Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 2): Aion: Researches Into the Phenomenology of the Self

"Jung in a nutshell" does not do justice to this topic. It is a bowl of nuts. But my very rudimentary understanding (to put forth one nut of many) is that consciousness, or the differentiation of self is a progression, which arises from a world of the unconscious. Anybody might say such a thing and get lucky, without having read Aion at all. But to read Aion and then say it is putting your money where your mouth is. The template of self begins at the Anthropos (relying on the second-to-last chapter on the quaternario schema), and crystalizes in the lapis, where consciousness becomes fully realized. Jung was not prosyletizing Christianity, but used Christ as an allegory of development of self. This is why he resorts to alchemy and Gnosticism, more than patristic forms of Christianity. He saw the philosophical underpinnings of Christianity as a workable model to explain how the higher human, who operates on his environment as well as on his own thinking, rises above his primal, animalist soma. We began as a perfect template in the realm of the unconscious, we descended into the world of formation (borrowing from the Sephir Yetzirah here), or "Physis," as Jung called it, only to rise again through the quaternario ladder to become Anthropos once again. By the way, the reader might note that in later chapters Jung seems to drop any mention about "Aion", a term better explained in the middle parts of the book (Ch. 5-11). I think Jung wanted us to apply his quaternario model on a meta-scale, not just as an explanation of the perfection of self and the emergence of consciousness. As we know, we are nearing the end of the present Piscean Aion (the Jesus era), which was preceded by the war-like Arien Aion (the Greco/Roman conquest era), but which is to be followed by a more intellectual Aquarian Aion (whatever that will be). The progression of the Aions, I think Jung hoped we would discern, correspond directly to his quaternario schema, and that human consciousness is tied to the meta-physical laws of the universe (in this case, astronomy) just like the ocean's tides correspond to the lunar phases.

_Aion_ is part 2 of volume nine of Jung's collected works. Although _Aion_ is unquestionably a stand-alone work, ideally it should be read after part 1, which is _Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious_.That said, _Aion_ is one of Jung's greatest works and is one of the first three that anyone who is new to Jung should start with. The first part deals with Christianity, and the significance of the death of Christ. This is treated as a legitimate, factual historical event, yet it is also explained as a collective pschic phenomenon in the general sense. The middle part of the book deals with ancient alchemy, and the symbolic parallels between alchemy and modern conceptions of psychology. This might sound dull, but trust me - you will be surprised to see the uncanny symbolic parallels between ancient magical practices and the most modern, up to date theories of the psyche. This is discussed at length in the section on the "Two Fishes", which is one of Jung's greatest essays (although quite difficult). The final section deals with quaternity symbolism, and features a wide array of strange diagrams. About 200 pages in, these diagrams will become more frequent, and the reader might get frustrated trying to see the significance of these rudimentary drawings. Personally, my advice is to stop reading after 200 pages. All of the useful essays are contained within these first 200 pages, while the final 50 or so pages contains esoteric essays which can be considered, at best, curiosity pieces for the insatiable, die-hard Jungian. The editiors wisely confined this esoterica to final few pages of the book. This is not to take anything away from the book as a whole. Overall, _Aion_ is extremely profound and insightful, and is a must read for Jungians and non-Jungians alike.

"In psychology one possesses nothing unless one has experienced it in reality." (Jung p. 33) In this volume Jung provides us with his experiences with the human psyche and conclusions about these experiences. Jung suggests that humans have a psychological makeup that generally exceeds their ability to comprehend it. In this volume he defines and describes these "hidden" aspects of the human psyche, such as: the Ego, the Self, the Shadow, the Anima and others. Jung makes suggestions as to how modern Western humans can discover these unconscious aspects of themselves and how they can be integrated into human consciousness. This volume hints at a process Jung called individuation, in which the personally unconscious aspects of a human being are united with their normal consciousness, and then this expanded consciousness becomes subservient to a new meta-consciousness, which he called The Self, and which transcends human comprehension, except as an experience. (It is beyond names and forms.) Jung spends a good deal of time describing The Self using Western religious metaphors to make his examples. Most of Jung's theories have slipped into our collective Western unconsciousness, so that they are now part of our unconscious assumptions, (e.g. projection, shadow, denial, the unconsciousness of our faults) and if you would like to become conscious of these assumptions, a reading of this book might facilitate that experience. If you are familiar with Jung's work, this will increase your understanding of his concept of the human psyche, its parts and the goal of unification of those parts.

....and very technical for non-beginners. For those up on Jung, indispensable. (See also Edward Edinger's AION Lectures.) Jung's demonstration of the archetypal Self's embodiment in history and myth is wonderful.

I found this book useful for it's treatment of two key topics: the idea that "Satan" only became an important figure with the introduction of Christ and the idea that the "crucified Christ" of Catholicism may itself consitute the "shadow side." Jung isn't always easy to read, but he's invariable rewarding!