Category: The Transcendent

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On the Myth of Man’s Great Fall and the Concept of Original Sin

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

Generations of children have sat in church listening to this story [the Biblical Story of the Expulsion of Man from the Garden of Eden]. Generations have been imprinted with the idea that a woman succumbed to the temptation of the serpent and brought sin and suffering into the world and that her suffering and even her death giving birth to her children was the punishment for that original sin. They also learned that this primal woman tempted Adam to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge and thus was to blame for his fall and his being forced to toil for his living. How would this myth have influenced their view of their mothers? How did it affect the attitude of boys to girls and girls’ view of themselves? Would it not have set up a great conflict in their nature, making them mistrust and feel guilty about their instincts, believing that this punishing God demanded the repression of sexuality?”

– Anne Baring, The Myth of the Fall and the Doctrine of Original Sin

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, a fresco by Masaccio
The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, a fresco by Masaccio

Having been raised in the Catholic faith, the consequences of the mythologies of Man’s Great Fall and the stain of Original Sin are personally difficult for me to reconcile. Some of the greatest tragedies of human history may be traced to this mythological notion of the Fall of Man (as a result of being expelled from the Garden of Eden) and its concomitant idea of Original Sin, tainting humanity for all time.

A direct repercussion of this Old Testament concept was and is the separation of Matter and Spirit, Man and God, Nature and the Divine. As the great mythologist Joseph Campbell notes, “The Christian separation of matter and spirit . . . has really castrated nature.” Further, this expulsion from the Divine is laid squarely at the feet of the feminine – Eve, who falls prey to the temptation of the serpent, herself tempts Adam to disobey God, leading to the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, leaving a stain upon the whole human race.

This notion of the feminine being the source of the downfall of humanity, the origin of sin, suffering and death, has created a bitter legacy in which nature and the feminine have been denigrated, repressed and imbued with guilt and suffering.

Had the story of the Fall of Man remained exactly that – a story, a myth that carried it with it archetypes and models by which one might perceive the world – it may have been regarded as something of a benign curiosity. Unfortunately, elements of the story have been taken literally over the millenia, leading to terrific violence and suffering.

This initial great Old Testament myth led to the idea that the only way to redemption and return to the Divine was through strict adherence to the doctrines of the Church, and that for non-Christians, no salvation was possible. Needless to say, the resulting witch hunts, crusades, repression and violence have been an awful legacy for a theology that, at its core, contains so much that is beautiful.

St. Augustine of Hippo, by Botticelli
St. Augustine of Hippo, by Botticelli

A concomitant notion that arose from this origin myth is the idea of Original Sin, the idea that human nature is corrupted by the actions of Adam and Eve, with this sin transmitted to all of humanity by “concupiscence,” or sexual desire and copulation, resulting in “humanity becoming a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will.”

This peculiar notion originated with Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine), who’s obsession, in my view, with sin, guilt and fear of sexuality drove this radical view. With it came the complete separation of the divine from the natural world and a lasting psychological wound to the Christian heart and soul. With Augustine’s pronouncements, the Church shifted from the teachings of Jesus to the consolidation of its growing power.

The mythologies of the Fall from Grace and Original Sin have so distorted our relationship with the feminine and the natural world as to have created a lasting legacy of suffering, guilt and destruction, all in the name of attaining salvation through the one and only path decreed by the Church.

Sexual guilt, repression and misogyny are only some of the many hallmarks of a twisted and literal take on what is properly the mythological. There is so much that is beautiful, compassionate and loving in the teachings of Christ, yet with the emergence of the Church as a powerful institution, power, control and domination have been unfortunate aspects of its legacy as well.

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The Pope Francis Encyclical Laudato si’: A New Relationship with the Transcendent

When people become self-centered and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality. In this horizon, a genuine sense of the common good also disappears.”

– Pope Francis, Laudato si’ (#204)

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

The recent visit of Pope Francis to Cuba and the United States has brought into focus something beautiful that is happening not only within the Church but with the unfolding of transcendent consciousness itself. There is a growing recognition of the interconnection of all life, of a divinity not separate from creation but one that infuses all life, all nature, all of creation.

The first page of St. Augustine's work, "City of God Against the Pagans"
The first page of St. Augustine’s work, “City of God Against the Pagans”

I am so pleased and inspired to see that the grievous error committed upon nature, the feminine and indeed all life reflected in more than a thousand years of orthodox doctrine has been addressed, corrected and transcended by this extraordinary Pope! Dating back to St. Augustine and his 5th Century AD work, “City of God Against the Pagans,” a document which codified the gulf between God and Man, the Divine and Nature, orthodox doctrine has held that, because of the idea of Original Sin, humanity is fallen and nature, and the feminine, were equally stained and corrupt. Nature was devoid of divinity (for the Divine was separate and beyond creation) and could therefore be subject to the dominion of man.

This mistaken philosophical idea has paved the way for terrible, destructive actions and attitudes toward our natural world, and each other, and allowed for an economic philosophy that sees nature, and all life, merely as resources to be exploited, devoid of divinity, compassion and consciousness.

Pope Francis during his visit with President Obama in 2014
Pope Francis during his visit with President Obama in 2014

In the May 24, 2015 Encyclical, “Laudato si, mi’ Signore” (“Praise be to you, my Lord”), Pope Francis lays out a radically different relationship with nature, each other and with the Divine (or, as I would call it, the transcendent energy consciousness). From the beginning of the document, the Pope reflects his humble nature, addressing the encyclical not to the hierarchy of the Church but instead to ALL PEOPLE; this humility and compassion seems to reflect the heart of Francis, and is what is needed for the continuing unfolding of consciousness.

The focus of this Encyclical is to enter into “new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation that includes everyone, since the environment challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.” (Laudato si’, #14). With the heart of a poet, Francis goes on to say:

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

Nothing in this world is indifferent to us.”

Laudato si’ (#2)

While Pope Francis and the Church still see a doctrinal separation between God and Man, he recognizes that, in practice, such a schism can no longer be used to justify our treatment of nature and each other. As he states,

“we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth justifies absolute domination over other creatures . . . This implies a relationship of mutual responsibility between human beings and nature.”

Laudato si’ (#67)

Ultimately, the publishing of this Encyclical, and the recognition on the part of Pope Francis and, as a consequence, of the Church, of the need for a new relationship between humanity and nature is a reflection of a new, emerging relationship with transcendent consciousness. While Francis goes into great and noble detail about the destruction and exploitation we have and continue to visit upon nature, the act of publishing this work signifies something even greater at work: the gradual shift of human consciousness, from one focused upon power, control and domination to, instead, one that operates from the heart (the 4th Chakra).

Recognition of our obligation to “till and keep” nature begets recognition of the web of all life and creation. In the greater scheme of things, this will be seen as a small but firm step toward the recognition of the divinity in each of us, in all of life and in all of creation. We are the stuff of divinity, of transcendent energy consciousness, and it is heartening to me to see the growing awareness of this reflected in practical action by Pope Francis.

Please click on this link to read the “Laudato si, mi’ Signore” in full.

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Healing the Wounded Heart

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

The heart is like an umbilical cord which mediates between the life within us and the life around us. It connects us to the life of the whole, the greater life of the divine ground. The heart is our creative imagination, born of our instinct for relationship with this greater life. The heart generates all our quests, all our hopes and longings and will ultimately reunite us with the source from which we have come. Without the heart, without the instinct to feel, to imagine, to hope and to love, life is meaningless, sterile, dead. When we are in touch with our heart, when we are connected to our deepest feelings, it comes alive, it vibrates, it sings.”

– Anne Baring, Lecture 7: Healing the Heart: An Alchemy of Consciousness, 1993

Some time ago, I attended a lecture by Richard Bandler, the co-creator with John Grinder of NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming. Richard asked a gentleman, a Wall Street banker, to come forward from the crowd and talk with him. “What do you feel?” Richard asked him.

“Nothing,” was his reply. Richard quizzed him further, trying to get to the heart of his disconnection; in fact, the poor man was unable to comprehend the nature of the question. Why? He had lost the connection with his own heart, buried under years of repressed feelings, cultural and familial expectations and a laser-like focus on nothing but the masculine mythology of power, control and domination. From that point forward, I realized the irreplaceable value and need for feelings, for the feminine, and for the need to balance the masculine and feminine energies.

A statue of the Mother Goddess, found in Sardinia, of the Neolithic period.
A statue of the Mother Goddess, found in Sardinia, of the Neolithic period.

For most of the evolutionary history of humanity (up until the rise of tribes and states, about 4,000 years ago), the collective myth that cradled humanity centered around the Great Mother. In this prevailing myth, body and soul, nature and spirit, were aligned in a great web of interconnected and sacred life; the feminine values of compassion, empathy and connection formed the foundation of human societies and relationships, with each other and with nature.

However, this prevailing myth was gradually replaced with a masculine, Authoritarian Father mythology, coinciding with the rise of competitive, aggressive tribal and state systems, and with it the generative values of the heart, of the Great Mother – creativity, gentleness, compassion and love – were repressed, devalued and shunted deep into the unconscious. This devaluation has created in all who are touched by it an indelible wound to the heart, punishing expressions of authentic feeling and / or creativity, while focusing instead upon an insatiable drive to control, to accumulate and exercise power over others, and over the Earth.

A depiction of the Babylonian god Marduk, who killed and split in two the goddess Tiamet, thus forming the heavens and the earth.
A depiction of the Babylonian god Marduk, who killed and split in two the goddess Tiamet, thus forming the heavens and the earth.

Such a shift can be seen in many cultures across time (including our own); gradually, the feminine goddesses receded into the background as the masculine gods ascended. In some cases, the rise of the All-Powerful Father comes concomitantly with the murder of the Great Mother, as in the Babylonian Creation mythology of Enuma Elis, where the masculine god Marduk defeats and splits in two the Goddess Tiamat, using her body to form the earth and sky.

This swing to the masculine has resulted in a loss of the sense of the sacred in life, of the empathetic connection to each other and to nature that is so deep within us as to be instinctive. As the masculine has ascended, the value of nature, of compassion, of the feminine has been degraded, coming to be associated with darkness, chaos and evil (it is Eve in the mythology of the Garden of Eden who tempts Adam and who, as a result, leads to the expulsion of man from paradise).

The values of the heart have been repressed as the primacy of the mind has come to the fore. Yet, that deep instinctual need for connection, creativity and compassion, the values of the Great Mother myth, do not disappear, try as the intellect may to eradicate them. Where the spark of creativity is buried in the unconscious, it will often bubble up uncontrollably and even with awful consequence, for it is a primal energy that cannot be extinguished. As the great psychologist Carl Jung noted, everything we call negative and evil emerges from the wounded heart of a culture.

Where the energies of the feminine are repressed and cloaked in fear and confusion, those creative sparks can become an inferno of barbarism, with the masculine-focused religions and doctrines unable to contain them.

What is required is a reconnection to spirit, to the feminine; we need a rebalancing of the masculine and feminine, within a new mythology, one not based in merely rote belief but in authentic experience.

To heal the wounded heart, we must restore to honor the values of the feminine. We must reconnect the body with the soul, the realm of the transcendent. We must live life out of the highest spiritual values of compassion, loyalty and love. We must participate in the gradual transformation of our level of consciousness, from single-minded pursuit of power to the reconnection of heart and mind, body and soul.

There is, in fact, a new consciousness coming into life or, rather, we are awakening to the transcendent energy consciousness of which we have always been a part though have repressed lo these many millenia. We are all participating in the synthesis of a new mythology, one that reconnects and acknowledges the divinity in all life, in all existence. We are awakening to the fact that we are all a part of the divine, both transcendent and immanent.

This awakening, to a consciousness of the heart and soul, is what will heal and bring us to redemption and reconnection with our transcendent nature.

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The Western Psyche: Prometheus and Job

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

From nearly the beginning, the Western psyche has been characterized by a polarizing schism – two competing mythologies, engaged in a continuing struggle for supremacy, neither able to take complete control, neither able to relinquish the quest. Each derives from diametrically opposed, philosophical and mythological foundations, one rooted in the Near and Middle East, the other rooted in the ancient Greek civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea.

These opposing traditions can be represented by two great stories: the Greek tradition by “Prometheus Bound,” the Near Eastern tradition by “The Book of Job” in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Prometheus being bound by Vulcan, painted by Dirck van Baburen
Prometheus being bound by Vulcan, painted by Dirck van Baburen

“Prometheus Bound” is attributed to the great Greek tragedian Aeschylus, and it is in the character and integrity of the Titan Prometheus that aspects of the independent, assertive and defiant nature of the Western psyche can said to be traced. In the story, the Titan Prometheus (who had sided with Zeus in his battle against his father, Cronus, and all of the rest of the Titans) draws the bitterness and hostility of Zeus when he opposes his plan to bring an end to humanity, instead giving them the gift of fire.

An enraged Zeus decrees that Prometheus is to be chained for eternity to a mountain in the Caucasus where an eagle would attack him and devour his liver; being immortal, however, his body would heal every night, only to have the gory and painful attack happen every day thereafter in perpetuity.

Various figures, feeling compassion and sorrow for the Titan, visit Prometheus in an effort to comfort and / or persuade him to make amends with Zeus to end his suffering. When a messenger of the gods is sent to Prometheus to offer him mercy if he would only reveal who was plotting against Zeus, Prometheus defiantly exclaims, “Tell Zeus I despise him and will never bow down to him!”

These aspects of Prometheus’ character – elements of which the ancient Greeks prized as of the highest and noblest order – form one pole of the opposing nature of the Western psyche. Pride, brazenness, courage, determination, resoluteness all reflect constituent components of one pole of the Western mind.

Job's tormentors, from William Blake's illustrations for the Book of Job.
Job’s tormentors, from William Blake’s illustrations for the Book of Job.

The other pole of the Western psyche can be represented by the Old Testament figure, Job, a righteous man, blessed with progeny and wealth. Yahweh, as God is referred to in the Old Testament, is meeting with his colleague Satan and, out of pride, asks him, “Have you ever seen a better servant than my servant Job?” Satan considers the question and answers him, “Your servant is loyal to you only because you bless him. Torture and take everything away from him and he will surely curse you.” Yahweh agrees to the bet, allowing Satan to strip him of his wealth, kill all of his children and livestock, visit upon him a plague of boils and make him a cursed outcast among his people.

Finally, Job protests his treatment, showing how he had always been devoted to Yahweh; he demands an answer from God for all the terrors to which he has been exposed. An indignant Yahweh, however, answers out of anger and spite, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” Yahweh dismisses Job, angry that he would deign to question him. Job, admitting his knowledge and understanding were insignificant compared to Yahweh, repents his insolence saying, “I am ashamed!” and throws dust and ashes upon himself.

This story reflects aspects of the Western psyche that include obedience, subordination, modesty, humility and even fear.

Significant differences, unsurprisingly, exist between these two mythologies.

For one, the Gods of Olympus, in the Greek tradition, did not create humanity; rather, they exhibited all of the emotional complexity of humankind, lusted after women and essentially acted as older siblings. The Greeks, while respecting the Gods, did not consider them to have some inscrutable divinity beyond the reach of humanity; thus identifying with the defiance of Prometheus.

Humanity, in the Old Testament, is said to have been created by God to be his servants. An impenetrable gulf existed between the Divine and lowly mankind, with the wisdom of Yahweh being beyond his understanding.

In one, humanity is to be a citizen; in the other, a servant.

Another difference lays in the origins of the mythologies. The ancient Greek traditions grew in the Mediterranean Sea and were part of the intellectual origins of the European continent. The Old Testament traditions can be sourced to the near and middle East, and were often brought to vast tracts of the continent at the tip of a sword, as the Roman Empire expanded.

In the end, one can look upon the schism within the Western psyche as did the great mythologist, Joseph Campbell:

The problem of most Western minds today is this: having been deprived of the sense of divinity in themselves by the church, they now have been deprived of the sense of the claim of the church by science—and so we have what is called alienation . . .

In Europe we have faith in the human being. Consider for instance the main position of the Levant. When we have two terms, God and man, there comes a final question as to your ultimate loyalty— is it going to be God, or is it going to be the man? Is it going to be to the mystery of God, or to the ideas and ideals of man?

Now for the Oriental [sic], this conflict, look at that: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday we are with Prometheus. And Sunday, for a couple of minutes with Job, and the next Monday on the psychiatrist’s couch wondering what is the matter?

These are two absolutely irreconcilable, absolutely contrary points of view that we pretend to have brought together—and we haven’t resolved this. The European races, with their individualism and humanism—Greek, Roman, Celt and German—had this system brought in upon them.”

– Joseph Campbell, “Lecture I.1.4 – New Horizons,” November 21, 1961/1974, The Cooper Union, NY, NY, Archive Number: L46, L535

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Dr. Jung’s First Sermon to the Dead

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

The following is an extended excerpt of the First Sermon to the Dead by Dr. Carl Jung.

The First Sermon

The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they did not find what they were seeking. They asked admittance to me and demanded to be taught by me, and thus I taught them:

Hear Ye: I begin with nothing. Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness is the same as emptiness. The Nothing is both empty and full. One may just as well state some other thing about the Nothing, namely that it is white or that it is black or that it exists or that it exists not. That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities.

The Nothing, or fullness, is called by us the PLEROMA. In it thinking and being cease, because the eternal is without qualities. In it there is no one, for if anyone were, he would be differentiated from the Pleroma and would possess qualities which would distinguish him from the Pleroma.

In the Pleroma there is nothing and everything: it is not profitable to think about the Pleroma, for to do that would mean one’s dissolution.

The CREATED WORLD is not in the Pleroma, but in itself. The Pleroma is the beginning and end of the created world.

The Pleroma penetrates the created world as the sunlight penetrates the air everywhere. Although the Pleroma penetrates it completely, the created world has no part of it, just as an utterly transparent body does not become either dark or light in color as the result of the passage of light through it. We ourselves, however, are the Pleroma, so it is that the Pleroma is present within us. Even in the smallest point the Pleroma is present without any bounds, eternally and completely, for small and great are the qualities which are alien to the Pleroma.

The Pleroma is the nothingness which is everywhere complete and without end. It is because of this that I speak of the created world as a portion of the Pleroma, but only in an allegorical sense; for the Pleroma is not divided into portions, for it is nothingness. We, also, are the total Pleroma; for figuratively the Pleroma is an exceedingly small, hypothetical, even non-existent point within us, and also it is the limitless firmament of the cosmos about us. Why, however, do we discourse about the Pleroma, if it is the all, and also nothing?

I speak of it in order to begin somewhere, and also to remove from you the delusion that somewhere within or without there is something absolutely firm and definite. All things which are called definite and solid are but relative, for only that which is subject to change appears definite and solid.

The created world is subject to change. It is the only thing that is solid and definite, since it has qualities. In fact, the created world is itself but a quality.

We ask the question:

How did creation originate? Creatures indeed originated but not the created world itself, for the created world is a quality of the Pleroma, in the same way as the uncreated; eternal death is also a quality of the Pleroma. Creation is always and everywhere, and death is always and everywhere. The Pleroma possesses all: differentiation and non-differentiation.

Differentiation is creation.

The created world is indeed differentiated. Differentiation is the essence of the created world and for this reason the created also causes further differentiation. That is why man himself is a divider, inasmuch as his essence is also differentiation. That is why he distinguishes the qualities of the Pleroma, yea, those qualities which do not exist.

You say to me: What good is it then to talk about this, since it has been said that it is useless to think about the Pleroma?

I say these things to you in order to free you from the illusion that it is possible to think about the Pleroma. When you speak about the divisions of the Pleroma, we are speaking from the position of our own divisions, and we speak about our own differentiated state; but while we do this, we have in reality said nothing about the Pleroma.
However, it is necessary to talk about our own differentiation, for this enables us to discriminate sufficiently.
Our essence is differentiation. For this reason we must distinguish individual qualities.

You say: What harm does it not do to discriminate, for then we reach beyond the limits of our own being; we extend ourselves beyond the created world, and we fall into the undifferentiated state which is another quality of the Pleroma. We submerge into the Pleroma itself, and we cease to be created beings. This we become subject to dissolution and nothingness.

Such is the very death of the created being. We die to the extent that we fail to discriminate. For this reason the natural impulse of the created being is directed toward differentiation and toward the struggle against the ancient, pernicious state of sameness.
The natural tendency is called Principium Individuationis (Principle of Individuation).
This principle is indeed the essence of every created being.
From these things you may readily recognize why the undifferentiated principle and lack of discrimination are all a great danger to created beings.
For this reason we must be able to distinguish the qualities of the Pleroma.
Its qualities are the PAIRS OF OPPOSITES, such as:

the effective and the ineffective
fullness and emptiness
the living and the dead
light and dark
hot and cold
energy and matter
time and space
good and evil
the beautiful and the ugly
the one and the many
and so forth.

The pairs of opposites are the qualities of the Pleroma: they are also in reality non-existent because they cancel each other out.

Since we ourselves are the Pleroma, we also have these qualities present within us; inasmuch as the foundation of our being is differentiation, we possess these qualities in the name and under the sign of differentiation, which means:

First—that the qualities are in us differentiated from each other, and they are separated from each other, and thus they do not cancel each other out, rather they are in action. It is thus that we are the victims of the pairs of opposites. For in us the Pleroma is rent in two.

Second—the qualities belong to the Pleroma, and we can and should partake of them only in the name and under the sign of differentiation. We must separate ourselves from these qualities. In the Pleroma they cancel each other out; in us they do not. But if we know how to know ourselves as being apart from the pairs of opposites, then we have attained to salvation.

When we strive for the good and the beautiful, we thereby forget about our essential being, which is differentiation, and we are victimized by the qualities of the Pleroma which are the pairs of opposites. We strive to attain to the good and beautiful, but at the same time we also to the evil and the ugly, because in the Pleroma these are identical with the good and the beautiful. However, if we remain faithful to our nature, which is differentiation, we then differentiate ourselves from the good and the beautiful, and thus we have immediately differentiated ourselves from the evil and the ugly. It is only thus that we do not merge into the Pleroma, that is, into nothingness and dissolution.

You will object and say to me: Thou hast said that differentiation and sameness are also qualities of the Pleroma. How is it then that we strive for differentiation? Are we not then true to our natures and must we then also eventually be in the state of sameness, while we strive for differentiation?

What you should never forget is that the Pleroma has no qualities.

We are the ones who create these qualities through our thinking.

When you strive after differentiation or sameness or after other qualities, you strive after thoughts which flow to you from the Pleroma, namely thoughts about the non-existent qualities of the Pleroma.
While you run after these thoughts, you fall again into the Pleroma and arrive at differentiation and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking but your being is differentiation.
That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as you know these, but strive after your true nature.

If you would thus truly strive, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and still you would arrive at the true goal because of your nature.

However, because thinking alienates us from our true nature, therefore I must teach knowledge to you, with which you can keep your thinking under control.

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Dr. Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead

– Dr. Jaime G. Corvalan, MD, FACS

A page from Dr. Carl Jung's private printing of the Seven Sermons to the Dead
A page from Dr. Carl Jung’s private printing of the Seven Sermons to the Dead

The “Seven Sermons to the Dead,” by the renowned psychologist Dr. Carl Jung, are a collection of mystical, Gnostic texts self-published by the doctor during his lifetime (1916) and distributed only to a select few individuals. The Seven Sermons were initially published as an appendix to his biographical work, “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” in 1962, but have since become identified as a summary of his master work, The Red Book, published only recently in 2009.

The Seven Sermons to the Dead refer, essentially, to the spiritually dead, those who lack the self-knowledge of Gnosis. As such, this collection serves as an excellent primer into Jungian psychology and Gnosticism. In essence, the Seven Sermons to the Dead may be summarized as follows:

  • The “dead” are the spiritually dead, those who have stopped growing into their authentic, higher selves.
  • The spiritually dead no longer question their illusory existence as egos, the facades they project for everyone to see, but instead remain bereft of their true, transcendent identities
  • As the spiritually dead no longer pursue the true calling of their souls, they have become, for all intents and purposes, the living dead

The Seven Sermons to the Dead serve as a reminder of the great truths and maxims one will miss if one continues to plod blindly along in this life, avoiding the inner journey we must take if we wish to connect with our transcendent selves.

Because thinking alienates us from our true nature, therefore I must teach knowledge to you, with which you can keep your thinking under control.

  • That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities.
  • What you should never forget is that the Pleroma has no qualities.
  • We are the ones who create these qualities through our thinking.
  • The pairs of opposites are the qualities of the Pleroma: they are also in reality non-existent because they cancel each other out.

– Unknown

We will undertake an exploration of each of the Sermons hereafter.

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The Goats and the Tiger

By Joseph Campbell

A fable tells of a tigress, pregnant and starving, who comes upon a little flock of goats and pounces on them with such energy that she brings about the birth of her little one and her own death.

The goats scatter, and when they come back to their grazing place, they find this just-born tiger and its dead mother. Having strong parental instincts, they adopt the tiger, and it grows up thinking it’s a goat. It learns to bleat. It learns to eat grass. And since grass doesn’t nourish it very well, it grows up to become a pretty miserable specimen of its species.

When the young tiger reaches adolescence, a large male tiger pounces on the flock, and the goats scatter. But this little fellow is a tiger, so he stands there. The big one looks at him in amazement and says, “Are you living here with these goats?” “Maaaaaaa” says the little tiger. Well, the old tiger is mortified, something like a father who comes home and finds his son with long hair. He swats him back and forth a couple of times, and the little thing just responds with these silly bleats and begins nibbling grass in embarrassment. So the big tiger brings him to a still pond.

Now, still water is a favorite Indian image to symbolize the idea of yoga. The first aphorism of yoga is: “Yoga is the intentional stopping of the spontaneous activity of the mind-stuff.” Our minds, which are in continual flux, are likened to the surface of a pond that’s blown by a wind. So the forms that we see, those of our own lives and the world around us, are simply flashing images that come and go in the field of time, but beneath all of them is the substantial form of forms. Bring the pond to a standstill, have the wind withdraw and the waters clear, and you’ll see, in stasis, the perfect image beneath all of these changing forms.

So this little fellow looks into the pond and sees his own face for the first time. The big tiger puts his face over and says, “You see, you’ve got a face like mine. You’re not a goat. You’re a tiger like me. Be like me.”

Now, that’s guru stuff: I’ll give you my picture to wear, be like me. It’s the opposite to the individual way.

So the little one is getting that message; he’s picked up and taken to the tiger’s den, where there are the remains of a recently slaughtered gazelle. Taking a chunk of this bloody stuff, the big tiger says, “Open you face.” The little one backs away, “I’m a vegetarian.” “None of that nonsense,” says the big fellow, and he shoves a piece of meat down the little one’s throat. He gags on it. The text says, “As all do on true doctrine.” But gagging on the true doctrine, he’s nevertheless getting it into his blood, into his nerves; it’s his proper food. It touches his proper nature. Spontaneously, he gives a tiger stretch, the first one. A little tiger roar comes out—Tiger Roar 101…. The big one says, “There. Now you’ve got it. Now we go into the forest and eat tiger food.” Vegetarianism Is the first turning away from life, Because life lives on lives. Vegetarians are just eating something that can’t run away. Now, of course, the moral is that we are all tigers living here as goats. The right hand path, the sociological department, is interested in cultivating our goat-nature. Mythology, properly understood as metaphor, will guide you to the recognition of your tiger face. But then how are you going to live with these goats?

This story gets to the story of life. When you talk of a tiger, you speak of a wild animal with particular needs and requirements – they need to hunt and eat to live. We think we’re something we’re not – we’ve been misled into thinking we’re something we’re not. We all get a description from our parents, our society telling us who we’re “supposed” to be. But that’s not what we are!

When the tiger finds out he’s not a goat, he lets out a fierce roar! The Goat and the Tiger is about exceeding the things you’ve been told you are, but becoming whom you actually are! We’re all so much more than the roles we play – don’t act like a Goat if you’re a Tiger! Let people know you care about them, be true and honest with yourself and everyone you know.

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Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer’s notion of the Will comes from the Kantian things-in-itself, which Kant believed to be the fundamental reality behind the representation that provided the matter of perception, but lacked form.

Schopenhauer pointed out that anything outside of time and space could not be differentiated, so the thing-in-itself must be one and all things that exist, including human beings.

Schopenhauer also argues that ideas (i.e. representations) may be either primary or secondary. Primary ideas include perceptions and intuitions. Secondary ideas include concepts and abstract representations.

Thus, concepts are “representations of representations.” All representations are objects of possible experience, and all objects of possible experience are representations.

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Wanderer, You Make Your Own Road

Footsteps in the Sand - You Make Your Own RoadWanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing else;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking makes the road,
and on glancing behind
one sees the path
that he will never trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road—
Just foam in the sea.

– Antonio Machado, “Proverbios y cantares XXIX” [Proverbs and Songs 29], Campos de Castilla (1912); trans. Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (Louisiana State University Press, 1979)

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The Words of the Poet Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about language, ideas, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.

– Rumi