“He is your mirror and you are His mirror in which he sees His Names and their determinations, which are none other than Himself. ”
— Ibn ‘Arabi
“The “relativity of God”… implies a reciprocal and essential relation between man and God whereby man can be understood as a function of God and God as a psychological function of man.”
— (CW6:412)
This month, two Guest Presenters will explore the deep affinities and also the points of divergence between two visionary mystics: Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240) and C.G. Jung (1875 – 1961).
Ibn ‘Arabi’s metaphysics proceed from the Divine Essence, which is beyond Being, through the degrees of Being to the corporeal domain. This descent is followed by a return to the perfection of origins.
Jung’s psychology proceeds from the depths of the somatic unconscious to the heights of the spiritual unconscious. But for Jung, even the enlightened person “remains what he is, and is never more than the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable boundaries and who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the earth and vast as the sky”.