Jung states that a lot of material indicates that Adam was associated with primal wisdom and was also, in some alchemical material, thought to be the first alchemist. It is even thought that he brought the Philosophers' Stone out of Paradise. There is a very interesting story in the Kabbalah about Adam's book of wisdom and Jung alludes to it in CW14: par. 572 :
DREAMS CONTAIN IMAGES OF AN ANCIENT
OR REMARKABLE BOOK
This particular myth [from the Book of Generations of Adam and the Kabbalists] is something to keep in mind when one encounters dreams containing images of an ancient or remarkable book. Such an image is symbolically analogous, when amplified with this myth anyway, to the image of Adam: the original wisdom that connects the psyche with its celestial, transpersonal origins. That is one of the implications of the image of Adam
ML p.242EIGHT INCARNATIONS OF
THE `TRUE PROPHET'
Adam also fits into the symbolic context of the series of eight. For instance, in CW14: par. 573 , we learn that certain texts consider Adam as the first of a series of eight incarnations of the “true prophet”: Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Christ. Jung points out that this theme is paralleled by the Taoist series of eight mortals, seven of whom are immortal sages residing in heavenrepresented with long beardsand the eighth, a girl who sweeps up fallen flowers. Jung remarks that this once more is an example of that old problem of the three and the fourthe famous Axiom of Mariatransposed to the level of the seven and the eight: seven are more or less uniform and established, but the eighth is something novel, different and unexpected
ML p.242SEVEN ARCHONS OF
THE PLEROMA
Jung then moves to another parallel of the same imagethis time in Gnosticismwhere the seven archons of the Pleroma, which combined are called the Hebdomad, are then completed in an eighth which is Sophia, the feminine element. This changes the Hebdomad to the Ogdoad, the eightfold Pleroma
ML p.242GOOD GOD / EVIL GOD
There's an interestingly similar and yet different symbolism that occurs in the image of the Persian first man, Gayomart. According to the myth, which I simplify a little bit, there were originally two gods, Ahura Mazda, the good god; and Angra Mainyu, the evil one. Ahura Mazda, the good one, created Gayomart, the first man; but Angra Mainyu attacked Gayomart with the Demon of Death so that avarice, want, pain, hunger, disease, lust and lethargy were all diffused through Gayomart's body and after thirty years he died. On his death he released semen which incubated in the earth and from his body grew metals, including gold; from the gold grew a plant. This plant represented the first human couple and they were wrapped in each other's arms, their bodies united. (That would correspond to Plato's spherical man.) From that plant they then separated and became two human beings
ML p.245The conflict between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu wasn't over because Ahura Mazda told them to do good, but Angra Mainyu attacked and they were poisoned with antagonism. So the battle between good and evil went on
PERSIAN MYTH VERSUS
THE BIBLE
Now, what is the difference between the Persian myth and the Biblical Adam and Eve myth? It is important to pay attention to such things because I believe the roots of international relations can be observed in the myths of origins
ML p.245EVIL CAUSES FALL
OF MAN
Persia of course is Iran, and according to this Persian version of the creation of man, evil is a cosmic archetypal principal that causes the fall of man and his corruption. But in the Biblical version, the source of evil and the cause of man's fall is lodged in man himself. This means then that in the Biblical myth man is being obliged to carry the opposites in the ego, so to speak, whereas in the Persian version, the origin of evil and the source of the sense of guilt and conflict resides in the divine realm. In other words, the Biblical version lodges more responsibility with the ego than does the Persian version. The implication would be that what grows out of the Biblical version involves greater ego development, albeit at the cost of greater psychological suffering
ML p.246 Jung says: As the first man, Adam is the homo maximus, the Anthropos, from whom the macrocosm arose, or who is the macrocosm. He is not only the prima materia but a universal soul which is also the soul of all men ( CW14 :
Jung goes on to say: Here Adam appears on the one hand as the body of the people of Israel and on the other as its `general soul.' This conception can be taken as a projection of the interior Adam: the homo maximus appears as a totality, as the `self' of the people. As the inner man, however, he is the totality of the individual, the synthesis of all parts of the psyche, and therefore of the conscious and the unconscious. Par. 20 says: “And therefore our masters have said: The son of David shall not come until all the souls that were in the body (of the first-created) have fully gone out.” The “going out” of the souls from the Primordial Man can be understood as the projection of a psychic integration process: the saving wholeness of the inner mani.e., the “Messiah”cannot come about until all parts of the psyche have been made conscious. This may be sufficient to explain why it takes so long for the second Adam to appear. ( CW14: par. 593 )
INDIVIDUALS ARE CELLS OR UNITS
OF COLLECTIVE SOUL
This alludes to the psychological fact that the Self, as long as it operates in a completely unconscious way, constellates and manifests in an organic collective, and the individual lives as though he or she were a part of that larger organismthe organic collective, the collective soul. Individuals then are cells or units of the collective soul. That is how their existence is lived out. Now if an occasional individual here and there achieves consciousness of the Self, that person is ejected, so to speak, from containment in the collective soul, and is on his or her ownwhich is both better and worse. That is what's referred to in these remarks in CW14 :
Adam doesn't come up very often in dreams, I must say, but when he does prick up your ears because you know something's going on in the depths. Here's an example of a woman's Adam dream:
ML p.247Dream:
Naked Man Stretched Out Sleeping
I am walking down a mountain path that leads to a stream. To my surprise I find a naked man stretched out sleeping by the side of the stream. He's large and strong; virile and bearded. His backpack and clothes are lying to the side. Somewhat frightened, my first thought is to run and retreat, but when the man awakes and looks at me, I realize he has no intention of hurting me; I know he will let me pass unharmed. I apologize for disturbing him, turn to the right and go through a tunnel. I am slowly and carefully climbing over and among huge rocks. As I am about to step on one of the rocks, I am startled to discover that the rock moves. It is in fact a naked man. As I look around, I see that there are several men among the rocks. It is difficult to distinguish them from the rocksboth are clay-colored. The men are sleeping as I enter but some of them wake up and look at me as I pass by
DREAM COMMENTARY
Now two things establish this as an Adam dream: first, the rocks and men are clay-colored; the second and crucial thing is that her immediate association to the man was Michelangelo's Adam painted on the Sistine Chapel. This was a middle-aged professional woman with a positive father or princess complex. I mean by that a woman in the habit of being granted what she wants and who takes it as a basis for her existence that if she really desires something, it will be forthcoming; circumstances, like a good daddy, will give it to her
ML p.247DREAMER'S BEDROCK ASSUMPTIONS OF
THE NATURE OF LIFE
Her assumption was tested not long after this dream. She very much wanted a certain position for which she was required to be interviewed, and afterward she was denied the position. Well that did it! She fell into a rage because her bedrock assumptions about the nature of life had been challenged. That is how I understand this dream. She thought she was walking on rock, but in fact she was walking on something alive, with a will of its own, and the dream pictures that as Adam. The net result was a kind of earthquake in the psyche in which an encounter with the original man as a living entity helped to dissolve the erroneous assumptions derived from her positive father complex
ML p.247