CHAPTER FOUR

The darkness and the light

If yin and yang do not exist, the One (the Great Ultimate) cannot be revealed. If the One cannot be revealed then the function of the two forces will cease. Reality and unreality, motion and rest, integration and disintegration, and clearness and turbidity are two different substances. In the final analysis, however, they are one.

—Chinese philosopher, Chang Tsai, 1020–1077

The Gnostics are invariably categorised—often pejoratively—as being dualist, and this designation, minus the deprecation, is, by and large, correct. However, the Gnostic tradition is no more dualistic than Judaeo-Christianity which teaches that,

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon

the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of

the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light

from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

(Genesis 1:1–5, KJV)

Thus, dualism appears in the very first line of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible; Heaven and Earth, immediately followed by light and dark, day and night.

Perhaps some clarification on the use of the term “dualist” is warranted. The terms “dualist” and “dualism” are derived from the Latin word duo, meaning “two” and, at its simplest, dualism refers to the state in which something has been split into two equal parts, thus forming, in the strictest sense, a binary opposition—that is, a complementary pair with opposite natures—where each one of the pair can only be conceived in terms of its opposite, for example, hot and cold, light and dark, and so on. Furthermore, there are different types of dualism. In the branch of philosophy known as the Philosophy of Mind, in which the chief concern is the exploration of the non-physical mind and its relationship to the physical body and the rest of the physical world, dualism refers specifically to the mind-body dichotomy. A leading proponent of this philosophical stance was the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) who famously declared, “cogito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). In theology, on the other hand, dualism generally refers to the notion that God and creation are fundamentally separate, whereas, in metaphysics, dualism tends to be seen ontologically in which the universe is thought to be founded on the principle of polar opposites such as light and dark, good and evil, or, in the Taoist tradition, yin and yang.

Ontological dualism is further divided into absolute (or radical) dualism and mitigated dualism. In absolute dualism there are two opposing principles which are each given equal status. Manichaeism—often linked to, but distinct from, Gnosticism—and Zoroastrianism are examples of absolute dualistic philosophies (although in the case of Zoroastrianism, the deck seems to be stacked in favour of the light principle as it is generally considered that it will, ultimately, win out over the principle of darkness—so perhaps not quite absolute after all). On the other hand, in mitigated dualism, there is an imbalance between the relative power and importance of the two principles with one seen as superior.

Gnostic cosmology is, primarily, a form of mitigated dualism, although it can also be considered to contain, secondarily, a form of absolute dualism (Figure 9). First, in what might be considered a vertical axis, there is a mitigated dualism insofar as the Great Invisible Spirit is considered superior to, and set apart from, a corrupt world of darkness that imprisons humanity. Second, in what might be considered the corresponding horizontal axis, there is an absolute dualism in terms of the androgynous, male/female, aeonic pairs, or syzygies, which have emanated from the Pleroma and exist in binary opposition to one another (e.g., good and evil, light and dark, etc.).

Not only is dualism fundamental to the Gnostic doctrine, it is at the very heart of its metaphysics. The innumerable pairs of opposites in the Gnostic texts include: the Pleroma/the world, emptiness/fullness, being/non-being, Mother/Father, light/dark, god/devil, good/evil, above/below, male/female, living/dead, healthy/sick, waking/sleeping, drunk/sober, virgin/whore, freedom/slavery, motion/rest, visible/invisible, known/unknowable, and so on. As noted, in Gnostic cosmogony, creation comes into being through a process of emanation of paired opposites. Each successive emanation results in a pair of opposites which is not only further removed from the Pleroma than the previous pair, but is also more differentiated. At the level of the created world, the opposites are fully differentiated so that their underlying unity is often not recognised. The opposites are not just part of life in this world, they are fundamental to it. No opposites, no world.

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As noted above, dualism is at the very heart of PKD’s “two source” Gnostic cosmogony in which creation is the result of the dialectic interaction of the opposing poles of the primal syzygy. He claims a “great war is being fought at this moment between God and [the devil]. The fate of the universe is at stake, its actual physical existence” (2008, p. 243). However, despite being central to his cosmogony, the nature of the opposites intrinsic to that dualism, and the interaction of those opposites, does not receive that same comprehensive and profound treatment as it does in Jung’s work. The theme of the opposites, along with the accompanying need for their reconciliation and integration, is the cornerstone of Jung’s worldview, and, as such, it is the principal tenet of analytical psychology. The theme of the opposites is the crucial leitmotif running through the entire Jungian corpus, principally in his final major work, which he credited as being his magnum opus, Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955–56).

Jung’s psychology of the opposites is founded on its metaphysical antecedent, as articulated in Jung’s Gnostic vision, The Seven Sermons. Somewhat paradoxically, the opposites do not, in fact, exist in the emptiness of the Pleroma as they cancel one another out. Yet, to the extent that they can be considered to exist at all, in the fullness of the Pleroma, the opposites exist in a harmonious state of equilibrium. The process of differentiation separates the opposites so that the resulting energy tension between the poles of the opposites allows creation to come into being. Consequently, there are, in effect, three states of differentiation in Jung’s Gnostic vision: a) wholly undifferentiated, cancelled out, opposites in the emptiness of the Pleroma; b) somewhat differentiated opposites within the fullness of the Pleroma, which become increasingly differentiated, the further they have emanated from the source of the Pleroma; and c) wholly differentiated opposites in the created world. In Jung’s view, existence is founded on the principle of the opposites; nothing can exist without a balancing opposite (McGuire & Shamdasani, 2012). Without differentiation, creation is an inherent potential of the Pleroma only, and the opposites remain in a state of equipoise which Jung described as an absolute coincidence of opposites (1951). This is key to understanding the metaphysics of the ancient Gnostics, of Jung—and, to a lesser extent, of PKD. The created world is predicated on the differentiation of the opposites. This is the crux of Gnostic cosmogony.

Crucial to Jung’s psychology of the opposites is that the non-differentiated state of the opposites is the equivalent of unconsciousness. Without the differentiation of opposites there can be no consciousness. Influenced by Eckhart, Jung claims that God differentiates itself from the essentially unconscious, undifferentiated Godhead, and the resulting dialectic between God and Godhead leads to consciousness (ibid.). In the same way that the differentiation of opposites leads to creation in Jung’s Gnostic metaphysics, differentiation also leads to the creation of consciousness in his psychology. Both Jung’s Gnostic metaphysics and his psychology can be summarised as: the non-differentiation of the opposites is unconsciousness; the differentiation of opposites is consciousness. If the opposites are not differentiated, then creation risks dissolution in the Pleroma. If the opposites are not differentiated psychologically, a person is in peril of succumbing to what Jung considered to be the sin of unconsciousness. Whereas the Gnostic sought the dissolution of the opposites, hence a return to the Pleroma, Jung’s psychology seeks the opposite; the reconciliation and integration of the fully differentiated opposites, and a more fully conscious wholeness.

Another fundamental insight of Jung’s Gnostic vision is the danger of favouring one pole of a pair of opposites over its complementary opposite pole. Whereas in Gnostic cosmogony, Sophia’s conception without her male consort (i.e., an imbalance of the male/female syzygy) caused a rupturing of cosmic wholeness that led to the creation of our fallen world, an imbalance of the opposites, at a psychological level, results in a split in the psyche and a loss of psychological wholeness. The two poles of a pair of opposites may appear phenomenally distinct, but their essence is fundamentally one. Even in creation, where the opposites are rent asunder, that is, are wholly differentiated, they retain their underlying unity. Phenomenally, the nature of the opposites in creation is differentiated yet inextricably united. There is no hot without cold, no light without dark, and so on. Ultimately, the opposites can never be truly separated: they issue from a single root. Noting that there are as many nights as there are days, and that one is as long as the other over the course of the year, Jung’s view was that a happy life would need to be counterbalanced by a measure of darkness. Indeed, both happiness and sadness, like all other polar opposites, are only meaningful in relation to one another. The essential nature of the opposites is always both/and, rather than, either/or. As the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tze (605 BCE–531 BCE), put it: “Without Darkness, there can be no Light.” Where the optimist sees the glass as half full, and the pessimist sees it as half empty, Jung, and the Gnostics (and the Taoists), realise that it cannot be one without the other. We cannot have one pole of a pair of opposites without the other, and to the extent that we strive exclusively for one pole, we unavoidably fall under the spell of its counterpart. The person who appears to have one pole without its balancing twin is psychologically sick due to the imbalance (Jung, 2009). The rejected pole is forced down into the unconscious where it forms part of the shadow, from where it largely plays out autonomously, resulting in effects that can range from the mildly neurotic to the catastrophic. The fullness of the Pleroma, encompassing all that is, contains both poles, the light and the dark, the good and the evil. Similarly, psychological wholeness demands the acceptance of both poles. The essential need to reconcile the opposites and maintain them in a state of equilibrium became a fundamental maxim of Jung’s psychology. Here can be found a correspondence with the teachings of Buddhism. Along with ignorance, attachment and aversion form the three poisons in Buddhism. Like his Buddhist counterparts, Jung exhorts us to walk the middle path between the opposites, being neither too attached, nor averse, to either pole. An imbalanced conscious position will invoke a compensatory unconscious counter position due to the self-regulatory nature of the psyche. If the inner psychological state is not made conscious, in other words, if the conscious and unconscious counter poles are not reconciled, then, out of necessity, the unresolved conflict will be encountered in the outer world in what is generally regarded as fate (Jung, 1951).