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Introduction
In the summer of 1916, C. G. Jung had a mystical experience which he later
wrote down under the pseudonym of the Gnostic Basilides, and called it
'Seven Sermons to the Dead.' (1), Gnosis, means knowledge in the sense
of insight and wisdom. The Sermons are deeply rooted in the Gnostic tradition.
Their metaphors remind of Kabalistic texts. They are profound and
fascinating. Jung’s interpretation of his mystical experience reflects
the culture in which he was brought up.
Even today, more than 80 years later, the Sermons still capture the
imagination of the reader. To me the text reveals a new and deep dimension
of the Wisdom
of the Body (WOB), provided that the Sermons are interpreted from a
different viewpoint.
Cast:
Abraxas: Change (élan
vital)
Nature
Pleroma: Nature's wisdom, or Gaia
Body
Pleroma: Wisdom of the
Body (WOB)
Mind
Creatura: stands for
Metaphor
The dead: Scientists
(Original text is in italics)
Sermon
1
The original version begins with : "The Dead came back from Jerusalem
(bastion of Religion), where they found
not what they sought" Here it turns into
"The scientists came back from Boston (bastion of science), where they
found not what they sought."
Science reached an impasse. Its theories fail to explain Nature. This misunderstanding
threatens our very existence since we gradually destroy our habitat. Hitherto
scientists claimed that their models stood for nature. Yet while their models
and theories are linear, nature is non-linear, chaotic and complex.
Pleroma
First Basilides describes Pleroma, which is called
here Wisdom of the
Body (WOB) , and has the following properties :
- Nothingness is the same
as fullness.
- In the pleroma there
is nothing and everything.
- Pleroma pervades them, as
the light of the sun everywhere pervades the air.
Pleroma
(WOB) stands for two concepts:
1. WOB content (-In the pleroma there is
nothing and everything.)
2. Its wisdom (-Pleroma pervades
them)
We shall first explore
its content, and imagine that Pleroma is a container full
of points. In order to find our way in it, we have to create a map
of Pleroma.
Number-Gods
We shall first assign to each point an integer {2,1,0,-1,-2}, and label
an infinite number of points. This number system may serve to to measure
Pleroma. We add up all the integers. Since for every positive
integer there is also a negative one. The sum is zero. We add up everything and get nothing. (- In the pleroma there is nothing
and everything).
In order to travel in Pleroma we need a procedure which specifies how to get from point to point. It is called iteration. You take a value and add to it the smallest number you have (1). Then you replace the original number with the result. This is where you are heading. Suppose that you are at point 5 you add to it 1 and replace it with the new value that you got (6), which is also the point where you will land. With this procedure you travel through Pleroma. Your smallest step is one.
As you travel you notice that many points in Pleroma are not labeled. You have to choose a more refined numbering system which will label all points. You choose rational numbers which are fractions of integers and get a more refined map. Still many points remain unlabeled. You then turn to other number systems, like, irrational, real or complex. Each creates a more refined map of Pleroma. Each displays also the ' nothing and everything' property.
These number systems may be arranged hierarchically. Each contains the previous one, and is therefore more powerful for describing Pleroma. They are Pleroma’s Number-Gods. (v. Sermon 2)
Chaos
At the end of the nineteenth century, mathematicians discovered unusual
numbers, which later, Benoit Mandelbrot called fractals.
Hitherto when iterating a number, one could guess where one is heading.
Yet when iterating fractals one does not know where one will land next.
This Number-God was called Chaos.
Scientists realized that a reliable map of Pleroma does not exist.
This is why "they came back from Boston, where they found not
what they sought." They don't know how to handle complexity, neither
complexity of Nature nor that of WOB. Science reached an impasse.
Creatura
Any description of Pleroma, is an imperfect metaphor called Creatura.
Any distinct feature in Pleroma like, map, time or space is a Creatura.
- We are distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which
is confined within time and space.
- Distinctiveness
is creatura. Distinctiveness is its essence.
- This [distinctiveness] is called the
PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS. This
principle is the essence of the creature.|
- What is changeable,
however, is creature.
- Indistinctiveness,
is the death of the creature
- Not your thinking, but your being, is
distinctiveness.
WOB is Pleroma
Distinctiveness
has two meanings.
1. A metaphor created by our mind for understanding other
creatures in Nature, and
2. It stands for our individuality. For instance a sick patient
requests medical help. His illness starts when he (WOB) feels sick. WOB
then signals the mind to get help. In order to understand illness
which is extremely complex (the pleroma is also in us), the physician applies the “principle
of distinctiveness” and diagnoses a disease. Disease is only a
metaphor, and does
not capture the complexity of whatever the patient feels as illness.
- Because we are parts of the pleroma,
the pleroma is also in us.
- Even in the smallest point in pleroma is endless,
eternal, andentire, since
small and great are qualities which are contained in it.
-
Pleroma has no qualities. We create them through thinking
The philosopher
Ludwik Fleck said that diseases do not exist in nature but are
constructed by physicians for didactic reasons. Not only diseases are arbitrary
but all qualities: - When we distinguish qualities of the pleroma, we
are speaking from the ground of our own distinctiveness and concerning our
own distinctiveness.
- These qualities
are distinct and separate in us (in our Mind)
- In the pleroma they
are balanced and void; in us not
- The qualities
are PAIRS OF OPPOSITES:
- The pairs of
opposites are qualities of the pleroma which are not, because each balances
each.
- In all times
and places is creation, in all times and places is death.
This
statement refers to Pleroma turnover, and is discussed
in Sermons 3 and 4. The final
messages of Basilides are:
- When we strive after
the good or the beautiful, we thereby forget our own nature.
- Therefore not after difference,
ye think it, must ye strive; but after YOUR
OWN BEING.
Think of all the specialties which reduce the complexity of our being only to be able to measure some of its qualities. Like psychology, cognition, neuroscience, or behavioral science. While Being (WOB) may be grasped only as a whole
Sermon 2
In the night the dead stood along the wall and cried: We would like to have knowledge of god. Where is god? Is god dead? In the night the scientists stood along the wall and cried: We would like to have knowledge of Nature. Where is science? Is science dead?
When Nietzsche declared that God is dead he meant also Metaphysics that underlies science. The same applies also to medicine, whose metaphysics are outdated. Pleroma cannot be comprehended in itself. Any statement about it is a metaphor (Creatura). - God is creatura, for he is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma. Gods are means to understand Pleroma, like the Number-Gods mentioned above. The higher a rank of a Number-God in the hierarchy, the more powerful (and efficient) is he for describing Pleroma.
Basilides
then discusses two deities which guide reasoning: The rational (God)
and the irrational (Devil) (v
WOB and Theology) While in Pleroma - the pairs of opposites are qualities
of the pleroma which are not, because each balances each. The
rational and irrational are true opposites and do not extinguish
each other.
- God and devil are the
first manifestations of nothingness, which we call the pleroma.
-
God and devil are creatura they do not extinguish each other, but stand
one against the other as effective opposites.
The irrational
always accompanies the rational, and they cannot be separated. -To
god, therefore, always belongs the devil. What appears as irrational
to you may still be rational to me. It all depends on our thought-styles.
None of the beliefs are bad, since both promote creativity (Effectiveness).
- God and devil are distinguished by the qualities of fullness and emptiness,
generation and destruction. EFFECTIVENESS is common
to both.
Abraxas
After exploring
Pleroma's content, lets turn to Pleroma's wisdom
(-Pleroma pervades them). Both Nature and our body maintain homeostasis
(homeorhesis) which requires a wisdom that still eludes our understanding.
This force is Abraxas, and was called by Bergson
élan vital:
- It is more indefinite
still than god and devil (rationality and irrationality)
- Abraxas is effect.
It is force, duration, change.
- Its effective
nature freely unfolds itself.
-
It is improbable probability, unreal reality.
However once we give this , unreal-reality a name it becomes a Creatura. - It is also creatura, because it is distinct from the pleroma.
Abraxas exists and has to be taken for granted exactly as gravity is. Gravity may be regarded as Abraxas of the exact sciences. We may attempt to measure Abraxas' might with our incomplete number systems (gods), yet will never grasp its essence. Therefore once we label it as élan vital or gravity, it turns into a metaphor:
Sermon 3
Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried: Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god. Like mists arising from a marsh, the scientists came near and cried: Speak further unto us about Life.
Abraxas
is turnover and since
man is not aware of the turnover in his body: - man perceives it not
- Abraxas is the sun, and
at the same time the eternally sucking gorge of the void, the belittling
and dismembering devil.
- Everything that
you create with the god-sun gives effective power
to the devil.
- What the god-sun
speaks is life. What the devil speaks is death. But
Abraxas speaks that hallowed and accursed word which is life
and death at the same time.
Life and death, sun and devil are necessary ingredients of turnover which is essential for maintaining life. In the food chain that makes Pleroma, death of one is a creation of the other. - From the sun he draws the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum: but from Abraxas LIFE, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.
But Abraxas is more than that, It is both pleroma, and change. - Abraxas is the world, its becoming and its passing
Sermon
4
The dead filled the place murmuring and said; Tell us of gods and devils, accursed one! The scientists filled the place murmuring and said; Tell us of turnover (change), accursed one, who destroyed our truth. Basilides then describes the gods of life which dwell in pleroma and are parts of Abraxas. Each god contains its opposite and is therefore a god-devil. Like the number-gods that exist in couples. Each number and its negative one.
Turnover-God
- Among these are two god-devils; the one is the
Burning One , the other the Growing One. The burning one is EROS, who has
the form of flame. Flame gives light because it consumes. The growing
one is the TREE OF LIFE. It buds, as in growing it heaps up living stuff.
Eros flames up and dies. But the tree of life grows with slow and constant
increase through unmeasured time.
- Good and evil are united
in the flame. Good and evil are united in the increase of the tree. Both
Good or birth, and Evil or death, contribute to the growing Nature.
Both are essential and equally important, like the opposite numbers of Number-Gods.
-Four is the number of the
principal gods, as four is the number
of the world's measurements. One is the beginning, the god-sun. Two is Eros;
for he binds two together and outspreads himself in brightness. Three is
the Tree of Life, for it fills space with bodily forms. Four
is the devil, for he opens all that is closed.
-
The multiplicity of the gods corresponds to the multiplicity of man.
The essences
of Abraxas (life) cannot be reduced to a single theory of everything as
physicists attempt to achieve.
- But woe unto you, who replace
these incompatible many by a single god ---- you mutilate the creature
whose nature and aim is distinctiveness.
Sermon 5
The dead mocked and cried: Teach us, fool, of the Church and the holy Communion. The scientists mocked and cried: Teach us, fool, of Quackery and Shamanism. This is how holistic theories are regarded by the exact sciences.
Two kinds
of experience
There are
two kinds of experience. That of the exact sciences, represented
by Phallos, and spiritual experience, represented by Mater Coelestis.
These superhuman demons guide us when exploring reality.
- The world of the gods is
made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear
in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality. Spirituality conceives and embraces.
It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS,
- Sexuality engenders
and creates. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly
father.
- For the Mother
and the Phallos are super-human daemons which reveal the world of the gods.
-
Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things ye possess
and contain. But they possess and contain you; for they are powerful daemons,
manifestations of the gods, and are, therefore, things which reach beyond
you, existing in themselves.
These demons
help man (mind) to be in communion with Abraxas (Nature). Otherwise man
sinks in ignorance which is sickness of the mind. -
Man is weak, therefore is communion indispensable. If your communion be
not under the sign of the Mother, then is it under the sign of the Phallos.
No communion is suffering and sickness
- Communion is
depth.
- Communion
gives us warms, Singleness gives us light.
Sermon 6
Basilides reminds us of two ancient metaphors
which still linger in our culture. Two kinds of love, spiritual
(white bird) and carnal (serpent , stands for
Original Sin . Both are regarded as sexuality. The first is obvious,
while the second applies to the mystic to whom sexuality means a
spiritual union with god (unio mystica).
- The daemons of sexuality approaches our soul as a serpent It
is half human and appears as thought-desire. The daemon of spirituality
descends into our soul as the white bird. It is half human and appears as
desire-thought
- The Serpent is a whore.
She wantons with the devil and with evil spirits; a mischievous tyrant and
tormentor, ever seducing to evilest company. The White Bird is a half-celestial
soul of man. He bids with the Mother,
The scientists find
all this uninteresting and ask the preacher: -
Cease this talk of gods and daemons and souls. As this has long been known
to us.
Sermon 7
At night the dead approached again
with lamentable mien and said: There is yet one matter we forgot to mention.
Teach us about man. At night the scientists approached again with lamentable
mien and said: There is yet one matter we forgot to mention. Teach us about
mind.
- Man is a gateway through which from the outer world of gods,
daemons, and souls you pass into the inner world; out of the greater into
the smaller world.
Mind is an interface between Nature (Gaia) and WOB. Gaia is a theory formulated by James Lovelock in collaboration with Lynn Margulis. Despite its immense complexity, Nature, like WOB, maintains homeostasis. This Wisdom of Nature is represented here by the Gaia metaphor. Gaia maintains homeostasis in the same way as our WOB does.
Attention
of the mind (man) is directed into two opposite directions. Outward he
experiences Gaia, and inward he experiences WOB. Both are Pleroma. Gaia is the external
divine. Since man is part of a food chain he is controlled by Gaia, and
after death will join it. His WOB (soul) will join Pleroma.
-
Toward him goes the long journey of the soul after death
WOB is the inner divine. Therefore: Between man and his one god there stands nothing. According to Joseph Campbell:"We are all manifestations of Buddha consciousness, or Christ consciousness, only we don’t know it. . . The word Buddha means 'the one who waked up' . . We are all to do that"(2). Once we wake up we shall realize that in our inner world we are Abraxas (Principium individuationis of Sermon 1) - In this world man is Abraxas, the creator and destroyer of his one world.
Abraxas is Nietzsche's overman. Since this site is about the healing power of WOB, Abraxas is also Cancer-Yogi.
References
1.
The Seven Sermons to the Dead written by Basilides in Alexandria, the City
where the East touchest the West.
Transcribed by Carl Gustav Jung.
2. Campbell J. The Power of the Myth. Anchor Books N.Y 1991.