Becoming Whole

Jung's Equation for Realizing God

Leslie Stein

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781611457742
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Jungian Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In 1951, Carl Jung published what he considered the highest synthesis and exposition of the transformation of Self and the discovery of the divine in one of his latest and most difficult works, Aion. The equation's complexity and uncharacteristic elements of mysticism have caused it to fall by the wayside in traditional Jungian and psychological analysis. No major work has tackled this fascinating concept until now.Leslie Stein, a disciple of noted Jungian analyst Rix Weaver, here explores this groundbreaking equation to its fullest capacity. Tracing the roots of Jung's research back to his influences in the world of the Kabbalah and Sufi mysticism, and grounding the more esoteric philosophy toward the modern sense of identity, Stein has produced both a rigorous work of scholarship on a major figure and a guide that challenges readers to reflect on our own truths.

CHAPTER 1

THE EQUATION: IMAGERY AND CONCEPTS

The General Purpose of the Equation

The equation appears to be a mathematical formula, yet it describes psychological states. Jung believes that numbers or their algebraic equivalents can serve other roles:

Equations, for instance, that were invented as pure mathematical formulae have subsequently proved to be formulations of the quantitative behavior of physical things. Conversely owing to their individual qualities, numbers can be vehicles for psychic processes in the unconscious. The structure of the mandala, for instance, is intrinsically mathematical.¹

Jung states that the mathematical equation in Aion has two functions as descriptive of psychic processes: the equation is itself a symbol of the Self and it illustrates a process of transformation that occurs within the Self.²

The equation is a symbol of the Self as it is circular, which is a common representation of wholeness or unity. This is reinforced because the circle also represents a dynamic process leading to greater wholeness (i.e., from A to B to C to D). The second function of the equation is to depict the process that takes place within the Self. The Self,³ Jung explained, is a mysterious phenomenon that arises spontaneously in the “psyche”⁴ that “confronts the subject independently of him….”⁵ When that mysterious phenomenon arises, it is often perceived as the appearance of God or an image of God. Jung says that the image of God, the Imago Dei as he called it, is a universal phenomenon that is perceived as an objective fact in the psyche as the “God-image is not something invented, it is an experience that comes upon a man spontaneously—as anyone can see for himself unless he is blinded to the truth by theories and prejudices.”⁶

For Jung, the Imago Dei arising in the psyche is not related to the existence of a transcendent Deity or a God in heaven. Instead, he uses the Imago Dei as a symbol or archetype of wholeness⁷ that is the objective experience of that mystery in the psyche that we often call God. The consequence is that the term “God” is frequently interchanged in his writings with the Self. He adds that the use of the term “God” in addition to pointing to this unified wholeness is a reminder that the Self has a numinous (supernatural or religious) character.⁸ Jung’s use of the word “God” in the context of the Self is not therefore a statement of his belief in a transcendent Deity but recognition of the mystery of the power of the Self in the psyche. Jung was very clear that this is what he means: “I speak exclusively of the God image.”⁹ When he does speak of “God” in a biblical sense, it concerns the myths, structures, and anthropomorphic statements about the God-image without reference to God’s existence as a transcendent Deity. Jung is often accused of being a heretic because he makes God exclusively a psychological construct and does not refer to a transcendent Deity. Jung’s response was always that God indeed exists in the psyche and to say more is deifying psychic structures and anthropomorphic images.¹⁰

As to the meaning of a process of transformation within the Self, Jung is not explicit as to why the Self or the Imago Dei changes; how indeed does the Self or the God image in the psyche transform? The answer is contained in a fundamental theme in Jung’s writings that the God image is initially dormant or unconscious in the psyche and gradually becomes more accessible or conscious.

The notion of the God image being initially “unconscious” is the starting point of the equation. Marie-Louise von Franz explains this concept in an interview about Aion:

Well, you find it all over in Jung’s writings and there it says that God wants to become conscious in us. We are the most conscious being on this planet, I mean, relatively to all the other animals and plants, we are relatively highly conscious. Jung thinks that God is unconscious, not conscious.¹¹

Jung elucidates this concept in his work Answer to Job, where he asserts that Yahweh’s testing of Job proves that he is not omnipotent:

The character thus revealed fits a personality who can only convince himself that he exists through his relations to an object. Such dependence on the object is absolute when the subject is totally lacking in self-reflection and therefore has no insight into himself.¹²

The unconscious God, he states, “strives for total realisation—which in man’s case signifies the attainment of total consciousness.”¹³ In terms of the God-image in the psyche, this translates to the Self within us being initially unconscious; our Imago Dei is unformed and unknown, yet it desires to become manifest in the psyche and be understood. This striving of the unconscious God to become known takes place by the steps in the equation by a process that occurs in an individual’s psyche. Marie-Louise von Franz expresses it this way: “so when he incarnates in us, that is an improvement in his state. In other words, we are God and within us he begins to see himself.”¹⁴

Barbara Hannah, in her Lectures on Aion, explains what such a process can offer for an individual:

Perhaps the clearest simile Jung uses is when he says that the human being must never forget he is only the stable in which the god is born. Yet we seem to have some choice as to whether we will function at that stable or not. Here we come to the crux of the process of individuation: are we willing to sacrifice the ego as a self-willed one-sided limited human consciousness and are we willing to realize the eternal Self and live its pattern instead of our own?¹⁵

By the steps in the equation, the unconscious Self undertakes a process of transformation within itself as it becomes more conscious. The equation therefore is both a symbol of the Self and a process of the Self becoming conscious.

Explanation of “A”—The Anthropos

Jung states that the “A” at the top of the equation is the Anthropos in its “initial state” and, as the equation finally returns to A, in its “end state.”

Jung uses “Anthropos” in several different ways in his writings: at one point as a mythical figure¹⁶ and at another as a figure in the Old Testament, but in the context of the equation he refers to the Anthropos as the spirit of God¹⁷ that desires to manifest.

In early Christianity, the Anthropos is compared with the earthly Christ, who has three aspects: the spirit of God in man as He is God in the form of a man, the bridge for the transmission of God’s word to man, and also the signpost to salvation.¹⁸

In the sense that the Anthropos is the spirit of God in man that has a desire to manifest, its presence at the start of the equation places the human being as the essential ground within which the process takes place. The process is dependent upon and occurs within the psyche of man. Jung states that this anthropocentric view of man as a willing participant in the manifestation of God can be traced as a basis for religious thought from the sixth century BC:

This revelation had steadily been asserting itself from the time of Ezekiel forward, and was now affecting everything in its path. It not only dominated Christian and Jewish theology and mystical practice, but manifested itself in a novel way in Gnosticism, and within the bosom of Islam, in Sufism.¹⁹

The Anthropos or spirit of God in its initial state is dormant, without consciousness. Jung states that at this stage the Self exists only in its “originally unconscious totality,”²⁰ which is a pre-conscious, non-discriminating identity with the social group and the world. Jung adopts the phrase “participation mystique” from the anthropologist Levi-Bruhl to explain this concept, which he also referred to as a “dreaming innocence” where there is no conscious awareness of oneself as separate from that which is observed.²¹

The Self is in this state of identity when there is no differentiation between the opposites: subject and object. The merger of subject and object amounts to unconsciousness as Jung explains:

Union of opposites is equivalent to unconsciousness, so far as human logic goes, for consciousness presupposes a differentiation into subject and object and a relation between them. Where there is no ‘other’ or it does not yet exist, all possibility of consciousness ceases.… As the Godhead is essentially unconscious, so too is the man who lives in God.²²

The Anthropos is therefore the unconscious Self within the unconscious man that has the capacity to become conscious by the action of man in finding an “other” so there can be differentiation between subject and object.

The Anthropos is also in the equation as the “end state,”²³ where it returns to A at the end of the process. This symbolizes that the initial state of unconsciousness is transformed by the process in the equation to the end state of full consciousness. This is possible because the Anthropos, as the presence of the spirit of God in man, contains within it the potential for consciousness. This makes the Anthropos, when the process is complete, synonymous with a fully realized, conscious wholeness. In alchemy, this wh...