Gnosticism Series

By Bob Bongiovanni, MA

 

Introduction

 

Beginning in 1918, Carl Jung undertook a comprehensive study of Gnosticism, a philosophical and religious system with roots deep in human history, ruthlessly suppressed by the early fathers of the Christian church.  He felt compelled to find parallels for what he was discovering about the nature of the psyche.  He suffered from the doubt experienced by many pioneers – “Have I truly come upon something fundamentally true, or is this an idiosyncrasy, rooted in my personal history and nature, utterly incomprehensible to everyone else?”  He felt that, if he could find others who had come to the same conclusions – that there is a collective unconscious, with the transcendent Self at the center that speaks to us through dreams and synchronicities – he could proceed with confidence in presenting his findings to the world.  With that motivation, Jung became one of the earliest modern scholars of Gnosticism.  It is truly a testament to Jung’s scholarship and brilliance that he literally pieced together the fragments of what remained after the Christian persecution of Gnostics – remember, this was decades before the findings of Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi – and recognized the depth and richness of Gnostic thought.  Frustrated with the lack of available source material, Jung ultimately moved on to a study of alchemy, which he saw as the clandestine continuation of the Gnostic tradition.  But Jung’s veneration for Gnosticism remained.

 

Today, I will present a broad overview of Gnostic thought and its Jungian parallels.  In subsequent weeks, we will explore some specific Gnostic texts and concepts in greater depth.

 

The schools of thought that are grouped under the label of “Gnosticism” are diverse.  Indeed, some scholars have disputed whether it is proper to group them together under that title, at all.  There are some broad themes, however, that they have in common.  First, there is a core belief that things are not as they appear.  The great mass of humanity has gone along for thousands of years believing that external, observable reality is the ultimate reality.  God exists out there, not inside.  God has directly spoken to a select few, but as an outsider, demanding our obedience and unquestioning faith.  Gnostics challenge these ideas.  Perhaps we have all been living in a fantasy, or perhaps more aptly, a prison.  Perhaps the separation and distance we feel from the true God, the foundation of our being, is due to a distortion of consciousness.  In the dim reaches of humanity’s past, we set off in a direction that has led to untold misery – not on the physical level, but on the psychological level.  Our salvation lies in “gnosis,” a Greek term meaning deep knowing of the truth about who we are and the destiny we have always been meant to fulfill.

 

Gnostic mythology is vivid and complex.  Some might call them confusing, even bizarre.  I am going to read you one telling of the story, as developed by Stephan Hoeller and included in his book Jung and the Lost Gospels.  This particular version of the myth draws heavily on Christian terminology – not all Gnostic myths do so, in that gnosticism predated Christianity by unknown centuries – but uses these terms in some decidedly unorthodox ways:

 

The Myth of Sophia

High in the ineffable and transcendental world of light there existed a primal pair named Depth and Silence. Together they brought forth a perfect realm of balance and creative power, consisting of thirty archetypal forms of consciousness called Aeons. The youngest and most adventurous of these, called Sophia (Wisdom), fell in love with her own royal progenitor, the great invisible king of the all, called Depth, and wished to fathom his perennially inscrutable nature. Confused by her love, she cast her glance in various directions from her aeonial seat in the fullness until in the distance she saw a magnificent light, shimmering with sublime grace. In her bewilderment brought about by love, she could no longer distinguish between the above and below and thus came to assume that the seductive light, which was in reality below her, was none other than the royal effulgence of the great king, her father, who resided at the highest point of the heavens. Thus she descended into the abysmal void, where in a boundless and fathomless sea of glass the reflection of the heavenly light beckoned to her. Thus after a final, painful embrace she plunged into the murky deep, only to discover how the reflected light had deceived her. Saddened and frightened, she found herself enclosed by emptiness, devoid of the quality and power of Gnosis to which she was accustomed in the fullness. Desirous of having a kindred figure next to her, she brought forth in a virginal fashion a being whose name was Jesus. Although conceived mysteriously by her desire for her original Gnosis, Jesus was nevertheless joined to a shadow of darkness, which attached itself to him because of the malefic influences of the dark void wherein he was horn. Jesus soon freed himself from his troublesome, shadowy attachment and ascended into the fullness, leaving Sophia in a state of despondency.

Left outside the supernal spiritual universe, alone and comfortless, Sophia experienced every sort of psychic storm imaginable. Passion, sorrow, fear, despair, and ignorance exuded from her being like mighty clouds and condensed into the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air, as well as into a number of beings, which later were to be known under such names as the Demiurge and the rulers (archontes)—fierce and troublesome spirits, one and all. The mightiest of these, a lion-faced being filled with pride and the will for power, marshaled his host of world-fashioning spirits, and out of the raw material of earth, water, fire, and air they built a world of impressive external appearance, yet replete with great flaws, having been created in the image of its creators. Sorrow, fear, ignorance, and other painful and destructive passions were built into the fabric of this imperfect world, inasmuch as the raw material used by the fashioners originated in feelings like those experienced by Sophia. Looking down at the flawed and troubled world pridefully fashioned by her own ignorant offspring, Sophia was filled with pity for creation and resolved to assist in such ways as would be available to her. She thus became the spirit of the world, anxiously observing it like a mother is wont to do when watching over a feeble and mis­shapen child.

Meanwhile in the lofty height, Jesus was anxiously observing the sorrowful fate of his mother, Sophia. He joined himself to Sophia's twin aeon, Christ, and thus became Jesus-Christ, the Messiah and messenger of God. Around him rallied all the sublime and compassionate powers of the fullness, each contributing to him gifts and glories of their respective treasures. Thus in Jesus-Christ the fullness and its powers came to be gathered together, readying him for the great act of redemption, the liberation of Sophia from her lamentable condition in the void. Ceaselessly, Sophia's supplications ascended like clouds of bittersweet incense, penetrating the recesses of the fullness, arousing the compassion of all the splendid aeonial beings who perpetually contemplate their glory in their kingdom of perfection. Through the centuries and millennia of earthly history, Sophia prayed and sorrowed over her fate and the fate of the flawed world and the sparks of light enmeshed in the nets of the rulers, who like monstrous spiders continued to manifest webs of matter, emotion, and thought for the entrapment of humans—in essence not their creation but rather the sparks of Sophia's own higher nature infused into bodies of clay.

Finally, the powers of the fullness were assembled and. having entered Jesus-Christ, descended to earth to free Sophia and thereby also to bring redemption to her spiritual children, the members of the human race. After undergoing vicissitudes visited upon him by the rulers and their deceived human minions, Jesus-Christ rose triumphantly from earth, holding Sophia by the hand. Joyously they ascended to the various heavenly mansions, knocking at the portals of the spiritual guardians and gaining passage to ever-higher and subtler regions of existence. At each of the gates Sophia uttered great songs of praise and gratitude to the light that had saved her from the chaos of the nether regions.

When the World-Spirit Sophia came to the borders that separated the nether worlds from the fullness, she looked down once again unto the flawed and troubled world, suspended in the void and chaos, and compassion filled her broken but now mended heart. No, she could not leave utterly behind this strange creation, to its less than adequate resources. Neither could she abandon her true children, the women and men who were more in­timately related to her than any other beings outside of the fullness. Thus, she worked her magic and divided her nature in half: one to ascend into the aeons of fullness, there to dwell with Christ and Jesus, the other to remain in proximity to creation and continue to assist it with compassionate wisdom. Her second self, created by com­passion, thus became known as Achamoth, the errant or lower one who is still in contact with humanity and the regions of this world.

It was thus that it came to pass that the universe constellated itself in three regions. The first of these is the sublunar or material world, ruled by a prince whom the ancients called Pan and whom others inaccurately call the devil. This prince rules over the earth, the plants, and living creatures and like a patient shepherd sees to it that all of these manifestations of Sophia's life may one day reach the higher worlds, no matter how far they stray. Not privy to the realities and designs of the mighty aeons of light, the prince of this world merely turns the great wheel of birth, death, and rebirth, hoping that if he and his flock are but able to remain within the motions of biological life, their hour of liberation will not find them past redemption.

Higher in immaterial space is the world of soul or mind, which is ruled by the chief archon, also called the Demiurge and having numerous names, including Yaldahaoth (childish God) and Saclas (blind one). It is from the realm of this arrogant and power-hungry godling that many of the concepts and precepts originate that enthrall the minds and wills of humans. The blind god has a great liking for what he is pleased to call law. Rules, command­ments, and regulations of all sorts are fashioned by him in order to diminish freedom, which is the birthright of the spirit. Philosophies and ideologies of diverse sorts are also placed into human minds by the Demiurge, along with greed, power, and other obsessions that becloud and vitiate the spiritual purity of men and women.

Thirdly, in the world above planets, immediately below the portals of the mighty fullness itself, is a region where Sophia-Achamoth, the celestial mother and wise helper of humankind, is enthroned. With her live countless hosts of angels of light and holy and righteous souls that once occupied human bodies. This is the world of spirit, where the twin angels of human personalities also reside and the celestial bride chamber is erected wherein the lesser selves of humans may meet and he wedded to their spiritual counterparts, the twin angels. When humans commune with whom they envision as the Goddess in her manifold aspects, it is none other than Sophia-Achamoth, their wise guardian, whom they envision. Unaware of these subtle mysteries, many well-intentioned followers of the Christian revelation have come to see this form of Sophia as Mary, Queen of Heaven. It is in this manner then that our Lady Wisdom, though redeemed and having assisted Jesus-Christ in the work of redemp­tion, is not far from her children even to this day.

The three cosmic regions just spoken of have their corresponding portions within the nature of the children of men. Within every human there is the material part (hyle), derived from the kingdom of Pan and carrying the instincts and urges of material life with its inten­tionality of survival and physical continuity by way of offspring. There is also a portion embodying mind and emotion, referred to often as soul (psyche). This portion is derived from the realm of the Demiurge, and thus it contains more than one dangerous feature. While it is the seat of ethical awareness and calculating reason, it is also susceptible to the influences and blandishments of the rulers with their obsessive commandments, fanatical ideologies, pride, and arrogance of soul. Third is the human spirit (pneuma), which belongs to the fullness, although it is the gift of Sophia. In most humans this spiritual spark smolders and dreams, unconsciously awaiting the breath of the emissaries of the fullness to be fanned into effective action. This spirit is of Sophia, and through and beyond her, it is of the identical essence as the supreme King and Queen, Depth and Silence themselves.

In this embodied existence we find some humans who may be called hyletics, who are ruled by instinct, urges, and sensations and live largely in the realm of Pan. Others have been named psychics, and they usually worship the Demiurge as God, having no awareness of the spiritual world above. Their pride and joy are law and doctrine, and they imagine themselves as superior to other humans by virtue of their laws. So the spiritual history of humanity is largely a progression from primitive instinctuality and nature-worshipping pantheism (where Pan is theos, i.e., God) to dogmatic religion and ethics, and from these to the true spiritual freedom of Gnosis. In order to reach the kingdom of light and become a pneumatic, the human being must have first renounced his servitude to physicality, and then, often with great difficulty, also renounce the thralldom of the Demiurge and his minions in the form of ideological servitude. Ideas enslave just as much as passions, and both are obstacles to the rule of the spirit. Thus comes about the great renunciation (apolytrosis) wherein humans break the shackles affixed to their bodies and minds by the rulers. Following this there is but one great step to be taken: the bride chamber, or the transformative union of the lesser human with the over-shadowing presence of the twin angel.

From the heights of the material world and the peak experiences of the mind, men and women lift up their eyes and behold the everlasting hills of Sophia-Achamoth’s kingdom of spiritual light. The twin angel reaches down his shining arm to earth and bears the human soul aloft into the bride chamber where the spiritual union is sealed in a heavenly marriage. One by one, Sophia draws her spiritual children unto herself, bidding them to join the army of the elect. Such is the gift of Sophia, drawn from the endless treasury of the light and made available to humans by way of her compassion and wisdom. She who remained faithful to the true light entreats her children to do likewise. Faithfulness to the spirit dwelling in the deepest and highest recesses of their nature will thus lead them to the renunciation of illusion and the embracing of the real.

 

Imagine if this were the central myth of our culture.  Imagine if that had been the myth that had been told and retold to you throughout your childhood.  How might your woldview have been different?

 

As you might imagine, Jung was very excited to discover in Gnosticism many parallels to his own discoveries about the structure and dynamics of the psyche.  In the weeks ahead, we will talk about these parallels in greater depth, but here are a few, to get us started:

 

1)      At the core of our being, there is a divine spark.  Our identity is deeply connected to the transcendent Self.

2)      Connection to the transcendent Self is NOT about adhering to the laws and commandments of a negative Father in the sky.  Indeed, strict adherence to these imposed laws is a restriction on our freedom to fulfill our true destiny.

3)      We have a physical nature, but we are more than our bodies.  We have an intellect, but we rational thought is not what defines us as human.

4)      Human misery is rooted in ignorance and a misunderstanding about who we really are.  There are powerful forces that conspire to keep us in this prison.  Jung called these the archetypes and the complexes.

5)      If we are open to it, there is help available to us.

6)      The feminine aspect of the Divine is intimately involved in our destiny as individuals and as humankind.

7)      Evil does not arise from humanity.  Evil exists in the being that is commonly and mistakenly worshipped as the true god.

8)      To progress to our ultimate destiny, we must become increasingly whole.  All the split-off aspects of our nature can be reunited, if we have the necessary stamina and insight.

 

 

 

Feminine Divine Wisdom

 

Last week, we oriented ourselves to Gnostic thought – a vast and complicated belief system – using the framework and vocabulary of Jungian thought.  Today, we go into greater depth on one aspect, the role of the divine feminine.  But, before we do that, let’s explore how the Gnostic approach to myth differs from the approach taken by mainstream religion, particularly Judaism, Christianity and Islam.   This approach is described by Stephan Hoeller in his book Jung and the Lost Gospels.

 

Organized religion tends to emphasize a close-ended approach.  Someone, probably in the distant past, had a profound, personal experience of the divine.  They were touched by God, one might say, and transformed by the experience.  They began to speak to others about what they had experienced, struggling to find the language to fully express their personal experience.  This came to be written down and became revered as scripture – the Bible, Koran, Talmud, etc.  But, limited language cannot fully contain a mystical experience, nor can those who read scripture re-experience the mystical event vicariously.  Scripture tends to become codified into dogma and commandment.  This we believe, therefore this we do.  All others will suffer God’s judgment.

 

The Gnostics take a very different view of myth, a view that is very consistent with Jungian thought, but quite threatening to mainstream religion.  To the Gnostics, it begins with your own experience of the divine.  We are all mystics, if we allow ourselves to be.  Once you have had a mystical experience, myth takes on new meaning – not a historical record of some special person who had an experience of the past, but the story of a kindred soul.  It’s like reading travel guides.  If you read a travel guide, but you have never been to the place that is described, it’s all rather abstract.  You can roughly imagine the experiences of the guide writer in his travels, but never fully grasp it; you may even envy the travel guide writer for having such a wonderful trip.  On the other hand, if you go to an exotic location, then read the travel guide, you feel an affinity for the writer.  You know – in that gnosis sense – exactly what he is describing.  He may have gone farther than you, making you want to go back, but the writer and you have shared an experience, and you are kindred souls, in that sense.

 

So it is with the Gnostic view of myth.  Though myth may be written in symbolic and poetic language, it touches on themes that are familiar to the mystic.  Myth can strengthen you on your further journey.  In the Gnostic view, myth inspires ritual – we perform rituals to bring mystical experiences consciously into the realm of time and space.  We go back to the mystic realm when we practice ritual in that way.  But ritual is not the end of the cycle.  Each time we fully engage in an inspired ritual, we further internalize our mystical experiences.  We overcome that dismissive part of the intellect that says, “this is lovely, but it has nothing to do with reality.”  The mystical experiences become absolutely real to us, more real than the reality that is foisted on us by so-called pragmatists and the views of the collective.  That leads to further mystical experiences, and the cycle continues.

 

So, as we explore the Gnostic mythology of feminine wisdom, try to stay in the Gnostic mind-set rather than the traditional religious mindset.  How will you know the difference?  If you try to pin the mythological events in time and space, you are not in the Gnostic mindset.  When did the events in the myth occur – was it thousands or millions of years ago?  Where, exactly, did all this occur – here on earth, or up in the sky somewhere?  Those are “pinning” questions, like “where is Noah’s Ark now?” and “was the Garden of Eden in modern-day Iraq?”  Myth is not a history book – it is an invitation to have a mystical experience.  Everything in the myth is happening right now, and it is happening everywhere.

 

From Jung and the Lost Gospels by Stephan Hoeller, page 13.
 
So, if you recall from last week, the character Sophia plays a central role in the Gnostic creation myth.  In the beginning, there was a realm in perfect balance, indescribable in its fullness and depth, which the Gnostics call the pleroma.  Then, the primal split occurred, the split between the masculine principle and feminine principle.  Untold billions of further differentiations would ensue, but this was the first.  The feminine principle, called Sophia or Wisdom, felt a great longing – the Gnostics likened it to an overwhelming love – to fully merge back with the masculine principle.  It was unbearable to her that some part of her masculine counterpart was unknown to her, not contained by her—for that was her nature, to be whole, contained, and containing.  And so she began her quest, to continue searching until she was able to reunite.  But this was no easy task.  In the process, Sophia gave birth to the entire material world, the archetypes, and the multitude of divine sparks that lie inside of human beings.  She is our Mother, and she is the compassionate World-Spirit, gathering up all her wandering children so that we all may reunite and become, at long last, whole in the pleroma.

 

That’s the Gnostic myth of Sophia, in its essence.  Now, in the Gnostic tradition, let’s discuss what insights might come to us from this myth about our individual lives and our connections to the larger meaning.  Jung tells us that human consciousness emerges from the unconscious; it emerges from a pre-conscious state of unity, then it becomes separate and alienated from its original source.  In other words, we tend to question the reality of the psyche and the existence of the Self.  Maybe we really are here all by ourselves.  Maybe there is nothing greater than the human ego.  That leads to the modern feelings of meaninglessness and ennui that plague humankind.

 

As if that weren’t enough of a challenge, there are forces that conspire against us, that encourage us to remain alienated and distant from our true source.  If you are not sure who you really are, there are plenty of ready-made answers that will present themselves to you.  For some people, these will take the form of gods and goddesses.  For others, these will take the form of material wealth, or technological power, or intellectual prowess.  Gnostics called these limiting forces the archons; Jung called them the archetypes.  They shape and distort human consciousness and threaten anyone who dares to strike out on her or his own, to live out their individual destiny rather than comply with collective norms and expectations.  In the Gnostic tradition, these archons are also the offspring of Sophia.  In other words, they are part of the divine plan and struggle, arising from that initial separation of masculine and feminine.

 

The Gnostics have tended to depict that initial separation as an error, even as an act of hubris on the part of Sophia.  What might it mean psychologically?  I think it depicts the fundamental imbalance that arises when masculine and feminine consciousness become alienated from one another and act in isolation.  Like Sophia, we have an inborn longing to restore balance in our lives and in the world, but our way is unclear and often perilous.  That journey toward restoration of balance is what Jung called individuation.  We won’t find our life’s destiny by blindly worshipping the Old Testament Jehovah – the Gnostic demiurge – and following all his commandments.  Nor will we find our destiny by elevating the Goddess to our supreme deity and turning ourselves over to her, embodying only feminine divinity.  There is something beyond these archetypal influences, and we humans are in a unique position to find it.  We are the children of the Mother; we have the spark of her divinity in us, and our physical bodies are made up of her matter.  But, living a worldly existence is not the essence of what it means to be human.  Our divine spark longs to be return to the unconscious, to merge with the Self, and therefore restore, in some small part, the balance and wholeness.

Gnostics describe Sophia’s state as deplorable suffering, even as prostitution.  There is something about alienated human consciousness, particularly in its modern form, that deprecates and misuses the feminine.  She is reduced to mere matter, a mindless and soulless substance to be exploited and bent to the masculine will.  Her receptiveness is seen as weakness.  Her willingness to conform and flow is seen as capitulation.  Is there no end to her terrible state of subjugation?  An extreme overvaluation of masculine consciousness cannot last forever, and without its feminine counterpart it cannot find what it is truly looking for.  Masculine consciousness thinks it can find fulfillment by becoming perfect – perfectly rich, perfectly powerful, perfectly intellectual, perfectly spiritual.  But, at its root, our longing is for completion and wholeness, not perfection.  Perfectibility is an illusion, born out of a virulent negative Father complex.  We must abandon it as our sole purpose, or we will perish.  Instead, we must restore the balance of masculine and feminine in ourselves.  What does that mean, in a practical sense?  It means maintaining our individuality and the courage to remain true to our individual destiny, whatever that may mean.  But it also means awareness of context and relationship; we individuate in a container formed by our ancestors, our fellow humans, our natural surroundings, and our culture.  Whatever we achieve as individuals we must offer back as a gift to our human family and to the eternal Self.

 

In Gnostic thought, Sophia is still among us here on earth.  She provides inspiration and guidance, if we will open ourselves to her.  Using Jungian terminology, the unconscious is always present for us, if we will be present for it.  Each night, we are visited by dreams; each day, synchronicities occur.  In a culture that overvalues the masculine, many of our dreams and synchronicities have a decidedly feminine quality – an attempt to restore balance through compensation.

 

Stephen Hoeller puts it this way:

 

Why, one might ask, is it at all useful or even necessary for Sophia, the World Soul, the psyche, and the ego to leap out after the deceptive light and undergo such trials and sorrows as well as joys and triumphs? It is once again none other than C. G. Jung who offered us one of the best replies when he wrote: "Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness." Action and risk are essential to the Gnostic enterprise. Those who must know run great risks, including the one of plunging into the abyss of loneliness and alienation. The Gnostic risk opens up the individual psyche to many adventures and may lead to opportunities for the exercise of the kind of compassion that only wisdom is capable of manifesting. Despite the ever-recurring naive notions of many to right all the wrongs of existence by way of extraverted collective solutions alone (an effort worthy of demiurgic arrogance!), the crucible wherein compassion weds wisdom is erected in individuals one by one. Collective solutions are in reality no solutions at all, for the true vehicle of life, the offspring of Our Lady Wisdom, is the individual. Those favored by the grace of Sophia may devote their lives to offering active service in the public arena, or, again, they may simply bring the compassionate light of Sophia to bear upon the private human tasks of their daily lives. In all instances, however, they might consider the concluding words written by Miguel de Unamuno in his Tragic Sense of Life: "And may God deny you peace but give you glory."

 

 

 

The Gnostic Gospel of Philip:  A Jungian Interpretation

 

Today, we will explore a Gnostic text in some depth, the Gospel of Philip.  This text has much in common with another Gnostic work, the Gospel of Thomas, on which I have presented before, but Philip is much less known or discussed.  Why would Thomas be more popular?  Because Thomas is much more accessible to the individual seeker, containing mystical sayings worthy of meditation.  Philip is more of a collection of advice for those who wish to practice sacramental as part of a spiritual community or group, particularly the ultimate ritual he called “the bridal chamber.”  Referring back to last week’s lecture, remember that Gnostics held ritual in high esteem, inspired by myth and inspiring further and deeper connections to the transcendent within us.

 

Who wrote the Gospel of Philip?  Was it really the apostle Philip mentioned in the orthodox New Testament?  No one knows for sure.  However, we do know that this text reflected the beliefs of an esoteric Gnostic school known as the Valentinians, named after Valentinus, who was born in Phrebonis in upper Egypt about 100 AD and educated in nearby Alexandria. There he became a disciple of the Christian teacher Theudas who had been a disciple of Saint Paul. Valentinus claimed that Theudas taught him secret wisdom that Paul had taught privately to his inner circle.  With a few exceptions, Valentinians were an accepted part of Christian congregations until the fourth century. Gradually the views of extremists such as Irenaeus and Tertullian prevailed and known Valentinians were expelled from Catholic congregations. They continued to meet in secret but increasingly they began to take on an identity as an independent sect. Despite persecution, the Valentinian school is referred to in historical records until at least the seventh century.

 

The core beliefs of the Valentinian Gnostics, reflected in the Gospel of Philip, include:

1)                  Human suffering arises from our alienation from the true God, with whom we share our deepest identity.

2)                  All things are naturally in a balanced state, including the fundamental polarity, masculinity and femininity.  This is true of our human life and it is true of the godhead.

3)                  Our alienation, and the resultant suffering, did not arise due to a human mistake or sinfulness.  The alienation occurred because a feminine aspect of the godhead, which we call Sophia, made a vain attempt to know her parent through her limited capacities.  She has wandered ever since.

4)                  One of the inadvertent emanations from Sophia was a monstrous false god, the demiurge, who enslaves humankind with false thoughts and beliefs.  We know this demiurge as the god Jehovah from the Old Testament.

5)                  The remaining aspects of the godhead re-integrated after the departure of Sophia and coalesced into an androgynous Savior, which we call Christ.  This Savior rescued Sophia from her exile, at least partially.

6)                  The man Jesus merged with the Savior Christ at the moment of his baptism.  Together with Sophia, Jesus then set about trying to impart a secret knowledge – gnosis – to the human beings who could understand it.  His most beloved disciple, an incarnation of Sophia, was Mary Madgeline.

7)                  Just before he died, the Savior departed from the human being Jesus and returned to the divine Fullness.

8)                  Human beings can still access this gnosis through the various sacramental rituals and through sincere effort.  The ultimate ritual, called the bridal chamber, involves reuniting with our spiritual twin in the divine Fullness and merging with the godhead, like the Savior and Sophia.

 

So, with that background, let’s talk about some specific passages from the Gospel of Philip, and explore some Jungian interpretations:

 

Truth did not come into the world naked, but it came in types and images. The world will not receive truth in any other way. There is a rebirth and an image of rebirth. It is certainly necessary to be born again through the image. Which one? Resurrection. The image must rise again through the image. The bridal chamber and the image must enter through the image into the truth: this is the restoration. Not only must those who produce the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, do so, but have produced them for you. If one does not acquire them, the name ("Christian") will also be taken from him. But one receives the unction . . . of the power of the cross, which the apostles called "the right and the left." For this person is no longer a Christian but a Christ.

 

Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness.

 

Those who say, "There is a heavenly man and there is one above him" are wrong. . . .. For it would be better for them to say, "The inner and outer, and what is outside the outer". Because of this, the Lord called destruction the "the outer darkness": there is not another outside of it. He said, "My Father who is in secret". He said, "Go into your chamber and shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Mt 6:6), the one who is within them all. But that which is within them all is the fullness. Beyond it, there is nothing else within it. This is that of which they say, "That which is above them".

 

When Jung talked about the archetypes of the collective unconscious, including the archetype of wholeness known as the Self, he emphasized that the archetypes cannot be known au sich, in their essence.  We can only know them through symbols and images, many of which are culturally specific.  People from Chinese culture experience the archetypes through their powerful symbols – yin-yang, I Ching, etc.  People from India experience the symbols of Kali, Ganesh, Shiva.  We, who derive much of our culture from Europe and the Middle East, have the cross, the star of David, the crescent, Moses with the stone tablets, the Trinity, and the resurrected Jesus.  Ultimately, there is an underlying Truth, or gnosis, that gives these symbols numinosity and meaning.  If we open ourselves to that numinosity, we can share in its power and its identity.  What we discover is that the gods are not above us in heaven, they are within us.

 

That can be quite dangerous, if we are not careful to keep our own human identities as well.  The Gnostics were very careful in how they exposed their initiates to their powerful rituals and symbols.  They knew that some people could be crushed by the experience.  Similarly, Jung urged people to be very cautious in their initial visits to the unconscious.  He was similarly careful and he advocated that certain people remain in their existing belief systems – religions, scientific pragmatism, etc. – because he detected that they were not ready to see the true nature of themselves and of reality.

 

What is the nature of the danger here?  The Gospel has some interesting insights:

 

God is a dyer. As the good dyes, which are called "true", dissolve with the things dyed in them, so it is with those whom God has dyed. Since his dyes are immortal, they become immortal by means of his colors. Now God dips what he dips in water.

 

It is not possible for anyone to see anything of the things that actually exist unless he becomes like them. This is not the way with man in the world: he sees the sun without being a sun; and he sees the heaven and the earth and all other things, but he is not these things. This is quite in keeping with the truth. But you saw something of that place, and you became those things. You saw the Spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You saw the Father, you shall become Father. So in this place you see everything and do not see yourself, but in that place you do see yourself - and what you see you shall become.

 

Jung describes the a tendency of the unconscious to absorb or integrate whatever it encounters.  Jung would say that things become “psychized” – they pass into the psyche through symbol.  We cannot know even external objects in their true form – we only know them in their psychized aspect.

 

Again, this can be a healthy process – a person encounters powerful people, places, and things and places them in perspective, appreciates them, and even utilizes them on the path of individuation.  Or, it can be an unhealthy process – a person worships a whole series of false gods, like money or charisma or power, and loses his or her identity in the process. 

 

Here are some further quotes from the Gospel of Philip with profound Jungian parallels:

 

Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.

 

Jung found that the psyche was a self-balancing system.  It abhors extremism and seeks to compensate it with the formidable means at its disposal – dream, vision, and synchronicity.   Therefore, polarities are to be seen as tensions that can ultimately be transcended.

 

One of the most difficult, but most important, polarities is masculine and feminine.  There is one quote attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Philip that is often used by those who venerate Mary Madgeline.  It is a striking thing for Jesus to say in a culture that was so dominated by men and masculine sensibilities:

 

As for the Wisdom [Sophia] . . . she is the mother of the angels.  And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [Jesus] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."

 

Clearly, Jesus saw Mary Madgeline as equivalent to, or even superior to, his male disciples, not because he was sexually attracted to her, but because she was linked to his divine counterpart, Sophia.  The provocative question he posed to his disciples – are you blind, and incapable of ever seeing the truth or experiencing gnosis, or merely lost in darkness, but perhaps capable still of gnosis?  In either case, criticism of Mary was condemned as ignorant.

 

Jung lamented the over-masculinization of Christianity, the banishment of the feminine from the godhead.  He didn’t come to this conclusion from feminist political sensibilities – no one could accuse Jung of that! – but from the unhealthy and painful situations he encountered in his clinical work.  Femininity, exiled from consciousness, could not grow, transform, and flourish as it should.  Men who could not form relationship with their feminine unconscious suffered alienation and loss of energy.  Women who could not embrace feminine identity were tormented by doubt and self-hate.  The contra-sexual anima and animus, who should be our healers and teachers, become our tormenters if we cannot relate to them.  The Gospel of Philip puts it more poetically:

 

The forms of evil spirit include male ones and female ones. The males are they which unite with the souls which inhabit a female form, but the females are they which are mingled with those in a male form, though one who was disobedient. And none shall be able to escape them, since they detain him if he does not receive a male power or a female power, the bridegroom and the bride. One receives them from the mirrored bridal chamber.

 

What, then, are we to do, to escape our exile, transcend the opposites, and find peace and fulfillment at last?  Clearly, the Gospel of Philip cautions against the common paths that people attempt, that is, slavish obedience to church or state and obsession with bodily pleasure, physical beauty, or material possessions:

 

Fear not the flesh nor love it. If you fear it, it will gain mastery over you. If you love it, it will swallow and paralyze you.

 

Whereas in this world the union is one of husband with wife - a case of strength complemented by weakness(?) - in the Aeon (eternal realm), the form of the union is different, although we refer to them by the same names. There are other names, however; they are superior to every other name that is named and are stronger than the strong. For where there is a show of strength, there those who excel in strength appear. These are not separate things, but both of them are this one single thing. This is the one which will not be able to rise above the heart of flesh.

 

Is it not necessary for all those who possess everything to know themselves? Some indeed, if they do not know themselves, will not enjoy what they possess. But those who have come to know themselves will enjoy their possessions.

 

This world is a corpse-eater. All the things eaten in it themselves die also. Truth is a life-eater. Therefore no one nourished by truth will die. It was from that place that Jesus came and brought food. To those who so desired, he gave life, that they might not die.

 

He who is a slave against his will, will be able to become free. He who has become free by favor of his master, and has sold himself into slavery, will no longer be able to be free.

 

Instead, we are called by Philip to take up the growth of consciousness, to examine all of our motives at their deepest levels, and to align ourselves with our deeply intuited connection to the truth.  We must forsake what Jung called “lack of consciousness” or what Philip called “ignorance”:

 

So also with the tree: while its root is hidden, it sprouts and grows. If its root is exposed, the tree dries up. So it is with every birth that is in the world, not only with the revealed but with the hidden. For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. That is why the Word says, "Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees" (Mt 3:10). It will not merely cut - what is cut sprouts again - but the ax penetrates deeply, until it brings up the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, while others did it only partially. As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one's heart from the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart. It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want; and what we do want, we do not do. It is powerful because we have not recognized it. While it exists it is active. Ignorance is the mother of all evil. Ignorance will result in death, because those who come from ignorance neither were nor are nor shall be. [...] will be perfect when all the truth is revealed. For truth is like ignorance: while it is hidden, it rests in itself, but when it is revealed and is recognized, it is praised, inasmuch as it is stronger than ignorance and error. It gives freedom. The Word said, "If you know the truth, the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:32). Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge is freedom. If we know the truth, we shall find the fruits of the truth within us. If we are joined to it, it will bring our fulfillment.

 

As long as it is hidden, wickedness is indeed ineffectual, but it has not been removed from the midst of the seed of the Holy Spirit. They are slaves of evil. But when it is revealed, then the perfect light will flow out on every one. And all those who are in it will receive the chrism. Then the slaves will be free and the captives ransomed. "Every plant which my father who is in heaven has not planted will be plucked out." (Mt 15:13)

 

With consciousness, we can participate in a sacrament or ritual that Philip called “the bridal chamber.”   Here are a couple of passages on that topic:

 

Farming in the world requires the cooperation of four essential elements. A harvest is gathered into the barn only as a result of the natural action of water, earth, wind and light. God's farming likewise has four elements - faith, hope, love, and knowledge. Faith is our earth, that in which we take root. And hope is the water through which we are nourished. Love is the wind through which we grow. Knowledge, then, is the light through which we ripen.

 

Those who are separated will unite [...] and will be filled.  . . .. If anyone becomes a son of the bridal chamber, he will receive the light. If anyone does not receive it while he is here, he will not be able to receive it in the other place. He who will receive that light will not be seen, nor can he be detained. And none shall be able to torment a person like this, even while he dwells in the world. And again when he leaves the world, he has already received the truth in the images. The world has become the Aeon (eternal realm), for the Aeon is fullness for him. This is the way it is: it is revealed to him alone, not hidden in the darkness and the night, but hidden in a perfect day and a holy light.

 

Those are the final words of the Gospel of Philip – a tantalizing glimpse of what is possible for humanity.  This “bridal chamber” so lauded by Philip is actually quite akin to the “greater coniunctio” that Jung wrote about so extensively in his collected works, particular Volume 14, Mysterium Coniunctionis.  What is the “greater coniunctio”?  Words cannot fully capture the experience – even Jung struggled for a vocabulary – but here are some hints.  It involves a fundamental shift in consciousness, a transcendence and reconciliation of all opposites, and a sort of ultimate marriage that gives birth to possibilities that can only be dimly intuited by us in our current, fragmented state.  All maladies – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – will be healed.  Everything that is coarse and ugly will be made noble.  Every bit of knowledge that has been hidden will be made obvious.  Using some modern terminology, it is a great leap forward in the evolution of the human species.

 

Perhaps the closest vocabulary we have to describe the “bridal chamber” experience is the poetry and symbology of love.  There is a most uncharacteristic passage in Jung’s autobiography where he waxes poetic about love.  Jung wrote only minimally on the topic, but he obviously held it in awe, as this passage reflects:

 

. . . I falter before the task of finding the language which might adequately express the incalculable paradoxes of love. Eros is a kosmogonos, a creator and father-mother of all higher consciousness. I sometimes feel that Paul's words—"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love" —might well be the first condition of all cognition and the quintessence of divinity itself. Whatever the learned interpre­tation may be of the sentence "God is love," the words affirm the complexio oppositorurn of the Godhead. In my medical ex­perience as well as in my own life I have again and again been faced with the mystery of love, and have never been able to explain what it is. Like Job, I had to "lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer." ( Job 40:4 f.)  Here is the greatest and smallest, the remotest and nearest, the highest and lowest, and we cannot discuss one side of it without also discussing the other. No language is adequate to this paradox. Whatever one can say, no words express the whole. To speak of partial aspects is always too much or too little, for only the whole is meaningful. Love "bears all things" and "endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). These words say all there is to be said; nothing can be added to them. For we are in the deepest sense the victims and the instruments of cosmogonic "love." I put the word in quotation marks to indicate that I do not use it in its connotations of desiring, preferring, favoring, wishing, and similar feelings, but as something superior to the individual, a unified and undivided whole. Being a part, man cannot grasp the whole. He is at its mercy. He may assent to it, or rebel against it; but he is always caught up by it and enclosed within it. He is dependent upon it and is sustained by it. Love is his light and his darkness, whose end he cannot see. "Love ceases not"—whether he speaks with the "tongues of angels," or with scientific exactitude traces the life of the cell down to its utter-most source. Man can try to name love, showering upon it all the names at his command, and still he will involve himself in endless self-deceptions. If he possesses a grain of wisdom, he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more un­known, ignotum per ignotius—that is, by the name of God. That is a confession of his subjection, his imperfection, and his dependence; but at the same time a testimony to his freedom to choose between truth and error.  (MDR, page 353)

In Search of the Gnostic Christ

 

In our religiously fractured era, it is tempting to dismiss the story of Jesus as a divisive superstition, best to be left in the past as an historical anachronism.  The other option – the unquestioned veneration of the Son of God promoted by the fundamentalists – does not seem compatible with modern consciousness.  The other option – the unquestioned veneration of the Son of God promoted by the fundamentalists – does not seem compatible with modern consciousness.  How did we come to this polarization?  Is it possible to retrieve the inner meaning of Christ – the gnosis – after thousands of years of rancor, with so much metaphorical and literal blood being spilled?  This morning, we will try.

 

First, very briefly, let’s retrace the story back to it supposed origins.  For the first three centuries of the common era, a great diversity of image and myth surrounded the story of Jesus.  There was no definitive Christian scripture.  Each sect, including the Gnostics, had their own revered texts, with some amount of overlap across sects.  The Gnostic sects, in particular, emphasized the mysterious aspect of Jesus.  As Stephan Hoeller puts it in his book Jung and the Lost Gospels:

 

It is very difficult to determine what the concept of the early Christians was concerning their executed founder. It is virtually certain that their concepts varied and that no uniform belief about Jesus was present in the early Christian communities. Turning to the Gnostic Christians we find that their Jesus was an enigma, a well-nigh insoluble mystery. Sometimes they represented him as a man, sometimes as the divine Anthropos, the wisdom-man who had come to rescue the sparks of light that had fallen into darkness. At times he had a body and a human voice wherewith he uttered many wise sayings, at other times he had a phantom-body that only seemed like any other. Like the trickster-god of the American Indians or the Fool of the Tarot deck, he was everywhere and everything; he was in a body and without it; he was in the world and outside of it. In the Gnostic Odes of Solomon he is made to say the words that still seem true today: "I seem to them like a stranger because I am from another race." (pages 42-43)

 

As you might imagine, even the imagery of Jesus at the time was wildly creative and diverse.  Sometimes, he was shown as a sort of Bacchus figure, surrounded by ivy.  Often, he was shown as a beardless youth, or a shepherd carrying a lamb.  Almost never was he shown dying on the cross, at least during that time.

 

As Roman secular power began to crumble, and various groups vied to fill the vacuum, Christianity began to coalesce as a single religion and a powerful, centrally controlled institution.  A critical turning point occurred in 451, when the so-called church fathers convened in Chalcedon and declared that Jesus had been both fully human and fully divine as a matter of dogma, discouraging any further discussion of paradox or mystery.  Any group that speculated further – the Gnostics, in particular – were condemned as heretics.  The Gnostic belief system was simply incompatible with the Church as an institutionalized religion, with their emphasis on personal connection to a transcendent god, their condemnation of dogma, and their rejection of the Old Testament Jehovah as the true god.  Interestingly enough, the church fathers stated that their central disagreement with the Gnostic version of Jesus was that he was not seen as fully human – that the Gnostics had overly spiritualized him and had denied central beliefs like original sin and the resurrection of the body.  However, from that point until the Protestant reformation, the official Jesus was less and less human and more and more divine.  His artistic depictions tended more toward the celestial king, seated on his heavenly throne, with orb and scepter, distant and foreboding.

 

The Protestant reformation produced somewhat of a shift, but not back to the enigmatic Gnostic Christ.  Indeed, they took Christianity in the other direction, making Jesus seem more accessible, like one of us.  One of the major disagreements that the Protestant reformers had with Catholicism was the de-humanization of Jesus.  Martin Luther once infamously observed, “Jesus did soil his diapers like any human baby,” which was quite the scandalous thing to say at that time.  Other Protestant reformers, like Calvin and Knox, turned the focus of worship to a Christianized version of the Old Testament Jehovah, with Jesus depicted as the more understanding mediator who could save us from our justly deserved punishment.  Jesus was not a social crusader, nor was he a mystical being – he was the object of maudlin worship, a shoulder to cry on when life became unbearable.  Catholicism initially resisted this movement, but gradually succumbed, as well.

 

Then came the Age of Reason, symbolically initiated during the French revolution when the Church of Notre Dame was briefly renamed the Temple of the Goddess of Reason.  Christianity, along with all religion, was seen as an impediment to human development.  Natural forces – like evolution – were graspable by scientific means, leaving no further need for superstition.  The miseries of humanity were best solved through social action, such as Communism or the fight for civil rights.  This is the era that Jung found himself in, at the turn of the 20th century.  By and large, the Jesus of that time was either dismissed as irrelevant, or worshipped in some fanatical or superficial way, without much mystery.

 

Practically alone among his contemporaries, Jung recognized deep issues with this situation.  Through his deep explorations in the psyche, Jung had discovered that human beings have a longing for connection to something transcendent, something greater than themselves but intimately interested and invested in their further evolution.  Neither institutional, dogmatic Christianity nor pure rational humanism appeared to be sufficient in satisfying this longing.  What he had unearthed was an archetypal pattern, felt at varying degrees by most people, which had expressed itself in powerful symbols and mythologies worldwide.  Human beings have, at our core, a spark of the divine that has wandered far from its source and gotten lost in the world.  Finding our way back is the ultimate meaning of human life, and for that task, we need some divine assistance.

 

As Jung perused world religions, he found this pattern in varying degrees in almost all of them.  In Hinduism, it is the incarnation of Vishnu, particularly in the form of Krishna.  In Buddhism, it is the teachings of the Enlightened One.  In Judaism, it is the long-awaited Messiah.  In Taoism, it is Lao Tsu.  The one religion where he found this pattern most strikingly was the long-forgotten Gnostic branch of Christianity, where all of the critical elements appeared to remain intact, including the critical role of the feminine in the process.

 

What, then, is the Gnostic story of Jesus?  In previous lectures, we have hinted at it.  This week, let’s cover it in some greater depth, with Jungian interpretation.

 

First, the origins of Jesus Christ, according to the Gnostic tradition.  Really you need to separate the mythic figure into two beings – Jesus, the man, and Christ, the transcendent being – because they have separate stories that eventually converge.  As you will recall from our previous lecture, according to the Gnostic myth, Sophia was one of the divine beings that arose in the pleroma, the transcendent realm of fullness, and she represented a feminine aspect of the godhead.  Sophia had a twin who carried an equivalent masculine aspect of the transcendent godhead, and he was called Christ.  Sophia wandered away from the pleroma, in a vain attempt to know her parent fully, which resulted in her exile, untold misery, and the creation of the earth and all its inhabitants.  It also resulted in the creation of a false god, called the demiurge, who held the earth under his control.  Christ compassionately observed all of this, awaiting that moment when he could intervene.  Finally, at the appropriate time, all the powers of the fullness assembled and selected a human who seemed most able to fulfill the divine plan, without being consumed by the experience – Mary – in whom they placed a fiery, powerful seed and who eventually gave birth to Jesus.  When Jesus reached young adulthood, a numinous young man who looked very much like Jesus came looking for him asking, “Where is my brother?” – it was Christ, the spirit from the pleroma that shared a common destiny with the human Jesus.  The two embraced and became one.  That was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

 

Let’s pause at this point for some Jungian commentary and interpretation of the Gnostic story.  In Volume 11 of his Collected Works,, Jung said, “The drama of the archetypal life of Christ describes in symbolic images the events in the conscious life as well as the life that transcends consciousness – of a man who has been transformed by his higher destiny.”  So, Jung believed that Jesus embodied the archetype of individuation.  How is this reflected in the Gnostic nativity story?  First, Jesus was a human being born with a particular destiny – not a destiny designed and executed by an earthbound ego, but rather a destiny with profound implications for all of humanity as well as the godhead.  Eventually, he discovered that he had a spiritual as well as earthly aspect, and when those united, he was prepared to change the world.  These are all ideas implicit in Jung’s concept of individuation.  We do not individuate because the world teaches or encourages us to do it – we individuate because it is part of our human nature to do so, if we are able to get past our doubt and other hindrances.  A critical moment in the path of individuation is when we realize that there is a bigger pattern going on, when we stop trying to connive or control ourselves into a better life and accept that we have a spiritual aspect equal in importance to our material existence.   It’s no accident that a person is born at a particular time, in a particular place, with particular gifts and challenges.  That combination makes each person uniquely suited to take a spiritual path that no one else could follow, and it is a path that must be followed, for that person and for future generations.  In the case of Jesus, the task and destiny were the biggest ones imaginable – to redeem his lost feminine twin and to convey secret teachings to all of humanity so that they, too, could become whole and complete.

 

Let’s return to the Gnostic myth.  As Jesus began to teach, he became immensely honored by some, and immensely hated by others.  Those who honored him tended to be outcasts and spiritual wanderers.  They didn’t really understand much of what he said, but they sensed that he was genuine and that they could find truth by doing what he advised.  For each person, he revealed as much of the true knowledge as he thought they could grasp and integrate.  Even most of his closes disciples could only dimly grasp his teachings.  They kept reinterpreting things in an Old Testament, literal sort of way, which only exasperated Jesus.  A few disciples – most notably, Thomas, Judas, and especially Mary Magdalene – received much more, and they became teachers of others.  The religious authorities saw him as a impertinent radical who threatened their personal confidence and their power.  He reserved his harshest criticism for them, called them empty, drunken, or asleep.  They conspired against Jesus and arranged for him to be executed.

 

Again, let’s look at this from a Jungian view.  When people embrace their spiritual destinies, they are doomed to be honored by some and reviled by others.  The individuating person will be particularly reviled by those who are most invested in the status quo.  True marks of such a person are persistence and consistency.  It is very tempting to “dummy down” or alter the message to match the expectations and capacities of one’s friends or followers, to stay out of trouble.  In other words, tell them what they want to hear, even it is deceptive or overly simplistic.

 

Finally, Jesus was arrested and crucified.  Just before he died, he cried out, “My God, why have you abandoned me?”  It was at that moment that his spiritual aspect, Christ, departed from his dead body.  But Christ did not immediately depart for the pleroma.  He appeared to his disciples – including Mary Magdalene – and imparted the most esoteric of his teachings.  He made it plain to them that he had come to abrogate the Law of Moses and replace it with a commandment to simply love one another.  After Christ departed the earth, only Mary Magdalene seemed to fully grasp what had been taught, for she had a special connection to Sophia.  Mary continued their training, until they departed to the four corners of the world to impart the Gnosis that they had been taught.

 

What did Jung believe about life after death?  There’s an interesting passage in Jung’s autobiography on this question.  He was musing on the conflicted feelings he had felt about the death of his mother, in which he felt both grief and joy.  Jung wrote:

 

This paradox can be explained if we suppose that at one mo­ment death was being represented from the point of view of the ego, and at the next from that of the psyche. In the first case it appeared as a catastrophe; that is how it so often strikes us, as if wicked and pitiless powers had put an end to a human life.

 

And so it is—death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality; there is no sense pretending otherwise. It is brutal not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death. There no longer exists any hope of a relationship, for all the bridges have been smashed at one blow. Those who deserve a long life are cut off in the prime of their years, and good-f or-nothings live to a ripe old age. This is a cruel reality which we have no right to sidestep. The actual experience of the cruelty and wantonness of death can so embitter us that we conclude there is no merciful God, no justice, and no kindness.

 

From another point of view, however, death appears as a joy­ful event. In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a mysterium coniunctionus. The soul attains, as it were, its missing half, it achieves wholeness. On Greek sarcophagi the joyous element was represented by dancing girls, on Etruscan tombs by banquets. When the pious Cabbalist Rabbi Simon ben Jochai came to die, his friends said that he was celebrating his wedding. To this day it is the custom in many regions to hold a picnic on the graves on All Souls' Day. Such customs express the feeling that death is really a festive occasion. (pages 314-315)

 

So, in the Gnostic myth of Jesus Christ, the story does not end at his physical death.  Indeed, his death represented merely the end of his body, not of his consciousness.  Jung’s concept of individuation says that this is not just the destiny of the historic Jesus Christ.  It could be the destiny of every human being, if we will follow the path of individuation.

 

I would like to conclude with a simple proposition.  Imagine that Jesus merely symbolizes that aspect of the psyche that reaches out to humanity, to save us from our feelings of alienation and fear.  We are living in exile, separated from our source.  There is a way back, and it a path of deep knowing, which some have called individuation, and others have called gnosis.

The Gospel of Judas

 

The text of the Gospel of Judas was lost to the world, buried in a tomb near the Nile in middle Egypt, for 1,600 years, until its discovery in 1978.  For the next 23 years, the fragile papyrus document passed through many hands, most of whom wished to earn a fortune from its sale.  It was horribly mishandled and stored improperly; what was a completely intact ancient document was folded and unfolded so many times, it literally began to disintegrate, large portions of the text being left illegible.  In 2001, it finally came into the hands of scholars and preservationists who recognized its historical worth and spent the next four years attempting to salvage what was left.  It was published in 2005, along with a National Geographic documentary, sparking much public interest.

 

As usual, the aspect of the gospel that was so fascinating to the general public was the most superficial aspect – the idea that Judas was not the reviled betrayer of Jesus, but rather a heroic figure among the apostles, uniquely beloved by Jesus.  Of course, this is controversial because it is so unorthodox.  I vividly remember a nun during confirmation classes telling me that there is only one human that is certainly burning in hell, and that is Judas.  How could Judas be anything but despicable?

 

This aspect of the Gospel of Judas is only meaningful in the larger Gnostic context within which it was written.  There are actually three larger themes in the gospel that give depth to the legendary betrayer and lend themselves to deeper Jungian interpretations:  spirit versus soul; the deception of the human race; and destiny.

 

First, the idea that human beings have spirits as well as souls, but that these are distinctly different entities.  There is a passage in the gospel where Jesus challenges the disciples to do something that should be simple – present themselves to him without fear or holding back.  The passage reads as follows:

 

[The disciples] started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against him in their hearts.

 

When Jesus observed their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, "Why has this agitation led you to anger?

 

Your god who is within you . . . [has] . . .  provoked you to anger [within] your souls. [Let] any one of you who is [strong enough] among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face."

 

They all said, "We have the strength."

 

But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away.

 

Judas [said] to him, "I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo.  And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”

 

It is significant that Jesus calls on his disciples to reveal their “perfect human” faces, but it was their spirits that would not dare to stand before him.  In this gospel, as in other Gnostic texts, the spirit is the animating force of a human being, that which is most closely associated with physical life and is only marginally associated with transcendent life.  The spirit originated from, and remains bound to, the false god known as the Demiurge who enslaves humanity.  Later in the gospel, Jesus tells Judas that the human spirit is only given to a human being as a “loan.”

 

Applying a Jungian framework, you might think of the spirit as the part of ourselves that is fixated on human survival and pleasure by worldly means.  Among the most powerful means toward these ends is the persona, the mask we wear and pretend that we really are.  When we are in the presence of someone who is genuine – someone like Jesus in the story – we can become very self-conscious about the parts of ourselves that have remained hidden behind persona.  We feel like frauds, and we turn away.

 

However, there is another aspect to human life, beyond spirit: the human soul.  Unlike the temporary loan that is the spirit, the soul is a eternal gift or grant.  The soul is the inner person, with origins in the divine, destined to return to the divine at the end of earthly life.  The soul is the link to the transcendent realm, beyond all the traumas and attachments that plague us while we inhabit our bodies.  The soul is not conditioned by power and fear.  From a Jungian view, the soul is the manifest Self, a spark of the archetype of archetypes that becomes pinned in time and space in the service of wholeness.

 

In the quote from the gospel, Judas pronounces that Jesus is from the immortal realm of Barbelo, which exists beyond the reach of the false Demiurge.  Who is Barbelo?  In Gnosticism, Barbelo is one of the names of the feminine aspect of the supreme being.  Therefore, the immortal realm of Barbelo is an apt analogy for the collective unconscious, which is often depicted in feminine terms.  Interestingly, the etymology of the word “barbelo” may be read as “the four-fold god.”  What is the fourth face of the trinity, so long dismissed or repressed?  Jung tells us, it is the feminine face.

 

This leads us to the second major theme in the Gospel of Judas, that human beings are held captive in a web of ignorance and deception.  This web is being spun by the Demiurge and the archons.  Interestingly, in the gospel, Jesus describes the intricate structure that operates beyond normal human perception, with hierarchical realms governed by powerful entities, a sort of angelic bureaucracy with the Demiurge sitting at the very top.  Over what do these other-worldly bureaucrats preside?  The very building-blocks of what we perceive as reality, particularly time and place.  For instance, there are angelic forces controlling the days, months, seasons, and years.  There are also angels assigned to each of the nations of the earth.  What might this mean, in a Jungian sense?  The angelic forces represent the archetypes, those transpersonal patterns that shape how we perceive reality.  We exist under the spell of their influence, so much so that we can barely imagine how we might perceive reality without them. This is our familiar world, but it is a trap.  It keeps us from realizing that there is a realm beyond conventional notions of time and place.  This web of deception separates our soul from its true home in the realm of Barbelo.

 

Jesus presents all of this to Judas.  Why does he not share it with all the other disciples?  Essentially, Jesus finds that the other disciples are too much under the spell of the Demiurge.  The fact that they can’t show Jesus their true nature is just the beginning.  Jesus chides the disciples for performing a traditional thanksgiving prayer before eating, saying, “You are not doing this because of your own will but because it is through this that your god will be praised.”  In other words, most of the rituals and other practices of the institutional churches are in the service of the false god because they are done unconsciously.  There is a passage where the disciples have a dream about a great temple, where a crowd of people are gathered at the altar.  The priests invoke the name of Jesus, then perform a terrible assortment of acts, including human sacrifice.  Jesus explains that the priests represent the false religions, who invoke his name but have nothing to do with him.  The awaiting crowds are the disciples and all the people of the world they will lead astray.  All this, says Jesus, will come to pass before peoples eyes are opened to the truth.

 

Judas has a different vision, which he also offers to Jesus for interpretation.  Judas says, “I saw myself as the twelve disciples were stoning me and persecuting me severely.  And I also came to the place where . . . I saw a house and my eyes could not comprehend its size.  Great people were surrounding it, and the house had a roof of greenery, and in the middle of the house was a crowd, [and I was] saying, ‘Master, take me in along with these people.’”  Jesus explained that the house was the place reserved for the holy, and that it was beyond time and space, in the words of the gospel, “Neither the sun nor the moon will rule there, nor the day, but the holy will abide there always, in the eternal realm with the holy angels.”  Jesus cautioned Judas not to be deceived into thinking this was all going to happen to him right away; he was destined to suffer at the hands of his fellow disciples and die before he could enter that realm.  But, having had this dream, Judas had proven himself ready to receive the mysterious teachings, which descended on Judas like a “luminous cloud.”

 

The final major theme in the Gospel of Judas concerns destiny.  Throughout the gospel, Jesus tells Judas that each human soul is linked to a star in the heavens, which reflects its ultimate destiny.  This is paralleled in Plato’s Timaeus, where the great Greek philosopher writes:

 

Thus the creator spoke, and once more into the cup in which he had previously mingled the soul of the universe he poured the remains of the elements and mingled them in much the same manner; they were not, however, pure as before, but diluted to the second and third degree. And having made it, he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be one and the same for all—no one should suffer a disadvan­tage at his hands; they were to be sown in the instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth the most religious of ani­mals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the superior race would here after be called humanity.... The person who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. (41d—42b; ed. Benjamin Jowett, slightly revised)

 

This is a very interesting analogy, drawn by both Plato and the Jesus of this Gnostic gospel.  Here on earth, it may appear that we are completely in charge of our present and future circumstances.  I choose what I choose, then I experience the consequences, happy or unhappy.  Meanwhile, if we look up at the stars, we see the heavenly bodies moving with no human interference.  They follow their paths, whether we will them to do so or not.  What part of our lives is like the stars?  Jesus tells Judas that, in fact, each human soul has a destiny, which is its purpose in the larger scheme of things.  It is literally “in the stars” that Jesus would suffer an unjust execution and that Judas would play a key role in bringing this about.  But, there is no tragedy in this – it simply had to happen.  If Judas attempted to escape this destiny, he would be refusing to live out his true and necessary role in history.  The essence of Jesus should not be trapped in time and space, in earthly life, forever.  He came to earth, enlightened the few that were open to his teachings, then would return to the blissful realm of Barbelo.  The moment of his death might be horrible, but it would be brief, then followed by a escape from the burden of human life.  Why should Judas be condemned for fulfilling his role in helping Jesus return to his true home?  Those who would condemn him would be displaying their ignorance of destiny.