“To be Christ oneself is the true following of Christ.” — Carl G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus
Ha! I have the Red Book but I haven’t read it word for word and I was not aware of this statement.
For some years now I’ve been saying “we are the second coming of Christ”.
It began when I was offering support to more than one different person who thought they were Jesus but were having problems with grandiosity.
Since I too have a relationship with Christ energy, I explained to them that we are the second coming of Christ together. This is not entirely my idea. I took a Christ initiation course with Andrew Harvey who also uses this concept.
In any case, it’s the same idea that Jung touches on here.
Basically, to be part of the body of Christ entirely is to be Christ itself.
And I say “itself” because Christ is an energy, it’s not Jesus and not particularly masculine.
To me, it’s the embodiment of unconditional love and a practice of bringing that into the world.
When you tell someone who’s tortured or viewed as psychotic because they think they’re Jesus, that they’re not alone — that we are Christ together, it helps a lot.
It both deflates the grandiosity and the isolation. That was a beautiful thing that I discovered in supporting people in difficult situations.
And for whatever it’s worth, I do not call myself a Christian.
Lots of posts on the Red Book here.
More Jesus posts:
- Coffee with Jesus
- A little non-dual Jesus for Easter
- Christian contemplative prayer/meditation
- When you know yourselves, then you will be known
***
Support Everything Matters: Beyond Meds. Make a donation with PayPal or if you’d like to contribute to food as medicine, a Kroger eGift card works too!
Discover more from Beyond Meds: Alternatives to Psychiatry
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I’m agnostic now, but started my spiritual journey with Gnosticism. This was one of my favorite sayings from the Gospel of Thomas: “I am the light that is above them all. I am the all; the all came forth from me, and the all attained to me. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.” —Gospel of Thomas Saying 77.
the gospel of thomas is wonderful.
I have a degree in comparative religion. I don’t believe anything in pariticular… the mythical/psychedelic mind does what it does and I watch and tend to it. I was raised Catholic so I developed an affinity towards unconditional love as taught by Jesus. I left the church when I was 9 years old when the nun teaching my catechism class told me that my friends who were not Catholic were going to hell. I told her I would be happy to join them there if that were true!
What you said about your experience with the Catholic Church is similar to my experience with the Lutheran Church. Our denomination felt that any other denomination was going to hell. My mother refused to marry my father, a Catholic, until he converted to Lutheranism. Religion and psychology have both fascinated me in the past.