Theosophy and Gnosticism - Jung and Franz Von Baader

© 2008 J. Glenn Friesen

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Theosophy and Gnosticism: Jung and Franz von Baaderby

Dr. J. Glenn Friesen© 2008

Revised notes from lectures given at the C.G. Jung Institute, Küsnacht (June 21-22, 2005)

I. Introduction

In Lecture 1 of this series, we saw that Jung’s idea of individuation needs to be understood inrelation to his idea of totality. Totality is the center beyond time that is both the source and thegoal of all temporal functions. And individuation, which is the purpose and goal of Jungiananalysis, is not to be understood in terms of individualism, but in terms of our relating ourtemporal ego to our supratemporal, supra-individual and central selfhood.

In this second lecture I will look at how this idea of totality is related to the philosophy of theGerman Christian theosophist Franz von Baader (1765-1841), and how this Christian theosophydiffers from Gnosticism.

The Philosophy of Totality is related to a renaissance in interest in Baader’s philosophy. In the1920’s, many of Baader’s works were republished, and Jung read Baader at that time. As weshall see, many of Jung’s ideas are related to Baader. This does not just apply to the idea oftotality and individuation, but also to Jung’s ideas of alchemy and quaternity. We will alsoexamine Jung’s relation to Gnosticism and to Kabbalah, and how those ideas compare withChristian theosophy.

II. Who was Baader?

Franz von Baader is known for his Christian philosophy, or more accurately, for his Christiantheosophy. It has been said that he was ‘the only Christian philosopher in the grand style thatGermany ever had.’1 Baader was a Roman Catholic, but he believed that the Russian OrthodoxChurch represented the best Christian path. He considered Protestantism to be too literal andrationalistic, and he found Catholicism too rigid and ‘petrified.’

We can see in Baader the ideas that became so prominent in the philosophy of totality, and thatwe discussed in Lecture 1: the rejection of mechanistic atomism, the idea of an organic whole,the emphasis on center and periphery and the idea of heart as the center.

Baader opposed the Enlightenment’s mechanistic and atomistic idea of nature.2 He is thereforesometimes referred to as a philosopher of Romanticism, which also opposed an over-use of 1 Hugo Ball, cited by Poppe: Afterword to Franz von Baader: Über die Begründung der Ethikdurch die Physik (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1969), 108. [‘Begründung’]. Referencesin my article will be to this edition, although it is also found in Vol 5 of Baader’s CollectedWorks, which will be referred to as ‘Werke.’2 Werke 3, 317 fn4: Baader opposed what was atomistic, mechanical; Werke 3, 329: integration iswholeness = holiness [Baader writes in English, using this spelling].


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science and emphasized our ability to have direct, unmediated knowledge by our intuitiveexperience. But Baader’s Romanticism must not be understood as irrationalism or emotionalism.Unlike an irrationalist Romanticism, Baader emphasizes the importance of theory when it is seenin its proper relation to our experience.

Baader was strongly opposed to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, but he was also opposed toany pietistic flight away from rationality. Pietism, especially within Protestantism, sometimestook on a very irrational and subjectivistic nature.

Baader kept alive within the western philosophical tradition the mystical philosophy of JakobBoehme and Meister Eckhart. He introduced the philosopher Schelling to the ideas of Boehme.And he introduced Hegel to the ideas of Meister Eckhart. But Baader disagreed with the usemade by Schelling and Hegel of these ideas. In Lecture 3 of this series, we will look at Boehmeand Eckhart in more detail.

Baader’s most important influences were Jakob Boehme, Meister Eckhart and St. Martin.3 Healso studied Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroeck, Paracelsus, Kepler, Aquinas, Anselm, Eriugena,Augustine, the Church Fathers, Angelus Silesius, Oetinger and Swedenborg.

Jung read and refers to many of these same writers. It is not generally known that Jung read allthe works of Swedenborg, who had a vision of the Stockholm fire when he was not in Stockholmand could not have otherwise known about it. And not generally known that Jung’s appreciationof the philosopher of Kant is probably more due to Kant’s book on Swedenborg, Dreams of aSpirit-Seer than to Kant’s major philosophical works.

Baader derived his ideas not only from Christian sources, but also from hermetic and alchemicalthought, and from the Jewish Kabbalah.4

Baader’s writings are extremely difficult to read, even for German readers. He uses theosophicallanguage, he frequently uses untranslated words from other languages such as French, and hesometimes invents new words. He often uses symbols and analogies. His writings are notsystematic, but merely aphoristic. Baader said he did not mind if his work was regarded asunsystematic; he saw his own work in more organic terms, as ‘ferment,’ or ‘seeds.’5

3 Louis Claude de St. Martin (1743-1803) wrote under the name of ‘the Unknown Philosopher’(‘le philosophe inconnu’). He was the author of Des erreurs et de la vérité and Le TableauNaturel. Le Tableau Naturel showed the relations between God, Man and the universe. St.Martin is not to be confused with the Jewish mystic Martines Pasqualis, who also influencedBaader.4 Baader regarded the Sefer Yetsirah [‘The Book of Creation’] as an original revelation to theJews. But Baader had only a superficial knowledge of Kabbalah. See David Baumgardt: Franzvon Baader und die Philosophische Romantik (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1927), 35[‘Baumgaradt’].5 Franz von Baader: Sämtliche Werke, ed. Franz Hoffmann (Leipzig, 1851-1860) [‘Werke’], 1,153f. The title of Baader’s 1822 work, Fermenta Cognitionis, reflects this view. This work hasbeen translated into French: Franz von Baader: Fermenta Cognitionis, tr. Eugène Susini (Paris:Albin Michel, 1985). The original is found in volume 2 of Werke.


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There is very little available in English regarding Baader, although his Collected Works are 16large volumes–about the same as Jung’s work. Ramon J. Betanzos has written one of the fewbooks in English on Baader: Franz von Baader’s Philosophy of Love.6

See also my translations of three of Baader’s works:

1. Concerning the conflict of religious faith and knowledge as the spiritual root ofthe decline of religious and political society in our time as in every time (1833)[Über den Zwiespalt des Religiösen Glaubens und Wissens als die geistigeWurzel des Verfalls der religiösen und politischen Societät in unserer wie in jederZeit]7

2. Concerning the Concept of Time (1818) [Über den Begriff der Zeit]8

3. Elementary concepts concerning Time: As Introduction to the Philosophy ofSociety and History (1831) [Elementarbegriffe über die Zeit: als Einleitung zurPhilosophie der Sozietät und Geschichte]9

III. Baader’s Influence

Baader had an important influence on his contemporaries Schelling, Hegel, Goethe, Jacobi,Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Jean Paul, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Clemens Brentano.10 Hevisited Friedrich Schleiermacher several times.11

However, Baader became isolated towards the end of his life, and after his death was for a timenearly forgotten. His obscurity is partly due to his dispute with Schelling late in life. AfterBaader’s death, Schelling even tried to prevent publication of Baader’s Collected Works.Nevertheless, Baader’s writings continued to exert an influence on later writers such as MaxScheler,12 A.W. Schlegel, Kierkegaard and Berdyaev.13

6 Ramon J. Betanzos: Franz von Baader’s Philosophy of Love (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1998).7 Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zwiespalt.html].8 Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Zeit.html].9 Translation online at [http://www.members.shaw.ca/baader/Elementar.html].10 Baumgardt, 5-7. Baader introduced Hegel to the thought of Meister Eckhart (Werke 15, 159;Baumgardt, 34), and he introduced Schelling to the thought of Boehme, thereby changingSchelling’s orientation from pantheism to theism (Baumgardt, 41). But influence does notnecessarily mean agreement; Baader disagreed with Hegel, Schelling, as well as others that heinfluenced.11 Werke 15, 105; Betanzos, 72.12 Betanzos, 12, 25; Eugène Susini: Franz von Baader et le romantisme mystique (Paris: J. Vrin,1942), 6 [‘Susini’].13 Poppe, Afterword to Begründung, 107-8. In his Concept of Dread, Kierkegaard refers to “thecustomary power and validity of Baader’s ideas.” (Baumgardt, 7 and 398). Friedrich Heerthought that Berdyaev’s ideas were based completely on Baader (Betanzos, 294). Berdyaev


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Baader had an important influence on his contemporaries like Schelling, Hegel and Goethe.After his death he influenced others like Kierkegaard and the Russian Berdyaev. There was atremendous renaissance of interest in Baader in the years following the World War I.14 And thatis of course the time that Jung was developing his psychology. And we know that Jung readBaader.

IV. Jung’s Knowledge of BaaderDeirdre Bair’s biography of Jung confirms that Jung read Franz von Baader. She reports thatafter 1920, Jung turned to Baader. Jung concluded that Baader had “damned little to say.” Helater read J.J. von Görres, whom he said was “exactly the same.”15 Bair expresses the opinionthat none of these writers touched upon “the dark substance, the dark side” to which Jung hadalways been attracted. Bair links Jung’s disappointment to his childhood dream of God shittingon the church. Bair gives the following detail of this dream, which is not included in Jung’sautobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections:

…from under [God’s] throne an enormous turd falls upon the sparkling new roof,shatters it, and breaks the walls of the Cathedral asunder”,” so big that the roofcollapses under this load (Bair, 34)

Jung had another dream where he was about to enter into ecstasy, opened a door and saw a pileof manure. So Jung’s disappointment with Baader may relate to his idea of evil. If Jung werelooking for confirmation that evil exists in God, he would not find that idea in Baader! We willexamine the problem of evil as it is discussed in Christian theosophy and in Gnosticism, and howJung and Baader differ in their idea of evil.

Jung does refer to Baader, but only a couple of times.

(1) Jung refers to Baader in relation to alchemy and hypnotism:

Some day we shall be able to see by what tortuous paths modern psychology hasmade its way from the dingy laboratories of the alchemists, via mesmerism andmagnetism (Kerner, Ennemoser, Eschimayer, Baader, Pasavant, and others), tothe philosophical anticipations of Schopenhauer, Carus, and von Hartmann; andhow, from the native soil of everyday experience in Liébasult and, still earlier, inQuimby (the spiritual father of Christian Science), it finally reached Freudthrough the teachings of the French hypnotists.16

(2) Jung refers to the influence of Boehme on Baader in relation to androgyny: the original unityof feminine and masculine (CW 14, 58n). Adam lost this androgyny. Adam was supposed tobring forth without Eve just as Mary later was a virgin. The creation of Eve was as counter-institution to help prevent a deeper descent of man.

wrote on Baader. See N.A. Berdyaev: “Studies concerning Jacob Boehme” online at[http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1930_349.html].14 Introduction to Fermenta Cognitionis, tr. Eugène Susini (Paris: Albin, 1985), 9.15 Deirdre Bair: Jung: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 2003), 397 [‘Bair’].16 C.G. Jung: CW 4, 748. He cites Baader’s Werke 7, 229: "He who was born in the Virgin Maryis the same who had to depart Adam on account of his fall."


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Those two quotations are important in themselves in showing Baader’s influence. But there aremany other similarities between Baader and Jung. We must therefore question Jung’s statementthat he found little of relevance in Baader.

It is possible that Baader directly influenced Jung, even where Jung does not specificallymention him in the text. Jung’s books did not go through a peer review process, and he may nothave been scrupulous in acknowledging his sources.

But it is also possible that there were indirect influences and sources that were common to bothBaader and Jung. Baader was so important in reviving interest in Meister Eckhart and JakobBoehme. As we shall see in Lecture 3, Jung frequently refers to Eckhart and Boehme, and sothese western mystics are an important common source for Baader and Jung. Baader was alsoimportant in providing some of the formative ideas of Romanticism and its quest for wholeness.Many people have shown similarities between Jung and Romanticism.

Other common sources include Angelus Silesius, Lazarus Zetzner’s Theatrum Chemicum (acompendium of alchemical works), and Justinus Kerner, the Seer of Prevorst.

V. Similarities between Jung and Baader

When I first started reading Baader, I noticed some similarities to Jung. I have since found oneother article making comparisons between Baader and Jung. It is by Hans Grassl.17 Grasslconcentrates on similarities with the idea of quaternity. But there are many more similarities.Here are some of the similarities, which we will examine in detail:

• Supratemporal selfhood

• Totality, Center and organism

• God-image

• Shadow

• Unconscious

• Introversion and Extraversion

• Reconciliation of opposites

• Androgyny

• Alchemy

• Archetypes

• Quaternity

Let us look at these similarities in more detail.

17 Hans Grassl: “Baaders Lehre vom Quaternar im Vergleich mit der Polarität Schellings und derDialektik Hegels; Mit einem Nachtrag: Baader und C.G. Jung.,” in Peter Koslowski, ed.: DiePhilosophie, Theologie und Gnosis Franz von Baaders (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1993).


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A. Supratemporal Selfhood

In Lecture 1, we discussed how Jung regards the Selfhood as supratemporal. Thesupratemporality of the Self is also a central theme for Baader. Baader distinguishes thissupratemporality from both the temporality of the world and from the eternity of God. Thesupratemporal is therefore in between the temporal and the eternal. Baader has another category,the infernal, which is below even the temporal. I am not aware of Jung’s use of that category.

B. Totality, Center and Organism

In Lecture 1, we saw how Jung’s psychology is related to the Philosophy of Totality. ThePhilosophy of Totality, as it developed in the 1920’s, and the same ideas that we saw in Jung canbe found in Baader:

(1) Totality is more than a sum of its parts

(2) Opposition to mechanical, atomistic view.

(3) The idea of an organic whole

(4) Innerness and meaningfulness

(5) Totality is a center related to a periphery

Baader says that our outer perception is just mechanical addition and subtraction. But innerperception is dynamic through multiplication, exponential increase, division, and extraction ofroots. The explanations of physics with its dead arithmetic, are a mechanical “next to and to andfrom each other.” But the dynamic is “in and out of each other.” The mechanical is just theshadow of the dynamic. You cannot remain with the construction of the outer. What is worse isto drag the mechanical over to the inner sense.

With respect to the idea of Center and periphery, Baader says that the Center is not identical withthe sum of its Radii (Anal d. Erk, Werke 1, 42). Baader refers to the same quotation that Jungoften uses:

God is a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.Deus est sphaera, cuius centrum ubique, circumfrentia nusquam (Werke 8, 283;11, 371).

The resting in the Center is what determines the free movement in the periphery.18 Baaderemphasizes that the Center is the source of its temporal members, which all exist in potential inthe Center.19 Baader also speaks of the Center in terms of the Pleroma, or fulfillment.(“Anthropoph.,” Werke 4, 227). And as we have seen, Pleroma is also an idea emphasized byJung. The relation between Center and periphery is that also of Idea and Nature, Ideal and Real,the one who eats and his food, fire and water, man and wife [Esser und Speise, Feuer undWasser, Mann und Weib]. (“Sold Verb,” Werke 4, 300).

18 “Die Ruhe des Centrums bedingt die freie Bewegung in der Peripherie.” (“Zeitbegr” Werke 2,53).19 “…Ausgangspunkt eines Organismus, worin die einzelnen Glieder vorerst noch ungeschieden(in potentia) liegen. (“Geistersch,” Werke 4, 214).


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C. The Self as God-imageAs we have seen in Lecture 1, Jung refers to the Self as the God-Image. The idea of the God-image is enormously important in Baader’s philosophy.

(1) The image of God is the deepest mystery in us (“Tageb,” Werke 11, 61), the soul of our soul(Werke 12, 283).

(2) The image of God is Idea, Sophia, the Virgin (“Spec Dog.,” Werke 8, 291). The Logos is themale power (interior) and distinguished from the Word of life, which is female power (exterior).

(3) Jung acknowledges the Upanishads as the source for his idea of the Self. Baader linksBrahmanism with Boehme. He says that the oldest Brahmanic religion has much in commonwith Boehme (“Fermenta,” Werke 2, 301). According to Baader, this original Brahmanic religionwas not pantheistic, but an acknowledgement that something human expressed itself in allphenomena of nature (“J.B. Theol,” Werke 3, 361 ff). Elsewhere, Baader says that self-consciousness is knowing myself in something and knowing something is in me (these are thesame thing) (“Fermenta,” Werke 2, 76).

(4) We are not yet the image of God, but the seed is created in us (“Espr,” Werke 12, 347).

(5) Our sinking in God is the giving up of our false selfhood (Werke 12, 346).

(6) Baader sees this God-image in dynamic terms. Just as there is a development in God, so thereis a development in the Self. But these two dynamics must be distinguished. We will discuss thisimportant distinction in Lecture 3.

D. ShadowThe Shadow is of course one of Jung’s main ideas. But references to the shadow are also foundin Baader. He says that light cannot exist except by the shadow. We do not serve the flame wellif we remove the black carbon, nor do we serve the plant well if we take out its subterraneanroots (Werke 1, 66).

Baader refers to phenomena that come and go, without our knowledge or will. They can lift usup to heaven or throw us into hell: The Spirit as well as the body throws its shadows (Werke 4,98 ff).

E. UnconsciousJung was not the discoverer of the unconscious. Baader makes many references to it.

(1) Self-consciousness is not the root (Wurzel) itself, but the first growth (Erstgezeugte, ErsteGewüchste) (“Über der Urternar,” Werke 7, 35-6).

(2) Spirit [Geist] is conscious; Nature is unconscious. Nature feeds us (“Begründung,” Werke 5,18).

(3) True genius is unconscious, instinctive (“Fermenta IV, 12; Werke 2, 294). When we aredetached from idea, the law appears external to us, as something without liberty opposed to myartistic liberty, which is free of all law. True genius is unconscious, instinctive; this is anindependent activity

(4) Supernaturalism wrongly wants to separate the will from its unconscious drives Thesupernaturalists see the coherence between Nature and Spirit (Geist) as contingent. They want toseparate the will from its unconscious drives, whereby the creature outside of all nature becomes


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pure Intelligence, as Will and a Reason without desires or senses. Morals are divorced from Godand nature, because these are built on the concept of a pure autonomy (“Begründung,” Werke 5,18).

F. Introversion and ExtraversionJung’s first use of these terms is in his 1921 book Psychological Types:

Activity itself, as a fundamental trait of character, can sometimes be introverted; itis then all directed inwards, developing a lively activity of thought or feelingbehind an outward mask of profound repose. Or else it can be extraverted,showing itself a vigorous action while behind the scenes there stands a firmunmoved thought or untroubled feeling (Psychological Types, CW 6, para. 247).

(1) Baader uses the same terms extraversion and introversion, with the same spelling (he writesthis in French):

Les sages réconnoissent cette matérialisation inférieure comme l’effet d’unetranslocation du principe divin ou de lumière et par une introversion du principede la lumière et par une extraversion de celui de la nature, comme la clarificationde la créature (laquelle proprement proprement n’est que son accomplissement) sefait par l’Extraversion de la lumière, laquelle ne peut se réaliser que parl’introversion (ou le sacrifice) du principe naturel. Au reste il faut rémarquer,qu’un être actif comme l’homme n’ouvre son ame à un attirement qu’autant qu’ilse laisse saisir par cette force attirante, c.à.d., qu’il se rende saisiisable (passif)pour elle, ou pour ainsi dire, matière, dans laqualle le Principe attirant (le Père)puisse imprimer sa forme (son image). (“Sur l’Eucharistie,” Werke 7, 6n).

(2) Baader uses the terms ‘introversion’ and ‘extraversion’ in relation to the ideas of center andperiphery. Extraversion is being the center for something; introversion is the acceptance of thelight of the center. In introversion we accept the light of the center. But the central light that weaccept is an extraverted light. And the acceptance of the center can only take place by whatBaader calls the sacrifice of the natural principle. This is done when we just let ourselves beattracted by attractive force, we are passive, allow ourselves to be seized by it. Such a properbalance clarifies the creature. As I understand this, introversion is human acceptance of a lightthat is given for us as our center; extraversion is our acting as the center for other creatures andthe world around us. When we act as this center for the world, we are imaging God from Whomwe receive our light, and we can only be truly extravertive when we have been truly introvertive.

(3) Baader refers to proper and improper uses of extraversion and introversion (balance andimbalance). Improper extraversion is where we make the center temporal, instead of openingourselves to the supratemporal center. This is an extraversion of nature, instead of the neededintroversion of nature. In other words, nature should seek its center in man as supratemporal.Not to do so is to seek the periphery at the expense of the center. Recall what we discussed inLecture 1 about what Jung says about idols.

(4) Improper introversion is a flight from the periphery, seeking the center at the expense of theperiphery [pietism]. It seems to me that this spiritualistic pietism, the fleeing of the world at theexpense of the periphery, was the world of Jung’s father, who was a pastor.


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(5) It is beyond the scope of these lectures, but I believe that Baader’s use of these terms in thisway greatly clarifies the meaning that Jung gives to these terms. Could we say that inextraversion, we act as the center of the world that we perceive? And that introversion is ouracceptance of the light from our supratemporal center? And that both need to be in the rightbalance? Introversion and extraversion are then not just temporal functions as in a Myers-Briggstest. They are not just a matter of temporal types, of preferences of behaviour. e.g. a desire ofbeing alone. But they refer to how we relate to our center. They are attitudes with respect tocenter and periphery. We will see this again when we discuss the idea of quaternity.

G. The reconciliation of opposites

Jung believed that mental energy is created through the conflict of opposites. He said, "there isno energy unless there is a tension of opposites" (Jung, “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,”CW, Vol. 7, 63). He called this energy libido.

Jung's last great work Mysterium Coniunctionis was devoted to the alchemical symbol of theconjunction. The conjunction was a point at which two opposites were joined, were dissolved, toin turn create a third, a new level of understanding. Jung saw in the conjunction a symbol of theprocess of individuation. But this idea of reconciliation of opposites is also in Baader:

(1) There is a polarity in all of existence (“Polaritât alles Daseienden.” “Spec Dogm,” Werke 9,231f). Each polarity has three moments: involution, opposition, subordination (Ferm, Werke 2,255). There are three principles in man just as in other creatures: the heavenly or Light Principle,the dark or fiery Nature Principle and the temporal-earthly principle (“Spec Dog,” Werke 8,100).

At the acme of the opposites there is a depotentiation and a transformation [Depotenzirung andUmwandelung] (“Blitz,” Werke 2, 39ff).

(2) The existence of the creature brings with it an inner contradiction and duality. For Baader,this is due to our fall into temporality. (“Blitz,” Werke 2, 33: “mit der Enstehung (dem Setzen)der Kreatur is ihr innerer Widerspruch (Zweiheit oder Entzweiung) schon gegeben”). Theopposition between one and many, light and darkness, joy and fear, organic and anorganic is thelimitation [Bedingung] of all Life (“Starr. u. Fliess.,” Werke 3, 275).

(3) There is a conjunction of the Eternal and the temporal (“Segen u fl,” Werke 7, 142).

(5) The Pleroma is fulfillment. The soul is fulfillment of the spirit, and the body is thefulfillment of soul. (Pleroma=Erfüllung. Die Seele ist pleroma dem Geist, der Leib der Seele.Antrhopoph., Werke 4, 227).

(6) The symbolism of the cross. For both Jung and Baader, the cross is related to our experienceof quaternity. Jung refers to the cross as a symbol of the reconciliation of opposites:

The factors which come together in the coniunctio are conceived as opposites,either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another in love. Tobegin with they form a dualism; for instance the opposites are humidum (moist) /sicum (dry), frigidum (cold) / calidum (warm), superiora (upper, higher) /inferiora (lower), spiritus-anima (spirit-soul) / corpus (body), coelum (heaven) /terra (earth), ignis (fire) / aqua (water), bright / dark, agens (active) / patiens(passive), volatile (volatile, gaseous) / fixum (solid), pretiosum (precious, costly;also carum , dear) / vile (cheap, common), bonum (good) / malum (evil),


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manifestum (open) / occultum (occult; also celatum , hidden), oriens (East) /occidens (West), vivum (living) / mortuum (dead, inert), masculus (masculine) /foemina (feminine)., Sol / Luna. Often the polarity is arranged as a quaternio(quaternity), with the two opposites crossing one another, as for instance the fourelements or the four qualities (moist, dry, cold, warm), or the four directions andseasons, thus producing the cross as an emblem of the four elements and symbolof the sublunary physical world. This fourfold Physis, the cross, also appears inthe signs for earth, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter. (Myster iumConiunctionis, CW 14, para. 1).

Baader also refers to the cross as the symbol of union of opposites. There is an androgyny of thespirit. The feminine element in the soul is vitality. The masculine element gives soul or“plénitude intérieure,” and the cross shows the union of the two (Fermenta V, 1; Werke 3, 325).Baader also relates the cross to Pythagoras and the idea of quaternity:

…diese Kreuz meinte schon Pythagoras mit seiner Tetras, wie denn auch daszahlzeichen 4 Selves bezeichnet, und worüber (nemlich ¨uber den Quaternar alsvierte Naturgestalt und Lichtwurzel) J. Böhme die tiefste eingsicht gewonnen hat.(“Spec Dogm,” Werke, 8, 261).

We will discuss the idea of quaternity in more detail below.

H. AndrogynyAs already mentioned, Jung specifically refers to Baader in relation to the idea of androgyny.

(1) Baader says that Man was originally an androgynous being. The division into the differentsexes was occasioned by the fall (“Genesis,” Werke 7, 238).

(2) Christ is the restorer of our androgynous nature (“Genesis,” Werke 7, 238). (3) Our mind hasan originally androgynous nature: i.e., every mind, as such, contains its nature (Terre) withinitself, not outside itself (Werke 4, 194; Betanzos 272).

(4) Androgyny of the spirit. The feminine element in the soul is vitality. The masculine elementgives soul or interior plenitude. And the cross shows the union of the two (Fermenta V, 1;Werke 3, 327).

(5) Love and eros as the relation of two people to something higher that they have in common:

Baader refers to the wonderful alchemy of love (Relig. Phil, Werke 1, 229). Baader wrote“Propositions from the erotic philosophy” (Sätze aus der erotischen Philosophie”).20 Here aretwo of those propositions:

#1. Wenn man das Wesen der Liebe mit Recht in das Vereint- undAusgeglichensein, in die Vollendung und wechselseitige Ergänzung derEinzelnen durch ihren Eingang und Subjektion unter ein gemeinschaftlichHöheres — den Eros — setzt, denn jede Union kömmt nur in einer Subjektionzustande

20 Franz von Baader: Sätze aus der erotischen Philosophie, online at[http://www.anthroposophie.net/bibliothek/religion/mystik/baader/bib_baader_eros.htm].


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#18. J. Böhme hat nachgewiesen, daß und wie, nachdem der Mensch ins Irdischegelüstend und aus seinem jungfräulichen (Gottes-) Bild in das Mannes- undWeibesbild verstaltet und verbildet ward, ihm doch diese Jungfrau (Sophia oderhimmlische Menschheit) sich wieder ins Lebenslicht als ein in der Nachtleuchtend Gestirn (Engel oder Guide) einsetzte oder vorstellte, als ihn in und ausseinem Elend (Fremde) zur verlornen Heimat wieder weisend (Weisheit istWeiserin).

In the extasis of love, we achieve a view of unity [Silberblick] through the heavenly Virgin. TheSilberblick, an experience of unity,21 is achieved by our intuition (Anschauen). Ecstasy is also ananticipation of this integrity (Concerning the Concept of Time, 58, fn 14).

(6) The influence of the idea of androgyny in romanticism:

Baumgardt refers to other sources of this idea of androgyny: androgyny in Philo, Gregory ofNyssa, Maximus Confessor, Eriugena, Kabbalah, Novalis (Baumgardt 295).

(7) The idea of androgyny in alchemy:

The Hermaphrodite as symbol of wholeness plays a great role in alchemy.22 Jung says:

Biologically, therefore, a man contains female-producing elements, a womanmale-producing elements, a fact of which each, as a rule, is quite unaware.Certainly there are few men who could or would care to tell us what they wouldbe like if they were females. Yet all men must have more or less latent femalecomponents if it is true that the female-forming elements continue to live andperpetuate themselves throughout the body cells of the entire male organism.23

He continues:

Should you study this world-wide experience with due attention, and regard the‘other side’ as a trait of character, you will produce a picture that shows what Imean by the anima, the woman in a man, and the animus, the man in a woman.

21 The Silberblick, or experience of unity, is similar to what Stace called ‘extravertivemysticism’–a feeling of unity with all of nature.22 Jolande Jacobi: The Way of Individuation, tr. R.F.C. Hall (New York: Meridian, 1983,originally published 1965), 150. See also Jolande Jacobi: Complex, Archetype, Symbol in thePsychology of C.G. Jung (Princeton, 1959), 96, 144-45.23 C.G. Jung: “The Meaning of Individuation,” The Integration of the Personality, tr. Stanley M.D e l l ( N e w Y o r k : F a r r a r & R i n e h a r t , 1 9 3 9 ) . O n l i n e a t[http://www.jungland.ru/Library/EngMeanInd.htm]. This lecture was later revised and enlargedas “A Study in the Process of Individuation,” Mandala Symbolism (Princeton, 1959). See CW,Vol. 11.


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I. Alchemy

1. Jung’s views on alchemyAlchemy is the attempt to transmute base metals, such as lead, into silver or gold. Alchemiststried to discover a substance called the philosopher's stone, which would enable such atransformation.

Sanford L. Drob gives an interesting explanation of how Jung viewed alchemy.24 He cites Jung,that what the alchemist sees in matter, and understands in his formulas for the transmutation ofmetals and the derivation of the prima materia, “is chiefly the data of his own unconsciouswhich he is projecting into it.” The alchemist’s efforts to bring about a union of opposites in thelaboratory and to perform what is spoken of in alchemy as a “chymical wedding” are understoodby Jung as attempts to forge a unity, e.g., between masculine and feminine, or good and evilaspects of the psyche. Jung says, “The alchemical opus deals in the main not just with chemicalexperiments as such, but with something resembling psychic processes expressed inpseudochemical language.”

Jolande Jacobi also gives a good description of Jung’s use of alchemical symbols.25 Thealchemical work (or opus) starts with prima materia; using the principle of dissolve andcoagulate, one separates and combines the material of the conscious and unconscious. Theconfrontation with shadow represented by the state of blackness or negredo, after division ofprima materia into four parts. The typological dominant function is differentiated; shadowintegrated: corresponds to the crystallization of the ego. This is followed by a second negredostage: descent of the ego into the underworld. After this death, the reascent begins: anima andanimus qualities are made conscious. Distillation or purification follows; what was originally oneis again divided and reunited. Coagulatio can take place; this is analogous to confrontation withthe archetypal figures, the mana-personalities. The opus ends with transmutation of lead intogold; the birth of philosopher’s stone, the lapis.

Mark Dotson describes the alchemical process this way:

If a patient is in a state of deep depression, Jung would say that it corresponds tothe alchemical stage of nigredo, or blackness. Just as the prima materia (thesubstance being worked on) must be washed and distilled before it is purified, soalso the individual must undergo a process of cleansing and distillation beforeachieving wholeness (individuation). The purified state is known as albedo, orwhiteness. The process, according to Jung, usually begins at the nigredo stage,which is characterized by self-reflection and a state of dissolution. In alchemicalliterature, the procedure moves through various stages of distillation andpurification. To Jung, this means that a patient will gradually gain sufficientknowledge of the unconscious until one's inner life becomes integrated andbalanced (all projections are withdrawn). When this occurs, one enters a state of

24 Sanford L. Drob: “Jung and the Kabbalah,” History of Psychology. May, 1999 Vol 2(2), pp.102-118.http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html [‘Drob’]25 Jolande Jacobi: The Way of Individuation, tr. R.F.C. Hall (New York: Meridian, 1983,originally published 1965).


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great peace and tranquility. Jung claims that this is the pure gold spoken of by thealchemists.26

2. The development of Jung’s ideas of alchemy:Jung describes the development of these ideas:

Alchemy is not an old hobby of mine; I began a thorough study of the subjectonly within the last few years. My reason for making a fairly extensive use ofalchemistic parallels is that in my Psychological practice I have observed quite anumber of actual patients’ cases which show unmistakable similarities toalchemistic symbolism. In my next chapter I deal with one of those cases.Because a psychologist must be particularly careful not to suggest his owntheories to a patient, I wish to point out that none of the cases mentioned wereunder my care after I had begun the study of alchemy.

The reason it took me so long to bridge the gulf between Gnosticism and modernpsychology was my profound ignorance of Greek and Latin alchemy and itssymbolism. The little I knew of German alchemistic treatises did not do much toenlighten me about their abstruse symbolism. At all events, I was unable to makethe connection with what I knew of psychological individuation. That the paralleldawned upon me at all is due to the visionary dreams contained in the nextchapter. I must confess that it cost me quite a struggle to overcome the prejudice,which I shared with many others, against the seeming absurdity of alchemy.27

In 1929, Jung wrote a commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower, which he said was “notonly a Taoist text concerned with Chinese Yoga, but is also an alchemical treatise.”28 As a result,he began to collect alchemical writings. Some years later, Jung began to see parallels betweenthe writings of the alchemists and his own psychological theories. He says, “I had stumbledupon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious.”29 He said that thealchemists were not writing in a literal fashion, but in symbols. According to Jung, these symbolsassisted him in understanding process of psychological development:

When I pored over these old texts everything fell into place: the fantasy images,the empirical material I had gathered . . . and the conclusions I had drawn from it.I now began to see what these psychic contents meant when seen in historicalperspective.30

26 Mark L. Dotson: “Jung and Alchemy,” S p r i n g , 1996, online at[http://members.core.com/~ascensus/docs/jung3.html]27 C.G. Jung: The Meaning of Individuation (see endnote 23 above).28 C.G. Jung: Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower,” Psychology and the East(Princeton, 1978), Foreword, p. 6, and p. 23; CW 13, para. 29.29 C.G. Jung; Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Anniela Jaffé (New York: Vintage Books,1965), 205.30 Ibid.


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But it should be noted that Jung read these texts many years after he had read Baader. AndBaader makes the same use of alchemical symbols.

Centuries before Jung, and even before Baader, Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) was alreadyreading alchemy psychologically. Silesius says in Cherubinischer Wandersmann:

Ich selbst bin das Metall, der Geist ist Feu’r und Herd,Messias die Tinktur, die Leib und Seel verklärt.31

Baader cites this same work (“Br.,” Werke 15, 236, 238), but also makes many other referencesto alchemy. Jung was not the first to link alchemy to the development of our psyche.

3. Baader’s ideas of alchemy:As already noted, Jung specifically refers to Baader in relation to alchemy. But did he giveBaader enough credit for these ideas? First, it should be noted how alchemy is linked to the ideaof totality. Jung himself makes this link:

Thus the symbolism of the alchemical process represents a centralising andunifying instinct which culminates in the production of the self as a new centre oftotality.32

But apart from this general link to the Philosophy of Totality, consider the many specificreferences by Baader to alchemy:

(1) Baader refers to alchemy as the “divine art;” it is determined by the idea that redemption ofthe God-image (man) must also lead to the redemption of nature (“Euch.,” Werke 7, 25; “Spec.Dogm.,” Werke 8, 47n). The possibility of acting as mediators is given in time. Time gives usthe possibility of conferring a substance on that which does not possess it. (Fermenta I, 3; Werke2, 153; Susini II 351). It is a freeing from its binding within time. Baader refers this process tothe older teaching of the alchemists. In this way, we can free these beings from the bounds oftheir temporal individuality.

(2) Transmutation is the key of Christendom and of the higher physics (alchemy) (“Br.,” Werke15, 598, 654, 657). The purpose of physics is to make earthly material more divine (Gottförmig)so that the prima materia, the Light substance could live in it purely and unmixed.33

(3) Baader cites Paracelcus, that there are three chemical attributes or chemical bases that arefound in each of the four elements: Sulfur, mercury, and salt. (“Spec. Dogm.,” Werke 8, 252, 9,127).

(4) Baader finds the basic idea of alchemy in Boehme’s Signatura rerum (“Br.,” Werke 15, 659).Alchemy is the art of transforming Gold (the divine substance or the active and higher nature)from the earthly substances.

(5) The philosopher’s stone, sought by the alchemists, is the one element dwelling within thefour elements. (“Gnadenw.,” Werke 13, 266) 31 Cited by Rufus Jones in introduction to Boehme’s Way to Christ (New York: Harper, 1947).32 C.G. Jung: Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R. F. C. Hull, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton,1970), 115.33 Poppe, Afterword to Begründung, 122.


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(6) In his theory of sacrifice, Baader speaks of tinctures or essences in the world, which help manand ensoul him. Baader distinguishes between tincture and fire. The tincture is light, that makesessence as against fire, which takes away essence (“Studienb.,” Werke 13, 342, 345).

The white and the red tinctures (the life giving water of the moon and the life-giving blood of theSon), unite inseparably (“S. Tinctur. Opf.,” Werke 7, 400 fn). He refers to the red fiery lion andthe white lamb (“Br.,” Werke 15, 646). After maturation of the Tincture, God as Alchymicus orSpagyricus does not throw away the earthenware, but glorifies (verherrlicht) it. (“Br.,” Werke15, 312 ff).

(7) Verjüngung or Rejuvenation: the reintegration of a being in its principle

Cosmic time is a “suspension of the eternal.” Everything temporal has a beginning and end, andis fully seen in the nontemporal. Each particular now and here is only seen in the always andeverywhere (als begriffen geschaut). Everything proceeds out of eternity, has its time, and mustmake its way through time in order to return to eternity. The return to eternity is thereintegration of a being in its principle:

Die Reduktion oder Reintegration eines Wesens in seinem Prinzip hiessen namlich die alten Chemiker die Verjngung, weil jung ist, was seinem Ursprungenahe steht, und alt, was ihm enfernt ist (Elementarbegriffe 537).

[The reduction or reintegration of a being into its principle was referred to as arejuvenation by the old alchemists, because whatever stands near to its origin isyoung, and whatever is distant from its origin is old].

He refers to this reintegration by the alchemical expression ‘Verjüngung.’ (rejuvenation). Thereis either progress or regress in time: one cannot just stand still (Elementarbegriffe, 537, 538).

(8) Baader refers to Hermeticism as the foundation of alchemical wisdom (Tabl, Werke 12, 177).

K. Archetypes

(1) In Elementarbegriffe, Baader refers to the mundum archetypum [archetypal world] as anemanation (Aziloth). For Baader, the archetypal world is followed by the angelic, sidereal andelemental worlds. He uses Kabbalistic terminology to distinguish emanations from that which iscreated, formed, and made. Support for these distinctions is found in Isaiah 43:7 (“for I havecreated him for my glory, I have formed him, yea I have made him”; KJV translation). So inaddition to the mundum archetypum, there also exist three lower worlds:

–the mundum angelicum [angelic world], which was created ( Briah )–the mundum sidereum [sidereal world], which was formed ( Pezirah ), and

–the mundum elementarem [elementary world] , which was made ( Asiah )(2) Man, who appears last, is more closely related to the mundum acrchetypus (the Sophia) thanare the created angels. The mundus archetypus has here the meaning of “gloria (doxa) dei” [theGlory of God], or His Shekinah. Therefore, Isaiah’s words cover all four worlds, within themeaning of the Kabbalah.

(3) Archetypes are the Wisdom of God, His Sophia, the fourth in the Quaternity, or His Shekinah(Glory of God).


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(4) Archetypes are ideals, goals of perfection or ends. As we have seen in Lecture 1, one of themeanings of ‘archetype’ is “goals.” But Jung also uses ‘archetype’ to refer to the past, fromwhere we came, as in ancestral images.

In Lecture 1, I referred to Ken Wilber’s criticism of Jung’s confusion between past archetypesand archetypes as future goals as the pre-trans fallacy. Why are past archetypes not the same asarchetypes in the sense of future goals? My answer is that for Baader, the past is a fallenreflection of the archetypes. To merely go back to past forms is a regression.

L. Quaternity

1. Quaternity is a central idea for both Baader and JungGrassl observes that the idea of quaternity is central to both the work of Jung and of Baader.34

There are some similarities in the ways that Baader and Jung use the idea of quaternity. But aswe shall see, there are also differences.

The issues are complex, and deserve a more extended treatment. But the following comparisonswill give some guidance for the further research that is required on this point.

Grassl says that for Baader, quaternity was a figure of thought taken from neo-Platonic andalchemical traditions. It is a Pythagorean inheritance that is simply there or given. It is not anidea that Baader obtained deductively (Grassl 45). Baader circles aground the idea, giving evermore variations to it.

Baader first developed the idea of quaternity in his Über das pythagoräische Quadrat in derNatur oder die vier Weltgegenden (Pyth. Quadr. Werke 3, 247-268). In a letter to F. Schiller ofAugust, 1800, Goethe expressed his pleasure in reading it.35 As we shall see in Lecture 3,Baader finds the idea of the quadrat or quaternity in Jakob Boehme. And so does Jung, whorefers to Boehme’s mandalas.

Jung says, “It makes an enormous practical difference whether your dominant idea of totality isthree or four.” (CW 18, par 1610). He attributes the idea of quaternity to Plato and Pythagoras:

…ever since the opening Plato’s Timaeus (“one, too, three… but where, my dearSocrates, is the fourth?”) And right up to the Cabiri scene in Faust, the motif offour as three and one was the ever-recurring preoccupation of Alchemy.36

Jung also refers to Goethe’s use of the idea of quaternity CW 9, para 425), but seems unaware ofhow Goethe was influenced by Baader.

Apart from Pythagoras and Goethe, another common source for the idea of quaternity in Baaderand Jung is Justinus Kerner, the Seer of Prevorst. Kerner is important for the view that images ofquaternity are laden with numinosity or psychical energy. Grassl refers to Jung’s 1961 Symbole 34 Hans Grassl: “Baaders Lehre vom Quaternar im Vergleich mit der Polarität Schellings und derDialektik Hegels; Mit einem Nachtrag: Baader und C.G. Jung.,” in Peter Koslowski, ed.: DiePhilosophie, Theologie und Gnosis Franz von Baaders (Vienna: Passagen Verlag, 1993).35 J.W. v. Goethe: Gedenkausgabe, Vol. 20 (Zurich: Artimis, 1950), 809. Cited by Grassl 31.36 C.G. Jung: Mandala Symbolism (Princeton, 1959), p. 4, para 715. CW 9, para. 715.


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und Traumdeutung. This book shows that Jung studied Kerner’s “Blätter aus Prevorst.” Kernerwrote about possession and the occult. He used blots of ink on folded paper in order torecognize live figures of “ghosts,” and then he wrote poems about these figures.37

Jung regarded Kerner as a forerunner of clinical psychology. Alchemists were similar to clinicalpsychology in their emphasis on the living life experience of the quaternity. Baader was alsointerested in Kerner’s “Blätter aus Prevorst” (Grassl, 24, 47).

Another common influence is Lazarus Zetzner’s 17th century work, the Theatrum chemicum. Itis a compendium of alchemical and hermetical writings. Jung refers to it in his 1944 work“Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process.”38 One of the references is in the way that oneleads to the four. “Eins und es ist zwei, und zwei und es sind drei, und drei und es sind vier undvier und es sin drei, und drei und es sind zwei und zwei und es ist eins.” Jung comments that thisis the Vierteilung (Tetramerie), or division of the One, and the synthesis of the four into One.

Baader also refers frequently to this same work Theatrum chemicum and to the same statement.(See Grassl 46).

2. Quaternity and Trinity

a) Jung’s early questionsThe relation between quaternity and trinity has not been sufficiently explored in Jung’s writings.Jung was interested in the doctrine of the Trinity from a very early age. He asked his father, apastor, about the doctrine:

One day I was leafing through the catechism, hoping to find something besidesthe sentimental-sounding and usually incomprehensible as well as uninterestingexpatiations on Lord Jesus. I came across the paragraph on the Trinity, here wassomething that challenged my interest; a oneness which was simultaneously athreeness. This was a problem that fascinated me because of its innercontradiction. I waited longingly for the moment we would reach this question.But when we got that far, my father said, "We now come to the Trinity, but we'llskip that, for I really understand nothing of it myself." I admired my father'shonesty, but on the other hand I was profoundly disappointed.... (Memories,Dreams, Reflections, 52-53).

One wonders what would have happened if Jung’s father had attempted to answer the questionthat for Jung was so important.

Later in life, Jung gave a psychological explanation of the Christian dogma of the Trinity. Itrepresents a symbol for the collective psyche: the Father symbolizes a primitive phase; the Sonan intermediate and reflective phase; and the Spirit a third phase in which one returns to the

37 See discussion at [http://members.tripod.com/vismath9/ljkocic/artel2.htm].38 C.G. Jung: Traum und Traumdeutung (Munich, 1990), 240.


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original phase, though enriching it through the intermediate reflections.39 But Jung also arguedthat Trinity is incomplete, and must be completed as a quaternity? What does he mean? Thatthere is a center to the Trinity, as in Baader’s view? Or that there is a fourth personality to beadded? What is the relation between three and four, between Trinity and quaternity? Let us lookat this in more detail, first examining Baader’s views and then Jung’s.

b) Baader’s idea that the Tetras (four) is prior to the Trias (three)Baader says that the Tetras (the Quadrat or Quaternity) is earlier than the Trias (triangle) (“Br.,”Werke 15, 109). A trinity or triad is also referred to as a ‘Ternar.’ Examples of Ternars are Fire,Air and Sun (Light) (“Rel Phil,” Werke, 1, 299). In the first volume of his SpekulativenDogmatik, Baader gives examples of 23 such Ternars. A Ternar or trinity has a center, and thatcenter is the fourth. Thus, a quaternity is not a series of four, but rather three with a center.40

Baader’s symbol for quaternity is a triangle with a dot in the center (“Pyth. Quadr.” Werke 3,266).

Baader uses the idea of quaternity to give a different explanation of nature and the four elements.There are three forces within bodies, penetrated by a fourth power. The fourth power is whatgives it life. Without it, nature would remain at rest. The inner powers are fire, water and earth,the outer power is air. In alchemical terms, the first three are sulfur, mercury and salt (Werke 8,252). The outer force works from within. There is a reciprocity of forces. The third elementunifies the first two (contraries). It separates in order to unite. But this third is not the fourth(“Pyth Quadr.” Werke 3, 263, 267).

Similarly, Baader uses quaternity to contrast a mechanical view of man with an organic view. Hesays that we have three inborn powers (thinking, willing, and acting), and three attributes ororgans (spirit, soul and body), which are permeated throughout by a fourth power (“SpecDogmatik,” Werke 8, 252). The unity of our powers comes only through organ-ization(Gliederung), and such organization is only possible out of One Principle. There is a systematicdivision of labour of its functions; the central One Principle uses the outer three as its organs.Such organ-ization cannot be done in the outer sense of juxtaposition, but only in the innersense, in the unity of time by Intus susceptionem (Werke 215-16). Just as air penetrates the threeother elements, so what Paul refers to as our spiritual body [Geistleib] penetrates the other threeforces and attributes of our nature. Elsewhere, Baader refers to this spiritual body, our centralinner being, as our “heart” (Werke 7, 232). Creatures with a self (man and angels) have such acenter (animals do not have such a center). It is the purpose of creatures with a selfhood to raiseup this center to its ground, and to fix it there, thus fulfilling it. Baader refers here to Tauler andEckhart (“Spec Dog.” Werke 8, 131) and to Boehme (Werke 8,134).

Thus, for Baader, quaternity involves both immanent and emanent powers or principles (Grassl33). The triangle represents the immanent play [Wechselspeil] of the principles. It flows back

39 Italian newspaper L'Europeo 5 December 1948, “The Psychoanalyst Jung Teaches How toTame the Devil.” Cited by Michael J. Brabazon: “Carl Jung and the Trinitarian Self,” QuodlibetJournal 4 (2002), online at [http://www.quodlibet.net/brabazon-jung.shtml]. [‘Brabazon’]40 See Baader’s letter to Jacobi of Feb 8, 1798 (“Br.,” Werke 15, 181f). Baader says that thephilosophies of Kant, Fichte and Schelling have only two sides. They must first be three andthen find the point in the middle, the relation of the active elements to the three passive ones.


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into itself. But the fourth element, the spiritual body, gives the inner point of the surroundingspheres, and is emanent. This central inner point is not to be confused with any duality ofpowers in the circumference. This central point is spontaneity.

Baader’s idea of quaternity helps to distinguish his philosophy from that of Schelling and Hegel.He says that Schelling’s natural philosophy has correctly understood the dualism of nature (itsinner polarity or Zwiespalt). Schelling’s first principle is that of polarity and dualism; he speaksof an original dualism [“ürprunglichen Duplicität”] which arises from an absolute identity (orOne). Schelling’s idea of the “world Soul” [Weltseele] remains caught in this viewpoint. ButBaader objects that dualism or polarity only count to two. Baader wants to count to four (Grassl34; “Pyth. Quadr.” Werke 3, 249). Instead of two, there is an interaction of three in a Ternar.Trinity overcomes duality (Werke 1,205; 2,105; 7,159; 12,505; 15,447). And the Ternar ispermeated by a transcendent fourth. Let us look at this in more detail.

For Baader, the idea of trinity is not contradictory. Multiplicity and unity are not polar opposites,but can only be thought as deriving from a common third. This is a circular kind of thought,instead of Schelling’s linear idea of two polar opposites. The members of a trinity have threeoppositions against each other; there is a dynamic relation among the three. But with an innerfourth point, three further possible oppositions appear (between that fourth point and eachmember of the trinity). Quaternity can be thought of as divided in an active Ternar and in aRecipiens (“Spec Dogm” Werke 8, 68).

The third is that without which neither of the other two can be thought. The third is thus a kindof middle [Mitte] of the other two. But middle is not the same as the transcendent center orGround, which is the fourth that permeates the entire Ternar. Nor is this opposition of the fourthto the other three the same as a dualism in the sense of Schelling’s polarity of only two (“Pyth.Quadr. Werke 3, 267).

Quaternity is also important for Baader’s ideas of subject and object. Here he uses a diamondshape. At the top point, both subject and object are sublated; on the corners of both sides, theobject is in the subject and the subject is in the object; on the bottom point of the diamond,subject and object are not sublated. He points out four possibilities: opposed reciprocity, in rest,and in the action forcing outwards. But the four can be understood in 3: (1) where bothmoments (innerness and outerness) are sublated in each other (at rest) 2) where both areseparated and sublated (active) and 3) where both at the same time unsublated (active). (“SpecDogm” Werke 8, 66).

c) Jung’s idea of quaternity as 3 + 1For Jung, as for Baader, quaternity involves a relation between three and four. There is an“opposition” between three and four; threeness or Trinity is incomplete, but fourness iswholeness. Threeness or trinity denotes polarity, and one triad always presupposes another triad.(“The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, ” CW 9, paras 425-6). The vacillation betweenthree and four is a vacillation between the spiritual and the physical (CW 12, para. 31).

This idea that Trinity is related to polarity reminds us of what Baader says about two beingrelated to duality, and needing a Ternar in order to find a middle that both relate to. The fourthbrings wholeness.

So three needs to be completed by four. The fourth brings wholeness, but the fourth is differentfrom the other three. Jung says that the oldest representation of this problem is


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…that of the four sons of Horus, three of whom are occasionally depicted with theheads of animals and the other with the head of a man. Chronologically this linksup with Ezekiel’s vision of the four creatures, which then reappear in the attributeof the four evangelists. Three have animal heads and one a human head (CW 9,para 425, fn 39).

In “The Symbolic Life,” he speaks of the “empirical quaternary structure” in terms of a 3+1structure (CW 18, paragraphs 1603-4). And he specifically refers to a “quaternity with a 3 +1structure,” “the One differentiated from the Three” (CW 10: 750-51). Jung also refers to analchemical diagram showing “the Three and the One,” the “Alchemical Quaternity” (CW 12,para. 29, fig. 235).

We can therefore refer to quaternity as having a “3 + 1 structure.” There are three and a fourththat is different. This is reminiscent of Baader’s idea of a triangle with a dot in the centre.

(d) Jung’s theory of typesThe 3 + 1 structure of quaternity is important for understanding Jung’s Ideas of PersonalityTypes. But first we must distinguish his Theory of Types from the Myers-Briggs view ofpersonality. Myers-Briggs uses 16 different categories, using 8 different contrasts:introvertive/extravertive, intuitive/sensing, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. The finalcontrast judging/perceiving is not in Jung, but was added by Myers-Briggs. The first contrastintrovertive/extravertive is important for Jung, and we have already discussed it. But it is notwhat Jung uses in his idea of quaternity for personality. For that, Jung uses only the twocontrasts intuitive/sensing and thinking/feeling.

Of those four categories, one function is dominant in a personality, two are auxiliary to thatfunction and only partially differentiated, and the fourth is “inferior” and not differentiated at all,but unconscious. Jung illustrates in a diagram how, if the thinking function is dominant, thefunction of feeling is wholly unconscious, and the other two functions are partly conscious (CW12, para. 137, fig. 49). Although three functions are differentiated, only one is successfullydifferentiated—the superior or main function has associated with it 2 partially differentiatedauxiliary functions (C W 9 par 426). The inferior function is “contaminated” with theunconscious, and thus has the ability to help us bridge the conscious and the unconscious (CW 9par 582).

Sometimes Jung refers to the three differentiated functions in contrast to the one undifferentiatedone. At other times, he refers to the dominant function, which is the only one that is successfullydifferentiated, in contrast to the three partially or wholly unconscious functions. In “Flyingsaucers,” Jung refers to these two ways of looking at a “quaternity with a 3 + 1 structure.”

…the One differentiated from the Three, the one differentiated functioncontrasted with the three undifferentiated functions and hence the main function(or, alternatively the inferior function). The four together form an unfoldedtotality symbol, the self in its empirical aspect. (CW 10: 750-51).

In any event, in Jung’s theory of types, the fourth element is not on the same level as the otherthree. This is something that is not often understood by those who refer to Jung’s theory of


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personality types. One analyst who did understand that distinction was Marie Louise vonFranz.41

Jung’s quaternity of types therefore has a 3 + 1 structure. But is this similar to Baader’s view ofquaternity as a Ternar with a center, a triangle with a dot in the center? There is an importantdifference in that for Baader, the Center is unique, and never a part of the periphery. In Jung’scase, at least in his theory of personality types, the inferior function can be any one of the fourfunctions. Thus, a function that is dominant for one person may be inferior for another. Perhapsthis can be reconciled if we regard the fourth not as a supratemporal center, like the Selfhood,but as a center in the temporal personality. Jung indeed seems to say that that is the case. Thefour personality types in the quaternity appear only in the temporal differentiation from the ego,and do not represent the undifferentiated ego itself. This is evident from the following:

In psychological language we should say that when the unconscious wholenessbecomes manifest, i.e. leaves the unconscious and crosses over into the sphere ofconsciousness, one of the four remains behind, held fast by the horror vacui of theunconscious. There thus rises a triad which ….constellates a corresponding triadin opposition to it. (CW 9 par 426)

The unconscious wholeness or Totality is not the same as the inferior fourth. The fourth is a partof that original wholeness. But the problem of the fourth and the two triads arises only in thetemporal manifestation of the unconscious wholeness.

The totality appears in quaternary form only when it is not just an unconsciousfact but a conscious and differentiated totality (CW 14, par. 261).

We could therefore argue that a personal type is not a primary quaternity, like Baader’ssupratemporal/temporal quaternity, but rather a secondary quaternity that only arises when theoriginal ego is manifested in temporal consciousness. For Jung does not identify the inferiorfunction with the selfhood per se. The selfhood, as we saw in Lecture 1, is a totality ofeverything, including inferior and dominant functions. Certainly the inferior function is not thesame as the ego.

(e) Quaternity and MandalasBut what about mandalas? Are they not a quaternity? How do they fit in with this theory of aquaternity as 3 + 1? For do not mandalas have four sides? Jung says that the sacred quaternitysymbolised by the square may actually be none other than a pair of triangles:

If one imagines the quaternity as a square divided into two halves by a diagonal,one gets two triangles whose apices point in opposite directions. One couldtherefore say metaphorically that the wholeness symbolised by the quaternity isdivided into equal halves, it produces two opposing triads. [The Archetypes andthe Collective Unconscious, CW, vol 9, par. 426.]

A quaternity is then made up of two opposing triads, each pointing in opposite directions.Elsewhere, Jung relates this idea of two triangles to the Star of David symbol (CW 10, para 771).But here he relates the double triad to the alchemists:

41 Marie Louise von Franz: Jung’s Typology (Woodstock: Spring Publications, 1986).


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Among the alchemists we can see clearly how the divine Trinity has itscounterpart in a lower chthonic triad (similar to Dante’s three-headed devil) (Ibid,para. 425).

And elsewhere he refers to this as a result of an original “pleromatic split”:

…the doubling and separation of the quaternity into an upper and a lower one,like the exclusion of the Satans from the heavenly court, points to a metaphysicalsplit that had already taken place” “pleromatic split” (CW 11, par. 675).

In relation to such double triads, he mentions that there can be an upper triad with evil in theunconscious, and a lower triad with good in the unconscious. So again we have a triangle withsomething unconscious making up a quaternity (“The Symbolic Life,” CW 18, para. 1604).

The implication seems to be that each of these triads has a fourth that completes it. This isconfirmed elsewhere where he refers to two triads, each completed by a fourth. The first is atriad of good, completed by a fourth of evil, and the second is a “lower triad” where 1 is goodand the three are evil (“The Symbolic Life,” CW 18, para. 1604).

Jung uses symbols of both trinity and quaternity. Michael J. Brabazon refers to the figure ofMercurius, who is referred to more frequently as a trinity than a quaternity:

Jung's favourite symbol of the collective unconscious was the spirit Mercurius,the central figure of alchemical experience and speculation. Jung admits thatMercurius is referred to more times as a trinity than a quaternity, which accordswith the Taoist alchemical, meditative practice of uniting the three goldenflowers. At one point Jung describes him thus: “....his positive aspect relates himnot only to the Holy Spirit, but....also to Christ and, as a triad, even to theTrinity.” (CW 13, par 289) 42

Edinger discovered the same reference to trinities in Jung’s descriptions of quaternities:

I turned to a collection of mandalas published by Jung [in The Archetypes and theCollective Unconscious] and was surprised to find how frequently there wastrinitarian imagery embedded in pictures which had been selected to demonstratethe quaternity.43

Edinger gives the example of the Tibetan world wheel, a mandala with three animals (cock snakeand pig) in the center, with 6 spokes of the wheel and twelve outer divisions. He cites what Jungsays about this mandala:

The incomplete state of existence is, remarkably enough, expressed by a triadicsystem, and the complete (spiritual) state by a tetradic system. The relationbetween the incomplete and the complete state therefore corresponds to theproportion of 3:4 (CW 9, par. 644).

And yet if we regard the center of the mandala as the fourth, then we have a 3 + 1 structure, even

42 Michael J. Brabazon: “Carl Jung and the Trinitarian Self,” Quodlibet Journal 4 (2002), onlineat [http://www.quodlibet.net/brabazon-jung.shtml].43 E. Edinger: Ego and Archetype, (Boston: Shambhala, 1992), 189.


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in the triadic center. This is evident from Jung’s discussion of another mandala in rotationaround a center. He refers to a mandala in a Gothic window in the cathedral at Paderborn,showing three hares rotating around a center (CW 9 par. 694, fig. 39).

But again we are faced with the same problem that we saw in discussing the quaternity inrelation to personality types. Does Jung regard this fourth as the totality from which the otherthree arise? Or is it merely something that completes the other three in an additive way? If so, thefourth here is not the same as the Selfhood as totality that we discussed in Lecture 1, and so theparallel with Baader would not be exact. The idea of an additive completion is not the same asBaader’s view of Totality as the center of a Ternar.

(f) Did Jung change his view of the 3 + 1 structure of quaternities?It must be pointed out that, although Jung speaks of a quaternity in terms of a 3 + 1 structure, heinconsistently also seems to speak of a quaternity as four things or aspects alongside each other:

The quatemity is an archetype of almost universal occurrence. It forms the logicalbasis for any whole judgment. If one wishes to pass such a judgment, it must havethis fourfold aspect. For instance, if you want to describe the horizon as a whole,you name the four quarters of heaven. . . . There are always four elements, fourprime qualities, four colours, four castes, four ways of spiritual development, etc.So, too, there are four aspects of psychological orientation ... In order to orientourselves, we must have a function which ascertains that something is there(sensation); a second function which establishes what is (thinking); a thirdfunction which states whether it suits us or not, whether we wish to accept it ornot (feeling), and a fourth function which indicates where it came from and whereit is going (intuition). When this has been done there is nothing more to say. . . .The ideal of completeness is the circle or sphere, but its natural minimal divisionis a quatemity (CW 11, p. 167, para 246).

In an interesting, although incomplete article, Remo F. Roth refers to this inconsistency in Jung.He argues that Jung moved from a 3 + 1 structure of quaternity to a view of four without acenter. He says,

The trouble with Jung's preference for the quaternity as a symbol of the Self is thefact that we never know if it is some sort of a (3+1) structure, as in the concept ofhis typology, or if he speaks of a fourfold symmetry, in which all members havingequal rights. As we have seen, in his typology the (3+1) structure serves thedistinction between the "trinity" of the conscious functions and its opposite, themonistic unconscious one. But in his model of the unconscious' center, the so-called Self, he prefers the quaternity in the shape of a square, which means that allmembers are equally weighted. Thus, we can already conclude here that thisambivalence shows a certain unconsciousness of Jung in relation to the problemof the fourth.44

44 Remo F. Roth: “The Return of the World Soul: Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung and the Challengeof the Unified Psychophysical Reality,” [http://www.psychovision.ch/synw/jungneoplatonismaristotlep1.htm].


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In support of this accusation of ambivalence in Jung, Roth refers to several letters fromWolfgang Pauli, in which Pauli criticizes Jung’s idea of quaternity and argues for a“psychophysical monism.” Roth argues that the fourfold quaternity represents a neo-Platonicdevaluation of matter (as does the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary). In place of this,Roth argues for the Hermetic view of quaternity, which is a double triad, the Star of David. Thetriangle can seek its unity in the One, which is a union or chemical wedding.

Another argument for the double triad as the better interpretation is given in the article byBrabazon to which I have already referred. But Brabazon does not deal with the 3 + 1 view ofTrinity and Quaternity.

Both Roth and Brabazon raise issues that I believe are worth pursuing, but are beyond the scopeof this lecture. It does seem to me that the 3 + 1 structure of quaternity is more fruitful than afourfold symmetry where all members have equal rights. If a quaternity means nothing morethan four members in a group, we get the strange (and in my opinion, superficial) interpretationsof quaternity such as the view that Prince Charles, Princess Diana, and their two sons are aquaternity45 or that the four cartoon characters the Teletubbies represent a quaternity.46

In my view, the 3 + 1 structure gives a deeper sense of quaternity, showing the relation betweensupratemporal and temporal, and between consciousness and the unconscious. It can also beinterpreted more along the lines of Baader’s quaternity, the triangle with a dot in the center. ButI would disagree with Roth (and Pauli) that such a center is to be regarded in a monistic way.47

(g) Completion of the Trinity by God’s Sophia, Wisdom, VirginBoth Jung and Baader emphasize the role of Sophia [God’s Wisdom] within the quaternity(Grassl 48-49).

In Answer to Job (CW 11), Jung speaks of the role of Sophia or Wisdom in God’s self-reflection.Sophia was with God before time and at the end of time will again be bound with God in theholy wedding. Sophia completes the Trinity. Jung sometimes refers to this as the Virgin, and forthis reason he believed that it was such an important event when the Catholic Church recognizedthe Assumption of Mary. At other times, it seems as if it is the feminine that is the fourth that isbeing added to the Trinity, and Jung seems to ignore the idea of Sophia, which is so crucial inBaader’s Christian theosophy. For example, he says that woman, as anima, represents the fourthinferior function, feminine because associated with the unconscious (CW 12, para. 29).

45 Maureen B. Roberts claims that Charles, William, Harry and Diana form a quaternity whosefeminine fourth has undoubtedly helped awaken the feminine principle along with its attunementto feeling in the three males. It is surely significant, for instance, that among the Royals atDiana's funeral, these three were the only ones to openly cry (A corresponding negativequaternity was evident in the '3+1' configuration that featured in the car crash that killed Dianaand two of her male companions) [http://www.jungcircle.com/diana.html]46 Rev. Kenneth M. Kafoed: “Teletubbies: A Psychoanalytic Perspective,”[http://members.cox.net/sovpont/teletub.htm]47 See J. Glenn Friesen: “Monism, Dualism, Nondualism: Problems with Vollenhoven’sProblem-Historical Method,” [http://www.members.shaw.ca/hermandooyeweerd/Method.html].


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But again we have the problem of whether Sophia as the fourth is a separate being. Jungacknowledges that it was a heresy for the church to say that there were four persons in theGodhead, but it is unclear what his own view is.

Baader also refers to the Virgin as completing the Trinity, but says this Virgin or Wisdom is nota separate personality in God, but the mirror of God:

Der Spiegel (das Auge), sagt J. Böhme ferner erzeugt das Bild nicht, das in ihmeröffnet wird, sondern er hält stille dem ihn beschattenden, eröffnenden Geist under nennt diese Idea darum Jungfrau, weil sie gegen den Ternar willenlos und nichtper se agens ist, folglich nicht etwa eine 4. Persönlichkeit in Gott. Von dieserIdea (eigentlich von der von ihr aus-, nicht abgehenden und der Creaturinwohnenden) sagt J. Böhme ferner, daß …(Br., Werke 15, 448)

[Further, J. Böhme says that the mirror (the eye) does not generate the image thatis opened in it, but it holds still before the overshadowing opening Spirit, and hetherefore calls this Idea ‘Virgin,’ since it is without a will before the Ternar andnot per se an agent. Therefore, she is not something like a fourth personality inGod. J. Böhme says further about this Idea (or really of that which issues fromher but does not begin there, and which lives within the creature)…]

I suppose that Jung’s response is that he would not want to speculate about God or the Trinity,but only about the God-image, which is psychologically and empirically investigated. If by God-image, Jung means humanity, then it can make sense to say that there are aspects like thefeminine that need to be integrated. But in relating this to dogmas of the Church, like theAssumption of Mary, Jung seems to be going well beyond a merely psychological interpretation.This is even more the case when he refers to the fourth as evil within God.

(h) Quaternity and EvilA further important distinction from Baader is that Baader distinguishes a quaternity within God(Godhead as the center of Trinity) and a quaternity within humanity (Heart as center of our body,spirit and soul). Baader says that if we identify the two quaternities, this will lead to pantheism,and to finding evil within God. We shall discuss both the issue of pantheism and the issue of evilin more detail in Lecture 3, where we will also look at Jung’s discussion of mandalas in the workof Jakob Boehme. It is interesting to point out that Jung was aware of the alchemical idea of adouble quaternity (CW 8, par. 539), but he does not seem to have followed the idea, at least notin the way that Baader did.

For now, it is sufficient to point out that Jung is inconsistent with respect to the nature of thefourth term of the Trinity. As we have seen, Jung refers to Sophia or the Virgin as completing theTrinity. And yet he sometimes says that it is evil that completes the Trinity. This confusion isevident in the following quotation:

The medieval philosophers of nature undoubtedly meant earth and woman by thefourth element. The principle of evil was not openly mentioned, but it appears inthe poisonous quality of the prima materia (primeval matter) and in otherallusions. The quaternity in modern dreams is the product of the unconscious...[The] unconscious is often personified by the anima, a female figure. Apparentlythe symbol of the quaternity issues from her. She would be the matrix of thequaternity, a theotokos or Mater Dei, just as the earth was understood to be the


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Mother of God. But since the woman, as well as evil, is excluded from the Deityin the dogma of the Trinity, the element of evil would also form a part of thereligious symbol, if the latter should be a quaternity. It needs no particular effortof imagination to guess the far-reaching spiritual consequence of such adevelopment.48

Jung is clearly speaking not only of the God-image, but of God Himself, the Deity, containingevil. And so Jung is breaking his own Kantian principles, and engaging in metaphysicalspeculation. We will look at the issue of evil in more detail in Lecture 3. But first we will lookat evil in relation to Gnosticism, and how Jung’s psychology relates to that.

VI. Jung and Gnosticism

A. Gnosis and Knowledge

In his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung says: “The possibility of acomparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gavesubstance to my psychology (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 205).

(1) Etymology. First, let’s look at the word ‘gnosis.’ The ‘g’ is silent in English, but not in manyother languages. The word ‘gnosis’ means ‘knowledge,’ and in fact is related to our word‘knowledge.’ The Greek root of this word ‘gnosis’ is ‘gno.’ It is transformed to ‘kno’ in‘knowledge.’ The ‘k’ is silent. In other forms of this word, we still pronounce the ‘g’ as in‘ignorance.’ Or in ‘acknowledge.’ ‘cognizance.’ ‘incognito’, ‘recognize’ ‘cognition.’ Otherderivatives of the word are: canny, uncanny [meaning unknowable], cunning [someone withpowers]

The word ‘gnosis’ is related to the Sanskrit word ‘jñana.’ That is one of the paths of liberationin Hindu thought, for jñana is a saving knowledge, especially knowledge based on meditation. Itrelates to an experiential knowledge that our selfhood and the reality of God or Brahman are one.(Tat tvam asi. That art thou).

(2) Gnosis is an experiential, transforming knowledge. It is a knowledge that itself saves. Weare not talking about logical propositions that we have to believe, but of an experience thatliberates us. Such an experience is not to be seen as a subjective, individualistic experience. Forparticipation in our selfhood is not individualistic. As discussed in Lecture 1, Jung distinguishesbetween our individual ego and our Selfhood as supra-individual totality. So the experience isone of going beyond our individualistic ego to find our true, transpersonal self. It is atransforming knowledge.

Experiencing the self means knowing all there is to know about yourself, your life, your destiny,your meaning, and the meaning of life in general. Quispel said in his 1951 work that Gnosticismexpresses a specific religious experience, which then manifests itself in myth or ritual. For Jungwhat was important was the experience of fullness 48 C.G. Jung: Psychology and Religion, (Yale University Press, 1938), 76-77. This was originallygiven as the Terry Lectures at Yale in 1937. In 1940, Jung revised it, and the revised version isfound in CW 11.


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In his 1959 BBC Interview by John Freeman, Jung expressed just this kind of experientialknowledge:

Freeman: And did he make you attend church regularly?Jung: Always, that was quite natural. Everybody went to the church on

Sunday.Freeman: And did you believe in God?Jung: Oh yes.Freeman: Do you now believe in God?Jung: Yes. Now? … [long pause] Difficult to answer. I know . I

needn’t…I don’t need to believe. I know.49

There was such a large response to this interview that Jung felt he had to clarify what he hadsaid. He wrote a letter to The Listener, which was published on January 21, 1960. Here are someexcerpts from that clarification:

• “…I am entirely based upon Christian concepts. I only try to escape theirinternal contradictions…”

• “I did not say in the broadcast, 'There is a God.' I said 'I do not need to believein God; I know.' Which does not mean: I do know a certain God (Zeus, Jahwe,Allah, the Trinitarian God, etc.) but rather: I do know that I am obviouslyconfronted with a factor unknown in itself, which I call 'God' in consensuomnium…”

• “This is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful pathviolently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, andintentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.”

(3) Gnosis is an esoteric or secret knowledge, such as secret revelations of Christ or theapostles. But “secret” in what sense? Is it secret in the sense of deliberately kept from others, oris it secret in the sense that unless one experiences the truth, one cannot understand it? It issometimes a claim to have knowledge of the entire visible and invisible world. This is knownonly to the elite initiates or gnostikoi.(4) Gnosticism is a heretical movement within Christianity. The main representatives of thatmovement were Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion.

(5) A broader view of Gnosticism is that it includes non-Christian traditions such asHermeticism, or the traditions that influenced neo-Platonism.

B. Jung’s visions and the Seven Sermons to the Dead

Jung’s interest in Gnosticism goes back to at least 1912, when he told Freud about the Gnosticidea of Sophia. Thus, his interest in Gnosticism was prior to his reading of Baader. This is

49 The website of the Jung Society of Atlanta contains an audio recording of this part of theinterview [http://www.jungatlanta.com/audio.html].


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interesting, because Baader’s theosophy is distinct from Gnosticism50 and Baader may haveinfluenced Jung to move from a Gnostic to a more theosophical position. We will look at thislater when we discuss Christian theosophy and how Jung’s psychology is not really Gnostic.

Beginning in 1914, Jung painted images that he recorded in the Red Book (not yet published,although Psychological Types was written on the basis of 30 pages of material from the RedBook). These images were based on visions he had at the time. Jung first had a vision of afemale. He remembered a female voice speaking quietly, but with authority. She referred toJung’s work and said, “That is art.” This made him angry, because he thought he wasconstructing an empirical science (Bair, 291).

Later in the Protocols (which eventually became Memories, Dreams, Reflections) Jung identifiedthe female voice as belonging to his patient Maria Moltzer. He thought the patient was inside ofhim. Then her voice was taken over by that of a male, Elias. Finally, there was a third separatemale voice–that of Philemon, an old man of “simply superior knowledge.” When the femalevoice returned, he called her Salome.

A. PhilemonJung painted Philemon with wings on his back, against a background of a brilliant blue sky.Where did Jung get this image of Philemon? Philemon and his wife Baucis are a couple fromGreek mythology. They offered refuge to Zeus and Hermes, not knowing them to be gods.Baucis was about to sacrifice her last goose for them, and then the gods made themselves known,the humble cottage was changed into a temple, and Zeus made them guardians of his temple untilthey died. Philemon became an oak tree and his wife a linden tree. Jung relates thismythological tale, in its Roman form, in Psychology and Alchemy (par 561) as an illustration ofthe folly of the Nietzsche-like drive for superhuman power (ego inflation):

Philemon also appears as a character in Goethe’s Faust. In his urge for superhuman power, Faustbrings about the murder (by Mephistopheles) of Philemon and Baucis.

Jung believed that a special journal was necessary for the “language metaphors” of Philemon.Until he wrote Seven Sermons to the Dead, Jung recorded what Philemon told him in the RedBook (Bair, 292). Shortly before 1920, Jung concluded that “Philemon was a Gnostic” becausePhilemon had esoteric knowledge of spiritual things (Bair 396).

Later that year, Jung dreamt that he was locked in the seventeenth century and could not get out;he realized that Gnosticism was not relevant because it was “all still too far away.” Bair says hecould find no intellectual satisfaction in the Gnostic idea that a “godhead” was responsible forcreating the world, because there was simply too much detail lacking or left unexplained. Hereread scholars who wrote about early religions and various mythologies.

B. BasilidesJung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead purport to be written by Basilides, and written in Alexandria.So we need to know something about Basilides. He lived in Alexandria in the second century,

50 See Peter Koslowski: Philosophien der Offenbarung: Antiker Gnostizismus, Franz vonBaader, Schclling (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001).


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and is the oldest Gnostic thinker that we know of. Jung’s knowledge of Basilides was based onthe Philosophumena, written by Hippolytus (one of the church fathers). A very different accountis given by Irenaeus, another church father. Although most scholars regard the version inIrenaeus as more original, recent scholarship would tend favour Hippolytus, the version relied onby Jung.51

Quispel says that Basilides was a mystic.52 But it is difficult to determine the exact nature of histeachings. Was he a monist? A dualist?

Basilides speaks of two eternal principles, light and darkness. He divides being into the world(cosmos) and a transcendent world. He refers to a time before creation, and attempts to introducethe idea of creatio ex nihilo into gnosis.

His view of the world is that there is a zone of pneuma, a zone of ether and finally a zone of air,beneath which is the earth. The pneuma is at the same time the Holy Ghost, the ninth spherebeyond the fixed heavens. It is the highest part of the perceptible world. There are four divineintellectual entities: the godhead, the total intellect, the intellect of the world, and the intellect ofman.

The Gnostic God is nothingness; it is beyond thought and will; it is unconscious, containingwithin it the future universe in a state of unconsciousness. In this Pleroma, thinking and beingcease, because the eternal is without qualities. Man by himself cannot know God; only Christreveals the unknown God. Man is already the son of God but does not know it.

There is an antithesis between pneuma (spirit) and psyche (soul): pneuma feels nostalgia for thetranscendent world; psyche remains by nature in this world. It is the job of spirit to perfect thesoul. But the spiritual ascent of the spirit (pneuma) to God is also not possible unless soul freesitself from matter by asceticism. He therefore teaches a mystic ascent, the freedom of spirit fromthe visible world.

C. AbraxasIn 1891, Albrecht Dieterich published a work Abraxas, supreme God of the Gnostics in whom allopposites and partial realities meet.53 Jung was aware of Dieterich’s work.

In the Seven Sermons to the Dead Jung, through Basilides, ‘reveals’ Abraxas to be the true andultimate God. Abraxas combines Jesus and Satan, good and evil all in one. This is why Jungheld that “Light is followed by shadow, the other side of the Creator.”[Memories, Dreams,Reflections, 328]

51 Abraham P. Bos: Basilides as an Aristotelianizing Gnostic (Brill, 2000). Abraham P. Bos:“De Gnosticus Basilides en zijn theologie over de levensfasen van de kosmos,” PhilosophiaReformata 70 (2005) 41-63.52 Gilles Quispel: “Gnostic Man: The Doctrine of Basilides,” in The Mystic Vision, ed. JosephCampbell (Princeton, 1968). This is from the 1948 Eranos lectures.53 Stephen A. Hoeller: The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead (Wheaton: Quest,1982), 92 [‘Hoeller’].


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Hermann Hesse, who was influenced by Jung, later refers to Abraxas in his book Demian.Abraxas has a human body, with the head of a rooster and legs like serpents. His hands handshold a shield and a whip. The whip is inscribed with the name IAO. The sun and moon shineoverhead. Hoeller suggests that the rooster symbolizes wakefulness, the human torso suggestslogos, and the legs like snakes suggest prudence.

Abraxas is still a being, since he is differentiated from the Pleroma. Hoeller says that if thePleroma were capable of having a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation, and that for Jung,Abraxas was the undifferentiated psychic energy that he later espoused in his Symbols ofTransformation (Hoeller, 96). In Abraxas, both light and darkness are united.

Let us look at Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead in more detail.

D. The Seven Sermons to the DeadLater, in 1916, Jung wrote the Seven Sermons to the Dead. The book purports to be by Basilides.Seven Sermons to the Dead was included in German edition of Memories, Dreams, Reflections,but not in the English translation. Bair 297 Writing the Red Book and the Seven Sermonsdispelled ghosts from the Jung family household (Bair, 297).

Here is a summary of the Seven Sermons to the Dead. This summary relies to a large extent onBair’s book.

Sermon 1: the dead [the spiritually dead?] return from Jerusalem without having found thesalvation and peace of mind they had been seeking. They ask the narrator (Basilides) for help. Hebegins with the concept of nothingness and expands it into a discussion of the “Pleroma,” bywhich he means the totality of all the qualities found in a supreme being. There is a meditationon “individuation”: becoming integrated and whole, which Basilides describes “as “the essenceof the creature.” Jung’s technique of active imagination is already evident, as are ideas of thepersonal and collective (suprapersonal) unconscious.

In this sermon, Basilides says that the natural striving of the creature tends towardsdistinctiveness; it fights against sameness. This is called ‘principium individuationis.’ But weare to strive not for difference, but for our own being. The creature must resist both reintegrationin the Pleroma and total separation in one-sided distinctiveness. The qualities of the Pleroma arethe pairs of opposites. In us the Pleroma has been divided in two. The last paragraph of Sermon 1emphasizes the importance of differentiation and sameness at the same time [we do not lose ourego, just subordinate it?]

That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as youknow these, but strive after your true nature.

Sermon 2: questions whether God is dead. It speaks of the Gnostic God Abraxas, described inSermon 3 as “hard to Know.”

Sermons 4 and 5 refer to multiple gods, the Tree of Life and the one god who gives unity throughcommunion. They also refer to aspects of “anima” and “animus,” terms that Jung was later todevelop.

Sermon 6: the daemon of sexuality approacheth” from the shadows. This is the unveiled animaand animus.


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Sermon 7: “man” becomes a united entity in his quest for salvation. There is a final image thatrejects the “flaming spectacle of Abraxas” and embraces a single god who will lead to ultimateredemption.

In the Seven Sermons to the Dead, Jung wanted to show the transition from antiquity, with itsmultiple gods to Christianity, with its one God. But the Seven Sermons is more than amonotheistic rejection of multiple gods. It is a guidebook for individuation and peacefulacceptance of the collective unconscious as Jung understood those ideas at that time. But doesthat mean that Jung’s ideas are themselves Gnostic? Let’s look at some characteristics ofGnosticism.

E. Some characteristics of Gnosticism

Jung’s interest in Gnosticism is undeniable. Jung was important in publishing the Jung Codex,part of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts. Jung said that there were two main representatives of theGnostic tradition: Jewish Kabbalah and philosophical alchemy.

But Gnosticism is a collection of themes, only some of which apply to Jung:

1. The goal of Gnosticism is to escape from temporal world, not to accomplish something in it.As we saw in Lecture 1, Jung believes that individuation involves a relation to the supratemporalselfhood. But Jung does not advocate escape from the world. Jung emphasizes the importance ofrelating the temporal world to the Self, not escaping from the temporal world.

2. In Gnosticism, time is cyclical. There is no linear notion of continuous progress. One mustmake an effort to negate time. Gnosticism has the related idea of reincarnation: we arecondemned to be reborn. The only reference in Jung that I am aware of that might refer toreincarnation is in his Lectures on Kundalini, where he speaks of the importance to be born, torealize yourself. Jung says that otherwise you must simply be thrown back into the melting potand be born again.54

3. For Gnosticism, the evil world was not created by God but by an inferior being.

Is there an idea of a demiurge in Jung? Hoeller says that in Jung, the alienated human egofunctions as this demiurge. It has pulled away from wholeness. The ego proclaims that there isno other God than itself and that it alone determines existence. But Hoeller’s interpretationseems to be a total devaluation of the ego, and I don’t think that that is a correct interpretation ofJung. Hoeller compares this idea to Buddhism. But if we look at Jung’s dialogue with theBuddhist Hisamatsu, we see that Jung disagrees with that idea.55

It is true that Jung, at least in these early writings, differentiates God from the Pleroma. And Jungdoes oppose the God of Christ to Yahweh.56

54 C.G. Jung: the Psychology of Kundalini Yoga (Princeton, 1996), 28. [‘Kundalini’]55 Daniel J. Meckel and Robert L. Moore (ed.): Self and Liberation: The Jung/BuddhismDialogue (Paulist Press, 1992).56 See especially Answer to Job. Jung interprets Gnosticism and Christianity as a transition fromthe jealous creator God Jahwe to the Salvation God of love


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4. Gnosticism emphasizes opposites (binaries or Syzygies). An example is male and female,which are wholeness rent in two (Hoeller, 74). This is a feature of Jung’s work, although otherinfluences may also be involved, such as Nicholas of Cusa, or Baader’s theosophy, emphasizingandrogyny. For there is a difference from Gnosticism, which has no concept of the uniting ofopposites in relation to the visible world and God’s relation to it. For Gnosticism, the uniting isonly beyond this world.

5. Gnosticism is a revolt against science; we do not see God in the world. But Jung emphasizesthe importance of science, and strives to show that his work is scientific and empirical.

6. For Gnosticism, the universe is hierarchical, descending by degrees from celestial beings toearthly realities. There is some hierarchy in Jung, particularly in the idea that archetypes pull ushigher towards the higher Self. But again, the idea of hierarchy is not restricted to Gnosticism.

7. Gnostics believe that our “true self” is chained to the world of flesh as a result of a fall. Jungcertainly speaks of our true self. But the idea of being chained to the world of flesh implies adevaluation of the temporal world that I do not find in Jung. Jung says he got the idea of the selffrom the Upanishads, but he also refers to Gnostics in support:

"Self-recollection is a gathering together of the self. It is in this sense that wehave to understand the instructions which Monoimos gives to Theophrastus:

Seek him [God] from out thyself, and learn who it is that taketh possession ofeverything in thee, saying: my god, my spirit [nous], my understanding, mysoul, my body; and learn whence is sorrow and joy, and love and hate, andwaking though one would not, and sleeping though one would not, and gettingangry though one would not, and failing in love though one would not. And ifthou shouldst closely investigate these things, thou wilt find Him in thyself, theOne and the Many, like to that little point, for it is from thee that he hath hisorigin. [Hippolytus, Elenchos, VIII, 15.]

8. Gnostics seek the divine spark within us. Only our “nous” is saved and we return to thePleroma. In Kundalini, Jung does say something similar: “The Self is the Pleroma from whichwe came and to which we return” (Kundalini, 28). But in Jung, there is an emphasis ontransformation, and not just a return to a previous identity. This idea of transformation issomething that is not found in Gnosticism.

9. In Gnosticism, we re-enact the atemporal myths. Certainly, Jung emphasizes the importance ofmyth.

10. Gnosticism has a preoccupation with evil. And that is something that also preoccupied Jung.

11. For Gnosticism, liberation from the world is also liberation from laws and rules of the lesserdemiurge. This leads to antinomianism and libertarianism. Wholeness is better than goodness.There is some affinity here with Jung:

Although in crude form, we find in Gnosticism what was lacking in the centuriesthat followed: a belief in the efficacy of individual revelation and individualknowledge. This belief was rooted in the proud feeling of man’s affinity with the


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gods, subject to no human law, and so overmastering that it may even subdue thegods by the sheer power of Gnosis. In Gnosis are to be found the beginnings ofthe path that led to the intuitions of German mysticism, so importantpsychologically, which came to flower at the time of which we are speaking.57

And yet, as we have seen, Jung also says that liberation requires that we adhere to standards…

Jung does refer to Gnosticism, but he emphasized the Christian nature of his Gnosticism. MiguelSerrano asked Jung at the end of his life about the Gnostic ring that he wore. Jung replied,

It is Egyptian. Here the serpent is carved which symbolizes Christ. Above it, theface of a woman; below the number 8, which is a symbol of the infinite, of theLabyrinth, and of the Road to the Unconscious. I have changed one or two thingson the ring so that the symbol will be Christian.58

Jung said that what he had tried to do was to show to the Christian what the Redeemer and theresurrection really means.

If Jung’s psychology differs so much from Gnosticism, how are we to account for thedifferences? I suggest that we need to look at Christian Kabbalah and Christian theosophy. Wewill look at each of them in turn.

VIII. Kabbalah

A. Kabbalah is not other-worldly like GnosticismAlthough Jung uses Gnostic terminology, most of his ideas are not really Gnostic. Jung says thatthe most important thing that someone can do is to become individualized. But for Jung,becoming individualized means entering fully into the diversity of the world while entering intothe unity of the Self. It does not mean the Gnostic divorce from outer reality.

The influence of Baader’s and Boehme’s Christian theosophy may be one reason why Jung’sideas are not Gnostic. Another influence that prevented Jung from adopting Gnostic ideas wasthat of Kabbalah (both Jewish and Christian Kabbalah). It is beyond the scope of this lecture todiscuss the history of Kabbalah from its earliest beginnings, the possible influence of neo-Platonism (via Islamic sources), Kabbalah’s influence upon alchemy and the development ofChristian Kabbalah and the later Lurianic Kabbalah. With respect to Christian Kabbalah, itshould be pointed out that Boehme and Baader both had some knowledge of Kabbalah59 andused these ideas in a Christian sense, as did other writers such as Pico della Mirandola,

57 Psychological Types, CW 6, para 409:58 Miguel Serrano: C.G. Jung and Herman Hesse, (New York: Schocken, 1966), 101.59 Baader refers to En soph (Werke 2, 247), the Schechinah (Werke 2, 43) the Zimzum (divineself-contraction) (Werke 8, 77; 9, 176); ten Sephirot (Werke 3, 385; 7, 192; 14, 32); AdamKadmon, original Man (Werke 3, 405; 7, 226).


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Johannnes Reuchlin, and Knorr von Rosenroth. The following diagram shows a specificallyChristian appropriation of the Kabbalistic ideas of Ein-Soph and the Sephiroth:

(Woodcut reproduced in François Secret: Les Kabbalistes Chrétiens de la Renaissance (Paris:Dunod, 1964). The woodcut bears two inscriptions:

1. In principio erat verbum [In the beginning was the Word]

2. Qui expansis in cruce manibus, traxisti omnia ad te saecula. [Lord, you whohave stretched out your hands on the cross, and have drawn the whole world toyou]. The reference is to John 12:32 “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, willdraw all [men] unto me.”

For other information on Christian Kabbalah, see Joseph Leon Blau: The ChristianInterpretation of the Cabala in the Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 1944; KennicottPress, 1965); Chaim Wirszubski: Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish mysticism(Harvard university Press, 1989).

The main point here is to contrast Kabbalah with Gnosticism. Whereas Gnosticism seeks to fleefrom temporal reality, Kabbalah is not other-worldly. Kabbalah emphasizes the importance ofcollecting the divine sparks in the world. It also has the idea of Tikkun, the restoration of theworld. That is quite different from a flight from temporal reality. For Jung and the alchemists,the world the ego are necessary and beneficial. Both God and humankind must pass through theworld and redeem it in order to realize their full essence. Drob refers to Segal: far from being thesuperfluous, harmful and lamentable conditions envisioned by the Gnostics, are actuallynecessary, beneficial and laudable.60

In Lecture 1, we saw how the idea of Totality was important for Jung. Lurianic Kabbalahemphasizes the same idea in how it views God. According to Scholem, Luria adopted the earlierKabbalistic term Ein-sof to designate the primal, all-encompassing “Infinite God.” This God,according to the Kabbalists, was the totality of being and also the union of opposites. Even theidea that God encompasses both good and evil is not specifically Gnostic, but can be found inKabbalah’s idea of the left and right side of God. Quispel says that the idea that the godheadencompasses both good and evil is not Gnostic at all.61

Sanford Drob believes that Jung is more Kabbalistic than he is Gnostic, and that he is“alchemical” mainly because the alchemists borrowed from and relied upon Kabbalistic ideas.Two of the alchemists that Jung quotes most frequently, Knorr and Khunrath, also wrote on theKabbalah. Drob argues that Jung “read Gnosticism in such a manner as to transform a radicalanti-cosmic, anti-individualistic doctrine into a world-affirming basis for an individualpsychology.” Drob says,

In short, by providing a "this-worldly" interpretation of Gnosticism, and aspiritual-psychological interpretation of alchemy, Jung arrived at a view whichwas in many ways Kabbalistic in spirit. Indeed, Jung, in his interpretation ofalchemy, succeeded remarkably in extracting the Kabbalistic gold which lay

60 Sanford Drob, citing R. A. Segal: The Gnostic Jung (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1992) [‘Segal’].61 Drob, citing Segal, 236.


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buried in the alchemists’ texts and methods (to use an alchemical metaphor). Hiswork can then be profitably understood as falling in the tradition of those thinkerssuch as Pico della Mirandola, Johannnes Reuchlin (1983), and Knorr vonRosenroth who created a distinctively Christian Kabbalah (Scholem, 1974, [pp.196-201]).62

and

Jung regards the pleroma, within which is contained the undifferentiated unity ofall opposites and contradictions, as nothing but the primal unconscious fromwhich the human personality will emerge. The "demiurge", whom the Gnosticsdisparaged as being ignorant of its pleromatic origins, represents the conscious,rational ego, which in its arrogance believes that it too is both the creator andmaster of the human personality. The spark, or scintilla, which is placed in thehuman soul, represents the possibility of the psyche's reunification with theunconscious, and the primal anthropos (Adam Kadmon or Christ), which isrelated to this spark, is symbolic of the "Self", the achieved unification of aconscious, individuated personality with the full range of oppositions andarchetypes in the unconscious mind. “Our aim,” Jung tells us, “is to create awider personality whose centre of gravity does not necessarily coincide with theego," but rather "in the hypothetical point between conscious and unconscious”(Jung, 1929/1968, p. 45). Jung sees in the Gnostic (and Kabbalistic) symbol ofPrimordial Man a symbol of the goal of his own analytical psychology. (Ibid).

B. Jung’s references to Kabbalah:Jung discovered Lurianic Kabbalah in 1954, around that he was writing MysteriumConiunctionis. In a letter to James Kirsch dated Feb. 16, 1974, Jung refers to how LurianicKabbalah seeks to restore the world:

The Jew has the advantage of having long since anticipated the development ofconsciousness in his own spiritual history. By this I mean the Lurianic stage of theKabbalah, the breaking of the vessels and man's help in restoring them. Here thethought emerges for the first time that man must help God to repair the damagewrought by creation. For the first time man's cosmic responsibility isacknowledged.63

Mysterium Coniunctionis itself contains many alchemical symbols that were imported intoalchemy from the Kabbalah. These symbols include that of Adam Kadmon, the divine spark inhumanity, the union of the cosmic King and Queen, and the idea of good and evil as bothderiving from God.

Jung himself notes the connection between Kabbalah and alchemy. He makes numerousreferences to Kabbalah in Mysteriuim Coniunctionis. There he says: 62 Sanford L. Drob: “Jung and the Kabbalah,” History of Psychology. May, 1999 Vol 2(2), pp.102-118.[http://www.newkabbalah.com/Jung2.html]

63 C.G. Jung: Letters, 1973, Vol. 2, p. 155, cited by Drob.


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Directly or indirectly, the Cabala was assimilated into alchemy. Relationshipsmust have existed between them at a very early date, though it is difficult to tracethem in the sources. (CW 14, para. 19).

Drob comments on this link between alchemy and Kabbalah:

Jung points out that by the end of the 16th century the alchemists began makingdirect quotations from the Zohar. For example, he provides a quotation fromBlasius Vigenerus (1523-96) comparing the feminine sefirah Malchut with themoon turning its face from the intelligible things of heaven (Jung, 1955-6/1963, p.24). He points to a number of alchemists, including Khunrath and Dorn who madeextensive use of the Kabbalistic notion of Adam Kadmon as early as the 16thcentury, and informs us that works by Reuchlin (De Arte Kabalistica, 1517) andMirandola had made the Kabbalah accessible to non-Jews at that time (Jung,1955-6/1963, see also Reuchlin, 1983). Both Vigenerus and Knorr VonRosenroth, Jung informs us, attempted to relate the alchemical notion of the lapisor philosopher_s stone to passages in the Zohar which interpret biblical verses(Job 38:6, Isaiah, 28:16, Genesis 28:22) as making reference to a stone withessential, divine and transformative powers (Jung, 1955-6/1963). He also notesthat Paracelsus had introduced the sapphire as an "arcanum" into alchemy fromthe Kabbalah.

C. Jung’s Kabbalistic vision.Jung had a vision that he described as the most tremendous and "individuating" experience of hislife. He found himself in the “garden of pomegranates.” This is an allusion to a Kabbalistic workof that name by Moses Cordovero. In the vision, Jung identified himself with the union ofTifereth and Malchuth as it is described in the Kabbalah. Jung describes these visions asoccurring in a state of wakeful ecstasy, “as though I were floating in space, as though I were safein the womb of the universe.” He further describes his experience as one of indescribable"eternal bliss." He reports:

Everything around me seemed enchanted. At this hour of the night the nursebrought me some food she had warmed... For a time it seemed to me that she wasan old Jewish woman, much older than she actually was, and that she waspreparing ritual kosher dishes for me. When I looked at her, she seemed to have ablue halo around her head. I myself was, so it seemed, in the Pardes Rimmonim,the garden of pomegranates, and the wedding of Tifereth with Malchuth wastaking place. Or else I was Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, whose wedding in theafterlife was being celebrated. It was the mystic marriage as it appears in theCabbalistic tradition. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. I could only thinkcontinually, "Now this is the garden of pomegranates! Now this is the marriage ofMalchuth with Tifereth!" I do not know exactly what part I played in it. Atbottom it was I myself: I was the marriage. And my beatitude was that of ablissful wedding. (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 294)

Jung says that the vision changed and that what followed was “the Marriage of the Lamb” inJerusalem, with angels and light. “I myself was the marriage of the lamb.” In a final image Jungfinds himself in a classical amphitheater situated in a landscape of a verdant chain of hills. “Menand woman dancers came on-stage, and upon a flower-decked couch All-father Zeus


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consummated the mystic marriage, as it is described in the Iliad” (p. 294). As a result of theseexperiences, Jung developed the impression that this life is but a “segment of existence.” Duringthe visions, past, present and future fused into one. According to Jung, “the visions andexperiences were utterly real; there was nothing subjective about them” (p. 295).

VII. Theosophy is not the same as Gnosticism

Like Kabbalah, Christian theosophy emphasizes our connection to God while at the same timeemphasizing the importance of restoring and redeeming the temporal world. Christian theosophyis therefore very different from Gnosticism. And it is also very different from some other kindsof theosophy.

A. Jung’s references to theosophyJung opposes a theosophy that turns its back on science and gets carried away by Easternoccultism (Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower” CW 13, par. 3). Jung says that themistake of theosophy is to confuse the personal with the cosmic, the individual light-spark withthe divine light. If we do this, we undergo a tremendous inflation (Kundalini, 68). This isinteresting, since Gnosticism does confuse the individual light-spark with the divine light in apantheistic way. Christian theosophy does not make this confusion. We will examine this inmore detail when we look at Boehme in Lecture 3.

Jung says that theosophy is content with metaphysical ideas instead of experience. While thatmay be true of some kinds of theosophy, it is not true of Baader’s Christian theosophy, whichemphasizes the importance of experience from out of our selfhood.

B. Baader’s Christian theosophyI have already pointed out the many similarities between Baader’s ideas and those of Jung.Baader is a theosophist. But he is not a theosophist in the sense of Madame Blavatsky’soccultism. Scholem says that ‘theosophy’ should not be understood in the sense of MadameBlavatsky’s later movement of that name.

Theosophy postulates a kind of divine emanation whereby God, abandoning hisself-contained repose, awakens to mysterious life; further, it maintains that themysteries of creation reflect the pulsation of this divine life.64

Baader’s theosophy is also very different from Gnosticism. Peter Koslowski has shown howBaader’s ideas are not Gnostic, in contrast to ideas of Hegel and Schelling. Instead, it is aChristian theosophy, a tradition going back to Eckhart and Boehme. We will look at Eckhart andBoehme in Lecture 3.

Baader speaks of his philosophy as a “true Gnosis,” True Gnosis is not a row of concepts, but acircle of Ideas, all relating to the center. (“Spec. Dogma,” Werke 8, 11). This opposition ofconceptual to central knowledge is the difference between concept and idea. I like what JohannSauter says about theosophy. Sauter says that wants to see the essential wisdom of God in all ourbeing, and just as much it wants to see eternal wisdom, as in a mirror, the essence of things, thecreated and uncreated, the essence of the revealed God to be understood intuitively. The

64 Gershom G. Scholem: Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1961), 206.


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theosophist always sees (schaut) immediately. This is contrary to Aristotelian method, whichwants to be reflexive, through philosophical analysis of concrete things of the world and then toascend to an absolute being, to lead from individual being to absolute being and the highest lawsof being, by analogy, negation and ascent, to get the essential characteristics of God onlymediately.65

C. Characteristics of Christian theosophyHere are some characteristics of Christian theosophy:

• The world was created by God and His Wisdom.

• In the world we can see traces of the wisdom of God, although God is not to be identified withHis creation.

• The world was created good, but is fallen. Baader says that the error of Gnostics was that theysaw the beginning of good and evil in the Cause (causa) and not in the Ground (Spec. DogmWerke 8, 132).

• The universe is hierarchical, descending by degrees from celestial beings to earthly realities.

• Theosophy does not urge escape from the world

• Theosophy does not reject science, but uses it to transform the world

• In our self we know God and are at the same time known by God. Kos says that there is adifference between knowledge of God as man’s being known by God in theosophical Gnosis,and the knowledge of God as the greatest object of human knowledge in Gnosticism (Kos 264).

Baader’s Christian theosophy is very much related to the ideas of Jacob Boehme. We will lookat Boehme in more detail in Lecture 3.

65 Afterword to Franz von Baaders Schriften zur Gesellschaftsphilosophie, ed. Joh. Sauter, (Jena:Gustav Fischer, 1925), 711.

Theosophy and Gnosticism - Jung and Franz Von Baader

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