Good and evil unite in the growth of the tree.
The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition (Philemon)
“The Sun God is the highest good, the devil the opposite.
Thus you have two Gods. But there are many high and good things and many great evils.
Among these are two devil Gods; one is the Burning One, the other the Growing One.
The burning one is EROS, in the form of a flame. It shines by consuming.
“The growing one is the TREE OF LIFE. It greens by heaping up growing living matter.
“Eros flames up and dies. But the tree of life grows with slow and constant increase through measureless periods of time.
“Good and evil unite in the flame.
“Good and evil unite in the growth of the tree. In their divinity life and love stand opposed.
“The number of Gods and devils is as innumerable as the host of stars.
“Each star is a God, and each space that a star fills is a devil. But the empty fullness of the whole is the Pleroma.
”Abraxas is the effect of the whole, and only the ineffective opposes him.
“Four is the number of the principal Gods, as four is the number of the world’s measurements.
“One is the beginning, the Sun God.
“Two is Eros, for he binds two together and spreads himself out in brightness.
“Three is the Tree of Life, for it fills space with bodies.
“Four is the devil, for he opens all that is closed. He dissolves everything formed and physical; he is the destroyer in whom everything becomes nothing. `Carl Jung, The Red Book, Scrutinies, Page 351.
Footnote 104 from The Red Book:
In 1917, Jung wrote a chapter on “the sexual theory” in The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes, which presented a critique of the psychoanalytic understanding of the erotic.
In his 1928 revision of this chapter, retitled “The Eros theory” he added: “The Erotic .. , belongs on the one hand to the original drive nature of man . , .
On the other hand it is related to the highest forms of the spirit. It only thrives when spirit and drive are in right harmony …
‘Eros is a mighty daemon,’ as the wise Diotima said to Socrates … He is not all of nature within us, though he is at least one of its essential aspects” (CW 7, §§32-33).
In the Symposium, Diotima teaches Socrates about the nature of Eros. She tells him that” ‘He is a great spirit, Socrates.
Everything classed as a spirit falls between god and human.’ / ‘What function do they have?’ I asked, / ‘They interpret and carry messages from humans to gods and from gods to humans.
They convey prayers and sacrifices from humans, and commands and gifts in return for sacrifices from gods. Being intermediate between the other two, they fill the gap between them, and enable the universe to form an interconnected whole.
They serve as the medium for all divination, for priestly expertise in sacrifice, ritual and spells, and for all prophecy and sorcery. Gods do not make direct contact with humans; they communicate and converse with humans (whether awake or asleep) entirely through the medium of spirits” (tr. C. Gill [London: Penguin, 1999], pp. 202e-203a.
In Memories Jung reflected on the nature of Eros, describing it as “a kosmogonos, a creator and father-mother of all consciousness” (p. 387).
This cosmogonic characterization of Eros needs to be distinguished from Jung’s use of the term to characterize women’s consciousness. See note 161, p. 246.