DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON SYMBOLISM

[Anonymous No.18601565]

Their interpretation of symbols are somewhat similar, but they come from very different worldviews (perennial/christian orthodoxy/jungian). I'd like to understand where these views intersect and where they differ from each other, specifically about symbolism. So far I coun't figure out where they agree and where they disagree. I know they don't agree, and they don't talk about each other very much.

[Anonymous No.18601723]

[Anonymous No.18601812]

>>18601723
???

[Anonymous No.18601883]

>>18601565
Pageau and Jung I think are relatively close (which makes sense given all his dialoguing with JBP). Minus any beliefs about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and whatever else is required by his Orthodoxy, Pageau seems to have a similar nominalistic/psychological interpretation of symbols to Jung, and like Jung buys into the order and chaos dichotomy (which isn't particularly Christian but not trying to criticize him).

People like Guenon and Coomaraswamy not only take a realist position about symbols but for them a symbol itself affords a hierarchy of mutually consistent and related meanings. Iirc there's a passage at the beginning of King of the World where Guenon demonstrates this via the symbolism of the solar serpent as standing in for Lucifer/Satan but also for Christ via the story of Moses and the brass serpent.

[Anonymous No.18602038]

>>18601723
masterpiece

[Anonymous No.18602089]

>>18601565
Just read the Bible, bro

[Anonymous No.18602166]

>>18601883
>Minus any beliefs about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and whatever else is required by his Orthodoxy, Pageau seems to have a similar nominalistic/psychological interpretation of symbols to Jung,

I'm not sure if you are correct, I'm reading his brother's (Matthieu Pageau) book and his worldview is that symbolism is part of reality itself. Material reality as a written word and the symbolism is the meaning of the text.

> and like Jung buys into the order and chaos dichotomy

I read just a few paragraphs of Guénons The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of Times and he makes use of the term "space" very similar to Matthieu's. In his book, Matthieu never mentions the term "chaos", not even once. Although the meaning is very similar to what he calls "time".


> King of the World where Guenon demonstrates this via the symbolism of the solar serpent as standing in for Lucifer/Satan but also for Christ via the story of Moses and the brass serpent.

I don't know what the solar serpent is... but iirc I think the symbol of Christ related to the brass serpent is mainstream theology, and there's a hint of this relationship in Mattheiu's book.

So it seems that Pageu's is closer to Guénon imo

[Anonymous No.18602196]

>>18602166
I haven't read Matthieu Pageau's book, so granted maybe Jonathan's videos are dumbed down for whoever he thinks the audience is, which admittedly is why I don't watch most of him anymore.

[Anonymous No.18602258]

>>18602196
If you want to understand what they think about symbolism, watch the interviews with his brother.

If you are >>18601883, you gave me a clue on Jung and probably know more about the others then I do. Could you spare Pageau and go further in the comparison between Jung to Guenon e Coomaraswamy, please?

[Anonymous No.18602297]

Pageau has a reading list

https://thesymbolicworld.com/reading-list/

[Anonymous No.18602356]

>>18602297
I know, and there is the only thing I found about his opinion on Guénon. Also no mention to Jung.

>(Guénon is a problematic writer on many fronts and I hesitated to put him here. He became a Muslim, was a Freemason and retained several ties with occult thinkers, but nonetheless his insight on symbolism and his understanding of the crisis of civilization we are facing is unmatched in the 20th century, so read with caution.)

[Anonymous No.18602385]

>>18601565
Why are you putting some Youtube hack in front of the two greats, kek. That's sort of weird shilling for such an obscure dude.

[Anonymous No.18602436]

>>18602258
In all fairness it's been a while since I tried seriously to get into Jung. He basically posits a systematic set of psychological tropes that underlie every community/culture and their aesthetics and myths, and defines their religions and other cultural content as proceeding from this, in particular for anything that has to do with what could be considered personal development. These tropes, called archetypes by Jung, are real and not private since they are shared by all humans, and all development of humans involves them developing balanced relationships with these archetypes in order to both be fulfilled in the roles they can take on but not subject to these roles. There's a lot of emphasis on dualism and emergent concepts like expansion and balance.

Jung in this way is completely antithetical to Guenon and Coomaraswamy, for whom symbols provide a means of accessing actively or passively multiple levels of reality. For them, these symbols and their content manifest in cultures and communities because of the transcendent and universal realities they convey, what Guenon would call the supra-human, as opposed to Jung's notions of the private and collective unconscious which Guenon would call the infra-human.

[Anonymous No.18602452]

>>18602385
Well, because he is the only with the christian perspective that I know... Do you know a "better" one?

[Anonymous No.18602535]

>>18601565
Literally can't imagine a bigger waste of time than reading any of these jokers or giving even a single shit about "symbolism".

[Anonymous No.18602552]

>>18602535
Filtered because you're a brainlet.
You're probably some sort of 90-IQ caveman that takes everything literally.

[Anonymous No.18602663]

>>18602436
Ok, tell me what you think. It seems to me that Jung is more scientific, looking for patterns in the human psyche, like a mathematician, limiting everything intangible to human conscious: a materialist. While the perennials are interpreting the whole cosmos like poetry, and assuming not only the possibility but the utmost importance to the what's not tangible: metaphysics ftw .

[Anonymous No.18602789]

>>18602663
Well for starters Jung's ideas fly in the face of basically any currently accepted anthropology and psychology. There are a much greater diversity of understandings of the human person, internal progress, the cosmos in general, and symbolism around these things across cultures than could be accounted for by any kind of Jungian program. This does not constitute a defense of the Perennialists, but depending on who you talk to you'll get laughed at just as much for indicating an interest in Jung as one does for Guenon et al.

The 'cosmos as poetry' analogy with the Perennialists is a nice one, however this shows up as well in non-realist systems of thought like Buddhism, and although Jung doesn't exactly think of it that way I get the feeling he might encourage it, as did a lot of other early people who designed therapies from what I can tell.

As far as what I think goes it's tough to make a contribution here because frankly I could not care less about most history, anthropology, and psychology. I'm a Christian currently in denominational limbo but aside from an interest in aspects of Guenon I really don't have a doge in the fight. I don't want to outright denigrate Jung but I think he's pretty far off when it comes to there being some kind of easy Joseph Campbell style anatomy of of life and the inner person, but maybe his contributions to psychology have helped in ways I can't see, although from what I can see it really hasn't. For me the joy/mystery of human nature is that there is no human nature. Everything is a choice, which is as wonderful as it is frightening. But I'm just some faggot on a terrible forum.

[Anonymous No.18602894]

>>18602789
Thanks for your contribution, I think I got a better understanding of where Jung is.
I'm Christian as well. To be fair, my primary goal here is to understand why Jonathan/Matthieu Pageau don't mention Guénon while there are overlaps between what they say about symbolism. This is important to me because I'd like to have a point of reference before getting deeper into this topic, is my understanding that I have to be cautious with Guénon.
It's easy to see the distinction between Christianity and Perennialism, but I don't see where this separation is on the subject of symbolism.

[Anonymous No.18602942]

>>18602894
No problem, yeah I wish I knew more about the relationship as well. I know Orthodox people like Seraphim Rose and Philip Sherrard where influenced by and communicated with Guenon respectively, but I'm not sure what the overlap is with Orthodox Christian thought in general. In Catholicism it's even weirder since apparently that Meditations on the Tarot book I always assumed was a meme is highly acclaimed by come big name Catholic theologians.

I have heard some stuff that seemed to be a worthwhile precedent for symbolism in Christianity. I think I heard something from Saint Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses about the burning bush that blew my mind but I can't remember what it was.

[Anonymous No.18602953]

>>18602789
>Well for starters Jung's ideas fly in the face of basically any currently accepted anthropology and psychology.
That's a bonus, not a flaw. Modern academia is a joke.

[Anonymous No.18602972]

>>18602953
It would be one thing if Jung wasn't 'in the game' academically but he was. And psychology and anthropology are empirical, unlike metaphysics which has a number of arguments for it standing outside the empirical (as well as arguments for it not).

Maybe it's still a bonus, I just mention it so people pick their battles.

[Anonymous No.18602986]

>>18602972
>And psychology and anthropology are empirical,
Neither field can replicate more than 50% of its findings, and both are severely plagued by political biases. Many anthropologists would genuinely believe that the New Guineas are somehow superior to Europeans but were simply put in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why should anybody care about their opinions? They clearly don't understand anything at a deeper level.

[Anonymous No.18603010]

>>18602986
Then they're just as bad as Jung, but he nature of the intellectual discipline however does not change. People doing bad chemistry or mathematics does not change the nature of the practice of doing chemistry or mathematics.

Whether the current state of the fields are bad or not, we still know better than to trust Jung's ideas. I would also put forward that this lack of stability of understanding of the mind or of cultures is itself a wonderful argument for how far off Jung was.

[Anonymous No.18603028]

>>18603010
>Then they're just as bad as Jung
Nah, Jung had something , original, valuable, and timeless to offer, even if he's ultimately wrong. Shallow academics intent on committing civilizational suicide will never make such a valuable contribution to humanity.
>chemistry and mathematics
They are completely different fields from psychology and anthropology.

[Anonymous No.18603057]

>>18603028
At least you're not trolling with the crypto-Buddhism copypasta, so this is mildly refreshing.

[Anonymous No.18603144]

>>18603057
I could be worse than a troll. I could be an insufferable midwit who thinks that the academic consensus has anything to offer.

[Anonymous No.18603261]

>>18601723
The Vulnerary of Christ by the same author came out in February.
>>18601812
It is a bestiary of animals who symbolized Christ or various facets of Christian life throughout the ages, and also has information on Egyptian, Hellenistic, Gnostic, medieval European, and sometimes Chinese animal symbolism.
>>18602942
>In Catholicism it's even weirder since apparently that Meditations on the Tarot book I always assumed was a meme is highly acclaimed by come big name Catholic theologians
I haven't finished it yet, but so far the only reference I found to Guenon in it is where the author warns against Guenon's approach, and while he commends the breadth of his learning he thinks that Guenon took too much of an abstract, intellectual approach to religion and the perennial philosophy and as a result never developed a truly personal relationship with God. He even claims that Guenon became a devout Muslim out of a desperate attempt at authenticity and desire to "feel" God.

Valentin Tomberg refers to Jung a lot, but in this case he claims that Jung's archetypes are essentially the modern day zodiac, and taking the medieval Christian view that while astrology did have effects on physical events but could never overpower free will or the grace of God, he believes that the archetypes also influence human behavior, but humankind is able to transcend these through Christ. (In Letter XII: The Hanged Man, the person who is in this spiritual stage is described as having "swallowed the zodiac".)

[Anonymous No.18603298]

>>18601565
>dont read
>dont udnerstand them

[Anonymous No.18603682]

bump

[Anonymous No.18603954]

>>18601565
>>18601883
>>18602166

Guenon: symbolism as harmony between the transcendent and the human soul (redemption )
Pageau: symbolism as the harmony between spiritual and material reality (reassurance)
Jung: symbolism as harmony between human and his actions (observation )

[Anonymous No.18605215]

>>18601565

Reminder that Pageau outed himself as a pedestrian when he said that Gnosticism is Dualism.

[Anonymous No.18605511]

What are the best books on symbols and symbolism from a perennialist/traditionalist viewpoint? I am aware of Guenon's book 'Symbols of Sacred Science', but I have yet to read it. Is that the best one or are there others?

[Anonymous No.18605568]

>>18601883
Note that Jung's psychological understanding of archetypes does not entail a judgment about their metaphysical status. Meaning that, as he himself said, Jung is completely compatible with any realist position. One does not exclude the other.

[Anonymous No.18606134]

>>18605568
This is a good post

[Anonymous No.18606176]

>>18605568
Actually it does. As explicated here >>18602436 where Jung places symbols in relation to the person entails a completely different organization of symbols and their meaning than the Perennialists.

>>18603954vis a good 'in a nutshell' wrt Guenon and Pageau but fails to capture the emphasis that Jung places on these things all being realized inside the human and the efficacy of symbols within the human and how to develop a right relationship to them. This is antithetical to Guenon for whom metaphysical realization has absolutely nothing to do with developing some kind of balanced relationship with different tropes borrowed from astro-theology. Any kind of real union with the Absolute might at most involve some kind of traversal of these tropes at the level of understanding, but one is never going to attempt some Jungian idea of needing to balance one's King and Trickster archetypes.

[Anonymous No.18606232]

>>18606176
what fails to capture in Jung is calling it just 'observation' because he is also propositional? do you have a suggestion to fix it, how would you phrase it? what about 'medicinal' ?

[Anonymous No.18606281]

>>18603261
>The Vulnerary of Christ by the same author came out in February.
VERY nice
thanks for letting me know

[Anonymous No.18606288]

>>18606232
I mean I think what you said is as good as it could be for one sentence. I was bringing it up more in the context of the other thing where explicitly or implicitly Jung takes a position.

You also really hit the nail on the head with Guenon and Pageau imo.

[Anonymous No.18606325]

>>18606288
cool

[Anonymous No.18606965]

>>18603298

[Anonymous No.18607092]

>>18601883
>Guenon demonstrates this via the symbolism of the solar serpent as standing in for Lucifer/Satan but also for Christ via the story of Moses and the brass serpent.

Dual aspect of the Serpent is not some sort of Guénonian insight, even the fucking Pope and Vatican writes about it

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/cotidie/2016/documents/papa-francesco-cotidie_20160315_the-serpent-that-kills-and-the-one-that-saves.html

[Anonymous No.18608614]

bump mcbumpy