Dr. Jung’s Images from The Black Books
Mandala sketch I.
Mandala sketch l appears to be the first in the series of mandala sketches and is dated August 2, 1917.
It is the basis for Image 80 in the calligraphic volume of LN. The legend at the top of the image is “<DANHL” (Phanes).
Legend at bottom: “Sto:ffwechsel in Individuum” (Metabolism in the Individual).
Mandala sketch 2 is the reverse of Mandala sketch I.
Mandala sketch 3 is dated August 4 and 7, 1917, and and is the basis for Image 82 in the calligraphic volume of LN.
Mandala sketch 4 is dated August 6, 1917.
Systema MundiTotius. In 1955, Jung’s Systema MundiTotiuswas published anonymously in a special issue of Du dedicated to the Eranos conferences.
In a letter of February II, 1955, to Walter Corti, Jung explicitly stated that he did not want his name to appear on it (JA).
He added the following comments to the painting:
It portrays the antinomies of the microcosm within the macrocosmic world and its antinomies.
At the very top, the figure of the young boy in the winged egg, called Erikapaios or Phanes and thus reminiscent as a spiritual figure of the Orphic Gods.
His dark antithesis in the depths is here designated as Abraxas.
He represents the dominus mundi, the lord of the physical world, and is a world-creator of an ambivalent nature. Sprouting from him we see the tree of life, labeled vita (“life”) while its upper counterpart is a light-tree in the form of a seven-branched candelabra labeled ignis (“fire”) and Eros (“love”).
Its light points to the spiritual world of the divine child.
Art and science also belong to this spiritual realm, the first represented as a winged serpent and the second as a winged mouse (as hole-digging activity!).-
The candelabra is based on the principle of the spiritual number three (twice-three flames with one large flame in the middle), while the lower world of Abraxas is characterized by five, the number of natural man (the twice-five rays of his star).
The accompanying animals of the natural world are a devilish monster and a larva.
This signifies death and rebirth.
A further division of the mandala is horizontal.
To the left we see a circle indicating the body or the blood, and from it rears the serpent, which winds itself around the phallus, as the generative principle.
The serpent is dark and light, signifying the dark realm of the earth, the moon, and the void (therefore called Satanas).
The light realm of rich fullness lies to the right, where from the bright circle fr(g-us sive amor dei [cold, or the love of God] the dove
of the Holy Ghost takes wing, and wisdom (Sophia) pours from a double beaker to left and right.- This feminine sphere is that of heaven.-
The large sphere characterized by zigzag lines or rays represents an inner sun; within this sphere the macrocosm is repeated, but with the upper and lower regions reversed as in a mirror.
These repetitions should be conceived of as endless in number, growing even smaller until the innermost core, the actual microcosm, is reached (reproduced in Aniela Jaffe, ed., C.G .Jung, Word and Image [Princeton: Princeton University Press/ Bollingen Series, 1979 ], p. 75). ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 130
Image 72,LN
Image 105, LN
The In 1930, Jung anonymously reproduced this image in “Commentary on of Secret the Golden Flower” as a mandala painted by a male patient during treat ment.
He reproduced it again in 1952 in “Concerning Mandala Symbolism” and wrote:
Picture by a middle-aged man. In the center is a star.
The blue sky contains golden clouds.
At the four cardinal points we see human figures: at the top, an old man in the attitude of contemplation; at the bottom, Loki or Hephaestus with red, flaming hair, holding in his hands a temple.
To the right and left are a light and dark female figure.
Together they indicate four aspects of the personality, or four archetypal figures belonging, as it were, to the periphery of the self.
The two female figures can be recognized without difficulty as the two aspects of the anima.
The old man corresponds to the archetype of meaning, or of the spirit, and the dark chthonic figure to the opposite of the Wise Old Man, namely the magical (and sometimes destructive) luciferian element.
In alchemy it is Hermes Trismegistus versus Mercurius, the evasive “trick ster.”
The circle enclosing the sky contains structures or organisms that look like protozoa.
The sixteen globes painted in four colors just outside the circle derived originally from an eye motif and therefore stand for the observing and discriminating consciousness.
Similarly, the ornaments in the next circle, all opening inwards, are rather like vessels pouring out their content toward the centre.
[Fn: There is a similar conception in alchemy, in the Ripley Scrowle (Psychology and Alchemy, and its variants fig. 257).
There it is the planetary Gods who are pouring their qualities into the bath of rebirth.]
On the other hand the ornaments along the rim open outward, as if to receive something from outside.
That is, in the individuation process what were originally projections stream back “inside” and are integrated into the personality again.
Here, in contrast to Figure 25, “Above” and “Below,” male and female, are integrated, as in the alchemical hermaphrodite (CW 9, pt. r, §
682).
The figure at the top is Philemon and the figure at the bottom is Ka. ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 134
The legend reads:
“This man of matter rises up too far in the world of the spirit, there the spirit bores through his heart with the golden ray.
He falls with joy and disintegrates.
The serpent, who is the evil one, could not remain in the world of the spirit.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 137
Image III, LN.
The legend reads: “The serpent fell dead onto the earth. And that was the umbilical cord of a new birth.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 138.
Image The legend reads: “This is the image of the divine child.
It LN. II3, means the completion of a long path.
Just as the image was finished in April 1919, and work on the next image had already begun, the one who brought the 0 came, as [PHILEMONJ had predicted to me.
I called him [PHANESJ, because he is the newly appearing God.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 140
Image 117, LN. Text in image: ATMAVICTU; iuvenis adiutor (a youthful supporter); TEAEL<f>OPOL (TELESPHORUS); spiritus malus in hominibus quibusdam (evil spirit in some men).
The legend reads: “The dragon wants to eat the sun and the youth beseeches him not to. But he eats it nevertheless .” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 142
Image 119, LN.
The legend reads:
“The accursed dragon has eaten the sun, its belly is being cut open and he must now hand over the gold of the sun, together with his blood. This is the turning back of Atmavictu, of the old one.
He who destroyed the proliferating green covering is the youth who helped me to kill Siegfried.” ~The Black books, Vol. 1, Page 144
Image I21, LN.
The legend reads:
“XI. MCMXIX. [11.1919]
This stone, set so beautifully, is certainly the Lap is Philosophorum. It is harder than diamond.
But it expands into space through four distinct qualities, namely breadth, height, depth, and time.
It is hence invisible and you can pass through it without noticing it.
The four streams of Aquarius flow from the stone.
This is the incorruptible seed that lies between the father and the mother and prevents the heads of both cones from touching; it is the monad that countervails the Pleroma.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 146
Image 122, LN.
‘Image 122, LN.
The legend reads:
December MCMXIX [r919].
This is the back side of the gem. He who is in the stone has this shadow.
This is Atmavictu, the old one, after he has withdrawn from the creation.
He has returned to endless history, where he took his beginning.
Once more he became stony residue, having completed his creation.
the form of Izdubar he has outgrown man and delivered Philemon Ka from him.
Philemon gave the stone, Ka the O.”
Image 123, LN.
The legend reads:
“IV Jan, MCMXX [1920].
This is the caster of holy water.
The Cabiri grow out of the flowers that spring from the body of the dragon. Above is the temple.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 150.
Image 127, LN.
The legend at the top reads:
“Amor triumphat” (Love triumphs).
The legend at the bottom reads:
“This image was completed on 9 January 1921, after it had waited incomplete for 9 months.
It expresses I know not what kind of grief, a fourfold sacrifice.
I could almost choose not to finish it. It is the inexorable wheel of the four functions, the essence of all living beings imbued with sacrifice.” ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 154
Image 154, LN.
Marginal comment:
“The bhagavadgita says: whenever there is a decline of the law and an increase of iniquity, then I put forth myself For the rescue of the pious and for the destruction of the evildoers, for the establishment of the law I am born in every age.”
The citation is from chapter 4 , verses 7- 8, of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna is instructing Arjuna concerning the nature of truth. ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 156
Image 159, LN.
Jung anonymously reproduced this in 1929 in “Commentary on The Secret if the Golden Flower” and reproduced it again in 1952, adding the following commentary:
“The rose in the center is depicted as a ruby, its outer ring being conceived as a wheel or a wall with gates (so that nothing can come out
from inside or go in from outside). The mandala was a spontaneous product from the analysis of a male patient.”
After narrating the patient’s dream, Jung added:
The dreamer went on: “I tried to paint this dream. But as so often happens, it came out rather different.
The magnolia turned into a sort of rose made of ruby-colored glass. It shone like a four-rayed star.
The square represents the wall of the park and at the same time a street leading round the park in a square.
From it there radiate eight main streets, and from each of these eight side-streets, which meet in a shining red central point, rather like the Etoile in Paris.
The acquaintance mentioned in the dream lived in a house at the corner of one of these stars.”
The mandala thus combines the classic motifs of flower, star, circle, precinct (temenos), and plan of city divided into quarters with citadel.
“The whole thing seemed like a window opening on to eternity,” wrote the dreamer (“Concerning Mandala Symbolism,” CW 9, pt. I,§§ 654-55).
In 1955- 56, Jung used a similar expression, ‘”window’ opening on to eternity,” to denote the illustration of the self (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, § 763).
On October 7, 1932, Jung showed this mandala in a seminar and commented on it the next day. In this account, he states that the painting of the mandala preceded the dream:
You remember possibly the picture that I showed you last evening, the central stone and the little jewels round it. It is perhaps interesting if I tell you about the dream in connection with it. I was the perpetrator of that mandala at a time when I had not the slightest idea what a mandala was, and in my extreme modesty I thought, I am the jewel in the center and those little lights are surely very nice people who believe that they are also jewels, but smaller ones …. I thought very well of myself that I was able to express myself like that: my marvelous
center here and I am right in my heart.
He added that at :first he did not recognize that the park in the dream was the same one he had depicted in the mandala, and commented:
“Now Liverpool is the center of life- liver is the center of life-and I am not the center, I am the fool who lives in a dark place somewhere, I am one of those little side lights. In that way my Western prejudice that I was the center of the mandala was corrected- that I am everything, the whole show, the king, the god” (The Psychology efKundalini Yoga, ed. Sonu Shamdasani, p. roo ) .
In Memories, Jung added further details (pp. 223-24). ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Pages 158-160
Image 163, LN.
The legend reads:
“1928 . When I painted this image, which showed the well-fortified golden castle, Richard Wilhelm sent me from Frankfurt the thousand-year-old Chinese text of the golden castle, the embryo of the immortal body.
Ecclesia catholic et protestantes et seclusi in secreto. Aeon finitus.” (The Catholic Church and the Protestants and those secluded in
secret. The end of an eon)
Jung anonymously reproduced this in 1929 in “Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower.”
He reproduced it again in 1952, in “Concerning Mandala Symbolism,” and added the following commentary:
Painting of a medieval city with walls and moats, streets and churches, arranged quadratically.
The inner city is again surrounded by walls and moats, like the Imperial City in Peking.
The buildings all open inward, toward the center, represented by a castle with a golden roof. It too is surrounded by a moat.
The ground round the castle is laid with black and white tiles, representing the united opposites.
This mandala was done by a middle-aged man …. A picture like this is unknown in Christian symbolism.
The Heavenly Jerusalem
of Revelation is known to everybody.
Coming to the Indian world of ideas, we find the city of Brahma on the world mountain, Meru.
We read in the Golden Flower:
“The Book of the Yellow Castle says: ‘In the square inch field of the square foot house, life can be regulated.’ The square foot house is the face. The square inch field in the face: what could that be other than the heavenly heart? In the middle of the square inch dwells the splendor. In the purple hall of the city of Jade dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and life” (CW 9, pt. I, § 691).
On this mandala, see John Peck, “The Visio Dorothei: Desert Context, Imperial Setting,
Later Alignments: Studies in the Dreams and Visions of Saint Pachomius and Dorotheus, Son of ~intus” (thesis, C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich, 1992), pp. 183-85. ~The Black Books, Vol. 1, Page 160