Sunday, March 9, 2014

The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead by Stephan A. Hoeller


"Gnosticism like mysticism pursues the inner way; its authority is not external but internal-a living personal experience-but without denying the outer world. Under the guise of Basilides, a second-century AD Gnostic sage, Jung wrote in 1916 the Seven Sermons to the Dead after he had received intense psychic experiences.The author has made his own translation of the sermons and sets forth a lengthy explanation and far-ranging commentary on Jung, Gnosticism, and the present condition of the Western individual."

"Seven Sermons to the Dead (Latin: Septem Sermones ad Mortuos) is a text written in 1916 by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and ascribed to the gnostic teacher Basilides. Somewhat in the style of the Red Book, yet more unified, the booklet was printed privately for Jung's friends but not widely available until it appeared as an appendix in his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections in 1961. The text speaks cryptically about the Pleroma, the Abraxas and the soul; therein, Jung also discusses his principle of Individuation and warns of the mystical tendency to "unite" with God, which he interprets as a dangerous psychological desire to identify with the unconscious."

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