Hildegard of Bingen: A Marginalized Example of Holding the 'And'

By Sean Froyd

Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th century Christian mystic who lived in Germany. She had visions, wrote music, met with emperors and wrote to popes. Her work speaks to many through the centuries, and her unique worldview is a precursor and example of many of Carl Jung’s postulates.

Hildegard’s ideas in her writings about God, the world and mankind’s place in it often represent her ability to hold the ‘and’ between natural and spiritual, she steps away from the dualistic thinking that was an issue during her times. Her ideas were marginalized throughout history, much like Carl Jung’s ideas on psychology.

Her language of God and man parallel what Jung has said about the unconscious and the ego. The paintings made of her visions resemble strongly Jung’s writing on the mandalas. Hildegard’s ability to hold the ‘and’ between two opposites relates to Jung’s similar position on the ego and the unconscious. Hildegard and Jung, when their similarities are examined provide the process for holding the ‘and’ in the borders between religion and psychology.

Marginality

These two individuals, Hildegard and Jung, are aptly described at being at the borders of their respective fields. As talked about in class and in our notes, “marginalization is characterized by three conditions: banning, appropriation, and exclusion” (Lecture on April 12th). The marginality of Jung was covered in the lecture, but Hildegard’s marginality has yet to be explored.

Banning for Hildegard didn’t occur as overtly as it was for Jung, as she was quite powerful in her life. It happened that her views and books were pushed to the side after her passing, not ‘banned’ per se, but ignored and rarely brought up again in standard Christian dogma.

The second aspect of marginalization is the appropriation of ideas. The Church after Hildegard, whether or not they acknowledged it, took several of her ideas and put them into action. The first was on the Cathars, whom Hildegard opposed because they turned away from the body, in their fasting and their renunciation of women. After Hildegard’s death, the church mercilessly eradicated the problem of the Cathars, though far beyond the simple ‘expulsion’ that Hildegard promoted. The Church murdered them out right. Hildegard’s ideas regarding body and spirit combined as the way of salvation, as Regine Pernoud quotes her in Hildegard of Bingen saying “Man is led to salvation by the five senses that allow him to satisfy all needs” (108). The Church, though not in outright dogma, became much more accepting of these views during the enlightenment.

The third condition of marginalization is the exclusion seen in Hildegard’s sphere in the way that there is little in the way of crediting her for the ideas that the Church has used. Her ideas, like Jung’s, have become part of the the dominant culture, but have not been properly cited as being hers. The dominant class in the church after Hildegard were not particularly open to allowing the ideas of a woman to flourish, excluding them from the formulation of doctrine.

The marginalization of both Hildegard and Jung, placing them in the borders of their fields, allow us to explore more of the similarities between religion and psychology as it has occurred throughout history.

Consciousness and the Religious Worldview

Jung realized that his ideas were not necessarily new. His psychological terms and theories were but the latest used when studying the mind of man. Jung says in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, “the development of psychology falls entirely within the last decades, although long before that man was introspective and intelligent enough to recognize the facts that are the subject-matter of psychology” (201). We can examine Hildegard’s thoughts through this lens.

Jung wrote about the person’s conscious life as having basically two parts: the Ego and the Unconscious, together forming the Self. The individuation process is the way in which the Ego becomes fully integrated with the unconscious. Archetypes are the way that the two communicate, and in time the Ego becomes capable of standing as a fully formed person in the Self.

Hildegard spoke of her worldview in the terms of Christianity, but as was pointed out in class, Jung taught that “how one sees determines what one sees” (Lecture on April 12th). Hildegard spoke of God, Angels and humans in the universe. God spoke directly to her in her visions, but Angels fulfilled the function of bringing Man’s accomplishments to God and speaking normally to mankind. Hildegard speaks also of Satan and his ability to lead man astray. Hildegard’s language strikes a particular note of similarity with Jung.

Hildegard’s visions in which God spoke to her can easily be compared to the Self. Josef Goldbrunner in his book Individuation: A Study of the Depth Psychology of Carl Gustav Jung said of Jung that “Jung interprets the experience of the Self as an experience of God, with the aid of metaphysical concepts and terms” (159). This allows us to see Hildegard’s ideas of the world as parallel to Jungian theory. The God of Hildegard’s visions coincides with Jung’s view of the Self which encompasses everything. The angels in her view translate to the symbols of the unconscious that Jung says communicate to the ego. These symbols represent the archetypes, the way in which the Unconscious speaks to the conscious mind through dreams. Humans represent Ego.

Lastly, we have Satan and his demons, which seemingly have no parallel. This isn’t altogether true, as the archetypes can sometimes lead men astray and can be dangerous. As pointed out by Frieda Fordham in her book An Introduction to Jung’s Psychology: “The archetype represents a serious danger to personality, for when it is awakened a man may easily come to believe that he really possesses the ‘mana’, the seemingly magic power and wisdom that it holds” (60).

This ‘possession’ of the archetype echoes the description Hildegard makes of the Cathars, that they are possessed by the voice of Satan and that they believe themselves to be holy, though they act against God’s dictates.

The worldview of Hildegard’s visions and Jung’s labels on the unconscious have very similar actions and purposes. These labels also appear in Hildegard’s view of the Nature of humans.

The Nature of Humans and the labels of Consciousness

As mentioned above, the Ego and the Unconscious are Jung’s labels for parts of the whole psyche, one that communicates through symbols and one that directs every day life. Hildegard calls the different parts of humans the ‘carnal’ and the ‘spiritual.’

Hildegard states that to live a holy life, one must exercise their natures in the way that God would have them do. As is shown in The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, “Thus both natures- the spiritual and the carnal- must be exercised righteously, lest the Creator threaten those He has created, because they are not walking in his ways” (57). Jung’s method of individuation can be seen in this light as well.

The ego-development process of individuation depends on “integrating the unconscious” (Lecture on April 12th), the two ‘natures’ if you will. The ego(the conscious) in order to transform itself must take into account the unconscious and “discover that it is not the center of the personality” (Lecture on April 12th). The Ego and the Unconscious must both be present in the fully formed personality, and though the term ‘righteously’ may not apply, they must both be exercised.

Mandalas, Quaternity and the Visions of Hildegard

Hildegard in describing her visions, and in the painting of them, references her worldview. As pointed out above, this worldview coincides with descriptions of the psyche. It is within the paintings and descriptions that Hildegard most closely resembles Jung’s ideas.

Hildegard often describes the 4 winds of the world which are responsible for the actions taken by men. The west wind is often cold, while the east wind is often warm and ‘green’. Pernoud quotes this vision of Hildegard’s “[the western wind] indicates dishonest and useless thoughts” (100). Hildegard viewed everything that had life, and was holy, as having a ‘greenness’ to them. As well, Hildegard often references the four evangelists, the four ‘heads’ on thrones, and overall has the number four recur many times.

These descriptions are close to those of mandalas, a painting or object that helps practitioners of religions center and meditate. These mandalas, according to Goldbrunner, are a demonstration of symbols from religion. Goldbrunner says that “the unified, centered psyche expresses its religious life in the unifying symbols which are the equivalent of the mandalas” (173). Hildegard, through her visions, exemplifies a centered psyche.

The quaternity aspect of Hildegard’s visions have aspects of both the holy and the psyche. The quaternity is often shown as splitting something into fours, of having four sections of the mandala, or of having four people. As Jolande Jacobi says in Complex/Archetype/Symbol, “as a dream symbol it[quaternity] points to the “God within,” and the archetypal images with which the psyche lends expression to this inner God bear witness to its divine nature” (170).

Holding the ‘And’

As shown above, there are similarities and parallels between Hildegard’s writings and Jung’s ideas on the unconscious. These would lend weight to Jung’s theories about how man coped with psychic life throughout history. The question that remains to us is this: is it wise to use a deeply religious person to support a theory of human thought?

This is where we can hold the ‘and’ between the religious and the secular. Using the religious visions of Hildegard to support Jung’s theories of the human psyche would normally be thought wrong. The two are separate realms of human experience and oft times warring realms. Between the borders of religion and psychology however, we find Hildegard and Jung.

Henri Ellenberger, in his book The Discovery of the Unconscious, describes Jung’s view of psychology as being an objective study of the unobjective. Ellenberger says “He[Jung] defined it[psychology] as the scientific study of the human soul, taking manifestations that he called psychological reality as a starting point” (691). This sums up the method in which we can look at the ‘And’ of religion and psychology.

Hildegard’s experience of the numinous, and her ideas on the soul of mankind can fit in perfectly with Jung’s ideas on symbols and archetype. Ellenberger states that “Jung confers a “numinous quality” upon the experience of the archetype” (724), something that Hildegard had in spades. The numinous of Hildegard can be seen as the experience of the archetypes in the Unconscious.

The visions granted to Hildegard, when looked at through Jung’s theories make an even clearer case. The symbols in mandalas, and the directions therein, are described by M.L. von Franz in her essay “The Process of Individuation” as follows:

”Right” Often means, psychologically, the side of consciousness, of adaptation, of being “right”, while “left” signifies the sphere of the unadapted, unconscious reactions or sometimes even of something “sinister”.(215)

This can be seen in Hildegard’s visions of the winds. The west wind, on the left side of the compass rose, is the wind that is “chilled”. The east wind, is the opposite. The subject of the mandala and the subject of Hildegard’s vision hold the center between religion and psychology.

The subject of Hildegard’s visions echoes psychology. The image of God, and His voice comes to mind here. In her worldview, the commands and symbols of the self and the unconscious were seen in His image. Von Franz again helps us make sense of this, people who are contained in a religion(that is, who still really believe in its content and teachings), the psychological regulation of their lives is effected by religious symbols, and even their dreams often revolve around them. (224)

As well, von Franz says, this applies to the self projecting onto Christ, “in Christian countries the self is projected, as I said before, onto the second Adam: Christ” (224). This is evident in Hildegard’s visions.

The mixing of religion and psychology was already begun by Jung, and using Hildegard as an example brings it to a point. Jung’s language has a religious slant to them, and the reason for this is best explained by Goldbrunner. Religion in its language and symbols are ways of seeing the two sides of the psyche. Goldbrunner says “The various religions are therefore an expression of humanity’s collective experience. Their language is symbolic. This symbol combines the two aspects of the soul, the unconscious and the conscious” (165). Furthermore these symbols “arise from the deepest being of soul” (165).

The language used here to elucidate Jung’s ideas is comprised of both religious and psychological language. Jung stands in the borders between the scientific and religious communities.

Jung and Hildegard: Holding the ‘And’ in the Margins

Jung and Hildegard have more in common than just their ideas, the very cultures that they came from marginalized them afterwards, and only now they are getting more of their due. It is in that due that they are holding the ‘And’ in religion and psychology.

Hildegard’s writing has given us an example of where religion flirts with psychology in its methods and visions. Hildegard’s visions allow an interpretation by psychology that does not necessarily view it as being secular and non-religious. Jung’s psychology, when applied to Hildegard, allows us to view how the Religious can be approached from a secularist standpoint of psychology without falling into the dogma of religion.

Hildegard and Jung both allow us to hold the ‘and’ without becoming too embroiled in the differences of religion and psychology. In doing this, we can come to a clearer and less biased standpoint from within either one. That is the value of holding the ‘and’, rather than becoming polarized and dogmatic, we are allowed to see how using one or the other to look can benefit and enrich the experience had.

The example of Hildegard to exemplify the ‘And’ in religion and psychology would in all likelihood not surprise Jung, for as he said in Modern Man in Search of a Soul “There has never, of course, been a time when the psyche did not manifest itself” (201).

Works Cited

Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York: Basic Books, 1970.

Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179, A Visionary Life. New York: Routledge, 1989.

von Franz, M.-L. “The Process of Individuation.”Man and his Symbols. Ed. Carl G. Jung. London: Aldus, 1964. 158-229.

George, Dr. Dawn. “Jung and the Post-Jungians.” History of Depth Psychology, 3rd Class Session. Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria. 12 Apr. 2005.

Goldbrunner, Josef. Individuation A study of the Depth Psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. Trans. Stanley Godman. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1964.

Hildegard of Bingen. The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen Vol 1. Trans. by Baird Ehrman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.

Jacobi, Jolande. Complex/Archetype/Symbol In the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Trans. Ralph Manheim. New York: Pantheon, 1959.

Jung, C.G. “Integration, Wholeness, and the Self.” The Essential Jung. Ed. Anthony Storr. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. 229-238.

---. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Trans. W.S. Dell and Cary F. Baynes. New York: HBJ, [c. 1954?].

Pernoud, Regine. Hildegard of Bingen: Inspired Conscience of the 12th Century. Trans. Paul Duggan. New York: Marlowe & Co, 1998.

Posted by john at May 15, 2005 07:12 PM