the Kena Upanishad: "By whom willed and directed does the
mindflyforth?By whom commandeddoesthe firstbreathmove?
Who sends forth thespeech we utter here? What god is it that stirsthe eyeandear? Thehearing of theear, the thinking of the mind, the speaking of the speech . . . That which speech can- not express, by which speechis expressed . . . which the mind cannot think, by which the mind thinks, know that as Brah- man."*
349 Yajfiyavalkya defines it in indirect form in the Brihadaran- yaka Upanishad: "He whodwells inallbeings, yetisapart from
all beings,whom no beingsknow, whose body isall beings, who
controls all beings from within, he is your Self, the inner con-
troller, the immortal. . . . There is no other seer but he, no other hearerbuthe,noother perceiverbuthe,no otherknower buthe. He is yourSelf, the inner controller, the immortal. All elseisofsorrow.4
35 InMonoi'mos, who wascalled "the Arab," Indian influences are notimpossible. Hisstatementis significantbecause itshows that even in the second century5 the ego was considered the exponent of an all-embracing totality, the self a thought that by no means all psychologists are familiar with even today.
These insights, in theNear Eastas in India, are the product of intense introspectiveobservationthat can onlybepsychological.
Gnosis is undoubtedly a psychological knowledge whose con- tents derive from the unconscious. It reached its insights by concentratingonthe"subjective factor/
76whichconsists empiri- cally in the demonstrable influence that the collective uncon- scious exerts on the conscious mind. This would explain the astonishing parallelism between Gnostic symbolism and the findings of thepsychologyofthe unconscious.
35i Iwouldlike to illustrate thisparallelismby summarizingthe symbols previously discussed. For this purpose we must first of allreview thefactsthat led psychologists to conjecture an arche- type of wholeness, i.e., the self. These are in the first place dreams and visions; in the second place, products of active imagination in which symbols of wholeness appear. The most
3Based on Radhakrishnan, ThePrincipal Upanishads, pp. 581!.
4Ibid.,pp. 228f.
5Hippolytuslivedc.A.D. 230.Monoimos musttherefore antedatehim.
6Psychological Types(1923 edn.,pp.4711!.).
Important of these are geometrical structures containing ele- mentsofthecircleandquaternity; 7namely,circularandspheri-
cal forms on the one hand, which can be represented either purely geometrically or as objects; and, on the other hand, quadratic figures divided into four or in the form of a cross.
Theycan also be fourobjects or persons relatedto one another inmeaningorbytheway they arearranged. Eight, as amultiple of four, has the same significance. A special variant of the qua- ternitymotif is the dilemmaof 3 -f- i. Twelve (3 X 4) seems to belong here as a solution of the dilemma and as a symbol of wholeness (zodiac, year). Three can be regarded as a relative totality, sinceit usually represents eitheraspiritual totalitythat
isa productofthought, like the Trinity,8 orelse an instinctual, chthonic one, like the triadic nature of the gods of the under-
worldthe"lowertriad." Psychologically, however, three ifthe contextindicates thatitrefers to the self shouldbe understood
as a defective quaternity or as a stepping-stone towards it.9
Empirically, a triad has a trinity opposed to it as its comple- ment. The complement of the quaternityis unity.10
352 From the circle and quaternity motif is derived the symbol of the geometrically formed crystal and the wonder-working
stone. Fromhere analogy formation leads on to the city, castle,
church,11 house, room,12 and vessel.13 Another variant is the wheel. The former motif emphasizes the ego's containment in the greaterdimensionof theself; the latteremphasizes the rota- tion which also appears as a ritual circumambulation. Psycho-
logically, it denotes concentration on and preoccupation with acentre, conceived as thecentre of acircleand thus formulated
as a point. This leads easily enough to a relationship to the heavenly Pole and the starry bowl ofheaven rotating round it.
A parallel is the horoscope as the "wheel of birth."
7The circle has the character of wholeness because of its "perfect" form; the quaternity, because fouris theminimum number of parts into which the circle
may naturallybedivided.
8 Cf."A Psychological Approachtothe Dogmaofthe Trinity,"pars. iSsff.
9Cf. "Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales" in Part I of vol. 9, and
"APsychologicalApproachto theDogmaof the Trinity."
10Five corresponds tothe indistinguishability of quaternityand unity.
11 Cf.the buildingofthechurchwithliving stones inthe"Shepherd"ofHennas.
12Wilhelm, TheSecret of the GoldenFlower,p. 40.
^Psychology and Alchemy,par. 338.
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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF
353 The image of the house, room, and vessel brings us to their content the inhabitant of thehouse orcity, andthe water con- tained in thevessel. The inhabitant, in his turn, hasa relation- ship to the quaternity, and to thefifth as the unity of the four.
The water appears inmodern dreams andvisions as a blue ex- panse reflecting the sky, as a lake, as four rivers
(e.g., Switzer- landas theheartofEurope with the Rhine, Ticino, Rhone, and
Inn, or the Garden of Eden with the Gihon, Pison, Hiddekel, and Euphrates), as healing water and consecrated water, etc.
Sometimes the water is associated with fire, or even combined with itas fire-water (wine, alcohol).
354 The inhabitant of the quadratic space leads to the human
figure. Apart from the geometrical and arithmetical symbols, this is thecommonest symbol of the self. It is eithera god or a godlike human being, a prince, a priest, a great man, an his-
torical personality, a dearly loved father, an admired example, the successful elder brother in short, a figure that transcends the ego personality of the dreamer. There are corresponding femininefigures inawoman's psychology.
355 Just as the circle is contrasted with the square, so the qua- ternity is contrasted with the 3 + 1 motif, and the positive,
beautiful, good, admirable, and lovable human figure with a daemonic, misbegotten creature who is negative, ugly, evil, despicableand anobject offear. Likeall archetypes, theselfhas a paradoxical, antinomial character. It is male and female, old
man andchild, powerfulandhelpless, large and small. The self is a true "complexio oppositorum,"14 though this does not mean that it is anything like as contradictory in itself. It is quite possible thatthe seeming paradox is nothing buta reflec- tion of the enantiodromian changes of the conscious attitude, which can have a favourable or an unfavourable effect on the whole. The same is true of the unconscious in general, for its frightening figures may be called forth by the fear which the conscious mindhas of theunconscious. The importance ofcon- sciousnessshouldnot be underrated; hence it isadvisableto re- latethe contradictory manifestationsof theunconsciouscausally to the consciousattitude, at leastin somedegree. Butconscious- nessshould not be overratedeither, forexperience provides too
14AdefinitionofGod inNicholas of Cusa.Cf."Psychology ofthe Transference/' par. 537.
many incontrovertible proofs of the autonomy of unconscious compensatory processes for us to seek the origin of these an- tinomies onlyin theconsciousmind. Between theconsciousand
the unconscious there is a kind of "uncertainty relationship,"
because the observer is inseparable from the observed and al-
ways disturbs it bythe actofobservation. Inother words, exact observation of the unconscious prejudices observation of the conscious andvice versa.15
356 Thustheselfcan appearinallshapesfromthe highest to the lowest, inasmuchas these transcendthescope ofthe ego person- alityin the manner of a daimonion. Itgoes without saying that the self also has its theriomorphic symbolism. The commonest
of these images in modern dreams are, in my experience, the elephant, horse, bull, bear, white and black birds, fishes, and
snakes. Occasionally one comes across tortoises, snails, spiders,
andbeetles. The principalplant symbols are the flower and the
tree. Of the inorganic products, the commonest are the moun-
tain andlake.
357 Where there is an undervaluation of sexuality the self is
symbolized as a phallus. Undervaluation can consist in an ordinary repression or in overt devaluation. In certain differ- entiated persons a purely biological interpretation and evalua- tion of sexuality can also have this effect. Any such conception overlooks thespiritualand"mystical" implications of the sexual instinct.16 These haveexisted from time immemorial as psychic
facts, but are devalued and repressed on rationalistic and
philosophical grounds. In all such cases one can expect an un- conscious phallicism by way of compensation. A good example
ofthisisthemainlysexualisticapproach to thepsycheinFreud.
358 Coming now to theGnostic symbolsof the self, wefind that the Naassenes of Hippolytus lay most emphasis on the human
images; of the geometrical and arithmetical symbols the most importantare the quaternity, theogdoad, the trinity,andunity.
Here we shall give our attention mainly to the totality symbol of the quaternity, and above all to the symbol mentioned in
15For case histories on the mandala motif see the last two papers in Part I ofvol.9.
16Cf. Hurwitz, "ArchetypischeMotivein der chassidischen Mystik," ch.VI.
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THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE SELF
section 6 of thelastchapter,whichIwouldliketocall, for short, the Moses Quaternio. We shall then consider the second Naas- sene Quaternio, the one with the fourrivers of Paradise, which
I shall call the Paradise Quaternio. Though differently consti- tuted, the two quaterniosexpress roughly thesame idea, andin what follows I shall try not only to relate them to oneanother psychologically, but also to bring out their connection with
later (alchemical) quaternary structures. In the course o these investigations, we shall see howfar the two quaternios are char- acteristic oftheGnosticage, and how far theycanbe correlated with the archetypal history of the mind in the Christian aeon.
The quaternity in the Moses Quaternio17 is evidently con- 359
structedaccording to the following schema:
TheHigherAdam
Miriam, Mother' Sister-Anima
Jcthro, physical endspiritualfather
Zipporah, wife ofMoses and daughterof Jethro
The LowerAdam
TheMoses Quaternio
36 The "lower Adam" correspondsto the ordinary mortalman, Moses to the culture-hero and lawgiver, and thus, on a person-
alistic level, to the"father"; Zipporah, as thedaughterofaking
17Elenchos, V, 8, 2.
227
AION
andpriest, to the"higher mother/' Forthe ordinary man, these tworepresent the "royal pair/' which for Moses corresponds on
theone hand to his "higherman/' and on the otherhand to his anima, Miriam.18 The "higher" man is synonymous with the
"spiritual, inner" man, who isrepresented in the quaternio by Jethro. Such is the meaning of the quaternio when seen from
the standpointofMoses. But sinceMoses is related to Jethro as the lower Adam, or ordinary man, is to Moses, the quaternio cannot be understood merely as the structure of Moses' per- sonality,but must belookedatfrom thestandpointofthelower
Adam as well. We then get the following quaternio:
MOSES ZIPPORAH
as culture-hero as higher mother
THE LOWER ADAM EVE
as ordinary man as ordinary woman
361 From this we can see that the Naassene quaternio is in a sense unsymmetrical,since itleads toa senarius (hexad) withan
exclusively upward tendency: Jethro and Miriam have to be added to the above four as a kindof third storey, as the higher counterpartsof Moses andZipporah.We thus get agradual pro- gression, or series of steps leadingfrom the lower to the higher Adam. Thispsychology evidentlyunderliesthe elaboratelists of Valentinian syzygies. The lower Adam or somatic man conse- quently appearsas thelowest stage ofall, from which therecan be only an ascent. But, as I have already pointed out, the four persons in the Naassene quaternio are chosen so skilfully that
itleavesroom notonlyforthe incest motif, whichis neverlack- inginthe marriagequaternio, butalso for the extension of the ordinary man's psychic structure downwards, towards the sub- human, thedarkand evilside representedby the shadow. That
is to
say, Moses marries the "Ethiopian woman," and Miriam, the prophetess and mother-sister, becomes "leprous," which is clearproof thatherrelationto Moseshastaken a negative turn.
This is further confirmed by the fact that Miriam "spoke
against" Moses and even stirred up his brother Aaron against him. Accordingly, we get the following senarius:
18 Cf. "Psychology ofthe Transference," pp. 21iff.
228