In his Seminar on Analytical Psychology given in 1925, Jung talked about his first mystical experience. In The Red Book, he called the section where he described his experience MYSTERIUM, which is a clear indicator of the mystical aspect of that experience. In the Seminar, he recalled:
The next thing that happened to me was another fantastic vision. I used the same technique of the descent, but this time I went much deeper. The first time I should say I reached a depth of about one thousand feet, but this time it was a cosmic depth. It was like going to the moon, or like the feeling of a descent into empty space. First the picture was of a crater, or a ring-chain of mountains, and my feeling association was that of one dead, as if oneself were a victim. It was the mood of the land of the hereafter.
I could see two people, an old man with a white beard and a young girl who was very beautiful. I assumed them to be real and listened to what they were saying. The old man said he was Elijah and I was quite shocked, but she was even more upsetting because she was Salome. I said to myself that there was a queer mixture: Salome and Elijah, but Elijah assured me that he and Salome had been together since eternity. This also upset me. With them was a black snake who had an affinity for me. I stuck to Elijah as being the most reasonable of the lot, for he seemed to have a mind. I was exceedingly doubtful about Salome. We had a long conversation then but I did not understand it.
The appearance of the two symbols sage-pupil (Elijah and Salome) was for Jung the two symbols of the tension of opposites alive in his psyche. They correspond to what he was confronted in 1912-1913: the split with Freud and with Sabrina Spielrein. That was the tension of opposites he endured for many months. He explains:
Elijah and Salome are together because they are pairs of opposites. Elijah is an important figure in man’s unconscious, not in woman’s. He is the man with prestige, the man with a low threshold of consciousness or with remarkable intuition. In higher society he would be the wise man; compare Lao-tse. He has the ability to get into touch with archetypes. He will be surrounded with mana, and will arouse other men because he touches the archetypes in others. He is fascinating and has a thrill about him. He is the wise man, the medicine man, the mana man. Later on in evolution, this wise man becomes a spiritual image, a god, “the old one from the mountains” (compare Moses coming down from the mountain as lawgiver), the sorcerer of the tribe. He is the legislator. (Introduction to Jungian Psychology P.101)
The mystical experience is always a symbol of conjunction of opposites that seizes consciousness. In his experience, Jung becomes the god Aion andm at the same time, Christ. The conjunction of the symbols God-me or universe-me is frequent. He recalled:
Then I saw the snake approach me. She came close and began to encircle me and press me in her coils. The coils reached up to my heart. I realized as I struggled, that I had assumed the attitude of the Crucifixion. In the agony and the struggle, I sweated so profusely that the water flowed down on all sides of me. Then Salome rose, and she could see. While the snake was pressing me, I felt that my face had taken on the face of an animal of prey, a lion or a tiger. (Introduction to Jungian Psychology P.104)
The serpent that encircles him, the posture of the crucifixion, the sweat flowing on his skin, the pressure of the snake, the face becoming that of a lion, etc. are all expressions of the Sensation cognitive function which was Jung’s inferior function. The inferior cognitive function is known to be the gateway of the unconscious. In the same Seminar, he added:
The animal face which I felt mine transformed into was the famous [Deus] Leontocephalus of the Mithraic mysteries, the figure which is represented with a snake coiled around the man, the snake’s head resting on the man’s head, and the face of the man that of a lion. (Introduction to Jungian Psychology P.106)
Jung describes the god Aion or deus leonticephalus as:
The lion-headed god encoiled by the snake was called Aion, or the eternal being. He derives from a Persian deity, Zrwanakarana, which word means “the infinitely long duration.” Another very interesting symbol in this cult is the Mithraic amphora with flame arising from it, and the lion on one side with the snake on the other, both trying to get at the fire. The lion is the young, hot, dry July sun in culmination of light, the summer. The serpent is humidity, darkness, the earth, winter. They are the opposites of the world trying to come together with the reconciling symbol between them. It is the famous symbolism of the vessel, a symbolism that survives till 1925—see Parsifal. It is the Holy Grail, called the Vase of Sin (see King: The Gnostics and Their Remains17). Also, it is a symbol of the early Gnostics. It is of course a man’s symbol, a symbol of the womb—the creative womb of the man out of which rises the fire. When the pairs of opposites come together, something divine happens, and then it is immortality, the eternal, creative time. Wherever there is generation there is time, therefore Chronos is God of Time, Fire, and Light. (Introduction to Jungian Psychology P.107)
When Jung states, in his seminar, that the symbols of the deus leontocephalus are related to something divine which express immortality, we must understand that he is emphasizing that the symbol of the conjunction of opposites that appeared in his consciousness was a numinous mystical experience, a transcendent experience. It is clear that Aion was Jung’s symbol of conjunction of opposites in his first transcendent experience.
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