You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The Allure of Gnosticism is a collection of sixteen essays covering diverse aspects of this controversial subject. The contributions are rich and original in their different ways. The authors, all eminent writers in their own field, are scholars, Jungian analysts, university professors and lecturers, and one Gnostic woman bishop.
Gilles Quispel is a world authority on Gnosticism. He shared his passion for the subject with C. G. Jung and understood that unconsciously Gnosis still lives in the soul of every human being. In a lively and conversational style Quispel relates the adventure of the Nag Hammadi discovery in 1945 and the presentation of five of the Coptic texts (the Jung Codex) to the Jung Institute in 1953.
When these Gnostic texts came to light, Jung's interpretations were validated and Quispel shows how Gnosis expresses the union of conscious and unconscious, of ego and Self, and how the archetypal images appear, for instance, as the Demiurge for the shadow, as Sophia for the anima, as the tetraktys (or the four fundamental aeons) for the quaternio.
The idea of synchronicity is relevant in this context. Quispel reminds us that with Wolfgang Pauli, the Nobel prize—winning physicist (deeply involved with alchemy), the modern leap of psyche into the cosmos had begun. Projection too was being reformulated by C. A. Meier who brought in a concept of libido influenced by the