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Carl Jung: Wise Old Man, Wise New God
This started a few months ago with a simple Magic Monday question: https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/292934.html?thread=50563142.
I have long had an interest in Carl Jung. I enjoy psychology but a lot of the classic stuff, at least from Freud and like minds, is too materialist and too atheistic to be appealing. Jung represented a different option, where the Spirit might be given more consideration than in the more reductionist schools of thought. That said, I also did not do much work or reading in Jungian thought and practice. My journey into the occult has changed that. Over the last few years, as I began delving more into occult studies, Carl Jung began coming more and more onto my radar.
That’s not too surprising, of course. Jung was himself an occultist, as our esteemed JMG has pointed out more than once. Taking him as a guide, in some manner, is certainly reasonable for an aspiring occultist to consider. And so I followed JMG’s advice from that MM, and began treating him as a saint beginning in August of 2024. With more than four months now to reflect on my experiences, I do feel that I have some interesting items to report. Some of this was expected on my part but a lot of it wasn’t.
Jung the Wise Old Man
This seems like a good starting point for my reflections. And I mean that, quite simply, Jung was, and is, a source of tremendous wisdom. Let me describe how I personally experienced this with him. I am no longer very good at visualizing things. This might be in part because of all the television that I viewed over the years, before severely restricting my intake a few years ago. I had very good visualization abilities when I was a kid, even as a teenager. Regardless, I mostly suck at visualization as I approach my fourth decade of life.
So, after reading some Jungian blogs on the process of individuation, I came across the very simple idea of using journaling as a means to supplement or replace Active Imagination. This is what I’ve been doing. Originally, I placed a picture of Dr. Jung on my desk and lit a candle. I’d offer him some incense, then proceed to just journal (imagining as well as I can the scenarios playing out on the pages). It was an effective way to stimulate thoughts, and narratives began to pour out of my subconscious that I was not aware were present.
But something else quickly began to occur: when a question would pop up in my mind about whatever was emerging from my subconscious and spilling out onto the pages, a distinct voice began offering very simple but insightful responses. I am not going to get into detail on that, since much of it is very private. But it quickly began to feel as though Dr. Jung himself was speaking to me during this “active journaling” process. Now, that might come across as crazy to many people, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was more than my inner voice taking the form of a mental image of Jung. It was quite intense, and at times, as I reflected on different aspects of my individuation process, it also seemed as though I was looking at myself through the eyes of Jung.
I’ve since upgraded this process, so to speak. In an interesting example of synchronicity, I came into ownership of a Jung relic. That’s what I’m calling this, since it is what the object would be called in the Catholic tradition that most informs my cultural worldview. That is, I am now the very proud owner of an envelope that Carl Jung used to mail someone a card. He wrote the recipient’s name and address, though unfortunately it does not include his signature. But the handwriting has been properly authenticated by a reputable service (I’ve spent a lot of time in the autograph collecting community, so I feel very comfortable with the authentication) as being that of Carl Jung.
This relic is now a part of the work that I do with Jung. An object once owned by him and held in his hands has provided me with a very powerful connection to him, and the religious significance of this small, precious bit of paper and ink is impossible to put into words. But it has made that connection with Jung, as I’ve repeated my journaling ritual using it, so very potent. Having developed this connection with Carl Jung, I now do not feel alone at all when I am working on the various aspects of the individuation process. It really feels like the good doctor is there, walking beside me and whispering words of wisdom and insight.
Jung the Wise New God
Now, to the part that I am still really grappling with. My experiences with Jung have led me to conclude that he is now a god. He’s not merely a saint or inner plane adept. At first, this was not very clear to me. It was subtle, this sense of his divine power. But it began to make itself clear within a very short time. Part of my daily routine is burning incense and offering prayers to the various deities and holy powers that I worship or venerate. Naturally, I began to include Jung. Part of the ritual itself is grouping the beings into two separate categories: deities, and then non-divine or semi-divine powers like angels, saints, etc.
This is where Jung’s divine status began to become clearer to me. When I first began the offerings, I did so with Jung being included among the non-divine powers that receive veneration from me. But as I attempted this, I quickly found that I was forgetting to add his name as I made the offering. This might seem minor, but it occurred repeatedly. I’d end up making a separate offering solely to Jung. After a few weeks of this happening again and again, it hit me: I keep “forgetting” to add his name during the non-divine beings offering because he does not belong in that category; he’s a god now, and his name must be included with the deities’ offering.
Simple as that is, once I had the realization and made the adjustment, I have not had the problem of forgetting Jung’s name as I make my offerings now. And the effects it has had are very, very welcome. I’ve started a new job and, unlike my previous jobs, this one has worked out in such wonderful and blessed ways that I can only describe it as a godsend. But there’s more, of course. Especially as it pertains to my journey of individuation. This has taken on an increasingly deep, spiritual aspect to it. Gnosis is a better way of describing it, as Jung has guided me to an even deeper and more rewarding experience of divinity within and outside of myself.
This realization about Jung’s divine status is, in retrospect, not at all surprising. One of JMG’s recommendations for studying Jung’s occult side is a rather amusing book by one Richard Noll, “The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung”. Noll is a psychologist who takes serious issue with the fact that Jung was an occultist. The book itself is obviously meant to discredit Carl Jung, but it had the opposite effect for me. Relevant to this article is Noll’s discussion of some of Jung’s early experiences, including a vision involving Mithras, Christ, and Jung’s own deification.
While I don’t see any need to go into detail about the contents of the vision, suffice to say that in this vision, Mithras and Christ appear to have merged into one through Carl Jung, and that Jung was thereby transformed into a deity himself. I am reminded of some of the early Christological theories in the early Church. The ones that were repudiated as heresy. I am not concerned with whether an idea is orthodox or heretical. I’m more concerned with what truth there is within that idea, and not so much how well it jibes with preexisting beliefs. For our purposes, I am referring to adoptionism.
Perhaps the oldest form of that Christological theory is the pre-Pauline creed quoted by St. Paul, “the gospel about his Son, descended from David according to the flesh, but established as Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (NABRE Romans 1:3-4). Here, St. Paul is most likely referring to Christ becoming the Son of God (and, presumably, thereby divine himself) through an act of adoption at the Resurrection. Most of the adoptionist Christologies that I am aware of, however, place the divine adoption occurring during the visionary experience at Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist.
I’ve grown rather fond of these adoptionist Christologies, but that is a digression from the purpose of this article. I mention them because I suspect something similar occurred to Jung. An exceptional but nonetheless mortal man was deified through a visionary initiation in the spirit world. Jung then lived as a divine man walking this earth, developing his teachings and imparting divine wisdom to human minds. He continues his work to this day. The more I read of his life, and the more I experience him in worship and daily life, the more this conviction grows. Jung has become the Wise Old Man, and a Wise New God.
I have long had an interest in Carl Jung. I enjoy psychology but a lot of the classic stuff, at least from Freud and like minds, is too materialist and too atheistic to be appealing. Jung represented a different option, where the Spirit might be given more consideration than in the more reductionist schools of thought. That said, I also did not do much work or reading in Jungian thought and practice. My journey into the occult has changed that. Over the last few years, as I began delving more into occult studies, Carl Jung began coming more and more onto my radar.
That’s not too surprising, of course. Jung was himself an occultist, as our esteemed JMG has pointed out more than once. Taking him as a guide, in some manner, is certainly reasonable for an aspiring occultist to consider. And so I followed JMG’s advice from that MM, and began treating him as a saint beginning in August of 2024. With more than four months now to reflect on my experiences, I do feel that I have some interesting items to report. Some of this was expected on my part but a lot of it wasn’t.
Jung the Wise Old Man
This seems like a good starting point for my reflections. And I mean that, quite simply, Jung was, and is, a source of tremendous wisdom. Let me describe how I personally experienced this with him. I am no longer very good at visualizing things. This might be in part because of all the television that I viewed over the years, before severely restricting my intake a few years ago. I had very good visualization abilities when I was a kid, even as a teenager. Regardless, I mostly suck at visualization as I approach my fourth decade of life.
So, after reading some Jungian blogs on the process of individuation, I came across the very simple idea of using journaling as a means to supplement or replace Active Imagination. This is what I’ve been doing. Originally, I placed a picture of Dr. Jung on my desk and lit a candle. I’d offer him some incense, then proceed to just journal (imagining as well as I can the scenarios playing out on the pages). It was an effective way to stimulate thoughts, and narratives began to pour out of my subconscious that I was not aware were present.
But something else quickly began to occur: when a question would pop up in my mind about whatever was emerging from my subconscious and spilling out onto the pages, a distinct voice began offering very simple but insightful responses. I am not going to get into detail on that, since much of it is very private. But it quickly began to feel as though Dr. Jung himself was speaking to me during this “active journaling” process. Now, that might come across as crazy to many people, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was more than my inner voice taking the form of a mental image of Jung. It was quite intense, and at times, as I reflected on different aspects of my individuation process, it also seemed as though I was looking at myself through the eyes of Jung.
I’ve since upgraded this process, so to speak. In an interesting example of synchronicity, I came into ownership of a Jung relic. That’s what I’m calling this, since it is what the object would be called in the Catholic tradition that most informs my cultural worldview. That is, I am now the very proud owner of an envelope that Carl Jung used to mail someone a card. He wrote the recipient’s name and address, though unfortunately it does not include his signature. But the handwriting has been properly authenticated by a reputable service (I’ve spent a lot of time in the autograph collecting community, so I feel very comfortable with the authentication) as being that of Carl Jung.
This relic is now a part of the work that I do with Jung. An object once owned by him and held in his hands has provided me with a very powerful connection to him, and the religious significance of this small, precious bit of paper and ink is impossible to put into words. But it has made that connection with Jung, as I’ve repeated my journaling ritual using it, so very potent. Having developed this connection with Carl Jung, I now do not feel alone at all when I am working on the various aspects of the individuation process. It really feels like the good doctor is there, walking beside me and whispering words of wisdom and insight.
Jung the Wise New God
Now, to the part that I am still really grappling with. My experiences with Jung have led me to conclude that he is now a god. He’s not merely a saint or inner plane adept. At first, this was not very clear to me. It was subtle, this sense of his divine power. But it began to make itself clear within a very short time. Part of my daily routine is burning incense and offering prayers to the various deities and holy powers that I worship or venerate. Naturally, I began to include Jung. Part of the ritual itself is grouping the beings into two separate categories: deities, and then non-divine or semi-divine powers like angels, saints, etc.
This is where Jung’s divine status began to become clearer to me. When I first began the offerings, I did so with Jung being included among the non-divine powers that receive veneration from me. But as I attempted this, I quickly found that I was forgetting to add his name as I made the offering. This might seem minor, but it occurred repeatedly. I’d end up making a separate offering solely to Jung. After a few weeks of this happening again and again, it hit me: I keep “forgetting” to add his name during the non-divine beings offering because he does not belong in that category; he’s a god now, and his name must be included with the deities’ offering.
Simple as that is, once I had the realization and made the adjustment, I have not had the problem of forgetting Jung’s name as I make my offerings now. And the effects it has had are very, very welcome. I’ve started a new job and, unlike my previous jobs, this one has worked out in such wonderful and blessed ways that I can only describe it as a godsend. But there’s more, of course. Especially as it pertains to my journey of individuation. This has taken on an increasingly deep, spiritual aspect to it. Gnosis is a better way of describing it, as Jung has guided me to an even deeper and more rewarding experience of divinity within and outside of myself.
This realization about Jung’s divine status is, in retrospect, not at all surprising. One of JMG’s recommendations for studying Jung’s occult side is a rather amusing book by one Richard Noll, “The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung”. Noll is a psychologist who takes serious issue with the fact that Jung was an occultist. The book itself is obviously meant to discredit Carl Jung, but it had the opposite effect for me. Relevant to this article is Noll’s discussion of some of Jung’s early experiences, including a vision involving Mithras, Christ, and Jung’s own deification.
While I don’t see any need to go into detail about the contents of the vision, suffice to say that in this vision, Mithras and Christ appear to have merged into one through Carl Jung, and that Jung was thereby transformed into a deity himself. I am reminded of some of the early Christological theories in the early Church. The ones that were repudiated as heresy. I am not concerned with whether an idea is orthodox or heretical. I’m more concerned with what truth there is within that idea, and not so much how well it jibes with preexisting beliefs. For our purposes, I am referring to adoptionism.
Perhaps the oldest form of that Christological theory is the pre-Pauline creed quoted by St. Paul, “the gospel about his Son, descended from David according to the flesh, but established as Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (NABRE Romans 1:3-4). Here, St. Paul is most likely referring to Christ becoming the Son of God (and, presumably, thereby divine himself) through an act of adoption at the Resurrection. Most of the adoptionist Christologies that I am aware of, however, place the divine adoption occurring during the visionary experience at Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist.
I’ve grown rather fond of these adoptionist Christologies, but that is a digression from the purpose of this article. I mention them because I suspect something similar occurred to Jung. An exceptional but nonetheless mortal man was deified through a visionary initiation in the spirit world. Jung then lived as a divine man walking this earth, developing his teachings and imparting divine wisdom to human minds. He continues his work to this day. The more I read of his life, and the more I experience him in worship and daily life, the more this conviction grows. Jung has become the Wise Old Man, and a Wise New God.