a semi-annual publication of the philem n foundation - Philemon ...

: jung history 2:2
THE SOURCES OF SYSTEMA MUNDITOTIUS:
MANDALAS, MYTHS AND
A MISINTERPRETATION BARRY JEROMSON
HE GENESIS
OF JUNG’S
FIRST MAN-
DALA: UN-
ANSWERED QUESTIONS
This is the second in a series
of articles that amplify and
probe Jung’s first mandala,
Systema munditotius (The system of
all worlds, pictured). The first
article, which appeared
in Volume 1, Issue 2 of
this journal, established an intimate link between
Systema and Jung’s enigmatic, so-called Gnostic
tract, Seven sermons to the dead, both completed in
1916. 1 However, the question of where Systema came
from was left unanswered. What led Jung to draw
this symbol when he did? From where did it spring?
The purpose of this article is to address these questions
of the genesis of Systema munditotius.
But in tracing the sources of Systema through some
of Jung’s earliest writings and literature that influenced
him prior to 1916 — medical, mystical, mythical, psychological
and religious — another question emerges.
It results also from the intimate link between Systema
and Seven sermons. It concerns the widely held view
that Seven sermons to the dead marked Jung as a modern
descendant of the Gnostics of antiquity. 2 Is this
view a misinterpretation of these works?
SYSTEMA AND SEVEN SERMONS CONJOINED
Preliminary sketches for Systema munditotius occurred
just before Jung wrote Seven sermons. 3 My previous
article concluded that Systema is a psychocosmological
model of Sermons, while Sermons is a poetic elaboration
of the symbolism of Systema. 4 Combined, the two
might be seen as mediating Jung’s confrontation with
the unconscious. At the time, Jung was exploring
waking fantasies, a process he later called active imagination.
Evidence linking Systema and Sermons suggests
that the former was a gateway to a psychic experience
resembling a poltergeist visitation in Jung’s home,
which he then worked out in the writing of Sermons.
MANDALAS, DREAMS AND A
LONG GESTATION
Mandalas are integral to Jung’s later psychological
writings. In Jungian analysis, the appearance of
the mandala in the analysand’s dreams is a gradual
evolution, occurring at an advanced stage of the
process. It may begin life as something only vaguely
circular. 5 It heralds the emergence into awareness of
that deeper psychic centre which Jung called the Self.
From 1929, after a self-imposed mandala moratorium,
Jung’s writings contained a rich collection of
mandala descriptions, illustrations and analogies. 6
Jung’s own mandala dreams are recorded in
Memories. 7 Yet Systema appeared prior to those
dreams, unannounced and perfectly formed. The
impression created in Memories is that this symbol
arrived almost mysteriously, without warning,
demanding to be drawn.
However, Systema did not just drop out of the blue.
It had a history. Jung’s contact with mandalas —
fourfold circular symbols as a focus for meditation
© Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung
or appearing in dreams and visions — is traceable for
more than two decades prior to the emergence of
Systema. His first mandala had a long gestation.
THE MACROCOSM IN THE ZOFINGIA
LECTURES
In Jung’s earliest published works, the Zofingia lectures, 8
we catch glimpses of circular psychocosmological
symbols. In the fourth lecture, Jung reflects on the
existence of an infinite number of worlds relating to
each other ‘like concentric and eccentric circles’. 9
Jung’s circular worlds are occupied by species with