Bulletin Board Pix

The Red Book: Liber Novus, Page 16

Mandala sketch 1 appears to be the first in the series, dated August 2, 1917. It is the basis of image 80. The legend at the top of the image is __ [Phanes]" (see note 211, p. 301). Legend at bottom: "Stoffweehsel in Individuum" (metabolism in the individual) (19.3 CM x 14.3 CM)

Mandala sketch 2 is the reverse of mandala sketch 1. (19.4 CM x 14.3 CM)

Mandala sketch 3 is dated August 4, 1917, and is the basis of image 82 (14.9 CM x 12.4 CM)

Mandala sketch 4 is dated August 6, 1917. On these sketches see introduction, pp. 206. (20.3 CM x 14.9 CM)

Mandala sketch 5 is dated September 1, 1917, and is the basis of image 89. (18.2 CM x 12.4 CM)

Mandala sketch 6 is dated September 10, 1917, and is the basis of image 93. (14.9 CM x 12.1 CM)

Mandala sketch 7 is dated September 11, 1917, and is the basis of image 94. (12.1 CM x 15.2 CM)

The town plan is from Black Book 7, page 124b, and depicts the scene of the "Liverpool" dream. This sketch is the basis of image 159, linking the dream with the mandala. Text in image, from left: "Dwelling of the Swiss": above, "Houses", below, Houses", "Island"; (below) "Lake", "Tree", "Streets", "Houses." (13.3 CM x 19.1 CM)

The sketch of "Systema Munditotius" is from Black Book 5, page 169 (see Appendix C, p. 370, for further discussion). (22.9 CM x 17.8 CM)

Sketch of first page of Liber Secundus (see p. 1). (38.7 CM x 27.3 CM). The calligraphic text is from a Babylonian creation myth, reproduced in Hugo Gressman (ed.), Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testamente, vol. 1 (Tubingen:), Mohr, 1909), p. 4f, which Jung cited in 1912 in Transformations and Symbols of the Libido (CW B. §383). It reads: "Mother Huber who formed everything / provided an irresistible weapon when she bore a giant serpent with pointed tooth / relentless in every respect. She filled her body with blood not with poison / and covered furious giant newts in fertility. She made them shine with frightful brilliance and made them rise high. Whoever saw them should pine away with horror / their bodies should rear without them taking flight."

Image legend:

[Big] A = Anthropos. Man
[Little] A = Human soul
[Serpent] = Serpent = Earthly soul
[Bird] = Bird = Heavenly soul
[Chalice] = Heavenly mother
[Pillar] = Phallus (Devil)
[Crescent] = Angel
[Upward Arrow] = Devil
[Circle with X) = Heavenly world
[Upside-down female symbol] = Earth, Mother of the Devil
[Circle with dot] = Sun, Eye of the Pleroma
[Crescent Moon] = Moon, Eye of the Pleroma
[Moon sighted]
[Sun looking]
Moon = Satan
Sun = God
[Lion-faced deity] = [Circle with Dot] + [Crescent Moon] = God of the Frogs = Abraxas
[Circle] = The Fullness
[Black Circle] = The Emptiness
[Flame] = Flame. Fire.
Love = Eros, a daimon
[Misc. symbols] = Gods, stars without numbers

The middle point is again the Pleroma. The God in it is Abraxas, a world of daimons surrounds it, and again in a middle point is humanity, ending and beginning.

Systema Munditotius. (30 CM x 34 CM) In 1955, Jung's Systema Munditotius was published anonymously in a special issue of Du dedicated to the Eranos conferences. In a letter of February 11, 1955, to Walter Corti, Jung explicitly stated that he did not want his name to appear with it (JA). He added the following comments to it: "It portrays the antinomies of the microcosm within the macrocosmic world and its antinomies. At the very top, the figure of the young boy in the winged egg, called Erikapaios or Phanes and thus reminiscent as a spiritual figure of the Orphic Gods. His dark antithesis in the depths is here designated as Abraxas. He represents the dominus mundi, the lord of the physical world, and is a world-creator of an ambivalent nature. Sprouting from him we see the tree of life, labeled vita ("life") while its upper counterpart is a light-tree in the form of a seven-branched candelabra labeled ignis ("fire") and Eros ("love"). Its light points to the spiritual world of the divine child. Art and science also belong to this spiritual realm, the first represented as a winged serpent and the second as a winged mouse (as hole-digging activity!). -- The candelabra is based on the principle of the spiritual number three (twice-three flames with one large flame in the middle), while the lower world of Abraxas is characterized by five, the number of natural man (the twice-five rays of his star). The accompanying animals of the natural world are a devilish monster and a larva. This signifies death and rebirth. A further division of the mandala is horizontal. To the left we see a circle indicating the body or the blood, and from it rears the serpent, which winds itself around the phallus, as the generative principle. The serpent is dark and light, signifying the dark realm of the earth, the moon, and the void (therefore called Satanus). The light realm of rich fulness lies to the right, where from the bright circle frigus sive amor dei [cold, or the love of God] the dove of the Holy Ghost takes wing, and wisdom (Sophia) pours from a double beaker to left and right. -- This feminine sphere is that of heaven. -- The large sphere characterized by zigzag lines or rays represents an inner sun; within this sphere the macrocosm is repeated, but with the upper and lower regions reversed as in a mirror. These repetitions should be conceived of as endless in number, growing even smaller until the innermost core, the actual microcosm, is reached" Copyright © The Foundation of the works of C.G. Jung reproduced with the permission of the Foundation and Robert Hinshaw.

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