CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

2 NOVEMBER 1932
cosmic or metaphysical sense. For this reason Kundalini is the same principle
as the Soter, the Saviour Serpent of the Gnostics. This way of looking
at the world is the sÖküma aspect. The sÖküma aspect is the inner cosmic
meaning of events—the “subtle body,” the suprapersonal.
The parv aspect, which Professor Hauer called the metaphysical, is for
us a purely theoretical abstraction. The Western mind can do nothing
with it. To the Indian way of thinking such hypostatized abstractions are
much more concrete and substantial. For example, to the Indian, the
brahman or the puruüa is the one unquestioned reality; to us it is the final
result of extremely bold speculation.
Mrs. Baynes: What does Professor Hauer mean by the metaphysical
aspect? 6
Dr. Jung: That again is the sÖküma aspect. We can speak of it only in
symbols. Such symbols, for instance, are water and fire, the metabasis
into the unconscious.
Mrs. Crowley: Is there a connection between the saôskvra and the creative
principle? And is the puer aeternus related to them? 7
Dr. Jung: The saôskvra can be compared to mÖlvdhvra, for they are the
unconscious conditions in which we live. The saôskvra are inherited
germs, we might say—unconscious determinants, preexisting qualities
of things to be, life in the roots. But the puer aeternus is the sprout that
buds from the roots, the attempt at synthesis and at a release from
mÖlvdhvra. Only by synthesizing the preexisting conditions can we be
freed from them.
Dr. Reichstein: Are the saôskvra archetypes?
Dr. Jung: Yes, the first form of our existence is a life in archetypes.
Children live in this form before they can say “I.” This world of the collective
unconscious is so wonderful that children are continually being
drawn back into it and can separate themselves from it only with difficulty.
There are children who never lose the memory of this psychic
background, so extraordinary are the wonders it holds. These memories
continue to live in symbols. The Hindus call them the “jewel world” or
“manidvipa,” the jewel island in the sea of nectar. With a sudden shock
the child passes from this marvelous world of the collective unconscious
into the sthÖla aspect of life or, expressed in another way, a child goes
into svvdhiü°hvna as soon as it notices its body, feels uncomfortable, and
6 Hauer defined his concept of the metaphysical as follows: “I make a distinction between
the theology of tantric yoga . . . meaning their way of looking at the gods, the way they figure
them, etc., and metaphysics, which is the philosophical aspect of that theology” (HS, 25–
26). Under this he included the distinctions between the sthÖla, sÖküma, andparv aspects.
7 On the puer aeternus, see Marie-Louise von Franz, Puer Aeternus (Santa Monica, 1981);
and Puer Papers, edited by James Hillman (Dallas, 1979).
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