stOttilien

Tag: Religion

  • The pope steps down – a philosopher hunted down.

    The pope steps down – a philosopher hunted down.

    This is a sad day: “Der Lotse geht von Bord”.  The pope steps down, our great spiritual and intellectual leader leaves the ship. I have respect for his decision, which must not have been an easy one for this modest man. I want to discuss the spiritual and political background of this.

    Spiritual consequences

    The pope steps down
    Der Lotse geht von Bord”
    Karikatur aus dem Londoner “Punch” vom 2. September 1890 zur Entlassung Bismarcks durch Wilhelm II.

    I pray that he has still enough time left and for his health. Catholicism does not depend like other “beliefs” on new doctrines and to hurry from fashion to fashion because opinions of yesterday’s turn out useless already today. Sometimes it seems only the Catholic church can preserve us from the embarrassing and degrading slavery of stupidity, decay and greed, of dark totalitarian forces being ideological motivated ones or creeping out of dark medieval ages. The catholic church is no invention of our time. She will survive as the first steely global organisation, even if  her enemies have not given up the hope to see catholic dying one day. Thanks to the Holy Father for his smart and modest guidance of our church. The pope was neither ultra conservative, nor a Church-CEO. He was as a bishop of Rome in the succession of Peter and is time of his life an intellectual thinker and light tower  for us Catholic Christians. And if one really deals with his writings and his work, one recognises how deeply religious this man is and what a luminous example he is to us Catholics.

    From a Jungian view I may not always have agreed with Pope Benedict ,  but I do thank him for his work, for taking a stand and wish him a few more quiet years in late autumn of his life. All the best for the future! I hope the next pope comes from a spiritual young Catholic church  – Asia, Africa or South America – not from the Western Ship of Fools. When the last pope resigned with Celestine V 1294 and Gregory XII 1415, it was on the eve of the fall of Constantinople,  of East Rome 1453,  of Christianity in the Middle East.  Pope Benedict XVI created a new Vatican department aimed at “re-evangelizing” the most secular regions of the globe, including areas of Europe that have become “de-Christianized.” That is needed indeed. In any case, Pope Benedikt is a universally educated high dignitary of the Church, willfully misunderstood by most,  never mind if they really have read a line from him. His level is another than coarse and vicious debate culture let alone the jaded role models for the masses. Ironically it became clear those last years, that he was a modern intellectual. He spoke out for freedom, also individual freedom, for separation of state and church, building bridges to other religions, to science and philosophy and fighting for a global church in countries where spirituality still prospers.

    Political reasons

    Pope Benedict XVI has made many enemies within and out of the Catholic church. An enlightened scholar and philosopher was hunted down by indignity. His relation with Germany was stressed. In his last speech in Germany he spoke of “Entweltlichung” hinting that German clerics live to cosy within the state concordat and lack spiritual drive. In the parliament he quoted for our “great” politicians St. Augustine: “What are the states without justice than only than a big band of robbers?“ (Book 4.4).  It can be also interpreted as: A state without God is at best a well organised band of robbers. Indeed, that was the European Union and Germany became. Given the disgusting public noise towards his person it was a sensible decision to retire. It was telling, that the German (cleric) officials referred only to Celestine V, a hermetic monk,  who,  overwhelmed and tired of the poisoned climate of the Vatican tepped down after five months. Some of them had wished a Pope Benedict XVI more streamlined, more postmodern or at least more protestant. He was neither. Joseph Ratzinger has recognised early that reforms, when they lead to a religious relativism, block the essentials, the faith in God and  lead in a dead-end. The 68er movement has made clear to the young theologian Ratzinger the dangers of the approaching spirit of the time. Today’s coinage very clearly drags everything onto the suction of a doctrinal secularism and dissolves thus the Christianity in pagan belief. In this respect one may see the big achievement pope Benedikts XVI to have held up those disastrous currents  and with it perserved the livelihood of the Catholic church. Besides, Joseph Ratzinger had to lead the discussion with the Marxist liberation theology arising in Latin America as a prefect of the religious congregation that has severely challenged the church just in these countries. Furthermore his achievements are indisputable regarding the unity of the Catholic faith. Newsweek stated gaffes statements are the red thread of his pontiff, and the Regensburger speech is stated as an example. Clearly who reduces such a speech into a 130 Twitter message comes to such a mistaken judgement. The speech opened even a dialog with moderate Muslims on a peer level in addition to the Orthodox and Jewish. Of course, there are many which want to misunderstand for political reasons. Many just wish a politically correct church –  Johannes Paul just as like Benedikt disappointed them and this is a good thing.

    Pope Benedict XVI’s spokesman has denied the pontiff will resign over the VatiLeak of confidential documents. However, there were smearing gossip articles lately and hints that some treacherous infighting was going on in the Vatican. He was the one who cleaned up the act of the church regarding the abuse cases, reaching out to the victims. Maybe he had alienated some preference groups with his “zero tolerance” policy and because he was firm on catholic tradition and truth. It seems clear, that the pope has deeply been made sick by the child abuse in the Catholic church and came to conflict with the cardinals. He will disappear from March, 2013 out of sight of the public and Vatican will provide for the fact that this also remains extensively so.

    As head of the state, Pope Benedict XVI has not done so well. Not always he trusted the right people. To be fair, the ailing pope before him left behind a big administrative and financial mess (not improved by the EU financial crisis). A cluster of banking scandals have been surfacing in Italy recently. They concern the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) involving head of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi (G&S alumni) when he was still head of the Italian central bank. The history of the bank is a telling example of the murderous symbiosis of politics and investment banks. The fired boss of the bank, Giuseppe Mussari, is a leading Freemasons according to the  newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. Freemasons have a long tradition in Tuscany and numerous members of the socialist party. Those socialists who control the city of Siena since generations installed Goldman Sachs together with the Citigroup and Merill Lynching as a „joint Worldwide Coordinators“ and for buying  the Spanish Bank Antonveneta 2007 on the brink of the finance crises. One of the most important actors in the crime movie was Mario Draghi. It is completely implausible that Draghi has known nothing about the details about the state of the Antonveneta as he claimed of the G&S deals with Greece in the scandal around manipulated figures of the Greeks for the EU entry. As a boss of the EZB he is meanwhile the true ruler of Europe. The  EU installed Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, also a Goldman adviser, has tried during the past years to keep the bank with tax money alive, and has pumped billions of taxpayer money into the bank.  While little has been said in the mainstream western press about the ongoing fiasco surrounding Siena’s Banca Monte dei Pasci, Italy’s third largest bank and the world’s oldest may get its third bailout in three years. The situation on the ground in Italy is getting more serious, and will have implications on both next month’s general election, on Mario Monti, on Silvio Berlusconi, as the scandal reaches as far up as the head of the ECB – Mario Draghi. Due to previously undisclosed derivative contracts first exposed by Bloomberg, the Siena bank has hidden as much as $1 billion in losses.  The “Latest Italian Bailout Scandal”, has far greater implications for the implied credibility of both the Bank of Italy, and especially the man who headed it for five years before becoming head of the ECB (where he now demands the same supervisory authority over all European banks that he had in Italy, only to supposedly let countless derivative fiascos slip through his fingers). Or in plain English, why the then-Draghi led Bank of Italy allowed this to happen not once, not twice, but at least three times.  This scandal maybe connected with Pope Bendict’s VVI significant problems of the Vatican bank IOR. The Italian press indicated that those scandals have an international dimension. The former Vatican IOR boss, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was before his engagement with the Vatican Chef of the Italian establishment of the Spanish Santander, the very bank who sold Antonvenet for an inflated price (and under investigation of kickback corruption) to the now troubled Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

    Benedikt XVI attempted to resolve the shady behavior of the Vatican Bank by installing the former German Banker Tietmeyer. Bad customs, defamation, power plays, ambitions without barriers and theft led to the destruction of the Vatican Bank. Established financial power groups could be involved for their part in the Vatican bank scandal and may be also behind the butler who stole confidential papers from the desk of Pope Benedikt. The shadows behind the butler never came to light and the Pope sure must have been tired and disappointed. The Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi ( he has to be taken with a bit of salt) is convinced: Pope Benedikt XVI has stepped down to put a sign against the mismanagement in Vatican. He has felt as a theologian not competent enough to solve the economic problems of the church state. He has had no friends in the Vatican. Above all his cardinal’s Assistant Secretary Tarcisio Bertone has built up a dangerous network of ropes and carries on opaque business with „dubious figures“. The pope has not stopped Bertone. The loyalty of the pope to a man who clearly damages  him is surprising: „They fit not really. Ratzinger is a subtle intellectual, a shepherd. Bertone is a cunning administrator who knows the Curia inside and by heart”, Nuzzi wrote. Fact is, the he former head of the IOR Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has been recently fired  for never revealed reasons and the pope has approved today the German layer Ernst von Freyberg as new head of the IOR. Pope Benedikt XVI. had tried to enforce stricter rules for the IOR  by founding 2011 an independent controlling institution and also favored Gotti Tedeschi proposal for compliance to international rules while some parts of the Vatican, particularily Secretary Tarcisio Bertone, wanted to keep its current “independent” mode.

    Conclusion

    One can argue, that the Pope did no solve the management crisis he inherited completely. This cheap criticism comes predictable from sides, however, which never liked a strong catholic faith. It is often just unfounded repetition or strange spin of  shady economic and political  clusters. To the resignation of pope Benedikt XVI the Freemasons have sharply criticised the economic behaviour of the Vatican. They hope for a complete coup. In the TV broadcasting “Öteki Gündem” the Turkish (!) journalist Aytunç has raised Altındal heavy charges against the parting pope based on hearsay of American (!) sources – John Patrick Quirk, a professor and former CIA advisor. It looks like the Pope emeritus has to watch his back even more now than before, also physically. Somebody has unleashed many dogs, after Pope Benedikt XVI forced the cleanup by his resignation.

    An observation of the history is always interesting:

    The more powerful the financial dynasties  became, the more and more audaciously the Christianity and the Catholic church was attacked. They control not only semi-secret organizations (Freemason, Bilderberger, CFR, trilateral commission, Illuminati, black nobility etc.), but manupilate politicians and transnational organisations (EU, IMF, UN) more and more violently the fate of us all.

    Pope Benedict XVI was a great admire of Augustine, a contemporary of the (declining) Roman Empire. This world state was taken over by the early Roman Church because of visible injustice. Similar like radical Islam outshines today corrupt secular governments. After the victory over the communism by Johannes Paul, to Pope Benedict those greater challenges became obvious. During the last years the Christianity has become the mostly persecuted religion of the world. The European West seems lost to the Christianity whose heritage it owes most. By failing Augustine’s – lets call it ethical – virtues the West fails its secular objectives too. Continuing this way, world finance and its paid servants will lead us back to the dark ages to either secular or religious totalitarian systems. One can take from the “God’s state” of Augustine the following eight elements:

    •  God’s image must be promoted. Secondly uniqueness of any person created after God’s image has to be acknowledged. In this the dignity of any person has its foundation.
    • Above all, man is made good. If man sins, he /she acts under his/her dignity and against possibilities and God’s order. The evil is the absences of the good, it has no substance in itself.
    • The states must allow the God’s love, that is „the true religion“. The God’s citizen who face God live the truth. The cosmopolitan who are aimed only to themselves live the lie.
    • The God’s state is formed by citizens who live the spirit, the world state by citizens who live after the flesh. The states should allow to live after the spirit.
    • The highest aim of the God’s state is peace. In order that anybody achieves the everlasting aim, the state must guarantee above all “freedom”.
    • The state being must provide for justice. The rhetorical question: „What are the states without justice differently than big bands of robbers?“ (Book 4.4), may be interpreted so also: A state without God is at best a well organised band of robbers.
    • Another important principle for the state is that it rules by virtue. Even the Roman’s empire – the first and only world state – has prospered according to Augustine, as long as Romans have practiced virtues.
    • The state authority who acknowledges God has a right to obedience if it concerns the worldly things. The state is no remedial way itself.

    One thinks this is old stuff – look around.

    References:

    Gianluigi Nuzzi works as an investigative journalist with the Italian magazine “Panorama”, before he was for the newspapers “Corriere della Sera” and „Il Giornale.

    • Vatikan AG – Ein Geheimarchiv enthüllt die Wahrheit über die Finanz- und Politskandale der Kirche, 360 Seiten, Ecowin-Verlag, 22,50 Euro
    • Seine Heiligkeit – Die geheimen Briefe aus dem Schreibtisch von Papst Benedikt XVI., 416 Seiten, Piper-Verlag, 22,99 Euro

    Note: One who is less a servant of God and more a servant of his own self-esteem might have embraced the power of the office he held and ignored the needs of the flock. Not so Pope Benedict, he truly accepted the second half of St. Peter’s exhortation: “Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock.” His example tells us clearly that the needs of those we serve out-weigh our own.

    Added Note: February, 22th

    There has been a claim put forth by Italian daily newspaper La Republica, that pope’ decision was influenced by a  secretive “gay lobby” within the Vatican itself.

    Yesterday this paper published an article alleging that Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to resign this month was partly prompted by a report that accused Vatican officials of being under the influence of several internal lobbies, reportedly including a gay one. The nearly 300-page dossier would be passed on to pope’s successor, the report added.

    The Irish Times reports that Benedict commissioned the report after the Vatileaks scandal broke last year. The report, written by a trio of cardinals, concluded that “various lobbies within the Holy See were consistently breaking” the sixth and seventh commandments, “thou shalt not commit adultery” and “thou shalt not steal.”

    (The sixth commandment referencing adultery has historically been tied to the Catholic Church’s doctrine banning homosexuality.)

    Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, released an arguably vague statement about the accusations.

    Throughout his life, Pope Benedict XVI has professed our Lord Jesus as the Christ. No person needed to tell him this; he was truly given access to the will of the Holy Spirit. We, who like him, are adopted by Christ must now thank him for the gift of his life, energy, and service to the people of God and the Church. We look to the empty Chair of St. Peter and pray that, as in past Conclaves, a new Pontiff will emerge and that he will become stronger than he had ever thought possible.

    Today especially we conclude with Prayer:

    Lord, send forth your Holy Spirit and continue to guide and inspire our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI during these final days of his papacy. Be with the College of Cardinals for the next conclave and fill them with your grace. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

  • Burning Ahmed Baba and Alexandrian library – Is Sufism haram?

    Burning Ahmed Baba and Alexandrian library – Is Sufism haram?

    Books burning in fire

    Islamists in Mali destroyed a number of Sufism tombs in the ancient city of Timbuktu, which in the last year fell under control of a separatist insurgency. Home of the prestigious Sankore University, Timbuktu was an intellectual and spiritual capital and a centre for the propagation of Sufism (an Islam faction) throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its three great mosques, Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia, recall Timbuktu’s golden age. “The destruction is a divine order,” said a spokesman from Ansar Dine, a radical outfit with alleged links to al-Qaeda. Ansar Dine  or “defenders of the faith” in Arabic is group led by a prominent leader of the Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s which wants the imposition of strict Sharia law across Mali.The Associated Press Posted Jan 28, 2013 @ 07:32 AMSEVARE, Mali (AP) — Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said today, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali’s fabled desert city. 

    All of this is haram

    According to BBC the “spokesman” went on: “God is unique. All of this is haram (forbidden in Islam). We are all Muslims. Unesco is what?” According to reports, the militants teared down the centuries-old mausoleums of Muslim holy men in Timbuktu. As many as half of the city’s shrines have been destroyed in a display of fanaticism. When driven out of Timbuktu by the French, the leaving “activists” burned down the Ahmed Baba library which is a real tragedy, because so much of Sufi and African history, literature and learning was lost forever. Build by the South African government in 2009, the Ahmed Baba Institute was named after a Timbuktu-born scholar and held thousands of priceless manuscripts in its climate-controlled, underground vaults. Ancient books of culture, geography, science are now all torched up 20,000 scholarly manuscripts lost.

    Memories come up when in March 2001, Taliban fighters and grandees blew up the famed giant 6th century statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan.The Taliban also rampaged through the national museum which I visted in the seventies, smashing any art depicting the human form, considered idolatrous under their hardline interpretation of Islam. In all, they destroyed about 2,500 statues. Or of the final destruction of the ancient world’s single greatest archive of knowledge, the Library of Alexandria, which was burned down by Caliph Omar 640 AD when the Muslims took the city of Alexandria. Upon learning of “a great library containing all the knowledge of the world” the conquering general supposedly asked Caliph Omar for instructions. The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library’s holdings, “they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.”  It is somewhat ironic that Alexandria was the center of Monophysitism, a Christian heresy  weakening Byzantine and Roman power.

    Ignorance

    Too many critics of Islam, including atheists, fail to appreciate just how diverse and varied Islam can be, much more than Christianity. This is especially true when it comes to Wahhabi Islam, the primary religious movement in Saudi Arabia. Saudis are aligned with the West to bring down all somewhat secular dictatorships in the region. In the puritanical strain of Islam adhered by most radical Sunni (like Taliban and Salafists) but also fundamentakist Shiites, veneration of Sufi saints – which remind on Christian saints – counts as idolatry a heretical practice that cannot be tolerated. It is against modernity, secularism, and the Enlightenment which orthodox Islam do fight — and it is this anti-secularism, anti-modernism which helps drive extremism, even to the point of cultural terrorism. Militants bearing guns, pickaxes and shovels reduced to rubble the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud, who died in 955 A.D. They have also knocked down tombs of two other prominent medieval saints, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya.

    Who controls the history controls the future
    Who controls the history controls the future

    Both South Africa and the Libya of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi were involved in efforts to revive the fortunes of the ancient city and its artifacts. South African researchers involved in a project to preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts have had word that most of the treasures survived in private libraries and secure locations.Mohamed Mathee of the University of Johannesburg told  a News Channel, “It seems most of the manuscripts are OK. These manuscripts are with families and are safe.”  All those events in the new millennium have highlighted that we are today’ in a ideological war is fought with more than just weapons – just as Samuel Huntington has written in his a powerful and disturbing book in the late nineties.

    International outrage with little understanding of the Islam has been swift to blame “Islamists”. But beyond understanding history (and Islam) better, there’s little anyone can do to stop this wretched bout of iconoclasm. History is littered with the debris of toppled temples and smashed idols. Salafists and others who also believe in a more orthodox brand of Sunni Islam harbor a particular animosity toward Sufism, whose mystical interpretation of the divine affords a more heterodox faith, steeped sometimes in local pre-Islamic traditions and a reverence for saints and deceased wise men. Islam, as it spread outside the Arabian world, did so in some part through the peaceful teachings of Sufi orders and wandering monks — not just under the hooves of conquering Arab armies. Yet, recently under the Arab Spring, Sufi shrines have come under attack from emboldened and radicalized puritans in countries like Egypt and Libya by Muslim brotherhood and Salafist; in Pakistan, the Taliban and its affiliates have waged a sectarian war on Sufis, systematically targeting dozens of tombs and Sufi sites, while killing hundreds of devotees. In Persia the orthodox Shiites did not much less harm.
    The many holy places and old libraries of Timbuktu, once a prominent center of Islāmic learning in the 15th and 16th centuries, were preserved for centuries as a result of the city’s remote location on the path of now collapsed salt and gold-trade routes. In single-minded devotion to the word of the Koran, the orthodox Islam cares little for the juridical wisdom of generations of Timbuktu’s theologians who critically examined Islam’s founding holy text. The attack on Timbuktu’s cultural heritage is just one more attack against history and the values it carries — values of tolerance, exchange and living together. It is an attack against the physical evidence about the Islam’s majority livelong struggle against freedom, science and mysticism.

    Wisdom

    The Ahmed Baba Institute had nearly 30,000 manuscripts, which are being studied, catalogued and preserved. Four basic types have survived:

    • key texts of Islam, including Korans, collections of Hadiths (actions or sayings of the Prophet), Sufi texts and devotional texts
    • works of the Maliki school of Islamic law
    • texts representative of the ‘Islamic sciences’, including grammar, mathematics and astronomy
    • original works from the region, including contracts, commentaries, historical chronicles, poetry, and marginal notes and jottings, which have proved to be a surprisingly fertile source of historical data.

    Some manuscripts themselves are also of special importance to their owners to prove noble descent or land and property ownership. But they are also proof of Africa’s pre-Islamic culture, which the Islam claimed (and radical despise) like any culture Islam took over and claimed of its own.

    According to the 17th-century historian Abdurrahman As-Sadi, the history of the West African desert region could be divided into the rise and fall of three great empires – ancient Ghana, medieval Mali and the Songhay empire. Located at a hub of commercial exchange between Saharan Africa, tropical Africa and Mediterranean Africa, Timbuktu was a magnet that attracted both men of learning and men of commerce. It benefited from the gold trade , however, the most profitable trade items in Timbuktu were books. Buying them was considered a socially acceptable way of displaying wealth and a great source of prestige.  As the empire of Ghana declined, the Mali empire took its place. King Sundiata Keita of Mali conquered ancient Ghana in AD 1240, and two generations later, Islam became the dominant religion of the Malian cities and Arabic became the language of scholarship. Described as the ‘Latin of Africa’, Arabic was useful for communicating between tribes such as the Bambara, Fulani, Hausa, Mossi, Songhay and Tuareg who all spoke different languages. Just as Latin in medieval Europe was associated with Christianity, Arabic in medieval Africa was associated with Islam, and just as Europeans adopted the Latin script to write their own languages, Africans used the Arabic script to write theirs.

    Mali became indepdent 1960
    Mali became indepdent 1960

    The Sankoré University mosque was built in about AD 1300 with funding from a woman of the Aghlal, a religious Tuareg ethnic group. There were a number of challenges to Malian hegemony. ‘The Tuaregs began to raid and cause havoc on all sides. The Malians, bewildered by their many depredations, refused to make a stand against them.’ Mali lost control of Timbuktu in 1433. Once a tributary to the Mali empire, the Songhay became independent as Mali declined.  The gold traders and the scholars of Timbuktu were also treated harshly and many fled. Timbuktu benefited under the reign of the Askiya kings by tax and slavery privileges and rose to intellectual dominance in the region.  The Sankoré University mosque was the main teaching venue  but classes were also taught at the Great Mosque and at the Oratory of Sidi Yahia. Public libraries were established and employed calligraphers to copy books.

    Timbuktu was also a religious city. According to a West African proverb: ‘Salt comes from the north, gold from the south and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu.’ There is a local legend that the city is guarded by 333 renowned saints as well as numerous lesser ones, and surrounding Timbuktu like a rampart are the chapels where the saints are buried. Saints and chapels are of course an anathema to orthodox Islam. According to the Sufis, a saint is a Muslim mystic, usually a scholar, who has achieved such closeness to God as to possess special powers.

    Ahmed Baba

    Ahmed Baba, the Sufi scholar after whom the burned down library was named, studied Arabic grammar and syntax, astronomy, logic, rhetoric and prosody. Textbooks were purchased and copied on a number of subjects, including astronomy, astrology, botany, dogma, geography, Islamic law, literary analysis, mathematics (including calculus and geometry), medicine, mysticism, morphology, music, rhetoric, philosophy, and occult sciences. The works of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy were basic references for Islamic astronomy. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle were also common. The Greek physician Hippocrates was popular, as well as the Persian medical philosopher-scholar Avicenna. The Timbuktu manuscripts mainly comprise Korans, Koranic exegesis, collections of Hadiths, writings on Sufism, theology, law and other closely related disciplines. By the 15th century, Timbuktu scholars were producing original works as well as compiling new versions and commentaries on established texts. The reading and writing of poetry was important in these cultures. Among the Timbuktu documents are verses devoted to the Prophet and to the adoration of a particular woman or man, and poems.  A number of manuscripts were written in Ajami – Arabic script used to write local languages – with botany, diplomatic correspondence, occult sciences, poetry and traditional medicine.

    Sufism

    There are three main branches of Islam – Sunni, Shiite and Sufi. Sunnis make up about 85 percent of the Muslim population globally, while Shiites account for about 15 percent. The two split over differences of who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad but are further subdivided.

    • Sunni follows a strict, literal interpretation of the Quran and the life of Muhammad with the Sunna as core teaching. Wahhabism is an austere form of Sunni dominant in Saudi Arabia for which Muslims more often use the term Salafism.
    • Shiism is the smaller of the two major branches of Islam. It developed after the death of Muhammad, when his followers split over who would lead Islam.
    • Sufism  is an Islamic mystic tradition with followers around the world. Sufis tend to identify with either Sunni or Shiite Islam. Many Muslims are critical of Sufism as an unjustified innovation.
    Shia Faction of IslamSunni Faction of IslamSufis/Sufism
    10-15% of all MuslimsMajority of Muslims 
    Shia means “faction,” refers to “faction of Ali.”Sunni means “tradition,” adheres to orthodox traditionSuf means “wool,” considered the Mystics of Islam.
    Iran center and home of most Shia, 88% of Iranians are Shia (Shi’i), In Iraqi 96% are Muslim and over 50% of them are Shia (Shi’i), though Iraq was ruled by minority Sunnis. Reverse Syria if you consider Alawis (12er ) to be Shiites.Grew out of Umayyad dynasty. World-wide 85% of Muslims are Sunni.Developed in reaction against the excesses of the Sultans and Caliphs (who wore silks, satins), specifically the Caliphate of Damascus in the Umayyad dynasty, Sufis wore course wool garments in protest.
    Succession and Leadership
    Believe in Ali and the Imams as rightful successors of Muhammad, but not in first 3 Caliphs. Ali was first of 12 successive legitimate Imams. Succession was to be hereditary.Acknowledge each of the first four Caliphs as rightful successors to Muhammad.Value deliberate simplicity, meditation rather than just a formalistic following of the rules.
    Look forward to Messianic return of the last recognized Imam. Muhammad al-Mahdi, last Imam, disappeared 900 CE, went into “hidden realm”, was sinless. Ayatollah Khomeini (1900-1989) believed by many to be the return of the last Imam.Through the ages, Caliphs rule “in God’s name.”Sufis gathered around shaikhs (masters) and formed faqirs (orders or communities). Rabi’a (1717-1801 CE) was a Sufi poet whose poetry spoke of God’s Love  similar to Christianty Al-Ghazzali (1058-1111) first Sufi to bring the faction into mainstream Islam.
    Imam holds an exalted position, Ayatollah refers to most important Imams.Imam is a prayer leader. Sunnis approach God directly, there is no clerical hierarchy.Sufi Shaikhs are the masters. Wandering monastic culture
    Teachings and Scripture
    Characteristic is the continual exposition and reinterpretation of doctrine by the clerics.Believe in entire body (canon) of life and teachings of Muhammad as found in Qur’an and hadiths (sayings and traditions of Muhammad). Sayings and traditions are interpreted by scholars in Islamic schools.Qur’an is full of symbolism, each verse has from 7 to 70 meanings. Believe in three approaches to the divine: mysticism of Love (heart knowledge), Ecstatic (visionary knowledge) and intuitive discernment (mental knowledge)
    Both Sunni and Shia factions believe in the Sharia, the comprehensive law derived from the Qur’an (revelations of Muhammad) and the Sunnah (sayings or interpretations of Muhammad).Believe in fana (extinction) of separateness from God and “remembering” that “there is nothing but God.”
     Scholars carry on debate in Islamic Schools. Science of Tradition refers to Islamic scholarship and rating of specific writings (rated sound, good, weak, or infirm)Influenced by Christianity and Gnosticism (life is a spiritual journey—want to know God/Allah now not just after death), Persian Zoroastrianism and Hindu Mysticism
    Shia Faction of IslamSunni Faction of IslamFufis/Sufism
    Fundamentalist approach to Islam, interpretation by clericsQur’an applies to everyday life, public life is shaped by the Qur’an. Saudi Arabia considered model of proper Islamic stateCalled “the Heart of Islam,” highest experience in life is experience with Allah, can get face to face with Allah/God

    Sufism has been, especially in the West, portrayed and regarded as a valuable and legitimate part of the Islamic faith. Anybody somewhat familiar with the complex interaction of religions will agree  with this statement “considerable ink has been spent by modern scholarship on the ‘origins’ of Sufism in Islam, as to how far it is ‘genuinely’ Islamic and how far a product, in the face of Islam, of outside influences, particularly Christian and Gnostic.”  The historian Rahman seems to hint that some of this ink has been wasted, as he concludes that “outside influences must have played an accessory role and these no one may deny, but they must have supervened upon an initial native tendency.”  Sufism  goes beyond the Five Pillars of Islam are which are obligations which are required of every Muslim: shahadah (statement of faith), salat (prayers), zakat (alms), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimage).

    History of religions
    History of religions

    A thorough and critical examination of historical and present day Sufism, quickly reveals the influence of numerous religious ideas foreign to Islam.  Zoroastrianism had also an intimate contact with Islam like Gnostic Manichaeism. Zoroastrianism provided first of all a vocabulary for Sufi poets and symbols of angelology and cosmology transparent in the light of gnosis.  Most orthodox scholars would be perplexed by this conclusion, especially when it is considered that Zoroastrianism (and pre-Christan Gnostic) predated Islam by over 1000 years.

    The further one delves into Sufism from a content perspective, the more clear it becomes that both the origins and content of Sufism show the inclusion of religious ideas and influences alian and contradictory to orthodox Islam. The scholar Elliot Miller states that “[being] based on experience rather than doctrine, Sufism has always been more open to outside influence than other forms of Islam… in addition to early influences from Christianity, one can find elements of Zoroastrianism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism, and other diverse traditions.”

    Christological_heresies_in_Jesus_Human_Divine

    While Sufi teachings have been influenced by various religions, their practices also bear close similarities to those of Hinduism and other mystical religions of the East. The Sufi orders are led by shaikhs, who play the same role as Hindu gurus.  Most Sufi orders still consider the five pillars of Islam to be essential, and practice them piously, however they go far beyond this, aiming to spiritual awakening. Central to all of these practices are ritual “invocations of the Divine Name,” also known as dhikr, which can be done either silently or in a chant. Here similarities with Hindu mantras are unmistakable.  The evidence of Sufi borrowings from other Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism is certain. The similarities in teachings and ritual are overwhelming. It is no surprise then that the goals of Sufism reflect their pantheism and monism.

    Echoes of Eastern ( and Western) mystic religions are of course distinctly contrary to Muslim orthodoxy but its mystic quest for spirituality has embraced all sorts of religion. How then, in conclusion, does the evidence presented, reflect not only on the nature of Sufism, but on the very nature of Islam itself? Sufism is clearly a reaction or response to what was lacking in early Islam. The very strength of Islam, in its reliance on a simple creed  combining religion, law (and power of a non-secular state) and the five pillars of practice, proved to be the very weakness of Islam. The design of the Islamic ideological system had allowed, however, for rapid expansion and political aggression. Another area of weakness in Islam, which helped lead to the problem of Sufism, is found in the inherent synthesism (and gnosticism) of Islam. Here the vagueness caused by the doctrine of the indescribably Allah (a main concept common of Gnosticism) allowed in essence creating a contradictory belief system. The orthodox ulama developed their theology borrowing and changing what they viewed as their ‘Judeo-Christian’ roots (including Chrisiam heresies), while the Sufis were largely influenced by Eastern mystics.

    Sufism, with its radical mystic concepts, is  for orthodox Islam not a legitimate part of Islam, if Islam is narrowed to a logically coherent set of beliefs. For Sufism not only points to a lack of spirituality in Islam, but also contradicts orthodox Muslim teachings – in the process clearly opening the door to all the world’s religions. One more door of many, now was violently shut by orthodox Islam in Timbuktu which goes deliberately back to its origional  political and ideological purpose as mean of expansion.“It’s truly alarming that this has happened,” Mayor Ousmane Halle told The Associated Press by telephone from Bamako. “They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people.” After Islamists seized Timbuktu last April they began imposing a strict Islamic version of Shariah, or religious law, across northern Mali, carrying out amputations and public executions. Women could be whipped for going out in public without wearing veils.

    Conclusion

    The golden age of Timbuktu came to an end with the collapse of the Songhay empire following the invasion by Morocco, when an Arab-European army invaded Songhay in 1591 and destroyed it. The invaders confiscated gold and other resources, enslaved the Songhay scholars – including Ahmed Baba, who was deported to Morocco – and attempted to confiscate Timbuktu’s archives. The “Liberation of Libia” hailed by the Western press, threw what was once one of West Africa’s most stable democracies once again into chaos: the rebellion in the north gained ground with Gaddafi’s fighters and weapons moving over the border into Mail and effectively capturing half the country afterwards splintering on religious lines, with Salafist factions clashing with more secular elements. Western military intervention dimly disguising economic interests started after hundreds of thousands of Malians have been forced to flee their homes as refugees. Fears of an escalating humanitarian crisis have been publicized but the writings on the wall have been ignored. You see a pattern of wisdom and ignorance here? Yes, I do too. Please note, this is an essay out of general interest (and sympathy) to religion even if not my belief. I am neither Muslim nor scholar.

  • C.G. Jungs Self in Quaternio Series of Aion – Jesus or Abraxas?

    C.G. Jungs Self in Quaternio Series of Aion – Jesus or Abraxas?

    C. G. Jung had shown a pronounced and informed interest in Gnosticism and Alchemy. This is evident in the Quaternio Series of the Self in his book. “Aion”.  In his early works “Seven Sermons to the Dead” (“Die sieben Reden an die Toten ”) and “The Red Book” (recently published) he perceived the outstanding psychological relevance of Gnostic insights. Was Jung really a Gnostic? I seems to me, that “Aion” and another late work The “Answer to Job” give some evidence to the assertion: No, he wasn’t.

    Quaternity in religion and psychoanalysis

    It is true that C.G. Jung saw in Quaternity a divine concept and welcomed the proclamation by the Pope Pius XII in the year 1950 adding the Catholic Holy Virgin Mary, expanding so the Christian Trinity. Neoplatonic philosophy ( and many other metaphysics e.g. Mayan) contained what Jung has called the element of “fourness,” or quaternity, that seems to be so prominent an aspect of the life of the unconscious collective landscape across various cultures. This quaternity is – as the one of the Christian cross – a (3+1) structure, meaning that three parts are equal and the fourth is the “totally different”. One of the most important ramifications, however, unacceptable to some Christians, of the Jungian quaternal recipe is bringing back the original nature of evil and its personification in the real or mythological being of the evil.

    In “Aion” (collected works 9ii) Jung summarizes his researches into the phenomenology of the Self, good and evil seen from Christianity, Alchemy and Gnosis . “Answer to Job” an interpretation of a book in the bible,(“Antwort auf Hiob”)  maybe interpreted as gnostic answer to the Bible  but to me is more a subtile but well-meaning ironic description of the omnipotent god Yahweh of the Old Testament who needs the reflection of the human Job to send his son Jesus to become a just God (again). In this article I want to investigate C.Jung’s starting point and journeys in regards to Jesus. C. G. Jung was a prolific writer and practitioner of psychoanalysis. The reader is invited to consult the C. G. Jung’s Work for expansion on the theme in this essay or to follow the links in this article (indicated in blue).

    Small recurs to Gnosticism

    Gnosticism is the knowledge of transcendence arrived at by way of interior, intuitive knowing (Gnosis). Gnosticism was primarily defined in Christian context also including pre-Christian religious beliefs common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism (especially Zurvanism), and Neoplatonism. Gnosticism goes hand in hand with Kabbalah, which is the esoteric or mystic religion of Rabbinic Judaism. These occult teachings deal with magic, hypnotism, sorcery and all sorts of pagan practices collected throughout centuries borrowing from different cultures. The mixing of all these pagan traditions turned into a complicated set of Gnostic teachings with all sorts of perverted doctrines added to “Christian” mingling its pure and simple teaching with theosophy and even magic. Gnostic thought were stamped out by Christianity in a struggle of life and death. The Gnostic teacher Carpocrates, as opposed to the official Christian dogma that salvation is the result of a single, unrepeatable event – the crucifixion of Jesus – postulated this process as continuing through a number of lives of earth.  Abraxas, the summation and ruler of the sevenfold planetary spectrum, is thus the true archetype of man’s potential freedom and independence from unconscious psychological pressures and compulsions.

    The Nag Hammadi library, discovered in upper Egypt in 1945 provided a cache of new gnostic documents and its psychological importance was pointed out by C.G. Jung. After his death and the publication of his autobiography, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, and the Red Book, it became also clear that Jung underwent an intense period of spiritual experience between 1912 and 1917. The only fragment of his writings from that period which he permitted to be published was The Seven Sermons to the Dead, using terminology and style of second century Gnosticism. Jung attributes the authorship to Basilides, a Gnostic sage who taught in Alexandria around A.D. 125-140 (see below). It is clear, however, that Jung disagreed with Gnostics (and Buddhism) on the ultimate goal of the individual to return to a supreme, other-worldly re-unification with the Pleroma ( the superior unknown God) as this would be a total identification with the unconscious.

    Small recurs to Evil

    We can argue then that there are three types of evil. The first is relative, caused by the perception of the human mind which labels things it does not accept as evil. The second arises from imbalance. This evil originates in an action that comes at the wrong time for the wrong reasons and which causes much damage as a result. The evil that thus occurs is neither relative nor absolute but falls someplace in-between. The third type is absolute evil. It arises from imbalance but feeds on evil itself and soon grows like a cancer to spread through the body that gave rise to it. One can only fight this evil by trying to find one’s own balance and relationship to the Self.

    In his work The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious Jung restated the message contained in the Second Sermon when he says: “Evil is the necessary opposite of good, without which there would be no good either. It is impossible to even think good out of existence.” Jung was insistent evil to be real, for he felt that western humanity, dwarfed the picture of evil. In Civilization in Transition he wrote that evil “is of gigantic proportions, so that for the Church to talk of original sin and to trace it back to Adam’s relatively innocent slip-up with Eve is almost a euphemism. The case is far graver and is grossly underestimated.”

    If you recall my article Can Hitler go to heaven? The evil presented in Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot. you can only see them as anything but evil, if we take Jung’s point of view seriously. Of course there are many other kinds of what seems to be pure evil in the world. According to Jung, good and evil are not two opposite poles of a linear dimensionality. They resemble a circle wherein going far enough in either direction is likely to associate one with the opposite polarity. He said that there is no good that cannot produce evil and no evil that cannot produce good.

    Aion: Phenomenology of the Self

    Aion is one of a number of major works that Jung wrote during his seventies that were concerned with the relations between psychology, alchemy and religion. He is particularly concerned in this volume with the rise of Christianity and with the figure of Christ. He explores how Christianity came about when it did, the importance of the figure of Christ and the identification of the figure of Christ with the archetype of the Self. A matter of special importance to Jung in his seventies – the problem of opposites, particularly good and evil – is further discussed and the importance of the symbolism of the fish, which recurs as a symbol of both Christ and the devil, is examined. As a study of the archetype of the self, Aion complements The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.

    Jung does not decodes events in dreams and associated unconscious products as a facade behind which the true meaning lies, but takes those events themselves as important symbols. Hence, “symbols” must not be misunderstood. To Jung the symbol manifests an unconscious product in conscious form. To appreciate why symbols mean so much to Jung, we need to understand symbols are a bridge for religions which are an object with universally projected contents. That is why there are so much symbols in religion and also why Jung spent so much time looking into the meaning behind religious symbols, and symbols in other fields such as alchemy.  Symbols have often an irrational element, as well as a rational part. Within Jung’s Framework the specific process of successfully acknowledging and integrating the meaning behind (formerly) unconscious contents to the consciousness is called “individuation” and results in the individual achieving the realization of the “Self”  and thus finding transcendence, which is the main theme in this book. The story of the self and Jesus in his book resembles closely the story of the human psyche that loses its connection with the collective unconscious and needs to be rescued by the Self.

    Jung compares in this book also his concept of “self” with other teachings. Jung had never qualms about reducing religion or magic to a psychological process. However, that is not to say it is then worthless in the practical field, because Jung is dedicated to showing precisely how large a factor the psychic realm is in ordering our lives. It must not be forgotten that for Jung, Buddhism itself was originally a result of projected unconscious contents, and the broad parallels are there. In dualistic Gnostic  teaching, the Self is reached when we have rid ourselves of opposites. Jung’s reflections had long been influenced in the thought of the ancient Gnostics to such an extent that he quotes In Aion Second Book XIV Hipolytes: to him were Gnostics psychiatrists. One may go so far to considered them the virtual roots of his  ‘depth psychology’.

    In the light of such recognitions one may ask: “Is Gnosticism a religion or a psychology?” The answer is (in the broad sense) both, just like Jung’s thoughts can be interpreted religiously. Most mythologies found in Gnostic scriptures have psychological relevance and applicability. For instance, the basic Gnostic myth to Aeons, intermediate deific beings who exist between the ultimate, True God and ourselves. They, together with the True God, comprise the realm of Fullness (Pleroma) wherein the potency of divinity operates fully. The Fullness stands in contrast to our existential state, which in comparison may be called emptiness.  The false creator God  bears a close resemblance to the alienated human ego that has lost contact with the  Self. One of the aeonial beings who bears the name Sophia (“Wisdom”), referred to by C.G. Jung many times in his works,  is of great importance to the Gnostic world . Analogies of this sort exist in numbers.

    Highly interesting are Jung’s diagrams in Aion (CW 9ii, penultimate chapter) in which Jung summarizes his researches into the phenomenology of the Self. In those diagrams Jung works his way through 2000 Years of Christian (and Gnostic) symbols of the Self. Using four octahedrons (double pyramids, i.e. one the platonic solids), he clearly tries to enhance the trinity of religion (Christianity) and science (space, time, causality) with a fourth dimension (his concept of synchronicity).

    The Moses Quaternia

    The Moses Quaternia
    The Moses Quaternia

    Lower Adam corresponds to the ordinary mortal man Moses corresponds to the culture hero and lawgiver, personalised ally to the ‘father’ Zipporah corresponds to the ‘higher mother’ as the daughter of a king and priest Moses and Zipporah represent the ‘royal pair’ for the ordinary man (Lower Adam) which for Moses corresponds on the other hand to his ‘higher man’ (Higher Adam) and his anima, Miriam The higher man is synonymous with the ‘spiritual, inner” man, who is represented in the quaternio by Jethro Such is the meaning of the quaternio when seen from the standpoint of Moses. But since Moses is related to Jethro as the lower Adam, or ordinary man, is to Moses, the quaternio cannot be understood merely as the structure of Moses’ personality, but must be looked at from the standpoint of the lower Adam as well.

    The extended (shadow) Moses Quaternia

    The Extended Moses Quaternia
    The Extended Moses Quaternia

    Extensions of the ordinary man’s psychic structure downwards, towards the subhuman, the dark and evil side represented by the shadow – the extended Mose. Homo carnalis refers here to the human Mose as opposite of the spiritual lead. The black woman is his wife. The negative anima is represented by Miriam who was the sister of two powerful biblical figures, Moses and Aaron. Her name derives from the root Mary, Mariamne, or Maria, meaning “bitterness.” She remained steadfast in her determination to free the Hebrew people from the pharaoh’s oppression. But Miriam was human, and not perfect. For her pride and insubordination to the power of God working through Moses, she became afflicted with a disfiguring skin disease (leprous’).  Miriam ‘spoke against’ Moses and even stirred up his brother Aaron against him. because of the black(Ethiopian) woman whom he had married.

    The paradise Quaternia.

    The Paradise Quaternia
    The Paradise Quaternia

    The snake symbol brings us to the images of Paradise, trees and earth. This amounts to an evolutionary regression from the animal Kingdom back to plants and inorganic nature, epitomized in alchemy by the secret of matter, the lapis. Here lapis is not to be understood as the end product of the opus but rather as its initial material. This arcane substance was also called lapis by the alchemists.”  Lapis–a unity, often stands for the prima materia in general, consists of four elements or has to be put together from them.
    prima materia–a bit of the original chaos (increatum of Paracelsus) which was believed to be hidden somewhere in metals, particularly in mercury, or in other substances. Not in itself a simple thing (massa confusa). Elements are not united but merely coexistent in chaos, they are hostile to one another and will not unite of their own accord–must be combined through the alchemical procedure. Represents and original state of conflict and mutual repulsion. Splitting up or unfolding of the original unity into the multiplicity of the visible world.

    The Lapis Quaternio

    The Lapis (Alchemy) Quaternia
    The Lapis (Alchemy) Quaternia

    This primary substance is round (masa globosa, rotundum) like the world and the world soul; it is the ‘stone that has spirit’, in modern parlance the most elementary building-stone in the architecture of matter, the atom, which is an intellectual model. The alchemists describe the ’round element’ now as a primal water, now as a primal fire, or as pneuma, primal earth, or ‘corpusculum nostrae sapientiae’, the little body of our wisdom. As water or fire it is the universal solvent, as stone and metal it is something that has to be dissolved and changed into air (pneuma, spirit).
    Zosimos calls the rotundum the omega element, which probably signifies the head. The skull is mentioned as the vessel of transformation in the Sabaen treatise…the vas is often synonymous with the lapis, so that there is no difference between the vessel and its content; in other words, it is the same arcanum.

    In the hierarchical series of those four, Good and evil are clearly shown to arise from a deintegration of the central Serpens node, “the point of maximal tension in the psyche.” In the Serpens node itself, these extreme opposites presumably coexist without contradictions. In these Aion diagrams, Jung shows two distinct forms of the archetypal Self. Evil (Diabolos) and Good (Christos) arise only in the first hierarchical form of the Self. They do not occur at all in the circular forms of the Self—the ouroboric, rotational.

    Quaternio series: Moses - Shadow - Paradise - Lapis Quaternio
    Quaternio series: Moses – Shadow – Paradise – Lapis Quaternio

    Quaternio series; Man culminates in the of a good God, but rests below on a dark and evil principle (Devil or serpent). The serpent has its compliment in the Paradise Quaternio which leads into the world of plants and animals. Indeed, this serpent actually dwells in the interior of the earth and is the pneuma that lies hidden in the stone. The symmetrical compliment of the serpent, then, is the stone (earth) or in symbolism, the alchemical stage, whose central idea is the lapis which compliments the serpent. The stone is, however, not a human ego but a collective entity, a collective soul an hermaphrodite.The point of greatest tension between the opposites…(is)…the double significance of the serpent, which occupies the center of the system. Being an allegory of Christ as well as of the devil, it contains and symbolizes the strongest polarity into which the Anthropos falls when he descends into Physis. The ordinary man has not reached this point of tension: he has it merely in the unconscious, i.e., in the serpent.The Round is the primary substance (rotundum) like the world and the world soul; it is the ‘stone that has spirit’, in modern parlance the most elementary building-stone in the architecture of matter. The alchemists describe the rotundum the omega element.

    The hierarchical Quaternio series shows the highest central node, the Anthropos, evolving in four deintegrations  and reintegrations from the lowest central node, the rotundum. In doing so, it passes through four quaternios. A quaternio is a structure composed of two pyramids sharing a common base. If the apex of one pyramid points upward, the apex of the other necessarily points downward. It might be possible to construct a fifth quaternio above the Anthropos. It might deintegrate into God-Shekinah and Jesus-Mary, his mother. The reintegration would occur in the next higher central node which could be named simply “God.” But here the upward progression seems to end. What is beyond God? Jung addresses this particular problem by asking, rhetorically, what his diagram would be if its hierarchical nature were destroyed by bending it around so that the lowest node, rotundum, lay next to the highest node, Anthropos?

    In the circular Quaternio series

    Quaternio series circular
    Quaternio series circular

    the lowest node moves “upward” toward increasingly more comprehensive integrations.Can this upward movement continue indefinitely? Obviously it cannot. Much more can be said about the cricular one. For the present discussion of evil it is only necessary to point out that Evil belongs only to first quaterino. There is no place for Evil in the structure of second. Again, both good and evil arise from disintegration of the Serpens node, the “point of maximal tension in the psyche.

    Jung’s View on Jesus “Answer to Job”

    Jung agrees with all modern scholars of antiquity and biblical scholar that Jesus existed. He also does not question his metaphysical importance. His thoughts of Jesus must be seen from his framework and are strictly restricted strictly to psychoanalytic dimensions. He writes extensively in Aion about Jesus as a symbol (manifest and visible) of the archetype Self. But not the full Self. Since Jesus is all good, he feels that is missing his Shadow. The shadow is of course the devil (which was in Answer to Job als God son and Jesus brother). That Jesus was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate is given great significance in the Quaternio series of his book Aion: The serpent is the central node and mediator between Jesus and Lucifer. In his book Aion Jung consistently opposes this summum bonum view of God. Jung, in his psychological works puts a strong emphasis on this (see also my article C. G. Jung’s “Antwort auf Hiob” und das “Johannes Evangelium”).  According to his theory of wholeness being the conjunction of opposites, Jung always affirmed conscious existence after death and, since one opposite is not possible without the other, neither is “good” or “bad” in itself as single entity.   As long as many, if not the majority of us, expect all problems to be solved outside of ourselves, they will be beset by “inhumanity upon inhumanity, holocaust upon holocaust”. To him Christianity of the old Testament has not solved the problem of evil. It flirts with two great metaphysical forces, Good and Evil (or God and the Devil), but always opts for the final supremacy of God. Lucifer is only a “fallen angel” whose true place is in the heavenly court.

    The story of Job, as seen by Jung in his Book Answer to Job (1952), is therefore  the culmination of the Old Testament leading to the Gospel: Job sees that “You (Yahweh) are not a man” (Job 9:32). When Yahweh finally appears to him, Job hopes for an explanation of why he, an honest and just man, had been sent such undeserved afflictions. Yahweh seems unaware of any ethical dimension whatsoever. He overwhelms Job by recounting his creative acts. Job does not so much see evil in Yahweh as he sees a mass of unbalanced forces (as in the Kabbalah and Taoism). Job accepts that he cannot expect justice from God as long as God is primarily identified with His power, His omnipotence. Job realizes that God himself is evolving. Thus Job is able to say, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25). That is, Job intuitively knows that God will evolve in himself the ethical sense that Job already has: to distinguish Right/Wrong and Good/Evil. Another move that Christianity makes is to assert that all good comes from God and all evil comes from man.

    Jungs View on Abraxas  “Seven Sermons to the Dead”

    With Abraxas (Greek Ἀβρασάξ, Ἀβράξας) Jung described Egyptian Gnostics of Basilides in Alexandria around the 2nd century the symbol of the highest Nikolaos, from which emerged the five primal forces Geist(nous), Word (logos), Providence (Phronesis), Weisheit(Sophia) and power as well as moral perfection and inner peace.The name Abraxas is presented on amulets with the head of a cock, dragon’s feet and a whip in his hand. Later, he is recorded as having the head of a king and demon’s feet. He was seen by the Basilidians (after Basilides), a group of twelfth century heretics) as the supreme god which claimed that Abraxas sent Jesus Christ to earth in the form of a benevolent spirit

    Basilides integrated various Christian Jewish, Persian, and neo platonic traditions to a dualistic view of the world. The early Christianity was heavily Gnostic-influenced. Gnostic directions also in Judaism and even Islam has its Gnostics (the Sufis). The gnostics believe that the core of every human is a “divine spark”. The spark of the divine is immortal, he exists outside of time and space. As long as the man but has not recognized its true state, he remains trapped in this world and must reincarnate again and again in a new body. Every once an envoy from the world of light comes but (Christ plays this role in the Gnostic Christians) at the material level in order to connect the souls that have become ripe with the light power of God, and to enable them to escape the access of the false God, the demiurge.

    The Abrahamic God (which describes Jung in “Answer to Job” is this demiurge. Therefore, early Gnostic Christians have roundly rejected the old testament.The Gnostics see Abraxas as Supreme God, good and evil in an entity “Whole”, who sent Jesus as God’s (Yahweh) son in the world.

    Followers of Basilides believed that the body of Jesus Christ was an illusion, visited while here on Earth. From this supreme deity which the followers of Basilides worshipped, emanated seven divine powers (according to the number of planets), the first realm from the gradually decreasing clarity 364 more ghost kingdoms, each with seven “eons”. If one summarizes the entire realms of spirits in the secret word Abraxas or Abrasax,  it contained the seven Greek letters which correspond numerically calculatedto  the number 365. Abraxas is classified under the Egyptian gods. He was depicted on amulets with a whip in his hand. been. The Mystic Word Abracadabra was derived from his name. These Gnostic symbols were adopted by many companies, operated the magic and Alchemy.

    C.G. Jung  wrote in “The seven Sermons of the dead” under the pen name Basilides about Abraxas. According to C.G. Jung Abraxas – man cannot be redeemed without that Satan is understood and integrated . But how will Satan, who represents evil, will be integrated? Jung asserts, only by a way to lift the evil (the shadow) in the consciousness. Before we are not fully aware of our our deeper spiritual needs we will not achieve the individuation, which creates a more and more mature personality.  The “Seven Sermons to the Dead”  was privately printed, without copyright or date, sometime between 1920 and 1925, and distributed only to a select group of friends.  The text is available for the interested in the internet.  But there is a significant translation of Stephan A. Hoeller in his book “The Gnostic Jung” in which Hoeller not only interprets “The Seven Sermons as a Gnostic document, but also claims that Jung himself was a modern Gnostic. The Gnostic Jung is essentially an attempt – and a very interesting one at that – to interpret the Seven Sermons. Along the way, Hoeller, an almost worshipful admirer of the “Wise Man of Küsnacht” as he calls him, gives us a clear, skillful elucidation of some of Jung’s essential ideas. But the question is: Was Jung really a Gnostic is answered with the late work.

    Conclusion

    Gnosticism may possess both a psychological and a religious authenticity. Gnostic psychology and Gnostic religion need not be exclusive of one another but may complement each other within an implicit order of wholeness. Gnostics have always held that divinity is immanent within the human spirit, although it is not limited to it. The convergence of Gnostic religious teaching with psychological insight is thus quite understandable. The Red Book reveals the experiential, Gnostic roots of Jung’s psychology and certainly Jung studied Gnostic thought and his works are liberally sprinkled with references to them. But he never called himself a Gnostic. Without doubt Jung’s kind of psychoanalysis was different. Mental illness was considered to be a divided or incomplete condition and health as a state of spiritual wholeness – or near wholeness which could be reached through a process Jung called individuation. Jung always insisted that his writings were based upon empirical evidence and personal experience – it seems he was be worried to be accused of mystical or metaphysical theories but he connected them very often explicit to (catholic) Christianity.

    This essay has delineated some of the main ways in which Jung can help us to understand the real meaning behind Christianity and Gnostics. It is not comprehensive and exhaustive, but shows how we as humans have a tendency to neglect our unconscious side, and the pressing need to recognize and integrate its contents (achieve individuation).  In plain English, Jung shows us, particularly in Aion  the salutary and prospective character of Religion.

    References

    CW9(i) = Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol.9, Part I, The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious  Zürich 1951, Rascher

    CW9(ii) = Jung, C.G. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol.9, Part II, Aion Zürich 1951, Rascher

    Jacobi, J. The Psychology of C.G. Jung.  Zürich 1961

    Jung, C.G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections, London: Harper Collins, 1995, PG213.

  • The Death of the Ego as prerequisite to find God

    The Death of the Ego as prerequisite to find God

    Translation of my article “Gedanken zur Predigt in St. Ottilien 2012-11-18 The Death of the Ego as prerequisite to find God“
    By fallenAngel

    This Sunday sermon in St. Ottilien (2012-11-18-0915-konventamt.mp3) addressed an interesting line of thought: in order to experience God (via the Self), we need the death of the Ego in us first. A very tough call indeed. “We have to kill our own will”, as Paul wrote, “so that God lives in us instead.” According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-born American psychiatrist and founder of the so called “mortality research”, there are five psychological stages of dying. Those can be applied also to the  “Death of the Ego”:

    1. Isolation
    2. Anger
    3. Negotiation (here with God for pagan believers who knows)
    4. Depression
    5. Acceptance

    I must confess, that the thought has deeply unsettled me. Just after I had brought my rather pantheistic experience of God, individuation and the personal christian God more or less in line (I refer to my post “The Self – God’s window between pantheistic Taoism and Catholic personal god”) –  I was somewhat surprised by this deeply Buddhist image of the dissolution of Ego and Self (which of course makes sense from a monastic perspective).

    The Ego and the Self are terms which are often interchangeably used. Likewise often no distinction between personality and Self is made nor taken into account the subconscious.  The psychological term Ego is the center of consciousness and ensures the physical survival . Ego often has an extended meaning in the spiritual language and referrers in general terms to an obstacle for Self realization.

    The total psyche: (Mantra – Jolande Jacobi “The psychology of C.G. Jung”

    The model C.G. Jung does not have this limitation (see Mantra above from the book Jolande Jacobi, The Psychology of C.G. Jung). He distinguishes sharply between Ego and Self and differentiates the unconscious thoughts and feelings of both types of memories: the ones we can remember easily and those who are suppressed for some reason. In addition he introduced the collective unconscious, which belongs to the common humanity, as part of an individual psyche. This article wants to  investigate the “Death of the Ego” from that spiritual point of view and from a psychological perspective (in particular from  C.G. Jung’s individuation). I hope that the context of Jung’s model clarifies it (at least for me). As many, I  lived my life ignoring death, but since the death of my mother this attitude has changed.

    1. The Ego

    Ego is the correct  translation of the German “Ich (I)” used by C.G. Jung and Freud. The term Ego is also common in esoteric  writings often distinguishing the  Ego as a centre of the personality of a higher or true Self not unlike as in C.G. Jung’s psychoanalytic model. The term Ego is widely used In  translations of Buddhist texts for the “I” to overcome. In some languages it attends a negative meaning: to characterize, for example people with a selfish Ego. According to C.G. Jung the Ego can be equated with the conscious mind and includes all thoughts we think at that moment and also our current feelings. In the center of this consciousness we find that “I” or Ego. It guarantees the unity of (thinking, feeling, acting) is focused on physical survival and dealing with everyday demands. All religions (according to the Benedictine monk Anselm Gruen), demand more or less that we must become free from the Ego. This especially applies to our relationship with God. If we do not let go of our Ego we stay materialistic (at best).

    Egocentric-Thinking

    Jesus has spoken this wisdom of all religions in words, which are hard to understand today: “who wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross any day and follow me.” (Lk 9.23). To deny yourself is to say no to be ruled by monopolizing tendencies of the Ego, but distance us from it, to be free from its enslaving power. The Ego wants to impress, wants be presented (inflated) before others. Is the Ego our biggest enemy or our best friend, one might ask?  My usual answer to this question is: who can’t love himself can’t  love others nor God. It is just analogue not digital. The concept of unconditional love may answers this question differently: ” It is never an enemy. It is the best of us, who may feel neglected but in terms of love is always a very good friend .The Ego just wants to be loved – always.”

    But the trivial (or trivialized colloquial term) Ego wants also success, be better than others, wealth, recognition and so on.  In the end the effect is, it will not get love from others in this way. Why? Because it does not recognize that others are needed for this purpose. It calculates coldly cause and effect – feeling not loved (enough) in crises as profound illusion –  due to limited awareness. If we understand our commitment only from the inflated Ego,  my experience is, we may quite benefit in professional life but may get rather hurt in private relations. And: as the two Benedictine (and I think C.G. Jung) told us,  it prevents experiencing the religious dimension of our life.

    For the philosopher Boulad, the death of the Ego is the birth of the Self: we have only a single vocation: to be ourselves. We have only an obligation: especially do – to be to realize ourselves, to develop ourselves. Psychologist Hawkins described the Ego as a negatively oriented structure that denies the existence of God and wants to live independently. The Ego itself is afraid its resolution. And this would indeed happen if God influenced consciousness and we achieved higher levels of consciousness. The death of the Ego is “the final door” Hawkins or “the final moment” so a subjective enlightenment represents (as in Buddhism).

    • Freud: The Ego mediates between the demands of IT, the super-ego, and the social environment and needs a reality-oriented self-image, called Self.
    • C.G.Jung: the Ego represents the differentiation of the individual as a personality evolves. At birth, the Ego separates from the Self. In its development, the individual is always forced to adapt to its social environment; This will be done at the expense of positive attributes which are not valued or tolerated by the outside world. To protect his development, those will be negatively “charged”, fended off and become the Shadow. Furthermore adjusting of  the shared ideal of gender creates another functional complex, Jung calls the soul: the Anima (lat. soul) in men and the animus in women. Outwardly, another functional complex, called persona essential for life in society will be developed.  This is our task in the first half of our lifespan (35-40 years of age) to mature. For many people the end of mental development reached with the realization of the Ego. The life takes place only in socially prescribed patterns, fulfilling our primary need for security (and sexuality according Freud or power according to Adler). Only a few people imagine how to proceed in the midlife or thereafter, usually shaken by a crisis or emergency. The anxious questions of individuation, of Self realization, and meaning of life are major concerns of Jung.
    • Orthodox Islam knows many stages of the “I” (Arabic nafs), and to dissolve it. “The” Ego”is contrary to the spirit of [ruh] the part of the heart of man who was placed under its own control, in developing his soul”. Goal of Islam is to overcome that to a common “Ego” “We”. All people, also husband and wife, were created from a single soul (cf. Holy Quran ‘ at 7: 189). Somewhat different is the Sufi view, the mystical form of Islam. But here  too,  the goalis  the death of the Ego.

    2. The Self

    For me, the Self is again non-uniformly used term within their psychological, sociological, philosophical and theological importance variants. While Freud and Adler considered very narrow psychological driving forces, C.G. Jung understood a central integral concept of the human psyche manifested in the Self. This Self is the wholeness of the human psyche and includes the conscious and unconscious parts of the personality and aims toward the harmonization of the psyche. Only the ego-consciousness with the equipment in use is deliberately sensory perception and thinking, feeling, and intuition. The unconscious part of the people, which splits in the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious, is much more extensive than the ego-consciousness. The Self is the center of the whole personality and therefore the central control instance.  The Ego is the conscious of Self, its eye, with whose help the Self can recognize itself (almost like Adam and Eve after eating the apple). But the Self is the God in us. Individuation is to be who one really is, and a differentiation process that fosters the development of all skills, systems and possibilities of the individual through gradual awareness and realization.

     

    •  C.G.Jung: The goal of life is to know the Self. The Self is a new Center, a better balanced position of our own psyche. Instead of the the trivialities of the persona and the education of the self I today little more worry on the self to all people, all life, the universe and God. The Self is an archetype, embodying the transcendence of all opposites so that each aspect of the personality is expressed correctly and fair. Then it is neither nor but both, male and female, conscious and unconscious, individual and the entirety of creation. The Self represents the mentally transcendent, and equates to a religious experience.
    •  Sociology: the sociological normal type of “community” is the “self”-benevolent introduced (during the normal type of ‘society’ “as “person”).
    •  Hinduism: self as inner, eternal, indestructible shape each being (Atman)
    • Buddhism: that denies “Even” the existence of a stable, unchanging identity in favour of the doctrine of the non-self
    • Orthodox Islam knows no self, the self” is roughly equivalent with the ‘Ego’, to resolve that it applies. “The” Ego “is contrary to the spirit of [ruh] the part of the heart of man who was placed under its own control, in developing his soul”. Goal of Islam is to overcome the “I” to a common “We”. All people, also husband and wife, were created from a single soul (cf. Holy Quran ‘ at 7: 189).
    The Ego, the Self and God
    The Ego, the Self and Jesus – Individuation and Transcendence

    3. The soul

    In today’s (secular) parlance, the totality of all emotions and mental processes in humans is meant and synonymous with the term psyche with soul often. Psyche (Greek ψυχή, breath) was in the classical antiquity a synonym for the word soul.

    The discussion of the 20th century has discussed various concepts of the concept of a “soul” and a wide variety of points of view. Roughly broken down, one can distinguish the following positions:

    3.1. A philosophical and theological definition,

    which means a one’s own substance ‘Soul’, emanating from the thinking and feeling, and other spiritual acts. In Christian philosophy, but often decidedly anti-Platonic views are represented, which consider body and soul in the sense of a holistic anthropology as a unit.

     Psyche in the sense of the new, Hellenic language exists – to the contrary to the Old Testament “Nefesh” – regardless of the body and can not be killed.

    Darkness-and-Light

    • Theological is the soul of the innermost core of a human person. And of course the question: what is the core? Belong to the soul also instincts, sexuality, hunger and thirst? These elemental feelings do not belong to the theological concept of the soul. Theologically, the soul is the spiritual, life-giving principle in man. The soul is the created by God spiritual and immortal beings form of man, which determines its distinctive individuality – according to the theologians today.
    • Unfortunately, there on the terms: soul ‘ and ‘Spirit’ false statements, you must come to the very right are different, between the biblical statements of AT and NT, Greek philosophy, and the Hindu and Buddhist understanding.  To clarify what the he Bible understands of the ‘soul’. It is necessary to learn how God created man. Moses 2.7: “Since God the Lord made man from clay (matter) from the field and blew the breath of life to him”. And so man became a “living soul”(living creature). Man consists of two components: 1. matter 2. breath giving life. Here it is important that the man get a breathed  a ‘soul’ but does not have one. Only the two components resulted in a “living soul.” The soul here stands for the people in his unity and wholeness. When we die not the soul, but the breath of life leaves us. The ‘immortal soul’ does not exist in the Bible.
    • The “psyché” of New Testament in Greek relates to the Hebrew “nephesch”. Especially in the Gospels, socialized people speak Yes Hebrew Aramaic of the soul. Nephesch means originally not soul, but throat, i.e. the perceptible movement of the throat if breathing, the essence of living. For the Bible, so has every breathing “soul”. “My soul” means something like “I” (Lk 1.46). The nephesch, of a person can take off power, “grieved be unto death”. In severe disease it fades. When dying, it (i.e. the breath of life) is returned God. Because God gave the people of his breath and so man became a living being. (Gen 2, 7B). The idea of the immortality of the soul comes from the Greek (Plato and Ptolemy) and was introduced over the Gnostics into Christianity. It has shaped the medieval Christianity (and Judaism!), but is not biblical. The notion of the soul, which independently could exist without the body comes not from the Bible, but has therefore its origin in the Greek philosophy. Unfortunately, many are believe that soul of Christian origin would be the immortals. This is important in this context. Note also what the Bible says about the death of the man. Moses 3.19: “; because you are clay (matter) and should be back to Earth”;
    • We have no immortal part within us, because sin and its consequences (Romans 6: 23) relates to the people as a whole and not only a part of it. To sinful man, could not immortal after the fall, it was blocked the way to the tree of life. Moses 3, 22: “now but that he now does not stretch forth his HAND and break even by the tree of life and you will find and live ETERNALLY.” The immortality of the people would be the UNADULTERATED communion with God and the access to the tree of life been subject to. He was subjected to death by man both had destroyed his relationship with God, and therefore had no access to the tree of life. He could not free himself from this hopeless situation, his mortality. Therefore, everything else what is in the Bible follows the gradual revelation of the redemption of man from sin and death. The rescue was made possible only by the sacrificial death of Christ, who died for us. Only through Christ alone, we can regain the lost immortality. People get this on the last day, when Jesus will come a second time. Then we regain immortality, which we have lost through Adam and Eve. Immortality we find the word, however, three times in the Scriptures.
      • In 1. Timothy 6.16 writes Paul, that God alone possesses immortality! Therefore, man has no immortal soul.
      • In 1. Corinthians 15: 51-55 Paul then finds: the devout man receives immortality only at the second coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. She is so a gift of God to the end of the world and not an integral part of human nature. Not who makes the belief that gives immortal soul, the Christian faith so questionable, but who drops the hope of the resurrection of the dead at the return of  Jesus (1 Corinthians 15: 12-23).
      • The man has no immortality, thinking, feeling, wanting and acting (preacher 9,5.6.10) end at his death. The Bible compares his State with a sleep from which he will wake up at the end of the world (John 11.11; Daniel 12, 13).
    • In today’s religious and philosophical opinions, the soul is independent of the body and therefore immortal “Soul” an immaterial principle, a stable identity. The Greek term of ψυχή (psyche) occurs in the New Testament which is rendered with ‘Soul’ in older translations of the Bible. In the Gospels, where psyche is, to be alive, meant, specifically to the name of the property of a specific individual – human or animal – “Life” within the meaning of the Nefesh is at most. (MT 2.20), such as lack of food (Mt 6, 25) LK 12, 22f. ), or that she will be withdrawn (Luke 12.20) and is lost (MK 8.35-37). The psyche is the seat and starting point of thinking, feeling and volition. Other places, however, show that the New Testament relation of body and soul is complicated. The term psyche is ambiguous unclear, probably in some places, the transitions between its meanings are fluent.
    • In Plato’s philosophy has the soul (ψυχή, psychḗ) as the intangible principle of life individually. Their existence is entirely independent of the body; She existed before his birth and persists after his destruction of intact (pre-and post existence). Plato and Aristotle differentiated between a senseless and a reasonable soul, psyche and nus.
    •  The Apostle Paul, however, rarely used the term psyche in his letters and avoids him for statements about life after death.
    • Augustine represented the Union of the soul against the Platonic doctrine of the soul parts, but made a promotion to the Aristotelian tradition within the soul: “just living” soul (vegetative), function, rational soul (soul function) with spirit (mens) and will and irrational soul function with motor, sensory perception and memory. Inbound Augustine sought proof of the Incorporeality, and the immateriality of the soul.
    • Particularly Thomas Aquinas conceived the ”nus poietikos” as the creating spirit, as the immortal part of our sou. But he is keen to avoid a rugged body-soul, which is why he, Aristotle then, the unity of the human stresses the unity of mind, body and soul dualism.
    • Orthodox Islamic scholars describe four stages of the soul in the Holy Qur’an ‘ (Sufi more), which correspond to human development. The commanding soul [al-nafs al-‘amara]: the State is the starting point. Like a wild horse, the soul tries to gain control of the “rider” and even “to throw off him”. He orders uncontrollable and harmful, and must be “tamed” are. Even the pure and healthy prophets know this state of mind, even if they have mastered it and point out, like for example Josef (a.) in the Holy Quran ‘ “…And I declare myself not even for the innocent. The soul commands evil emphatically yes, unless my Lord has mercy on himself. My Lord is forgiving, merciful.” (12: 52-53)
      • The plaintive soul [al-nafs al-lawwama]. In this stage, the soul has such self-knowledge that she see their own weaknesses and blames himself “I” to overcome the “self” or. This state of mind is so developed, swore at them: “no, I swear by the day of resurrection. No, I swear by the soul which they pronounce censure.” (75: 1-2)
      • The Inspiring soul [al-nafs al-mulhama]. At this level, the soul has the ability between the useful and harmful inspirations to distinguish and uses this ability to their own development: “…”and the soul and what way she shapes and gives her their Vice and their piety!” (91: 7-8). Freedom is the freedom of knowledge and the defense of the harmful through knowledge and the adoption of useful through knowledge for this soul.
      • The satisfied soul [al-nafs al mutma’innah ‘ inna]. The soul achieves the satisfaction of ALLAH in its perfection and is therefore also pleased about the grace of contentment: “O you satisfied soul, to your Lord satisfied and accompanied by his face return. Joins the ranks of my servants, and enter my paradise. (9: 27-29)

     3.2  Moderate positions,

    such as psychological definitions, may reject a materialism but do not grant the notion of a soul in a traditional sense, in particular not  immortality. Soul is the term for the totality of all conscious and unconscious emotional processes and of all spiritual and intellectual functions.

    •   In his treatise “on the soul” (“de Anima”) defines Aristotle the soul as: “The soul is the first Entelechy of the natural organic body” (full on. II 1, 412 b 4-6). Aristotle not is so not materially the soul but as an intangible entity, which is why Aristotle comes a strict body-soul dualism in question. According to Aristotle the soul is that which the body (which only potentially is a living being) really makes the creatures, the Entelechy biologically today can be seen as a goal-oriented regulation of vital functions as the software for the hardware, which is essential for a living organism in terms of forms. Aristotle States in his treatise “on the soul”, that “the soul from the body is separable and or certain parts of it” .The soul passes so with the body, when the animal dies.
    cropped-spiritualjung.jpg

    • C.G. Jung defines soul in the sense “guarding complex” (Anima) in contrast to the notion of the mind as a “Whole” all conscious experience qualities as well as of all unconscious phenomena. The mental energy occupies a central place in Jung’s psychology. Animus soul, spirit (as opposed to the body), memory, courage, exuberance, confidence, despite, resentment, anger, disposition, mood, passion, desiring soul, desire, desire, decision, desire, inclination; Anima, however, translated with air as element or breath of air, wind, breath, soul, life, or secluded soul. C.G. Jung summed up under the term soul both terms. The soul is dynamic. In humans, this is called also personality.
    • Kant maintains the metaphysical side of the soul, that it treated but related issue of freedom within the framework of practical reason. The soul is called the regulatory term within the framework of morality.

     3.3. Materialism or Neurobiology,

    rejects the existence of a soul, claiming that all talk of mental is reducible to the physical and/or neural States. Are the same soul and psyche and the soul is that which is the psychology and / or employed Neurology.

    •  Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, makes two assumptions for its model of the soul: a physical body (brain, central nervous system) as the place or “Scene” and awareness Act. “” We suppose that the soul-life is the function of an apparatus “, here it is clear that the doctor Freud attempts a neurological Foundation.” We have come to the knowledge of the psychic apparatus through the study of the individual development of the human being”.

    • The man has no soul — he has not even a substantial self, says one contemporary philosopher Thomas Metzinger. Phenomenal States, the experience itself, based on neural patterns, dynamically active nerve networks. The character of the subjective experience remains the same, regardless of whether you actually perceives something or just a hallucination. External factors in the environment, and society to decide whether this experience is considered as hallucination, a abnormal psychic disease wisdom or holiness. The totality of all emotions and feelings are not different for humans or animals. The soul is a portion of the spirit thus, if emotionless information processing in a human brain is excluded (what is hardly possible in reality). Animals have feelings too and therefore also a soul.. Thus overlaps the soul with our memory and learning, forgetting, perception, the totality of all inherited traits of an individual language, intelligence, motivation, will, emotion.

     3.4. Linguistic approach

    • German Seele, Psyche
    • English soul, psyche
    • Greek psyche
    • Hebrew nephesch, ruach
    •  Latin Anima
    • Arabic nafs (نفس) can mean “even” relevant mainly in the Sufi
    •  Chinese (traditional): (línghún) like spirit – or cloud completely invisible:
    • Finnish: sielu
    • French: âme
    • Indonesian: roh
    • Icelandic: sál
    • Italian: anima (female)
    •  Japanese: (kokoro)
    • Dutch: aim (female); spil
    •  Romansh: olma (female)
    • Romanian: restless
    • Russian: душа (duschá)
    • Spanish: alma (female)
    • Thai: วิญญาณ
    • Czech duše (female); Člen (male), obyvatel (male)
    • Turkish can; Ruh
    • Hungarian: lélek
    • Venetian: anema (female)

     4. Individuation versus death of the ego

    I like to understand Individuation not as death or dissolution of the ego. I have witnessed two deaths, an easy one and one prolonged suffering in a cold – not even ill-meaning – care machine. Psychological experiences of Ego death are particularly critical and generate fear: this transformation process is most difficult, because it demands to let go one’s own identity, it may interpreted as abandonment,´resolution, disintegration or fragmentation. All spiritual development processes, however, lead us through meditation and complete resolution of our self-esteem. The individuation is a mismatch  between the beginnings of biological aging and the possibility of another psycho-spiritual development. “It represents those critical situation in which one has arrived at the height of the life and suddenly or gradually is confronted with the reality of the end of death”(Jacobi 1971, p. 31). Quite true in my case. The more one approaches the midlife (as late as this may be)  having succeeded consolidation of  the outer life, personal attitude and social situation, the more one firmly believes having discovered the correct course of life, the right ideals and principles of behavior. Therefore it  requires eternal validity and virtue to move on – otherwise one is stuck. A significant fact is,  that the adaptation and functioning in reality happens at the expense of the totality of the (Self) personality. While the first half of life stood under the aspect of identity a re-orientation must occur,  fulfilling new tasks gains importance, in essence all this is the preparation for death. This turning point is not on a specific point in time (as one of my many “midlife crisis”), but  may extend over a long period of time. First ivomes the confrontation with the shadow, than with the complexes of the collective unconscious, manifesting in  the “Anima” and later the “Old Wise Sage”, or the  woman in “Animus” and “Great Mother”.

    The materialistic-oriented Freudian psychoanalysis has been increasingly questioned, while the spiritually inspired analytical psychology of C.G. Jung becomes lately more important again with religious quests and definitely important to me. Freud, who sees most conflicts as not properly processed (sexual) repression problems, is probably the psychologist of the first half of life. His psychology is retrospective. C.G. Jung’s psychology is more perspective. He has recognized that most of the problems of his patients over 35 were essentially religious in nature. He is the psychologist of the middle and the second half of life. Freud almost always looks back. C.G Jung looked forward. 

    5. My conclusion

    The death of the Ego is to me more of an integration with the Self. Individuation” has shown a way to the Self in the second half of my life, to the deepest innermost area of the personality and has opened the spiritual dimension. Hence it is not only a preparation for death but also a  preservation of body and soul for resurrection – the Self.

    Jacobi, Jolande: Towards the individuation, Walter, Olten 1971 and see also my other standard bibliography.

    .

     

  • Had Jesus a wife? Professor Karen L. King publish or perish: “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife”

    Had Jesus a wife? Professor Karen L. King publish or perish: “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife”

    There has been a bit of noise about a dubious a “business card size” piece of papyrus the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” which purportedly provides evidence that Jesus had a wife. That Jesus was married, many hope, is somehow undermining  the core doctrines of Christianity.  Apart from the fact that it the tiny scrap is currently dated a few hundred years after Jesus life and during primetime for Gnostics inventing facts about Jesus to support their own theological (heretical) texts, many seem to think this is somehow evidence against celibacy and calls for a larger women’s role in the church (hierarchy).

    No wonder, that rumor has it, Harvard Theological Review is now declining to publish Karen King’s paper on this Coptic fragment she calls the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”  When I first read about it, I discarded the headline conclusion immediately. I took also the liberty to the read the paper “Jesus’ Wife”. King_JesusSaidToThem_draft_0920. It has a lot of If’s and assumptions.  New Testament scholar Craig Evans writes:  Is the Coptic papyrus, in which Jesus speaks of his “wife,” a fake? Probably. We are far from a “consensus,” but one scholar after another and one Coptologist after another has weighed in pointing out serious problems with the paleography, the syntax, and the very troubling fact that almost all of the text has been extracted from the Gospel of Thomas (principally from logia 30, 101, and 114). I suspect the papyrus itself is probably quite old, perhaps fourth or fifth century, but the oddly written (or painted) letters on the recto side are probably modern and probably reflect recent interest in Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The decision of the editors of Harvard Theological Review not to publish Karen King’s paper is very wise. Perhaps we will eventually learn more about who actually produced this text.

    The academic world became quickly  skeptical about the ancient provenance of this fragment despite the typical professional hysteria in the media and amateur hysteria in the blogosphere. To be fair BBC brought with a lot of trivia and political motivated statement also the facts.
    Anybody who reads a bit about the history and language of the gospel might react similar. A papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic most likely of the fourth century, isn’t a proof of any historical value of Jesus’ life.  It’s indeed most likely nothing more than one of many gnostic heresies. By the way, Prof Karen Leigh King is foremost an expert in Gnostic writings; she could tell the – sorry for my language – uninformed press, but of course publish or perish.. This sort of debate that should be carried carefully, so scholarship can get it right.

    Before we get start rewriting Christ’s history it is worth examining the source of the document and the institution at which the discovery was made.Besides some call it a straight forward hoax, currently most experts assumed, that the so-called “gospel” was written in 4th Century AD in Egypt and is written in Coptic, the language spoken by the Egyptians of the time. The professor who discovered it,Karen L. King, and other scholars have solemnly proclaimed it to be genuine. Some doubt even that. Egypt of the 4th Century has long been known as a rich source of gnostic fabricated accounts of the lives of Jesus and his disciples. A similarly strange find –dubbed the Gospel of Judas[Iscariot] – was unveiled also by Karen L. King. This “gospel” has since dropped off the academic radar. There is so much similar stuff floating around – all utterly discredited, so it is difficult to see what a mere eight lines without any context of its finding should tell. A key to understanding the wholly over-blown nature of the controversy lies in the discoverer’s academic speciality.The focus of Professor King’s studies has been Coptic literature, Gnosticism and women in the Bible’

    King writes: “This new gospel doesn’t prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage.“. Is that a scholar statement or a feminist statement? Indeed, a bonus in unveiling the controversial scrap of papyrus in Rome was probably a hit on Pope Benedict XVI and the Roman Catholic Church which requires its priests to be celibate. The Huffington Post. “Beyond internal Catholic Church politics, a married Jesus invites are consideration of orthodox teachings about gender and sex,”.Professor King argues without any proof the document is a translation of an earlier one that was written in Greek. This seems a stretch. In fact, it is possible that this “gospel” fragment is associated with such writings found at Nag Hammadi, just after World War II. These writings, all originating centuries after the Apostolicera, were widely published in the 1950s and  inspired C.G. Jung. Jung was instrumental in calling attention to the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic writings in the 1950’s because he perceived the outstanding psychological relevance of Gnostic insights. Most mythologems found in Gnostic scriptures possess psychological relevance and applicability.  Less to Christanity I would add. Gnosticism flourished in Egypt long after it had ceased to be a major headache to Christianity elsewhere. Egypt had a multi-millennia history of mysticism and so  Egyptian Coptic Christians added to Christianity. It seem we are living again in a climate of decay prone to Gnosticism and superstition.

    From Christianity’s beginnings, the Church has been attacked by those introducing false teachings, or heresies – it seems some Christian churches are too weak now to fight this fungus off. Thanks god, I am Catholic. Having said that, if ones read the Luke Gospel, one will found importance and high status Jesus assigned to women. No need to need to give him a wife.

    Sources:

    Wikipedia on Karen_Leigh_King

    Reality Check: The “Jesus’ Wife” Coptic Fragment–

     “Jesus had a wife” manuscript fragment a forgery

    So What if Jesus did Have a Wife?

    Reading_Judas. by Karen L. King