The Adversarial Unconscious Part 3: Taming the Lion

In this final episode, I ask the question of whether the lion condition can be tamed or not. Following Jung's lead, we find answers in Alchemy and Christianity. These insights can be confirmed with the sacred myths of Gnosticism and Mithraism.

Living Symbols homepage at https://www.dionysophy.earth/living-symbols

Learn more about Dionysophy at https://www.dionysophy.earth/

Dionysophy on X at https://x.com/dionysophy

Send a dream for interpretation at https://tally.so/r/wkpQ8r

Show notes and timestamps

01:50 - Thread on dream interpretation, https://x.com/dionysophy/status/1917207093389787480
Form for dream interpretation, https://tally.so/r/wkpQ8r

05:20 - "The later alchemists were familiar not only with the ritual slaying of a dragon but also with the slaying of a lion, which took the form of his having all four paws cut off. Like the dragon, the lion devours himself, and so is probably only a variant." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 351)

05:40 - "Another parallel is Samson’s strangling of the lion, and the subsequent inhabitation of the dead lion by a swarm of bees, which gave rise to the riddle: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 526)

06:05 - "In the honey, the “sweetness of the earths,” we can easily recognize the balsam of life that permeates all living, budding, and growing things. It expresses, psychologically, the joy of life and the life urge which overcome and eliminate everything dark and inhibiting. Where spring-like joy and expectation reign, spirit can embrace nature and nature spirit." (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 698)

06:25 - "In alchemy, the wounding or mutilation of the lion signifies the subjugation of concupiscence." (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 512, infra 394)

07:45 - "In the fourth picture Sol kneels before Mithras. These last two pictures show that Mithras has arrogated to himself the strength of the sun and become its lord. He has conquered his animal nature (the bull). Animals represent instinct, and also the prohibition of instinct, so that man becomes human through conquering his animal instinctuality. Mithras has thus sacrificed his animal nature—a solution already anticipated in the Gilgamesh Epic by the hero’s renunciation of the terrible Ishtar." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 398)

See also,
"In the case of Zagreus, we saw that the bull is identical with the god and that the bull-sacrifice is a divine sacrifice. But the animal is, as it were, only a part of the hero; he sacrifices only his animal attribute, and thus symbolically gives up his instinctuality. His inner participation in the sacrificial act is perfectly expressed in the anguished and ecstatic countenance of the bull-slaying Mithras. He slays it willingly and unwillingly at once, hence the rather pathetic expression on certain monuments, which is not unlike the somewhat mawkish face of Christ in Guido Reni’s Crucifixion. . . . The morbid facial expression points to the disunity and split-mindedness of the sacrificer: he wants to, and yet doesn’t want to. This conflict tells us that the hero is both the sacrificer and the sacrificed. Nevertheless, it is only his animal nature that Mithras sacrifices, his instinctuality, always in close analogy to the course of the sun." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 665-668)

08:00 - "Samson as a sun-god. See Steinthal, “Die Sage von Simson.” The killing of the lion, like the Mithraic bull-sacrifice, is an anticipation of the god’s self-sacrifice." (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, par 176, infra 1)

11:00 - "The lion, being a dangerous animal, is akin to the dragon; the dragon must be slain and the lion at least have his paws cut off." (Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, par 547)

11:20 - "These amputations have nothing to do with a so-called castration complex, but refer to the motif of dismemberment." (Alchemical Studies, CW 13, par 401, infra 9)

11:40 - "Dismemberment is a practically universal motif of primitive shamanistic psychology. It forms the main experience in the initiation of a shaman. Cf. Eliade, Shamanism" (Alchemical Studies, CW 13, par 91, infra 4)

12:20 - "It is not difficult to see that dismemberment originally served the purpose of reconstituting the neophyte as a new and more effective human being. Initiation even has the aspect of a healing. In the light of these facts, moral interpretation in terms of punishment seems beside the mark and arouses the suspicion that dismemberment has still not been properly understood. A moral interpretation is inadequate because it fails to understand the contradiction at the heart of its explanation, namely that guilt should be avoided if one doesn’t want to be punished. But, for the neophyte, it would be a real sin if he shrank from the torture of initiation. The torture inflicted on him is not a punishment but the indispensable means of leading him towards his destiny. . . . This psychological process is admittedly painful and for many people a positive torture. But, as always, every step forward along the path of individuation is achieved only at the cost of suffering." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 410-411)

- 12:35 - The Green Knight (2021), by David Lowery, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9243804/
See also my psychological interpretation of the movie, https://dreamsanctuary.net/the-green-knight/

- 15:00 - "The Mass tries to effect a participation mystique—or identity—of priest and congregation with Christ, so that on the one hand the soul is assimilated to Christ and on the other hand the Christ-figure is recollected in the soul. It is a transformation of God and man alike, since the Mass is, at least by implication, a repetition of the whole drama of Incarnation." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 413)

- 16:00 - "The blood is wine, yet it is blood that pours out of the body in the picture, and in the cult of Dionysus the real blood played a very great role. They celebrated what they called the rawmeat feasts: they ate the living flesh in their orgiastic ceremonials, and they also drank real blood, which of course derives from still earlier cults, where it really was a bloody sacrifice. The blood sacrifice was substituted in the course of time by vegetables as offerings. So instead of blood the wine, and instead of flesh the bread, both derived from vegetables." (Carl Jung, Visions, p.435)

See also,
"Even the wine has a different role. Drinking the wine as blood of Christ is a spiritual factor: we are never meant to taste the wine but to truly drink His blood. Whereas the wine in a dionysian context remains a natural product: drinking the wine provides the intoxicating and disinhibiting effect that makes one closer to the spirit of the god." (Carl Jung, Visions, p.432)

17:15 - "That they did not exist as human beings is shown by the fact that they had no human feeling. Think of all the horrible things they did in the circus! That would not have been possible if they had had a living feeling for humanity. Then, since they had no individuality, they had to worship one individual human being. (Carl Jung, Visions, p.220)

See also, 
"There are stories about the initiates of the Dionysian cult—particularly the women, the maenads—having done very bloody things, tearing the living flesh of deer or young goats with their teeth, for instance." (Carl Jung, Visions, p.197)

17:35 - "As a whole, the average religious experience of antiquity was the reaching out into regions above man and below man, to the human divine and to the animal divine. . . . Through such an experience, the individual becomes entirely collective, he becomes a god. . . . But we are all individuals, and the individual cannot live if he is completely denied, so there was a general sadness in those days, . . . and a tremendous desire for a redeemer. Therefore the next sacrifice was of exactly the experience which was the real spiritual life of antiquity. ... So for the pagan individual who was really religious [it became necessary to sacrifice the participation mystique, the] experience of divinity which is the real essence of religion. (Carl Jung, Visions, pp.220-221)

18:25 - The Perfume, by Patrick Süskind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume_(novel)

See for instance (spoilers!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtz6dAjWz3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFHSKaQESeI

19:10 - "The dismemberment motif belongs in the wider context of rebirth symbolism Consequently it plays an important part in the initiation experiences of shamans and medicine men, who are dismembered and then put together again." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 346, infra 9)

20:55 - "Because of his fiery nature, the lion is the “affective animal” par excellence. The drinking of the blood, the essence of the lion, is therefore like assimilating one’s own affects. Through the wound the lion is “tapped,” so to speak: the affect is pierced by the well-aimed thrust of the weapon (insight), which sees through the motive for the affect." (Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 512, infra 394)

21:30 - "This division into fragments would correspond to an analysis—"analysis" means literally a cutting up into little pieces, pieces small enough to be assimilated. That's part of the transformation of every major complex or every major unconscious content: it must be subjected to dismemberment—analytic fragmentation—and then reconstituted again on a conscious level." (Edward Edinger, The Mysterium Lectures, p.178)

21:35 - "Killing with the sword is a recurrent theme in alchemical literature. The “philosophical egg” is divided with the sword, and with it the “King” is transfixed and the dragon or “corpus” dismembered, the latter being represented as the body of a man whose head and limbs are cut off.44 The lion’s paws are likewise cut off with the sword. For the alchemical sword brings about the solutio or separatio of the elements, thereby restoring the original condition of chaos, so that a new and more perfect body can be produced by a new impressio formae, or by a “new imagination.” The sword is therefore that which “kills and vivifies,” and the same is said of the permanent water or mercurial water. Mercurius is the giver of life as well as the destroyer of the old form." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 357)

See also,
"Dismembering the victim corresponds to the idea of dividing the chaos into four elements or the baptismal water into four parts. The purpose of the operation is to create the beginnings of order in the massa confusa, as is suggested in III, i, 2: “in accordance with the rule of harmony.” The psychological parallel to this is the reduction to order, through reflection, of apparently chaotic fragments of the unconscious which have broken through into consciousness." (Alchemical Studies, CW 13, par 111)

22:35 - "Self-reflection or—what comes to the same thing—the urge to individuation gathers together what is scattered and multifarious, and exalts it to the original form of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious the sources of conflict are dried up. This approximation to the self is a kind of repristination or apocatastasis, in so far as the self has an “incorruptible” or “eternal” character on account of its being pre-existent to consciousness." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 401)

See also,
"Ancient philosophy paralleled this idea with the legend of the dismembered Dionysus, who, as creator, is the (undivided) νοῡς, and, as the creature, the μεμερισμένος (divided) νοῡς. Dionysus is distributed throughout the whole of nature, and just as Zeus once devoured the throbbing heart of the god, so his worshippers tore wild animals to pieces in order to reintegrate his dismembered spirit. The gathering together of the light-substance in Barbelo-Gnosis and in Manichaeism points in the same direction. The psychological equivalent of this is the integration of the self through conscious assimilation of the split-off contents. Self-recollection is a gathering together of the self." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 400)

24:35 - The Religious Climate of Our Time (1986), by Dr. Robert Johnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZGtjQwozUY (at 44:48)
From the "Journey Into Wholeness" conference from May 1986.

25:50 - Ibid., at 45:50

28:10 - "Self-recollection, however, is about the hardest and most repellent thing there is for man, who is predominantly unconscious. Human nature has an invincible dread of becoming more conscious of itself." (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 400)

29:25 - Ibid., at 46:30

29:55 - Music by Swoon Qualia, "Clouded Eclipse", https://swoonqualia.bandcamp.com/album/the-path-of-separation

33:50 - "Like the planetary spirit of Mercurius, the spirit of Saturn is “very suited to this work.” One of the manifestations of Mercurius in the alchemical process of transformation is the lion, now green and now red. Khunrath calls this transformation “luring the lion out of Saturn’s mountain cave.” From ancient times the lion was associated with Saturn. . . . In Gnosticism Saturn is the highest archon, the lion-headed Ialdabaoth, meaning “child of chaos.” But in alchemy the child of chaos is Mercurius. . . . If Mercurius is not exactly the Evil One himself, he at least contains him." (Alchemical Studies, CW 13, par 275-276)

See also,
"The alchemists naturally attached great significance to Saturn, for, besides being the outermost planet, the supreme archon (the Harranites named him “Primas”), and the demiurge Ialdabaoth, he was also the spiritus niger who lies captive in the darkness of matter, the deity or that part of the deity which has been swallowed up in his own creation. He is the dark god who reverts to his original luminous state in the mystery of alchemical transmutation. As the Aurora Consurgens says: “Blessed is he that shall find this science and into whom this prudence of Saturn floweth. . . . Throughout the visions it is clear that sacrificer and sacrificed are one and the same. . . . The grisly repast in the dream of Zosimos reminds us of the orgiastic meals in the Dionysus cult[.]" (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, par 350-353)

37:00 - "Opening his eyes, [Ialdabaoth] saw a vast quantity of matter without limit; and he became arrogant, saying, "It is I who am God, and there is none other apart from me". When he said this, he sinned against the entirety. And a voice came forth from above the realm of absolute power, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael" – which is, 'god of the blind'."
The Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers), http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html

37:35 - "Now the prime parent Yaldabaoth, since he possessed great authorities, created heavens for each of his offspring through verbal expression - created them beautiful, as dwelling places - and in each heaven he created great glories, seven times excellent."
On the Origin of the World ("The Untitled Text"), http://gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html

38:30 - Note the distinction between pleroma and kenoma, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenoma

39:00 - For Sophia and Thelete as designer of the human genome, see https://sophianicmyth.org/ or Not in His Image by John Lamb Lash.

40:05 - "And the great angel Eleleth, understanding, spoke to me: "Within limitless realms dwells incorruptibility. Sophia, who is called Pistis, wanted to create something, alone without her consort; and her product was a celestial thing."
The Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers), http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html

40:25 - "A veil exists between the world above, and the realms that are below; and shadow came into being beneath the veil. Some of the shadow became matter, and was projected apart. And what Sophia created [by her impact] became a product in the matter, [a neonate form] like an aborted fetus. And [once formed] it assumed a shape molded out of shadow, and became an arrogant beast resembling a lion. It was androgynous, because it was from [neutral, inorganic] matter that it derived." (John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image)

41:40 - "When Pistis [Sophia] saw the impiety of the Lord Archon [Samael] she was filled with anger. Acting in her invisible form, she spoke in this way:" (On the Origin of the World)

"You are mistaken, blind one. There is an immortal Child of Light who came into this realm before you and who will appear among your spectral forms (plasmata)…. He will trample you in scorn as potter’s clay is pounded. And you will descend to your origin, the abyss, along with those who belong to you. For at the consummation of your works, the entire defect that has become revealed by the truth will be annihilated, and it will cease to be and will be as if it had never been." (John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image)

42:20 - The Sophianic Myth, https://sophianicmyth.org/

44:35 - "It was exactly as it happened to the Demiurgos. When he had created the world he withdrew a bit to look down on what he had done. "That is damned good," he said and was quite vain about it, "I am the creator of the world." Then in his vanity he also looked up in order to say, "And this too, how fine it is," when he suddenly beheld a little light far above his head and knew that that he had not created. Instantly he traveled up and up until he reached that light so far above him. And there he came to another world, there he discovered the spiritual world which he had not made, and there the great enlightenment came to him, that worlds and worlds had existed and would continue to exist besides this miserable little world which he had created. That is a Gnostic myth, and that is a psychological experience. It describes the mystery in an initiation: here is something which I have not created." (Carl Jung, Visions, p.176)

46:10 - "The myth of the ignorant demiurge who imagined he was the highest divinity illustrates the perplexity of the ego when it can no longer hide from itself the knowledge that it has been dethroned by a supraordinate authority." (Aion, CW 9ii, par 296)

46:25 - "He is, as it were, the victim of his own creative act, for, when he descended into Physis, he was caught in her embrace." (Aion, CW 9ii, par 308)

47:30 - "Through the new ethic, the ego-consciousness is ousted from its central position in a psyche organized on the lines of a monarchy or totalitarian state, its place being taken by wholeness or the self, which is now recognized as central. The self was of course always at the centre, and always acted as the hidden director. Gnosticism long ago projected this state of affairs into the heavens, in the form of a metaphysical drama: ego-consciousness appearing as the vain demiurge, who fancies himself the sole creator of the world, and the self as the highest, unknowable God, whose emanation the demiurge is. The union of conscious and unconscious in the individuation process, the real core of the ethical problem, was projected in the form of a drama of redemption and, in some Gnostic systems, consisted in the demiurge’s discovery and recognition of the highest God." (The Symbolic Life, CW 18, par 1419)

48:40 - "The alchemists were consciously performing an opus divinum when they sought to free the “soul in chains,” i.e., to release the demiurge distributed and imprisoned in his own creation and restore him to his original condition of unity." (Civilization in Transition, CW 10, par 633)

50:20 - "To reprimand the Archons, Sophia invokes the radiant image of the Anthropos template nested in the Orion Nebula: “that luminous child” (NHC II,5:103). The rough Coptic transliteration is OYRHOME NATHANA TOS PPMOYOIEN, “the deathless human of light.” (John Lamb Lash, Not in His Image)

50:25 - Music by Swoon Qualia, "Clouded Eclipse", https://swoonqualia.bandcamp.com/album/the-path-of-separation

51:45 - Az, `Concupiscence', http://www.holladaypaganism.com/goddesses/cyclopedia/z/ZURVAN-A.HTM

See also Jung on the black anima as desire
"Psychologically this dark figure is the unconscious anima. In this condition she corresponds to the nefesh of the Cabalists. She is “desire”; for as Knorr von Rosenroth trenchantly remarks: “The mother is nothing but the inclination of the father for the lower.” The blackness comes from Eve’s sin. Sulamith (the Shulamite) and Eve (Hawa, earth) are contaminated into a single figure, who contains in herself the first Adam, like the mother her child, and at the same time awaits the second Adam, i.e., Adam before the Fall, the perfect Original Man, as her lover and bridegroom. She hopes to be freed by him from her blackness." (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 592)

52:00 - The psychological reading of the Mithraic mystery, the seduction of Zurvan by Âz, comes from Iranian Leviathan by Jason Reza Jorjani.

55:45 - "You too are infected with this collective sickness. Therefore bethink you for once, “extrahe cogitationem,” and consider: What is behind all this desirousness? A thirsting for the eternal, which as you see can never be satisfied with the best because it is “Hades” in whose honour the desirous “go mad and rave.”" (Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW 14, par 192)

56:00 - Music by Slivoide, "Ascent", https://slivoide.bandcamp.com/album/farewel