Sermon V – Church & Holy Community

Robert Juliano
C.G. Jung. The Red Book
3u0 ndotefed jSStophanonsoureaedirnsoo  ·
Reflections on Jung’s Septem Sermones ad Mortuos Based on Commentaries by Philemon,
Hoeller, and Ribi: Sermon V – Church & Holy Community
Let me begin by revisiting an issue in my amplification of Sermon III about Abraxas. One of the
things we said regarding Abraxas was that Jung considered him to be the Gnostic demiurge, as
did Jung’s Soul in Appendix C in the Red Book. However, as I wrote in my amplification, Dr.
Hoeller had seen neither the Red Book nor the Black Books when he wrote his commentary on
the sermons in 1984. Thus, Appendix C was unavailable to him when he wrote “It would be a
grave misapprehension to equate Abraxas with some sort of a conventional Gnostic demiurge. It
would be much more correct to say that he is the force without which all demiurges would cease
to create.” But, in an article Hoeller wrote in 2017 entitled “Abraxas: Jung’s Gnostic Demiurge
in Liber Novus” (see enclosed link [C]), an article he wrote after having read the Red Book and
contemplated its contents for almost a decade, he came to agree with Jung that Abraxas was,
indeed, the Gnostic demiurge. Hoeller wrote that the journal entry which comprised Appendix C
“unambiguously identifies the figure of Abraxas, who a few weeks thereafter appeared in Jung’s
initial journal version of the Sermons, as the demiurge of classical Gnostic mythology.” Hoeller
went on to write another reason for the identification of Abraxas with the Gnostic demiurge - the
fact that, in the draft manuscript of Liber Novus, there are several passages where “Jung
substituted the term ‘ruler of this world' for the name ‘Abraxas’ that was originally recorded in
his Black Book journal.”
Now, let us explore Sermon V. There, Philemon is asked by the dead to talk about Church and
what has been translated by Sonu and Ribi as “Holy Communion.” Interestingly enough, in
Hoeller’s commentary (see enclosed link [A]), he translated it as “Holy Community.” Now,
“Holy Communion” to me refers to the sacrament of the Eucharist. However, that is not what the
dead mean here. One etymological path of the word “communion” is that it comes from the Latin
communionem which means “fellowship, mutual participation, a sharing.” Thus, I believe that
what the dead are referring to is communion in the sense of communionem, which is why I prefer
Hoeller’s translation as “Holy Community” and have used that translation in the title of this note.
Spirituality and Sexuality
Sermon V begins by informing us that it is through spirituality and sexuality that the word of the
Gods is made manifest. It then describes qualities that are attributed to spirituality and sexuality,
spirituality as one which conceives and embraces, sexuality as one which engenders and creates.
Gender is also one of the qualities attributed to spirituality and sexuality, spirituality being
imagined as female and sexuality being imagined as male. Spirituality and sexuality are
conceived here as opposites and the qualities assigned to them remind me of Dr. James
Hillman’s essay Peaks and Vales: The Soul/Spirit Distinction as Basis for the Difference
between Psychotherapy and Spiritual Discipline. In my opinion, it is one of the finest works in
all of depth psychology and my favorite one of Hillman’s. For a number of reasons, that work
brought a tremendous amount of clarity and relief to me when I first read it years ago. It begins
by discussing the movement beginning around the 8th century A.D. from a “tripartite cosmos” of
spirit, soul, and body to a dualism of spirit and body. It then explores a number of contrasts
between the spirit and the soul. These contrasts are very helpful and complement definitions of
the words which, in Hillman’s words, “are the language of the spirit.” Hillman develops this
contrast by examining the style of imagery and language associated with spirit and soul.
Spirit is associated with the peak, soul the vale. There is a contrast in the voice of spirit and soul
– spirit speaking in terms of the abstract, concentrated, unified – and soul speaking concretely,
embracing multiplicity, with a sense of immanence. The value of history is different between
spirit and soul – spirit sees history as something to overcome and “wipes it out,” whereas soul
deeply involves us in history and its variegated details. Spirit seeks the literal, soul the
metaphorical. The style of the spirit is, according to Hillman, prophetic – humble but humorless
– whereas the style of the soul is humorful and includes the descriptive details of history. Spirit is
“Awed and wowed by meaning,” but soul is not awed by meaning, instead taking the same
events as “the puns and pranks of Pan.” From the viewpoint of soul and life in the vale, going up
the mountain feels like a desertion, and from the viewpoint of spirit and life in the peak, going
down the mountain feels like foolishness.
Differentiation from Spirituality and Sexuality
In Sermon V, Philemon urges that we differentiate ourselves from spirituality and sexuality. He
says “Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass.
Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful daimons, manifestations of the
Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves.” Ribi elaborates on this point from a
depth psychological perspective when he writes that “These two archetypes, spirituality and
sexuality, immeasurably exceed human consciousness. Thus they are never simply at the
disposal of the individual. Because consciousness is limited, it runs the risk of transgressing its
own boundaries by identifying itself with the one or the other. Simultaneous to the discovery of
thought in classical philosophy came the idea, through various sophisms, that it was possible to
overstep one’s own boundaries.”
It is worth considering how we attempt to strive for such differentiation. What often happens is
that we use the voice of one (spirituality or sexuality) to differentiate ourselves from the other,
but this does not necessarily entail the differentiation from the original. It could be argued that
the voice of the spirit dominates our modern worldview and it is through its eyes that we view
and judge sexuality. This is quite unfair to sexuality. Equally important is that we don’t
necessarily differentiate ourselves from spirituality. And this lack of differentiation can be quite
problematic.
Jung explores in his Collected Works some of the issues involved in differentiating ourselves
from spirituality. One issue is how we relate to the phenomenon of the spirit. Jung writes how
often individuals believe they are in possession of the spirit when in reality they are possessed by
it, examples of which include the overcoming and binding of the ego by an idea and of the ego
succumbing to inflation. Jung wrote “It seems to me, frankly, that former ages did not
exaggerate, that the spirit has not sloughed off its demonisms, and that mankind, because of its
scientific and technological development, has in increasing measure delivered itself over to the
danger of possession.” Jung councils being wary of the spirit and reflecting on our experiences of
it because:
It is this clear feeling of superiority that gives the phenomenon of the spirit its revelatory
character and absolute authority —a. dangerous quality, to be sure; for what we might perhaps
call “higher” consciousness is not always higher from the point of view of our conscious values
and often contrasts violently with our accepted ideals. One should, strictly speaking, describe
this hypothetical consciousness simply as a “wider” one, so as not to arouse the prejudice that it
is necessarily higher in the intellectual or moral sense. There are many spirits, both light and
dark. We should, therefore, be prepared to accept the view that spirit is not absolute, but
something relative that needs completing and perfecting through life. There are all too many
cases of men so possessed by a spirit that the man does not live any more but only the spirit, and
in a way that does not bring him a richer and fuller life but only cripples him.
In general, what Jung recommends is a balance between differentiation of our relation to spirit
and differentiation of our relation to nature. Such a recommendation would be an element of our
differentiating ourselves from spirituality and sexuality. This differentiation is consistent with
what the Gnostics did. Ribi writes “The Gnostics, on the other hand, revered Nous as divine
spirit, which required them to draw a distinction between it and themselves.”
Holy Community and Jung’s Concerns about the Group
In Sermon IV, Philemon spoke about the need humans have for community:
The gods are mighty and can endure their manifoldness. For like the stars they abide in solitude,
parted one from the other by immense distances. But men are weak and cannot endure their
manifold nature. Therefore they dwell together and need communion, that they may bear their
separateness.
I had written in my reflection on this that as humans, we cannot bear our manifoldness and our
separateness. We need something in order to accomplish this. Individuation, then, serves a very
pragmatic purpose. Just imagine the difficulty of surviving eternity. We would dissolve – our
manifoldness and separateness would overcome us. Only the gods can endure this, and by
knowing the deepest parts of ourselves, we can become like them.
But, there are dangers for the individual in community, something Jung explored his Collected
Works. His concern was that the individual begins to lose their individuality in a group and that
the overall consciousness and morality of the group declines as it gets larger. For example, he
wrote “It is a notorious fact that the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size;
for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and
with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom
necessary for this.”
The challenge for the individual is that, though they need community, it is exceedingly difficult
to consciously individuate there. Though individuation is thought to occur naturally (i.e.,
unconsciously), there is a profound difference between this and individuation which is done
consciously. Thus, the following should be a cautionary note with respect to experiencing things
within a group:
A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an
individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common
emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If
it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal, which is
the reason why the ethical attitude of large organizations is always doubtful. The psychology of
a large crowd inevitably sinks to the level of mob psychology. If, therefore, I have a so-called
collective experience as a member of a group, it takes place on a lower level of consciousness
than if I had the experience by myself alone.
This explains why individuation often requires the individual to leave the group, though this does
not necessarily mean that the individual leaves physically. With respect to community, given
Jung’s concerns about the group, Philemon’s teaching seems quite wise, for he recommends
striking a balance. He teaches “Absence of community is suffering and sickness. Community in
everything is dismemberment and dissolution. … Insofar as the Gods impose community upon
you, it is necessary; more is bad.” It should be carefully noted that the ancient Gnostics were not
against community. Hoeller writes that it was only unconscious community which was
“objectionable in the eyes of the Gnostic.”
Holy Community and Individuation
When one is on the path of conscious individuation, in many ways, one leaves the community,
though again, not necessarily physically. Jung found that such a path is often accompanied by
guilt. He wrote “Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from
collectivity. That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the
guilt he must endeavour to redeem.” Jung saw guilt as relating the pair of opposites of
community and individuation, and in order for the individuant to redeem his/her guilt, he/she
must successfully bring back “values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the
collective personal sphere.” This is because “what society demands is imitation or conscious
identification, a treading of accepted, authorized paths. Only by accomplishing an equivalent is
one exempted from this.” Failure to successfully bring back equivalent values makes
individuation immoral. I believe that Jung attempts to strike a good and fair balance between
individuation and community by recognizing the importance of both. There are times when
individuation might seem to have the highest value, but this is compensated by the recognition
that “the existing society is always of absolute importance as the point of transition through
which all world development passes, and it demands the highest collaborative achievement from
every individual.”
Analyst Max Zeller’s Dream of a New Temple
If the path of individuation is the appropriate one for the West and becomes more broadly
adopted, this means that all such individuals must find a balance between community and
individuation and each must successfully bring back “values which are an equivalent substitute
for his absence in the collective personal sphere.” There is a dream which, I believe, captures the
effect of these individuals all working on individuation. It was dreamt by Jungian analyst Max
Zeller’s:
A temple of vast dimensions was in the process of being built. As far as I could see ahead,
behind, right and left there were incredible numbers of people building on gigantic pillars. I,
too, was building on a pillar. The whole building process was in its very beginning, but the
foundation was already there, the rest of the building was starting to go up, and I and many
others were working on it.
Max Zeller shared this dream with Jung and Jung responded by saying something quite beautiful:
“Yes, you know, that is the temple we all build on. We don’t know the people because, believe
me, they build in India and China and in Russia and all over the world. That is the new religion.
You know how long it will take until it is built?. . . about six hundred years.”
With that, Hoeller ends our note on Church and Holy Community: “Like Valentinus of old, Jung
held the view that humanity itself manifests the divine life and the divine revelation, and that the
true church, or ekklesia, is that portion of humanity that recognizes its own divine origin.”
References
Creation of Consciousness by Edward Edinger
“Peaks and Vales: The Soul/Spirit Distinction as Basis for the Difference between Psychotherapy
and Spiritual Discipline” in Senex and Puer: James Hillman Uniform Edition, Volume 3
The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead by Stephan Hoeller
“Abraxas: Jung’s Gnostic Demiurge in Liber Novus” in Jung's Red Book for Our Time:
Searching for the Soul under Postmodern Conditions, Volume I, by Stephen Hoeller
“Spirit and Life” in Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 8
“The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales” in Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 9i
“Adaptation, Individuation and Collectivity” in Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 18
Liber Novus by C. G. Jung
The Search for Roots: C. G. Jung and the Tradition of Gnosis by Alfred Ribi
Additional Resources
A. Seven Sermons to the Dead – Stephan A. Hoeller Translation (contained in Dr. Hoeller’s The
Gnostic Jung)
http://www.gnosis.org/library/7Sermons_hoeller_trans.htm
B. Seven Sermons to the Dead – H. G. Baynes Translation (contained in MDR)
http://www.gnosis.org/library/7Sermons.htm
C. Abraxas: Jung’s Gnostic Demiurge in Liber Novusby Stephen Hoeller
http://gnosis.org/gnostic-jung/Abraxas-Jungs-Demiurge.html
D. Reflections on Jung’s “Septem Sermones ad Mortuos” Based on Commentaries by Philemon,
Hoeller, and Ribi: Sermon IV – Gods, Devils, and Devil Gods
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