Northrop Frye, C. G. Jung, and the Grand Scheme of Things: Mapping the Psycho-Mythical Cosmos

Abstract

Northrop Frye and C. G. Jung both attempted to summarize their respective life’s work in the form of a grand diagram. Remarkably, these two diagrams are virtually identical in both form and content, and they seem to have been formulated independently. Both diagrams take the dual form of an axis mundi with four segments and a circle with four quadrants, and both are defined using the Eastern concept of the mandala. The diagrams attempt to map the development of the Western psyche (Jung) and its expression in myth and literature (Frye) over some two thousand years of the common era. While the scope of these schemas offers a stunning panorama, at their heart are four religious symbols. Frye, following biblical symbolism, called them (1) the Mountain, (2) the Garden, (3) the Cave, and (4) the Furnace. Jung, following certain Gnostic sources, called them (1) Anthropos, (2) Shadow, (3) Paradise, and (4) Lapis. We will journey through this fourfold kaleidoscope and conclude with some reflections on the narrowing of horizons in the contemporary academy of religion. Our current methods, and the objects they reveal, have become largely restricted to only one quadrant in this grand schema: the fourth quadrant, which saw the rise of modern scientific thinking. By using a subordinate category (modern science) to try to understand a superordinate category (religion), it is not surprising that our discipline has lost its way.