Saturday, April 17th, 1982

Jung's Archetype of the Self

by Anthony J. Damiani

Paper V09P

3-LETTER CODE: JNG

TOPIC: Jung

SUBJECT: Archetype of Self

SUBSUBJECTS: Image of God, Bodhicitta, Soul, Natal Chart, Quintessential Body, Active Imagination

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): JNG archetype of self P 2p.PDF

CONTENTS:

Image of God as intelligible cosmos within Nous Atom

Jung doesn't have proper notion of soul/consciousness

Jung defines Self as totality of psychic processes; application to all individuals results in one Self

Comparison with Plotinus' view: unity of soul in Intellectual-Principle, not unity of rational processes

Natal chart as mandala

Bodhicitta united with quintessential body could assimilate all the meanings; quintessential body is bridge that connects you to eighth sphere of archetypal ideas

Jung sees imagination as ultimate reality; contrast with ancient views on controlling and eliminating imagination

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• G.R.S. Mead, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition

• Mary Anne Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery

• C.G. Jung, CW 14, Mysterium Coniunctionis

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: IV.9.1

AD HANDWRITING: Typewriter typed, no AD edits

COMPLETENESS: Full Paper

PUBLISHABILITY: Yes

DATE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: Mentioned in WG Class 1982 0417a V11ap. Alchemy; Archetype of Self.

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED AD PAPER (V09P).

• This is 1982 04/17d, Jung's Archetype of the Self Paper, and the fourth entry associated with this date. 1982 04/17a = Alchemy; Archetype of Self Class. 1982 04/17b = "Psychology: Monotheistic or Polytheistic?" Book Notes. 1982 04/17c = Imagination is Reality Book Notes.

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Jung's Archetype of the Self

The 'image of God' is planted in the soul of man; we have referred to it as the intelligible cosmos within the Nous Atom. Although Jung often used this notion of the 'image of God', he doesn't make this connection with the individual soul. When he refers to the reason principles buried in matter, he includes us as one of those reason principles. His eightfold nature reaches to the realm of the archetypal images and he considers that to be the structure of man. He doesn't have a notion of soul independent of that. Jung admits that he doesn't know what consciousness is, and any true awareness of the teaching would point out that consciousness is that germ of enlightenment, a spark of the pure intelligence.

Jung defined the self as the totality of psychic processes, the 360 degrees, and when applied to all individuals, results in only one self. Every possible permutation and combination that could take place here in totality would be the Archetype of the self, therefore everyone has one and same self.

He quotes one reference of Plotinus that affirms this view that all individuals are one soul, but according to Plotinus, the unity of the soul is in the Intellectual Principle, not the unity of rational processes. [Note: See Plotinus, Enneads, IV.9.1. See also C.G. Jung, CW 14, Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 534, paragraph 761.] The argument that all souls are somehow contained in the cosmic soul doesn't hold as Plotinus points out that some souls never descend.

Jung is speaking of the products of nature, the vehicles the soul will use, and he is conceiving this nature as a whole as the self. Insofar as the natal chart represents a structuralization or a channelization of the intelligible world, it is a mandala. It limits the inundation of all 360 degrees as an absolutely precise structure, the space within which you evolve. (Life actualized is lived space.)

If you think of the natal chart as representative of the whole, on these terms there could never take place actual wholeness. An extract cannot embody or understand the entirety. But it is conceivable that the Bodhicitta united with the quintessential body could assimilate all the meanings. For ultimately the quintessential body will connect the conscious personality from the 7 spheres to the eighth sphere where the archetypal meanings are. It is the bridge. So the person who has developed that body begins to understand the ideas in their archetypal form.

The implications of Jung's notion of the self are shown in his view of the imagination as the ultimate reality. The process of development for him is the development of the imagination, i.e. active imagining. He cannot conceive of rationality apart from the imagination. Whereas the ancients insisted first upon a control of the imagination and then its elimination. See Subtle Body by Mead, pgs. 69-72, Atwood pgs. 188-90.

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