This theoretical study analyzes the Valentinian Creation Myth, and is based on Jung's postulate of the connection between myth and the collective unconscious. It demonstrates that the myth maps out the development of ego, and symbolically illustrates the process of individuation, the main processes that mark personality development, according to Jungian psychology.; The development of personality encompasses a life in its entirety and includes all stages of ego development, from ego formation to the surrendering of the mature ego to the needs of one's larger psyche in the process of individuation. The myth is shown to present symbolic images for various stages in ego development: the image of the original Pleroma symbolizes psyche at birth, when all archetypes rest nascent in the collective unconscious. (The Pleroma is identified as corresponding to the collective unconscious; the Aeons, to the archetypes.) As the myth continues it presents a variety of symbols for different stages in ego differentiation: Sophia represents the emerging ego; Achamoth, the forming ego; the Demiurge, the state of ego-inflation. Finally, the ego during the process of individuation is represented by the figure of the Gnostic seeker. She strives for the Pleroma as Bridal Chamber. This image is identified as a symbol for wholeness, the goal of the individuation process.; Moving beyond Jungian psychology, the Valentinian Creation Myth shows that the achieving of wholeness (the Pleroma as Bridal Chamber) is contingent on a communal event, that of all spiritual beings attaining gnosis . Applying Neumann's discovery of the correspondence of consciousness development in the individual to consciousness evolution in the culture at large, I suggest that the image of the Bridal Chamber symbolically points to a new all inclusive consciousness on a cultural level.; This dissertation includes a selected bibliography of scholarly and popular Gnostic sources and of relevant Jungian thought.
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