Ideas of the Divine in Jung’s Writings and in Wicca

by Delia Morgan

December 1997

Preface.

In reading Jung's autobiography "Memeories, Dreams, Reflections" I was struck by how pagan many of his ideas sounded. Pagans in general, and Wiccans in particular, acknowledge the importance of what Jung would call the personal unconscious and also the collective unconscious. Pagans honor the divine as many gods and goddesses; they are within us as archetypes, and outside us as forces of nature; they are also considered as entities or persons in their own right. Pagans work with symbols and rituals, with dreams and trance states, and with other techniques to awaken the deeper psychic potentials within us all. Pagans acknowledge the reality of 'other realms' than the everyday world of our senses; most believe in reincarnation and consider themselves connected with the primal beginnings of the human species; we feel that we worship the Old Gods of our ancestors, and that the numinous and the magical are at the very core of our existence.

In the sections below, I have included quotes from Jung for each of the 'Seven Sermons to the Dead,' followed by my own commentary.

Sermon I.

''I begin with nothingness...Nothingness is both empty and full...A thing that is infinite and eternal hath no qualities, since it hath all qualities..we name (it) the PLEROMA....in it no being is, for then he would be distinct..." "(It) is every whole and continuous...nowhere divided..."

"CREATURA is...confined in time and space" "Pleroma pervadeth them (creatura)"

"Every so-called fixed and certain thing is only relative. That alone is...certain which is subject to change."

What is changeable...is creatura...it hath qualities."

"How did creatura originate?...Distinctiveness is its essence, and therefore it distinguisheth...Man discriminateth ...he distinguisheth qualities of the pleroma which are not."

"If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature..We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures. We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness...hence the natural striving of the creature goeth towards distinctiveness, fighteth against primeval, perilous sameness. This is called the Principium Individuationis. This principle is the essence of the creature." "We must, therefore, distunguish the qualities of the pleroma. The qualities are PAIRS OF OPPOSITES..."

"We (are) the victims of the pairs of opposites. The pleroma is rent (torn) in us."

"When...we remain true to our own nature...we distinguish ourselves from the good...and...from the evil...thus we fall not into the pleroma..." "If...ye strive after...any qualities whatsoever...ye fall again into the pleroma..."

"There is only one striving...the striving after your own being....however, thought estrangeth from being."

Comments:

Jung speaks of the eternal Pleroma as empty and full, beyond the created world, and existing prior to it.

I too consider that the ultimate reality is a kind of empty fullness, a consciousness without qualities or distinctions, something like the Tao, or like Brahman in Hinduism. In Wicca we may speak of it as the Abyss, or as the Womb of the Goddess; we speak of it as ultimate mystery, and acknowledge that it cannot really be spoken of or conceived of at all. It is 'neither female nor male, changeless, formless, boundless, and eternal.' One important symbol for Wiccans is the cauldron: a large black vessel of transformation -- it contains infinity, the formless chaos within it; all forms come from it in endless transformation, and all are dissolved back into its emptiness. Paradoxically, it is also the womb of the Goddess. The Goddess is source of all creation, infinite and eternal; even though she is distinguished from the formless by having certain attributes, she still is considered to contain the infinite abyss/empty-fullness within herself as her own womb.

Wiccans acknowledge the complementarity of opposites -- the polarity of the Goddess and her lover the God is our most sacred reality. We also believe that you can never have one side of a polarity without the other; therefore we honor both darkness and light, female and male, celestial and underworld, etc. We do not, however, believe in good and evil; to us that is a false distinction created by humans, rather than being a polar trait inherent in nature.

We see our religion as a process of personal growth, a 'striving after our own being'; and we understand how the conscious mind/ego/intellect can interfere with getting to know the deeper realms of the soul/psyche; this is one reason why we use rituals, visualizations and trance techniques, in an attempt to bypass the intellectual thought processes that 'estrange' us from 'being.'

Sermon II.

"God is creatura, for he is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma."

"God is...the effective fullness of the pleroma." "Effective void is ...the devil." "God and devil are the first mainfestations of nothingness (pleroma)...everything...out of the pleroma is a pair of opposites..." "Both (god and devil) stand very close to the pleroma, in which all opposites are extinguished and joined."

"god and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction."

"EFFECTIVENESS is common to both (god and devil) ...(it) standeth above both...this is a god...its name ABRAXAS." "It is more indefinite still than god and devil...it is...not any particular effect, but effect in general." "It (Abraxas) is force, duration, change."

Comments:

Like Jung, we acknowledge that the gods are, in some sense created rather than primal, since they have qualities and attributes. One Wiccan saying is that 'The gods create us and we create the gods.' This points to the fact that it was the gods as forces of nature that evolved the human species, but that it is our conceptualizations of these gods (which in truth are vastly beyond our ability to conceive) which we connect to, relate to and worship. In this way humans have a creative role in the sacred -- we forge a path with signposts into the ultimately unknown terrritory of the gods.

Jung separates out polar opposites, a god and a devil, as the first manifestations of a larger principle he calls Abraxas, which seems to be a force of change. Wiccans don't believe in good and evil, so we don't have a good-god and bad-god. For us the basic polarity is feminity and masculinity, yin and yang, so we distinguish Deity as Goddess and God. Each has both dark and bright aspects; but for us darkness is not 'bad'; it is the mystery of night, which is deep and beautiful. In Wicca the Goddess comes first; She alone is infinite and eternal and contains all things within her womb, including the God. But the first step of creation is that she gives birth to the God, her son, who then becomes her lover; he fertilizes her with his seed and thus she brings forth the universe.

In some ways, the Wiccan God is similar to Jung's Abraxas, however; for us the Goddess is the Source, the Ocean of Being; but the God is the Force, the will to Becoming. It is the power and energy of the God that moves all things from within. He is the light and heat of the sun, and the life force contained in the green and growing plants. He is the potency of male animals such as the bull, the goat and the stag. He is a God of both life and death: he is both the hunter and the hunted, all-begetter and all-destroyer; he is the living reality that all life feeds on death. And he is the power of desire that moves all things.

Sermon III.

"The supreme god...hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest." "From the sun (man) draweth (good)..from the devil (evil)...but from Abraxas...LIFE...indefinite, mother of good and evil."

"The god-sun speaketh life...the devil speaketh death...but Abraxas speaketh...life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth...good and evil, light and darkness..."

"Abraxas is terrible...it is splendid...it is beautiful...it is the great Pan himself and....it is Priapos (the phallic god)." "It (Abraxas) is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed polyp, coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy." "It is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning." "It is the appearance and the shadow of man. It is illusory reality."

Comments:

This really begins to sound like the Wiccan God to me. He is often shown as a Horned God with a flame burning between his horns; the flame is the Sun, which is the heat and power of the God; but he is also Lord of the Underworld, guardian of the gates of Life and Death. The great God Pan is the most widely-known archetype of the Wiccan God, and he is an ithyphallic God. In Wicca, sex is considered the holiest of the mysteries, because it is through sex that the Goddess and God beget the universe; sex brings forth all life, as well as the deepest love, and the highest joy.

Also, the 'coiled knot of winged serpents' reminds me of the Wiccan God; in his primal aspect he is associated with the serpent. One of the Horned God's most well-known aspects is the God Dionysos, who takes on the plant forms of the tangled vines of ivy and grape, as well as the animal forms of a wild bull, a panther, and a 'thousand-headed serpent.'

Sermon IV.

"(There are two god-devils;...the BURNING ONE is EROS, who hath the form of flame. The GROWING ONE is the TREE OF LIFE. "

"Knowledge hath been given of the multiplicity and diversity of the gods...but woe unto you, who replace these incompatible many by a single god. For in so doing ye beget the torment which is bred from not understanding, and ye mutilate the creature whose nature and aim is distinctiveness."

"Man shareth in the nature of the gods....Thus...it availeth not to worship...the gods."

"The bright gods form the celestial world...infinitely spreading..."
"The dark gods form the earth-world...infinitely diminishing..."

"The celestial gods magnify, the earth-gods diminish. Measureless is the movement of both."

Comments:

Jung speaks of two 'god-devils' as the 'burning one' and the 'tree of life.' Again, this sounds like the Wiccan God to me; in addition to his aspect as the Burning God of the Sun, he is also the Green Man of the forest, who is the spirit of the trees, the life-force of the woods. He is often shown in this aspect, covered in leaves, with foliage growing out of his mouth; he is the spirit of green growth, and by extension, the spirit of all growing things. As mentioned above, Dionysos is one aspect of the Horned God who has plant-like aspects. Trees have long been sacred to pagans, and especially so to the Druids, from whom Wiccans inherit many of our customs and lore. For us, the oak tree and the pine tree are especially symbolic of the Horned God; often on our altars the God is represented by a large pine cone or an oak branch with acorns.

As for the 'bright celestial' gods and the 'dark earthly' gods, Wiccans tend to emphasize the earthly gods, even though we also worship the sun; we don't see the dark gods as evil or 'diminishing'; we see the Earth God as the Life Force underground, the fertile power that pushes up the stalk of corn or the forest trees. He is an underground phallic God, without whom the earth would be barren. For us, a stalk of wheat or corn represents the phallic nature of the God: it rises up out of the Earth Mother who gives him birth, he grows strong and erect, then he fertilizes the earth with his seed, and falls back down in death. In this way, the God follows the cycle of all living things; he moves in endless rounds of birth, life/love/desire, death, and rebirth. The God is alive in all living beings, as the life spark within us.

To Wiccans, we are 'of the nature of the gods', as Jung says; but to us this doesn't mean that we need not also worship the gods. To me, the experience of love and devotion to the Goddess and God is what most fills my soul with the joy of divine presence; we see the gods as both within and outside, not just one or the other; not either-or, but both-and.

Sermon V.

"Celestial (gods) appear in spirtuality, earthly (gods) in sexuality."

"Spirituality conceiveth and embraceth. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engendereth and createth. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father."

"The Mother and the Phallos are super-human daemons which reveal the world of the gods...they are closely akin to our own nature." "Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities,,,...but they possess and contain you;...they are powerful daemons...things which reach beyond you, existing in themselves."

"Distinctiveness leadeth to singleness. Singleness is opposed to communion."
The gods force you to communion." "Communion is depth. Singleness is height." "Communion giveth us warmth, singleness giveth us light."

Comments:

Jung's conception of the 'Celestial Mother' and the 'Earthly Father' is very close to the Wiccan idea of the Goddess and God. For us the Goddess is the Star Goddess, the Queen of the Heavens; the starry skies are wrapped around her, the moon is her face, and the vastness of space is her cosmic womb. She is the soul of the universe. The God, as mentioned above, is definitely a phallic God. In Wicca, however, he is not a 'father' god in the usual sense: he doesn't hand out rules to obey, and he doesn't really look after us. He could perhaps be thought of as father only in the procreative sense, as our progenitor. He is usually thought of as the Son and Lover of the Goddess.

It's interesting to me that Jung seems to separate out sexuality and spirituality as opposites, even if he sees them as complementary opposites. For Wiccans, sexuality and spirituality are not different things, they are the same thing. I would agree that they are forces which possess us, rather than us possessing them.

Sermon VI.

"The daemon of sexuality approacheth our soul as a serpent...as thought-desire."

"The daemon of spirituality descendeth into our soul as the white bird...as desire-thought."

"The serpent is an earthy soul...akin to the spirits of the dead." "The serpent hath a nature like unto woman...The serpent is a whore. She wantoneth with the devil and with evil spirits; a mischievous tyrant and tormentor, ever seducing..."

"The white bird is a half-celestial soul of man. He bideth with the Mother. "The bird hath a nature like unto man...he is chast...a messenger of the Mother...he commandeth singleness." "He bringeth knowledge from the distant ones who went before and are perfected."

"She (the Mother) intercedeth, she warneth, but against the gods she hath no power. She is a vessel of the sun."

Comments:

I find this imagery of the serpent and the white bird fascinating; it reminds me of the symbolism of Eurynome and Ophion in the Greek cosmogonic myth of Hesiod. There, before the beginning of time, the primal Goddess Eurynome was a white dove; she danced on the waters, and brought about the wind, the serpent Ophion. Ophion made love to Eurynome and fertilized her, and she laid the cosmic egg. Ophion wrapped himself around the cosmic egg and shattered it; all the worlds came rushing out of the broken egg, and the universe was born.

To many Wiccans, the white dove is not only a messenger of the Goddess, she is an aspect of the Goddess herself. And the Horned God is frequently shown holding the serpent, the chthonic spirit who is his messenger; and yet, he himself can be thought of as a serpent. In my tradition of Wicca, the white dove is the celestial form of the Goddess, and the serpent is the chthonic form of the God.

Wiccans conduct their rituals in a quartered circle (which Jung would consider a mandala); in my tradition of Wicca, we honor the divine at the four directions, the center, above and below. The directional and elemental correspondences used are: north = earth/ dark god; south = fire/ bright god; east = air/ maiden goddess; west = water/ mother goddess; center = aether/ crone goddess; above = celestial/ white dove; below = underworld/ serpent.

The serpent and dove can also be thought of like spirit guides in shamanism: they help us to move between the worlds in our spirit journeys. The serpent is the power of desire, the spiral pattern of evolution, the wisdom of our ancestors, the power of sex and regeneration, and also magical and psychic awakening. The dove is purity and possibility, inspiration, the spark of hope, the future, our sacred destiny which whispers to us to follow, to fly to the boundless heights.

To me the white dove is feminine and the serpent is masculine; it seemed strange to me that Jung used the opposite genders for them; I don't really understand why this difference, when everything else seems so similar. (Also, obviously, we don't see the serpent as evil, like Jung seems to; I tend to feel that he was somewhat bound by the conventional Christian imagery and morality of his times.)

Sermon VII.

"Man is a gateway, through which...ye pass into the inner world...ye find yourselves in endless space...innermost infinity.."

"One single Star in the zenith. This is the one god of this one man. This is his world, his pleroma, his divinity. In this world is man Abraxas, the creator and the destroyer of his own world."

"This star is the god and the goal of man. This is his one guiding god....Toward him goeth the long journey of the soul after death....To this one god man shall pray."

Comments:

It seems to me that Jung is saying that in the process of individuation, in the process of deepening inward, we reach a place where we discover our own divinity. Again, this reminds me of Wicca. Most Wiccans see our religion as one of spiritual awakening into our own godhood, an inward journey that unfolds into the infinite expanses of our own being. Our sacred symbol is the pentagram, which is a five-pointed star contained within a circle. The star is the symbol of our own divine, higher Self; the circle is the cosmos, the Ground of Being, the great circle of life. A couple of quotes we have used in rituals: 'Every man and every woman is a Star' and 'There is no part of us that is not of the Gods.'

In summary, I would say that it seems remarkable how much of a pagan religious sensibility shows in Jung's writings, and uncanny how close much of it is to modern conceptions of Wicca. The idea that we are being pushed from within on a course of spiritual evolution toward divinity seems to be common to both Jung and the neo-pagan movement. Also common is the idea of all things manifesting as polarity, especially as dark/light, feminine/masculine, etc. The major differences seem to be: for Wiccans there is no good/evil polarity, hence darkness, sexuality, etc. are seen as holy; also for us the feminine is not an adjunct principle to the God, but rather the primary divine being; and finally, while we see the gods within us as archetypes and expressions of our own inner divinity, we also see them as powerful and holy entities in their own right, as the forces which shape the universe from within.