Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Aion
The Christ-symbol is the symbol of the Self — and the historical "age of Aion" demands the integration of the shadow that the Christ-image has projected outward
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Aion (Late (one of Jung's last and most ambitious works, written in his mid-seventies)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Cyclical |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Aion
The astrological "age of Aion" — the great year of the Piscean age, beginning around the birth of Christ and closing around 2000 — is the temporal framework Jung uses to organise the historical-symbolic material.
Space
Aion
The symbolic space of the mandala — the four-fold structure of the Self that Jung finds in dreams, Gnostic cosmology, and the alchemical opus.
Matter
Aion
The alchemical lapis — material substance treated as symbolic carrier — is the material analogue of the Self.
Observer
Aion
The Self as the integrated centre that the conscious ego must come to recognise; the analyst as the witness of the individuation process.
Energy
Aion
Psychic energy (libido) circulating between conscious and unconscious; the integration of the shadow as the work of redirecting energy.
Information
Aion
The symbolic material across traditions — Gnostic, alchemical, astrological, Christian — as the information through which the archetype of the Self becomes legible.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Aion was controversial in 1951 and remains so. Orthodox Christian theologians (Buber, Victor White, who was Jung's Dominican correspondent and broke with him over this material) thought Jung's reading psychologised the Christ-symbol in ways that gutted its theological content. Secular critics thought the astrological framework (the precession of the equinoxes determining historical-psychological epochs) bordered on the occult. Sympathetic readers (Edinger, von Franz) defended Aion as Jung's most fully developed account of the symbolism of the Self.