Jung and Gnosticism: Discovering a Universe Of Whole-Making

This Jungian Life Podcast

Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

Jungian, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Psychology, Dreams, Jung, Relationships, Selfhelp, Society & Culture, Psychoanalysis

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2024

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is the ultimate path to inner wholeness, and how do we reconcile the tension between the spiritual and material aspects of our existence? Take up the journey to find your lost spark this fall at Dream School: https://thisjungianlife.com/join-dream-school/

Jung’s exploration of Gnosticism enhanced his vision of the human psyche. In the Gnostic myths, Jung recognized the modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness we all seek, mirroring the Gnostic Anthropos, the complete human being. Individuation, much like the Gnostic quest for spiritual awakening, becomes a journey of reclaiming our hidden divine spark, integrating both the conscious and unconscious aspects of being.

A great cosmos of balance held in pairs of opposites is upset when Sophia breaks away and is lost in time and matter. The task of humanity is to recognize the sparks of divinity in the world and facilitate the repair of the cosmos. In this, Jung recognized our modern inner journey—where the Self represents the wholeness we all seek, mirroring the Gnostic Anthropos, the complete human being. Individuation, much like the Gnostic quest for spiritual awakening, becomes a journey of reclaiming our hidden divine spark. The myth of the Demiurge, who wrongly believes himself the ultimate power supplanting God, serves as a warning against ego inflation. As we join Jung in enlivening this ancient myth, we clarify our personal task of whole-making and find new symbols to guide that process.

Prepare to discover what defines the path toward psychological wholeness, how the dynamics between unconscious drives and conscious awareness shape personal transformation, which existential dilemmas arise from the tension between spiritual ascent and material reality, whether true self-realization involves transcending or integrating the complexities of human life, why inner conflict and the unity of opposing forces are central to our development…and so much more.

Find a copy of the dream we analyze here: https://thisjungianlife.com/gnosticism

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this Jungian life.
0:04.0	Three good friends and Jungian analysts, Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee,
0:09.6	invite you to join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings a psychological
0:15.0	perspective to important issues of the day.
0:19.7	I'm Lisa Marchiano and I'm a youngian analyst in Philadelphia.
0:23.0	I'm Joseph Lee and I'm a youngian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
0:28.0	I'm Deborah Stewart, a youngian analyst on Cape Cod. Hello everybody.
0:45.0	Lisa is not with us right now.
0:47.0	She is in Europe at a conference having a great time.
0:51.0	So Deb and I are going to tackle Jung's ideas around Gnosticism, which were particularly
0:58.5	important to him, and validated some of the things that he had been intuiting and observing with his own clients.
1:08.0	Gnosticism is a very early response to the Christian mythos.
1:15.7	It was a way that several small groups
1:19.2	in the Hellenistic period
1:21.8	were trying to make sense in a very applied way of how to manage the tension between the suffering of the material world and this idea of a perfected spiritual state.
1:41.0	Out of that tension, which all us, by the way, exist in all the time, came a series of cosmologies,
1:47.0	philosophies, and religious practices, and a particular branch of
1:55.0	of Gnosticism, which is called Valentinian Gnosticism,
1:59.0	which was able to find out a little bit more about really influenced and validated some of his
2:06.0	concepts and we're going to talk about that today. It may sound abstract but when we
2:11.2	break it down into these granular places it actually is very relevant to the
2:18.8	way that our own psychology works.
	...

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