Jung, Buddhism, and the Incarnation of Sophia: Unpublished Writings from the Philosopher of the Soul

by Henry Corbin

Examines the work of Carl Jung in relation to Eastern religion, the wisdom teachings of the Sophia, Sufi mysticism, and visionary spirituality • Reveals the spiritual values underlying the psychoanalytic theories of Carl Jung • Explores the role of the Gnostic Sophia with respect to Jung’s most controversial essay, “Answer to Job” • Presents new revelations about Sufi mysticism and its relationship to esoteric Buddhist practices • Shows how the underlying spiritual traditions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity mesh with the spiritual teachings of Buddhism Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was one of the most important French philosophers and orientalists of the 20th century. In this collection of previously unpublished writings, Corbin examines the work of Carl Jung in relationship to the deep spiritual traditions of Eastern religion, the esoteric wisdom teachings of Sophia, the transformational symbolism of alchemy, and Sufi mysticism. Looking at the many methods of inner exploration in the East, including the path of the Sufi and Taoist alchemy, Corbin reveals how the modern Western world does not have its own equivalent except in psychotherapy. Expanding Jung’s findings in light of his own studies of Gnostic and esoteric Islamic traditions, he offers a unique insight into the spiritual values underlying Jung’s psychoanalytic theories. Corbin analyzes Jung’s works on Buddhism, providing his own understanding of the tradition and its relationship to Sufi mysticism, and explores the role of the Gnostic Sophia with respect to Jung’s most controversial essay, “Answer to Job.” He also studies the rapport between the Gnostic wisdom of Sophia and Buddhist teachings as well as examining Sophia through the lens of Jewish mysticism. Explaining how Islamic fundamentalists have turned their back on the mystic traditions of Sufism, Corbin reveals how totalitarianism of all kinds threatens the transformative power of the imagination and the transcendent reality of the individual soul. He shows how the underlying spiritual traditions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity mesh with the spiritual teachings of Buddhism and reinforce the unity of the esoteric teachings of the world’s great religions. Comparing the imaginal realm with Jung’s archetypal field, he shows how we could transform the world by spiritualizing Jung’s methods, enabling us to transcend duality and make the created world divine.

Genres: Psychology, Buddhism, Philosophy, Spirituality

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2014

About the author

Henry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work. Although he was Protestant by birth, he was educated in the Catholic tradition and at the age of 19 received a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris. Three years later he took his "licence de philosophie" under the great Thomist Étienne Gilson. In 1928 he encountered the formidable Louis Massignon, director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne, and it was he who introduced Corbin to the writings of Suhrawardi, the 12th century Persian mystic and philosopher whose work was to profoundly affect the course of Corbin’s life. The stage was then set for a personal drama that has deep significance for understanding those cultures whose roots lie in both ancient Greece and in the prophetic religions of the Near East reaching all the way back to Zoroaster. Years later Corbin said “through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed. Platonism, expressed in terms of the Zoroastrian angelology of ancient Persia, illuminated the path that I was seeking.”
Corbin is responsible for redirecting the study of Islamic philosophy as a whole. In his Histoire de la philosophie islamique (1964), he disproved the common view that philosophy among the Muslims came to an end after Ibn Rushd, demonstrating rather that a lively philosophical activity persisted in the eastern Muslim world – especially Iran – and continues to our own day.

Reviews

[Francisca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Acerca de Jung. El buddhismo y la Sophia, el libro de Henry Corbin que ha editado por Siruela, ahonda en la aportación al mundo occidental que este filósofo da de la teología oriental, esta vez en torno a la figura y psicología profunda de Carl Jung. Es un libro, pues, para adentrarse más a fondo en el zen y en el buddhismo, a través de una lectura psicológica y filosófica que podemos extraer desde occidente pero que no dista mucho de lo que nos ofrece oriente.

En el libro, Corbin nos desvela las semejanzas y relaciones que hay entre el buddhismo zen y tibetano con la psicología que Carl Jung ha aportado. La fenomenología de ambos casos concuerdan en que hay un esfuerzo del hombre por liberarse de la forma yoica de la conciencia para así acercarse al interior y conocer lo que constituye su esencia. Hay una profunda explicación de la meditación oriental y el buddhismo, que no se puede dejar de comparar con lo que se extrae y conoce a través de la psicoterapia junguiana. Por ejemplo, tenemos el satori, un término japonés que designa la iluminación en el budismo zen, con el que podemos encontrar semejanza con el propio insight -ese darse cuenta de manera inconsciente- que encontramos en el psicoanálisis junguiano. La relación de la meditación buddhista con Jung se propicia, así, a través de la imaginación activa, que nos lleva a conocer nuestro mundo psíquico tanto como la naturaleza de las cosas.

Otra relación que podemos hallar en el libro es la similitud entre los arquetipos de Jung y el Libro tibetano de los muertos; también con el Tao (el camino consciente que se hace sobre una senda también consciente en la que se unen dos aspectos) y El secreto de la flor de oro, libro en el que Jung nos habla de cómo la sabiduría china tiene el poder suficiente para hallar una psicología profunda de la que poder aprender y examinar nuestra psique. También es clave el punto de aproximación de la figura de la Sophia en la alquimia y psicología de Jung. La importancia del ánima como arquetipo para hacerse a sí mismo y cómo esta afecta al alma. Corbin además recoge el primer texto original que Jung aborda moral, mitológica y psicológicamente sobre El libro de Job, llamado “Respuesta a Job”. El libro, que causó un revuelo bastante importante en Alemania, es un texto espiritual que pone de manifiesto la importancia de la espiritualidad en el proceso de individuación en la práctica psicológica junguiana. Es casi una filosofía del alma. En él Jung usa la cristiandad como metáfora extrayendo así los procesos psíquicos que yacen bajo cada personaje. En el texto vemos que hay una comparación entre el mito de Sophia con el de la Virgen María, por ejemplo. De este modo, observamos la importancia de los arquetipos en la psicología junguiana para conocerse y evolucionar, tema bastante importante y en el que Corbin hace bastante hincapié, incluso viéndolo desde un punto orientalista.

La profundización de este libro sobre la psicología junguiana es plena y aporta nuevos conocimientos en los que realza la importancia de la teología y práctica orientalista, que aquí podemos ver casi tan importante como lo es el psicoanálisis y la psicología profunda que Jung nos ha ofrecido y legado. Además es un libro que se halla englobado dentro del Circulo Eranos, al que Jung y Henry Corbin pertenecían y en el que, junto con Mircea Eliade entre otros, acercan las distintas filosofías -tanto occidentales como orientales- para hacer ver al ser humano como un ser que es capaz de integrar todos los diferentes aspectos que hemos podido no sólo leer en el libro, sino también en la experiencia que tiene cada cuál de su vida.

Acerca de Jung. El buddhismo y la Sophia es un libro, pues, para conocedores de la filosofía oriental así como de la psicología, pues no nos da una explicación superficial de lo que Jung y la religión Buddhista puede ofrecernos, sino que se adentra en ella de manera profunda y exhaustiva, llena de referencias y diversos ejemplos para hacernos entender que siempre nos hallamos en un camino de evolución personal y de viaje hacia nuestro interior.

Reseña publicada en Revista Détour: http://diarios.detour.es/literaturas/...

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, but clearly an incomplete work

As a long time student of Jung, Buddhism and Taoism I took a chance, thinking this might be an interesting book, although I knew nothing about esoteric French philosopher Henry Corbin (1903-1978) before reading it.

Part 1; although mostly based on the writings of Jung about Buddhism and Taoism, it doesn’t add much to the study of any of the subjects. I just didn’t find it a very insightful or deep exploration of psychology or spirituality, and instead found it to be mostly a rambling and wordy rehashing of what Jung originally had said (taken from various introductions and commentaries he penned), along with a few references and conjectures based on Corbin’s own expertise in Persian spiritual traditions.

And this is perhaps the essence of the problem; that Jung had a rather limited and narrow (some would say misinformed) view of Buddhism specifically and Eastern spirituality in general, and that speculations about spirituality are rarely helpful when not based on first hand knowledge.

Although Jung had a sincere interest in and appreciation of Buddhism it was for the most part informed only by books, and so relatively superficial and biased. For instance his knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism was via the infamous “translations” by Evans-Wentz, even though Evans-Wentz was no Tibetan scholar, nor even a Buddhist! Instead as an editor he presented these rare and essential dzogchen teachings 2nd hand through the lens of a Western Theosophist steeped in Advaita Vedanta Hinduism and New Age spiritualism.

(For an informed discussion of this and a critique of Jung’s subsequent view see John Myrdhin Reynolds’ lengthy essay in his translation of a similar Tibetan text published as “Self Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness.”)

Overall my impression is after a really slow start the forth chapter on Taoist Alchemy and the essays on Job and Sophia (which make up Part 2) are actually pretty good. But perhaps the best thing about the book is the general tone of appealing to modern man to rediscover the divine – the value and wonder of the psyche (soul) and spirit (in spirituality), experienced as our Self through myriad masks and paths in the process of individuation.

“What needs to be emphasized here is the extent to which this imago animae – insofar as its encounter is a decisive stage in the process of individuation – holds, all in all, the secret of the Golden Flower…. The activation of the archetype of the imago animae is therefore a supreme event. It is the undeniable sign that the second part of life has begun” (p. 79)

I can relate to that at least! Lol.

Otherwise I’m really not sure who the audience was intended for, but it seems perhaps aimed at a reader unfamiliar with either Jung or Eastern religions, say perhaps a freshman introductory philosophy class on the nature of the soul and Self in spiritual traditions. (Is there even such a philosophy class any more? Maybe in Seminary.)

One quirk of the book is it’s an incomplete manuscript, which was presented to the editor by the author’s widow with the request that it be published as is. This is a shame since some judicious editing would have made it both more readable and respectable.

Perhaps there was a good reason these essays remained unpublished during Corbin’s life…

[Dorian Moreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very valuable material and insights. It is unfortunate that the book could not be completed before the author's death, as the notes in the text indicate additions which would have brought more clarity and depth.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The work is unfinished, and thus very unfocused, at least the first part that seem to be Corbin sorting out and thinking around Jung and Buddhism, and thus not really saying anything. Then, when he turns to Sophia in the end of the first part, and the whole essay on the eternal Sophia and commentary on "Answer to Job" by Jung, is much better - but even here it seives out a bit, as he lack the ability to really bind one thing to the other, but jumps from Job, to shortly Kierkegaard, and then to Sophia in Bulgakov etc. etc. The inclusion of letters and some extra material gives us not much more, but rather shorter reiterations.

I'm not sure if the full book would have been better if Corbin got to finish it, at least the Jung and Buddhism part is too far gone - in content and style - the Sophia parts could have been a good read. Here I find value and promise. This is what I take from the book, and what also saves it. Even the idea of putting Sophia into the narrative of Job is interesting, even if it is a bit far-fetched. But that is the realm of which Jung travels, and where Corbin follows.

Even so, I will most probably find another book written by Corbin to look into some of the Sophia material he alludes to here that he has taken more careflul study of - in his study of Islam.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too dry for me