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The Gnostic Jung QUOTES

The Gnostic Jung QUOTES

21 " spite of the suppression of the Gnostic heresy, it [the heresy] continued to flourish throughout the Middle Ages under the guise of alchemy.”30 For Jung, the alchemical process of extracting gold from base metals is a continuation of the Gnostic process of liberating fallen sparks from matter. Both processes are seemingly outward, physical or metaphysical ones which in fact are inner, psychological ones. Both represent a progression from sheer ego consciousness to the ego’s rediscovery of the unconscious and reintegration with it to forge the self. In alchemy the progression is from base metals to the distillation of vapor out of them and the return of that vapor to the metals to form gold. In Gnosticism the progression is from the Gnostic’s sheer bodily existence to the release of the immaterial spark within the Gnostic’s body and the reunion of that spark with the godhead. In both cases the state truly sought lies within human beings—between the ego and the unconscious—rather than outside them—between the vapor and the metals or between the spark and the godhead. The human state is simply projected onto the external world.31 "

― C.G. Jung , The Gnostic Jung