Itappears spontaneouslyor comesasasurprise; itfascinates; its
glance is staring, fixed, unrelated; its blood cold, and it is a stranger toman: itcrawls over the sleeper, he finds it in a shoe or inhispocket. Itexpresses hisfear ofeverythinginhuman and
his awe of thesublime, of what isbeyond human ken. It is the lowest (devil) and the highest (son of God, Logos, Nous, Aga- thodaimon). Thesnake's presence is frightening, one finds it in unexpected places at unexpected moments. Like the fish, it
represents and personifies the dark and unfathomable, the watery deep, the forest, the night, the cave. When a primitive says "Snake/*he means anexperienceofsomething extrahuman.
The snake is not an allegory ormetaphor, for its own peculiar
form is symbolic in itself, and it is essential to note that the
"Son"has theformof asnakeand notthe otherway round: the snake does not signify the "Son.'*
3. Theagentis the Logos, a philosophical ideaand abstrac- tionof thebodilyandpersonal sonofGod onthe onehand, and onthe other thedynamic powerof thoughtsand words.
294 Itis clear that these three symbols seek to describe the un- knowable essence of the incarnate God. But it is equally clear thattheyare hypostatized toahigh degree: it is real water, and notfigurativewater, thatisusedinritual. The Logos was in the beginning, and Godwas theLogos, longbefore theIncarnation.
The emphasis falls so much on the "serpent*' that the Ophites celebrated their eucharistic feast with a live snake, no less realistic than the Aesculapian snake at Epidaurus. Similarly, the "fish** isnotjust the secret languageof the mystery, but, as the monuments show, it meant something in itself. Moreover,
it acquired its meaning in primitive Christianity without any
realsupportfrom thewrittentradition, whereasthe serpent can atleastbereferredback toanauthentic logion.
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295 All three symbols are phenomenaof assimilation that are in themselves of a numinous nature and therefore have a certain degreeofautonomy. Indeed, had theynever made their appear- ance, itwould have meant that the annunciation of the Christ- figure was ineffective. These phenomena not only prove the
effectiveness of the annunciation, but provide the necessary conditions in which the annunciation can take effect. In other words, thesymbolsrepresentthe prototypes ofthe Christ-figure thatwere slumberinginman'sunconsciousand were thencalled
awake by his actual appearance in history and, so to speak, magnetically attracted. That is why Meister Eckhart uses the same symbolism to describe Adam's relation to the Creator on
the one hand and to the lower creatures on the other.13 296 This magneticprocess revolutionizes theego-oriented psyche
by setting up, in contradistinction to the ego, another goal or centre which is characterized by all manner ofnames and sym-
bols: fish, serpent, centre ofthe sea-hawk,14point, monad, cross, paradise, and so on. The myth of the ignorant demiurge who
imagined he was the highest divinity illustrates the perplexity oftheegowhenit cannolonger hide fromItself theknowledge
that it has been dethroned by a supraordinate authority. The
"thousand names" of the lapis philosophorum correspond to theinnumerable Gnosticdesignations for theAnthropos, which make it quite obvious what is meant: the greater, more com- prehensiveMan, thatindescribable wholeconsisting ofthe sum
of conscious and unconscious processes. This objective whole, the antithesis of the subjective ego-psyche, iswhat I havecalled the self, and this corresponds exactly to the idea of the An- thropos.
297 When, in treating a case of neurosis, we try to supplement
the inadequate attitude (or adaptedness) of the conscious mind
13"And therefore the highest power, seeing herstability in God, communicates
it to the lowest, that they may discern good and evil. In this union Adam
dwelt,andwhilethisunionlastedhehadall thepowerof creaturesinhishighest power.Aswhena lodestoneexertsitspower upona needleanddrawsittoitself,
theneedlereceivessufficientpower to passon to all the needles beneath,which
it raises and attaches to the lodestone." (Meister Eckhart, trans, by Evans, I, p. 274, slightly modified.) 14
[Cf.n. n,supra.]
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by addingto Itcontents of the unconscious, our aimis to create a wider personality whose centre of gravity does not necessarily coincide with the ego, but which, on the contrary, as the pa-
tient's insights increase, may even thwart his ego-tendencies.
Like a magnet, the new centre attracts to itself that which is
proper to it, the "signs of the Father," i.e., everything that per- tains to the original andunalterable characterof the individual ground-plan. All this isolder thanthe ego andacts towardsitas the "blessed, nonexistent God" ofthe Basilidians acted towards the archon of the Ogdoad, the demiurge, and paradoxically enough as the son of the demiurge acted towards his father.
Theson proves superiorin thathehasknowledgeofthemessage from above and can therefore tell his father that he is not the highest God. This apparent contradiction resolves itself when we consider the underlying psychological experience. On the one hand, inthe productsof the unconscious theself appears as
itwereapriori,thatis, inwell-knowncircleandquaternity sym- bolswhich mayalready have occurred in the earliest dreams of childhood, long before there was any possibility of conscious- ness or understanding. On the other hand, only patient and painstaking work on the contents of the unconscious, and the resultant synthesis of conscious and unconscious data, can lead toa "totality,"which once more uses circleand quaternity sym- bols for purposes of self-description.
15 In this phase, too, the original dreams ofchildhood are remembered and understood.
The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, ex-
pressed this paradox through the symbol of the uroboros, the snakethatbites its own tail.
298 The same knowledge, formulated differently to suit the age they lived in, was possessedbythe Gnostics. The idea ofan un- conscious was not unknown to them. For instance, Epiphanius quotesanexcerptfrom oneoftheValentinianletters,whichsays:
"In the beginning the Autopator contained in himself every- thing that is, in a state of unconsciousness [lit., 'not-knowing':
]."
16 It was Professor G. Quispel who kindly drew my
15Cf.
Psychology and Alchemy, pars. i27ff v and "A Study in the Process of Individuation/1in PartIofvol.9.
16'E| apXVS & AvToirdrwp avrbs ev eaurw 7re/>tet%e TCL iravra &vra iv eauraJ iv ayvuo-iq./cr\. Panarium, XXXI, cap.V (Oehler edn., I,p. 314).
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attention to this passage. He also pointsout the passage in Hip- polytus: 6 Uajyp ... 6 avWQ7]Tos KOI avovcrios, 6/Z9?re appe.vft?yT QrjXv,
which he translates: "le Pere . . . qui est depourvu de con- science etdesubstance, celui
qui estnimasculin, ni feminin."17 So the "Father" isnot only unconsciousand withoutthe quality of being, but also nirdvandva, without opposites, lacking all qualities and therefore unknowable. This describes the state of theunconscious.TheValentiniantext gives theAutopator more
positivequalities: "Some called him the ageless Aeon, eternally young, male and female, who contains everything in himself and is
[himself] contained by nothing." In him was li/ma, con- sciousness, which "conveys the treasures of the greatness to those who come from the greatness." But the presence of IWOKL does not prove that the Autopator himself is conscious, for the differentiation of consciousness results only from the syzygies
and tetrads that follow afterwards, all of them symbolizing processes of conjunction and composition, *Ew>ta must be thoughtofhereasthe latentpossibilityof consciousness. Oehler
translates itas menSjCornarius as intelligentiaandnotio.
299 St. Paul's concept of fyvoia (ignorantia) may not be too far removed from ayv&a-ia, since both mean the initial, unconscious condition of man. When God "looked down" on the times of ignorance, the Greek word used here, tnrepiSwv (Vulgate: despi-
ciens) has the connotation *to disdain, despise/18 At all events, Gnostic tradition says that when the highest God saw what
miserable, unconscious creatures these human beings were
whom the demiurge had created, who were not even able to
walkupright,he immediatelygotthe workofredemption under way.19 And in the same passage in the Acts, Paul reminds the Athenians that they were "God's offspring,"
20 and that God, looking back disapprovingly on "the times of ignorance," had
sent the message to mankind, commanding "all men every-
17Elenchos}VI,42,4; Quispel, "Note sur 'Basilide/"
p. 115.
isActs 17:
30.
19Cf. Scott, Hermetica (I, pp. 150!:.) where there is a description of the krater filledwith NouswhichGodsent down to earth.Those whosehearts strive after consciousness (yvapi%ov<raeiri rl ye^ovas) can "baptize" themselves in t-he krater and thereby obtainNous. "Godsays that themanfilled withNous shouldknow
himself" (pp. is6f.).
20 Tevos ovv virdpxovres rov 6eov (Acts 17:29).
where to repent." Because that earlier condition seemed to be altogether too wretched, the perdvoia (transformation o mind) tookonthemoral character ofrepentanceofsins,with the result that the Vulgate could translate it as "poenitentiam agere."21
The sin to be repented, of course, is ayvoia or ayvoxria, uncon-
sciousness.22 As we have seen, it is not only man who is in this condition, butalso, accordingto the Gnostics, the avewfajTos, the
God without consciousness. This idea is more or less in line with the traditional Christian view that God was transformed during the passage from the Old Testament to the New, and, from being the God of wrath, changed into the God of Love
a thought that is expressed very clearly by Nicolaus Caussin in the seventeenth century.23
3 In this connection I must mention the results of Riwkah
Scharf's examination of the figure of Satan in the Old Testa- ment.24 With the historical transformation of the concept of Satanthe imageofYahwehchanges too, so thatone canwell say that there was a differentiation of the God-image even in the Old Testament, not to speak of the New. The idea that the world-creating Deity is not conscious, but may be dreaming, is found also in Hindu literature:
Who knows howitwas,and whoshalldeclare
Whence itwasbornand whenceitcame?
Thegodsare laterthanthiscreation;
Who knows, then, whenceithas sprung?
Whencethiscreatedworld came,
Andwhether hemadeitornot,
Healonewhosees allin the highestheaven Knows or doesnotknow.25
21Likewise theperavoeiTe of the Baptist (Matt. 3:2).
22 cf. theTO TTJSdyvotas dfidprij^a,'sinofunconsciousness*in"Clement ofRome"
(Horn. XIX, cap. XXII), referring to the man who was born blind (John 9: i).
23Polyhistorsymbolicus,p. 348:"God,formerly the God ofvengeance,whowith thundersand lightnings brought the world to disorder, took his rest in the lap of a Virgin, nay, inherwomb,and wasmade captiveby love."
24"DieGestaltdesSatansimAltenTestament."
25Rig-Veda, X, 129. (CL MacNicoltrans.,Hindu Scriptures, p. 37.)
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