Saturday, May 15th, 1982

Anthropos: Archetype of the Self

by Paul Damiani

Paper V09M

3-LETTER CODE: ALC

TOPIC: Alchemy

SUBJECT: Jung

SUBSUBJECTS: Anthropos, Idea of Man, Archetype of the Self

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): 1982 0515a V12ap. Alchemy - Jung - Anthropos - Idea of Man.DOC & PDF

CONTENTS:

Anthropos tied to mystical source; teleological cause of psychic development

Self as principle of continuity

Four primary modes (A, B, C, D); intermediate stages of experience; fourfold differentiation at each level

Anthropos contacts conscious personality through inferior function

Symbolism of Anthropos; system of complementary and contradictory images; grounded in alchemical tetrameria; expresses two aspects

Structural polarity of symbolism: upper aspect (A), lower aspect (C)

Serpent; role in involution; part of totality imagery, not a privation

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• C.G. Jung, CW 9, Part II, Aion

DIAGRAMS appended to this paper:

• FIGURE 1982 0515b-1-AB. Jung's Archetype of the Self (Aion, p. 259).

• FIGURE 1982 0515b-2-AB. Self, Inferior Function, and Fourfold Psychic Organism.

AD HANDWRITING: The version retyped below only exists as embedded in the verbatim class transcript

COMPLETENESS: Full Paper

PUBLISHABILITY: Yes

DATE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1982 0515

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED PD PAPER presented in class (V09M).

• This is 1982 05/15b, Anthropos: Archetype of the Self Paper, and the second entry associated with this date. 1982 05/15a = Alchemy; Jung; Anthropos Class.

• This paper is read and discussed in WG Class 1982 0515a Alchemy; Jung; Anthropos. Also discussed in WG Classes 1982 0522 Alchemy; Idea of Man and 1982 0605a Alchemy; Philosophical Tree.

Anthropos: Archetype of the Self

[Paper as read by PD in WG Class 1982 0515a Begins]

The Anthropos or the Archetype of the Self is tied to or conjoined with a mystical source. This aspect of the Self is clearly distinguished in many of the references in the Demiurgic and cosmical processes which are powers that bind or involve the soul into the natural processes. A second important point is that the Anthropos is the teleological cause of the subjective psychic development. The subjective psyche belongs to the former as a vehicle for its unfoldment.

The Self is the principle of continuity throughout the multiple states of our existence and becoming. If we take the capital letters of the diagram as referring to the primary modes through which the idea is going to unfold as a totality experience, A, B, C, D, the four levels of reference as intermediate states or stages of Anthropos are the levels or stages of experience. Each stage in turn unfolds or becomes differentiated through a fourfold, and thus making that level of experience conscious. This would then relocate the locus of experience and identification. This point of unconscious identification is correlate to the inferior function and equals the point where the objective non-ego psyche can operate or unfold on the individual. In the schemata where capital A contacts or equals small a, capital B, small b, this is symbolizing that within that specific level of experience, the Anthropos will infect, infuse, enliven the operations of consciousness through the inferior function, as if the Self holds back a quarter, a portion of the conscious personality. This is one possible way to interpret how the archetypal arrangement of the Self is determining the orientating functions of consciousness. Thus from a perspective of Anthropos, the capital letters A, B, C, D are its modes of existing, whereas the small letters a, b, c, d represent the smaller world of ego-consciousness.

The symbolism is an attempt to schematize the Idea of Man, Anthropos, in the Western Gnostic and alchemical tradition, which Jung considers as his basis. This transcendental Idea, the Idea of Man, manifests as a system of complimentary and contradictory images, "though this does not mean that it is anything [like] as contradictory in itself." (Jung, Aion, p. 225, paragraph 355)

The structure of the symbolism is grounded on the alchemical tetrameria. The unity will become explicit through a fourfold. The symbolism, on the one hand, is attempting to convey and express the immanence and presence of the Anthropos in and through all the states and stages of our existence. On the other hand, this concept of Anthropos is seen as being the total extent of our evolution in and through the world of Nature, and thus it is an image of totality. In a very rough and cryptic manner of characterizing this schemata would be firstly a pure natural instinctive life, to secondly a rejuvenated and reborn life endowed with meanings.

One important structural aspect of the symbol is to be noted in the polarity of Anthropos in itself, A, above the cosmocrators and Demiurgic processes, and C, the serpent, that system of higher powers in the lower. In many ways the dichotomy gets characterized as light and dark, up and downward tendencies. The serpent thus is the carrier of that in and of ourselves which is yet to be developed and integrated. This condition results in furthering one's involution into experience through the powers of projection and embodiment. And as such, the serpent becomes an aspect of the totality imagery and not a privation (bona) as it was conceived in Christianity.

[Paper as read by PD in WG Class 1982 0515a Ends]