around him. P. 4
Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to reach the civilized state (which is arbitrarily dated from the invention of script in about 4000 B. C.). And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness. P. 6
Whoever denies the existence of the unconscious is in fact assuming that our present knowledge of the psyche is total. P. 6
Consciousness is a very recent acquisition of nature, and it is still in an "experimental" state. It is frail . . . and easily injured. P. 6
PIECES OF YOURSELF
Genealogy As Primal Symbol
Ancestral Reality
“In general, emotional ties are very important to human beings. But they still contain projections, and it is essential to withdraw these projections in order to attain to oneself and to objectivity. Emotional relationships are relationships of desire, tainted by coercion and constraint; something is expected from the other person, and that makes them and we unfree. Objective cognition lies hidden behind the attraction of the emotional relationship; it seems to be the central secret. Only through objective cognition is the real coniunctio possible.”
--C. G. Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, pp. 296-297.
Aside from the symbols used within genealogy, the Family Tree itself is a foundational symbol of one's living connections to life, to history, and to transformation. It is the "prime symbol" of gestation and prima materia -- the archetypal human being. To mix metaphors, when it comes to our 'entangled branches,' we have to "read between the lines."
The symbolical names of the prima materia all point to the anima mundi, Plato's Primordial Man, the Anthropos, and mystic Adam. Adam Kadmon is the "man of light" and therefore identical with the alchemical filius philosophorum. Paracelsus says of this astral man, "the true man is the star in us...for heaven is man and man is heaven, and all men are one heaven, and heaven is only one man."
The ancient teachings about the Anthropos assert that God, or the world-creating principle, was manifested in the form of a "first-created" man, usually of cosmic size, such as Prajapati, Purusha, and Metatron.
The Primordial Man is the means for conquering darkness, and shares his role with a feminine being, Sophia, who coexisted with him in the Gnostic Pleroma. The Cosmic Man or archetypal man is both macrocosm and microcosm and contains the Feminine or anima within himself. Technically it is a hermaphroditic figure, recapitulating the entire evolutionary process.
The Anthropos originates in Manichaean doctrine. It is akin to the true man of Chinese alchemy, which like the Anthropos is akin to God. This inner man remains partly unconscious because consciousness is only part of a man and cannot comprehend the whole. But this whole man is always present.
Psychic content becomes conscious when it possesses a certain energy-charge, or it sinks back into unconsciousness. This "Man[Woman]" is an indescribable, intuitive or mystical experience which demonstrates the continuity of this idea over the millennia. In later centuries there was a relationship between Christ, the Son of Man and this cosmogonic Man.
In alchemical philosophy it corresponds to the homunculus and lapis, the product of the hieros gamos, Royal Marriage. According to Jungian, Edward Edinger, the anthropos has been likened in Gnostic texts to a corpse, "buried in the body like a mummy in a tomb."
The mummy is symbolically identical with the original man or anthropos, and is thus an image of the Self and the product of mortificatio--the incorruptible body that grows out of the death of the corruptible seed. It corresponds to the alchemical idea that death is the conception of the Philosopher's Stone.
From its death, the "child of the philosophers" is born--the Philosophical Stone. The regenerated king in alchemy corresponds to the cosmic Anthropos, the First Man. He is the inner, spiritual, psychic man created in the image of the Nous.
The alchemist experienced the Anthropos in a form that was imbued with a new vitality, freshness and immediacy--psychic totality. It has a complex Egyptian, Persian and Hellenistic background--Homo Maximus.
Primary Relations
It is an epic picture story book. It is a text, showing the relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their signified content, or meaning. It is a discourse on your specific and mythic ancestry -- your ground in pure and limitless space. Each ancestor is a sign deployed in space and time to produce "texts", whose meanings are construed by the mutually contextualizing relations among them. As a conceptual model it helps us conceive the whole.
The self-referential symbol fully represents the whole of which it is a part -- more than a romantic symbol or allegory. There are ordinary people and "giants" of history who felt an intense desire to achieve great deeds and heroic immortality.
"Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awakening. My Samadhi is their Samadhi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one." --Frank Herbert, The God-Emperor of Dune, p. 260.
The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443.
Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442
Genealogy As Primal Symbol
Ancestral Reality
“In general, emotional ties are very important to human beings. But they still contain projections, and it is essential to withdraw these projections in order to attain to oneself and to objectivity. Emotional relationships are relationships of desire, tainted by coercion and constraint; something is expected from the other person, and that makes them and we unfree. Objective cognition lies hidden behind the attraction of the emotional relationship; it seems to be the central secret. Only through objective cognition is the real coniunctio possible.”
--C. G. Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections, pp. 296-297.
Aside from the symbols used within genealogy, the Family Tree itself is a foundational symbol of one's living connections to life, to history, and to transformation. It is the "prime symbol" of gestation and prima materia -- the archetypal human being. To mix metaphors, when it comes to our 'entangled branches,' we have to "read between the lines."
The symbolical names of the prima materia all point to the anima mundi, Plato's Primordial Man, the Anthropos, and mystic Adam. Adam Kadmon is the "man of light" and therefore identical with the alchemical filius philosophorum. Paracelsus says of this astral man, "the true man is the star in us...for heaven is man and man is heaven, and all men are one heaven, and heaven is only one man."
The ancient teachings about the Anthropos assert that God, or the world-creating principle, was manifested in the form of a "first-created" man, usually of cosmic size, such as Prajapati, Purusha, and Metatron.
The Primordial Man is the means for conquering darkness, and shares his role with a feminine being, Sophia, who coexisted with him in the Gnostic Pleroma. The Cosmic Man or archetypal man is both macrocosm and microcosm and contains the Feminine or anima within himself. Technically it is a hermaphroditic figure, recapitulating the entire evolutionary process.
The Anthropos originates in Manichaean doctrine. It is akin to the true man of Chinese alchemy, which like the Anthropos is akin to God. This inner man remains partly unconscious because consciousness is only part of a man and cannot comprehend the whole. But this whole man is always present.
Psychic content becomes conscious when it possesses a certain energy-charge, or it sinks back into unconsciousness. This "Man[Woman]" is an indescribable, intuitive or mystical experience which demonstrates the continuity of this idea over the millennia. In later centuries there was a relationship between Christ, the Son of Man and this cosmogonic Man.
In alchemical philosophy it corresponds to the homunculus and lapis, the product of the hieros gamos, Royal Marriage. According to Jungian, Edward Edinger, the anthropos has been likened in Gnostic texts to a corpse, "buried in the body like a mummy in a tomb."
The mummy is symbolically identical with the original man or anthropos, and is thus an image of the Self and the product of mortificatio--the incorruptible body that grows out of the death of the corruptible seed. It corresponds to the alchemical idea that death is the conception of the Philosopher's Stone.
From its death, the "child of the philosophers" is born--the Philosophical Stone. The regenerated king in alchemy corresponds to the cosmic Anthropos, the First Man. He is the inner, spiritual, psychic man created in the image of the Nous.
The alchemist experienced the Anthropos in a form that was imbued with a new vitality, freshness and immediacy--psychic totality. It has a complex Egyptian, Persian and Hellenistic background--Homo Maximus.
Primary Relations
It is an epic picture story book. It is a text, showing the relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their signified content, or meaning. It is a discourse on your specific and mythic ancestry -- your ground in pure and limitless space. Each ancestor is a sign deployed in space and time to produce "texts", whose meanings are construed by the mutually contextualizing relations among them. As a conceptual model it helps us conceive the whole.
The self-referential symbol fully represents the whole of which it is a part -- more than a romantic symbol or allegory. There are ordinary people and "giants" of history who felt an intense desire to achieve great deeds and heroic immortality.
"Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their awakening. My Samadhi is their Samadhi. Their experiences are mine! Their knowledge distilled is my inheritance. Those billions are my one." --Frank Herbert, The God-Emperor of Dune, p. 260.
The symbol is the middle way along which the opposites flow together in a new movement, like a watercourse bringing fertility after a long drought.
~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 443.
Childlikeness or lack of prior assumptions is of the very essence of the symbol and its function. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 442
Heraldry Symbols
http://www.familytreesandcrests.com/heraldry-symbols.htm
https://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry
https://www.fleurdelis.com/meanings.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldry
OPPOSITES
Polarity Underlies the Dynamics of Psyche
A series of complementary pairs: Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Life/Death, Love/Hate, Body/Spirit, Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, Grief/Joy, etc. Masculine-feminine opposition is personified as King and Queen underlying unified reality -- heaven and earth.
Throughout Jung's writing there is continual tension of opposites and integration of opposites. Two ideas are represented a dualistic opposing pair in the conscious mind, and the integration of the opposites occurs through archetypal representations. Jung thought mental energy is produced by the tension or conflict of opposites, so there is no energy or libido without it. Thus, individuation with its conflicts creates psychic energy. Great energy comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.
The king and queen in hermaproditic union symbolize the union of opposites, anima/animus, unconscious and conscious. We suffer authentically when we endure a tension of opposites until the way becomes clear. If we can hold the tension long enough, without succumbing to the urge to identify with one side or the other, a third, unique position can arise. Success comes from enduring the tension without giving up on the process even when there are no apparent results. Eventually, the transcendent function emerges from the tension of opposites.
The work of wholeness is involved in alchemical symbolism as shown by the constant conjunction of opposites in its imagery: the marriage of sun and moon, of fire and water, of king and queen. In simplest terms, the King and Queen represent the raw materials of our psyche. As wisdom figures, the Ruler is the top of the tree, the King or Queen. The King and Queen are the second generation of the gods. The king or queen could rule absolutely because they were essentially 'god on earth.' Their union produces the radiant sovereign self.
It is a psychic fact that the opposites arising from the dark matter of the birth-agonies of the human soul confront each other in the alchemical vessel of spiritual transformation (in Chinese alchemy frequently envisioned as the human body) and after many battles, woundings, and indeed deaths, ultimately come to unite in an indestructible state in the reconciliation of the binaries. Thus the lunar Queen and solar King (represented in China by the symbols of the Yin and Yang) are living presences within us, heralding the promise of the Philosophers' Stone or the Golden Flower which we are destined to become ourselves.
Alchemy also speaks of a "secret fire", which is often compared to a serpent or dragon. Here again, we find the correspondence to Kundalini, the serpent-power. Alchemy is performed by the aid of Mercury, the illuminative principle, and the powers of the sun and moon. Both alchemists and Tantrics practice with the essential aid, sometimes sexual, of a mystical sister, the alchemist's soror mystica or yogi's yogini, complement of King/Queen, Shiva-Shakti, God/Goddess joined together in the miracle marriage.
A new being is born which is the promised fruit of love, the transformed consciousness of the lovers, formed of the opposites, which are now welded into an inseparable imperishable wholeness. The alchemy of love reaches its true and triumphant culmination.
As a grand union of opposites, it symbolizes the unification of king and queen, man and wife, conscious and unconscious, personality and society, etc. in a royal union called the Marriage of the Sun and Moon in alchemy Alchemy is a means of understanding our unconscious projections of archetypes into the world. The human figures are father and son, mother and daughter, king and queen, god and goddess. Individuation is the union of a sun and moon, a circle and square, or a marriage of a king and queen. In alchemy, the king and queen are brother and sister.
The Sun King and Moon Queen, have to be recognized by the alchemist as archetypal polarities within his soul and they must be brought into a new relationship. These polarities meet and touch, though at this initial stage, their encounter is very restrained and distant. As Jung points out in his commentary to these illustrations, they give each other their left hands in union. The left (sinister) being the dark or unconscious side of their being. Thus they are united in the unconscious aspect, in the depths of the lower soul. Their right hands, the more conscious side of their being, proffer two-blossomed flowers to each other, and this meeting in consciousness is thus more restrained and distant.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/roscom.html
Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1955, examines the nature of the opposites in the human psyche and the alchemical tradition. The uniting of the alchemical King and Queen, the male and female components of the psyche, is exhaustively investigated though various alchemical ideas, symbols and source texts. The magnum opus is accomplished by the alchemical marriage of the king and queen. When we come to terms with the Shadow and the Soul, we encounter the enchanted castle with its King and Queen.
Polarity Underlies the Dynamics of Psyche
A series of complementary pairs: Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Life/Death, Love/Hate, Body/Spirit, Sun/Moon, Gold/Silver, Sulphur/Mercury, King/Queen, Male/Female, Husband/Bride, Christ/Man, Grief/Joy, etc. Masculine-feminine opposition is personified as King and Queen underlying unified reality -- heaven and earth.
Throughout Jung's writing there is continual tension of opposites and integration of opposites. Two ideas are represented a dualistic opposing pair in the conscious mind, and the integration of the opposites occurs through archetypal representations. Jung thought mental energy is produced by the tension or conflict of opposites, so there is no energy or libido without it. Thus, individuation with its conflicts creates psychic energy. Great energy comes from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.
The king and queen in hermaproditic union symbolize the union of opposites, anima/animus, unconscious and conscious. We suffer authentically when we endure a tension of opposites until the way becomes clear. If we can hold the tension long enough, without succumbing to the urge to identify with one side or the other, a third, unique position can arise. Success comes from enduring the tension without giving up on the process even when there are no apparent results. Eventually, the transcendent function emerges from the tension of opposites.
The work of wholeness is involved in alchemical symbolism as shown by the constant conjunction of opposites in its imagery: the marriage of sun and moon, of fire and water, of king and queen. In simplest terms, the King and Queen represent the raw materials of our psyche. As wisdom figures, the Ruler is the top of the tree, the King or Queen. The King and Queen are the second generation of the gods. The king or queen could rule absolutely because they were essentially 'god on earth.' Their union produces the radiant sovereign self.
It is a psychic fact that the opposites arising from the dark matter of the birth-agonies of the human soul confront each other in the alchemical vessel of spiritual transformation (in Chinese alchemy frequently envisioned as the human body) and after many battles, woundings, and indeed deaths, ultimately come to unite in an indestructible state in the reconciliation of the binaries. Thus the lunar Queen and solar King (represented in China by the symbols of the Yin and Yang) are living presences within us, heralding the promise of the Philosophers' Stone or the Golden Flower which we are destined to become ourselves.
Alchemy also speaks of a "secret fire", which is often compared to a serpent or dragon. Here again, we find the correspondence to Kundalini, the serpent-power. Alchemy is performed by the aid of Mercury, the illuminative principle, and the powers of the sun and moon. Both alchemists and Tantrics practice with the essential aid, sometimes sexual, of a mystical sister, the alchemist's soror mystica or yogi's yogini, complement of King/Queen, Shiva-Shakti, God/Goddess joined together in the miracle marriage.
A new being is born which is the promised fruit of love, the transformed consciousness of the lovers, formed of the opposites, which are now welded into an inseparable imperishable wholeness. The alchemy of love reaches its true and triumphant culmination.
As a grand union of opposites, it symbolizes the unification of king and queen, man and wife, conscious and unconscious, personality and society, etc. in a royal union called the Marriage of the Sun and Moon in alchemy Alchemy is a means of understanding our unconscious projections of archetypes into the world. The human figures are father and son, mother and daughter, king and queen, god and goddess. Individuation is the union of a sun and moon, a circle and square, or a marriage of a king and queen. In alchemy, the king and queen are brother and sister.
The Sun King and Moon Queen, have to be recognized by the alchemist as archetypal polarities within his soul and they must be brought into a new relationship. These polarities meet and touch, though at this initial stage, their encounter is very restrained and distant. As Jung points out in his commentary to these illustrations, they give each other their left hands in union. The left (sinister) being the dark or unconscious side of their being. Thus they are united in the unconscious aspect, in the depths of the lower soul. Their right hands, the more conscious side of their being, proffer two-blossomed flowers to each other, and this meeting in consciousness is thus more restrained and distant.
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/roscom.html
Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1955, examines the nature of the opposites in the human psyche and the alchemical tradition. The uniting of the alchemical King and Queen, the male and female components of the psyche, is exhaustively investigated though various alchemical ideas, symbols and source texts. The magnum opus is accomplished by the alchemical marriage of the king and queen. When we come to terms with the Shadow and the Soul, we encounter the enchanted castle with its King and Queen.
They contain the Royal Secret of the [solar] King and [lunar] Queen,
who were none other than the animus and anima, or Deus and Dea.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 248.
In former times, the worldly Queen was also a priest, warrior and mother – sometimes even the ultimate archetype, the Self or goddess. The image of a Queen serves as a center for the mature ordering of things includes and transcends the other archetypes of the Feminine. Indeed the most powerful embodiment of this archetype is the Great Goddess—The Great Mother. This cosmic image is the equal to that of an all powerful God, the source of complete cosmic power, but at the same time is more accessible, less menacing.
The separation of the "King" and "Queen" was understood by the Kabbalists to symbolize a split between the masculine and feminine elements of the deity, which itself reflects the disorder and chaos of a broken world. For the Kabbalists, the disharmony of the world is reflected in a separation between male and female, and the world¹s restoration and repair is symbolized by a wedding between Tifereth and Malchuth, the masculine and feminine Sefirot, known in the Kabbalah as the Holy One and his Bride. Jung, of course, interpreted these ideas psychologically, and saw them as symbols of the union between animus and anima which in the individual psyche is a pre-requisite for individuation and psychological growth. Jung explored the Kabbalistic symbols of the divine marriage extensively (Jung, 1955-6/1963, pp. 23, 24, 396, 432-445, esp. 442; Jung, 1973, Vol. 1, p. 356, Vol. 2, p. 292) http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html
The king of the country marries “the land” – in the form of a high priestess –
to rejuvenate it.
At its core, the sacred marriage [hierosgamos] is more of a sacrament than a ritual. It is a marriage between husband and wife, but is of a sacred nature -- a marriage blessed by the gods, with active participation of those deities, present in the act of lovemaking between the two humans. The king was equally a high priest, and the queen… a high priestess.
The rose is one of the fundamental symbols of alchemy and became the philosophical basis of Rosicrucian alchemy. It was so important to alchemists that there are many texts called “Rosarium” (Rosary), and all these texts deal with the relationship between the archetypal King and Queen. In alchemy, the rose is primarily a symbol of the operation of Conjunction, the Mystical Marriage of opposites. It represents the regeneration of separated essences and their resurrection on a new level.
who were none other than the animus and anima, or Deus and Dea.
~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 248.
In former times, the worldly Queen was also a priest, warrior and mother – sometimes even the ultimate archetype, the Self or goddess. The image of a Queen serves as a center for the mature ordering of things includes and transcends the other archetypes of the Feminine. Indeed the most powerful embodiment of this archetype is the Great Goddess—The Great Mother. This cosmic image is the equal to that of an all powerful God, the source of complete cosmic power, but at the same time is more accessible, less menacing.
The separation of the "King" and "Queen" was understood by the Kabbalists to symbolize a split between the masculine and feminine elements of the deity, which itself reflects the disorder and chaos of a broken world. For the Kabbalists, the disharmony of the world is reflected in a separation between male and female, and the world¹s restoration and repair is symbolized by a wedding between Tifereth and Malchuth, the masculine and feminine Sefirot, known in the Kabbalah as the Holy One and his Bride. Jung, of course, interpreted these ideas psychologically, and saw them as symbols of the union between animus and anima which in the individual psyche is a pre-requisite for individuation and psychological growth. Jung explored the Kabbalistic symbols of the divine marriage extensively (Jung, 1955-6/1963, pp. 23, 24, 396, 432-445, esp. 442; Jung, 1973, Vol. 1, p. 356, Vol. 2, p. 292) http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html
The king of the country marries “the land” – in the form of a high priestess –
to rejuvenate it.
At its core, the sacred marriage [hierosgamos] is more of a sacrament than a ritual. It is a marriage between husband and wife, but is of a sacred nature -- a marriage blessed by the gods, with active participation of those deities, present in the act of lovemaking between the two humans. The king was equally a high priest, and the queen… a high priestess.
The rose is one of the fundamental symbols of alchemy and became the philosophical basis of Rosicrucian alchemy. It was so important to alchemists that there are many texts called “Rosarium” (Rosary), and all these texts deal with the relationship between the archetypal King and Queen. In alchemy, the rose is primarily a symbol of the operation of Conjunction, the Mystical Marriage of opposites. It represents the regeneration of separated essences and their resurrection on a new level.