Encounter with the self - a Jungian commentary on William Blakes Illustrations of the Book of Job
Metadata
- Author: test
Highlights
S. Foster Damon informs us that Blake identified these with the seven eyes of God mentioned in Zechariah 4: 10 and with the seven eyes of the lamb in Revelation 5:6.4 According to Jung, Satan, who instigated the whole Job drama, “is presumably one of God’s eyes which ‘go to and fro in the earth and walk up and down in it’ (Job 1:7).“5 Thus the theme of the “eye of God” is immediately introduced. It is Yahweh’s intention, via the machinations of Satan, to scrutinize Job. As the drama unfolds, however, the subject and object of scrutiny become reversed.6 — location: 416
He is backed up by institutional religion, signified by the cathedral on one side, and his material well-being indicated by the flocks and barns on the other side. But the sun is setting and the moon is in its last phase. — location: 454
The whole engraving of Job and his family is contained within a cloud of smoke rising from the altar, as though Job were the sacrificial victim. — location: 465
Yahweh, like Job, has a book in his lap, as though he too had been functioning “by the book.” Also many of the angels have books or scrolls. But now an intense dynamism approaches Yahweh. Satan, the autonomous spirit, manifests in a stream of fire. As the urge to individuation and greater consciousness he stirs up doubts and questions which challenge the status quo and destroy the complacent living by the book. — location: 486
Such dependence on the object is absolute when the subject is totally lacking in self-reflection and therefore has no insight into himself. It is as if he existed only by reason of the fact that he has an object which assures him that he is really there. — location: 499
Dionysian energy of excess has erupted into the Apollonian realm — location: 508
but the Devil’s account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss. — location: 569
By one account Satan or Desire is evil and to be banished. By another account Satan or Desire is the Messiah who descends to earth for man’s salvation. — location: 578
Psychologically, this might correspond to the onset of bad dreams and neurotic symptoms in an individualanxiety, depression, insomnia and psychosomatic symptoms of all kinds. Dreams of atomic explosions, fires, floods and catastrophes would correspond to this phase of the Job drama. — location: 620
In the direction from which they come can be seen a cathedral. This suggests that it is the established religious structure, the traditional container of transpersonal values, that is being destroyed by the energy erupting from the unconscious. — location: 639
In dreams boils represent festering, neglected complexes which are erupting into consciousness. If the urgent needs of the unconscious have been neglected they are then apt to take on a negative, pathological aspect and force the ego to give them attention by inflicting pain. This is the last glimpse of the sun. It will not reappear until the final picture. — location: 699
This picture shows Job being afflicted with disease. It reminds us that illness as subjectively experienced is a divine manifestation that “crosses our willful path.”14 Whatever its more specific message may be, a painful disease or injury demands that the ego give attention to the non-ego. Pain is the great enigma of existence. It is the perpetual dark companion to sentient being. A patient in the aftermath of an experience of intense pain (renal colic) found these words forming themselves within him: — location: 781
At least these questions are a consequence of Job’s being used as a chosen vessel to hold divine contents. — location: 903
As Jung tells us, one aspect of God is “a seething lake of fire.”20 To live by the book protects one from that fire unless or until the satanic eye of Yahweh is activated and sets off another performance of the drama of Job. — location: 1029
A change of psychic atmosphere is indicated by the presence of stars for the first time. It is as though Job’s encounter with the abyss had caused a change. — location: 1061
At first Yahweh had appeared as an undifferentiated energy-phenomenon, the whirlwind. Now, in this picture, a structured universe is revealed in an image of totality. — location: 1196
The alchemists considered the creation of the Philosophers’ Stone, the goal of the opus, as equivalent to the creation of the world. Job’s torturous ordeal is analogous to the ordeal imposed on the prima materia in the alchemical vessel; in each case, out of the ordeal a world is born. — location: 1208
Job’s encounter with Yahweh in his uncreated form seems to have the effect of initiating a new creation. This corresponds to the effects we observe when the ego meets the unconsciousthe undifferentiated prima materia of the psyche. A process of creative differentiation often ensues which amounts to a regeneration of the personality. — location: 1215
In the previous picture Job, was below, looking up at creation as manifested in the heavens. In this picture he is above, surrounded by stars, looking down at the inhabitants of the abyss. He has temporarily risen above his biological being and is looking down at it. — location: 1243
Job appears here clearly as a sacrifice, but also as the carrier of the divine fate, and that gives meaning to his suffering and liberation to his soul. — location: 1437
Job’s fortunes have not only been restored but there has also been an enlargement of the personality as a result of the encounter with the numinosum. — location: 1500