So many confluences. I have to write them down. I had a strange dream last night. The night of a full moon on Sambain. The dream had many familiar dynamics. Fears and excitements, walking on the knife edges of good and bad, truth and perception, inner self and outer being, shadow and light. The characters of my dreams were current day but derivative of many stories I tell of my family history. My great grandfather on my mother’s side, the Charnock stores on my fathers side, May and Eva the maternal grandparents but no reference to the paternal line. They were not there as people but as symbols. The store girl, the policeman, the seamstress, a drummer. Equally they were not primary actors, they were extras but watching. My actions were the main narrative but they inserted themselves at key points. My narrative was about my boundaries. Where I want to push and explore, go further, go deeper to places I’d never been or had only glimpses of. Places where I’m afraid, dishonest to myself about my true feelings- caught somewhere between the logos and my soul. Dark and light. The generations of the past were with me on this journey and on this transitional night they were making their presence known. Not with any intention to encourage or redirect but just to be there — I have no comprehension of why.
Exits and entrances.
I think a lot of this comes from my reading of Jung’s Black Books. His journey into his own psyche has raised questions in my own. Do I know myself truly. Do I pursue my own path as vigorously as I support and facilitate the paths of others. A topic that has been on my mind since the reading I did for my birthday in February. Or my reading from January for what was ahead in 2020.
I’ve also been mulling over the assertion in the first 10 minutes of this video. Stephan Hoeller suggests that in the same way as the discovery of the hermetic texts in the Medici library unleashed a new interpretation of western religious thought (the reformation), so the texts of the Nag Hammadi codices (that were first made available between 1972 and 1984) might similarly unleash a new era of spirituality. If this is the case then we are truly at the beginning of a new era and my explorations into the Aeons and hither too unknown belief systems within these texts are just a small part of a bigger, longer term transition. A matter of a few decades in a transition that might take centuries and be with us for millennia. Together with this incredible thought I’ve equally enjoyed the recent publications of Carl Jung’s Libre Novus -The Red Book and in the last few days the Black Books which were published in mid October 2020. Both offering previous insight into one of the worlds greatest psychologists who was greatly influenced by many ancient spiritual traditions from Kabbalah, alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermetica and what he referred to as the “perennial root” of spirituality that blooms within humanity on a divine rather than human timescale.
Nag Hammadi and Jung- the great conjunction
So what might this great conjunction bring? How might our interpretation of spiritual and psychological thought be transformed? Well for a start, just the idea that our psyche and our spirituality are connected is a major starting point that both align on. That the Gods and Energies of our past exist within us and can be accessed and understood through work and practices that deepen our understanding of our true self, our unconscious or our spirit — some divine spark or a shared unknowable (unconscious) that is deep within us and that defines our true nature. I see in Jung’s Work, as he personalizes and anthropomorphizes the influences within his own psyche with names from ancient times, that the Gods and deities of most religions are nothing more than the same — psychological drives and energies humanized to make them more comprehensible, understandable and relatable to others. Anthropomorphism brings us closer to our Gods and this is also a dynamic within our psyche (through our dreams).
Aeons within
What strikes me most about the intersection of these previously unavailable texts is the spiritual origins of our inner self. A possible re-interpretation of the gospels from the “do as Jesus did” — the “what would Jesus do?” Interpretation — to an interpretation of being as true to yourself as Jesus was true to himself. Not to mirror the actions and behaviors of the prophets or follow the rules determined by the churches, but instead knowing yourself, knowing your true nature, understanding what makes you unique, understanding what you know and what you still have to discover. Understanding what differentiates you from other and seeing what from the world around you distracts you from that sense of self and what is true to it. (NB. I mention Jesus, not as a Christian but because he features heavily in both Nag Hammadi codices and Jung’s writings)
If this next era, this aeon that follows the great conjunction, is informed by these ideas, then we should anticipate an era of inner exploration, creativity on a personal level and deep investigation into our material, psychological and spiritual selves- in the same way that past eras explored nature, geography, science or commerce.
We might come to understand the multiple energies that we have within us and that transcend time or our individual being. The true power of our mind to create, understand, know, to be real, to be true to our essence- both the dark and the light parts. The subjective and objective, The ephemeral and the eternal. The free and the interdependent.
Maybe this new era will be free of the dogma of orthodoxies and maybe our spiritualities will be liberated as we seek understanding not from “above” but from “within”.
It has become so apparent to me that so much of what drove me, what I sought, desired and pursued is in truth within me, within my own capacities. And yet as I understand my own nature, as I expand and explore my own unique ideas and powers — My difference — so I become more connected to the unique and complementary natures of others. I am something, but not everything. They are something but not everything. But as we grow together we (all of us, all nature, all universe) are everything.
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