Within the depth-psychology corpus, ‘ascending’ functions as a charged axis of symbolic movement encompassing spiritual elevation, psychological inflation, alchemical transformation, and neurobiological signal transmission. The term does not carry a single valence: Hillman reads the ascending puer aeternus with ambivalence — the upward drive as genuine spiritual impetus and, simultaneously, as the seed of hubris and fall; he distinguishes wings, hopes, and song as legitimate modes of ascent from the spear-driven vertical thrust that collapses into Arean inflation. Jung’s alchemical writing positions ascending as one pole of a coniunctio-structured transformation cycle, paired inseparably with descending, the two together constituting the stages of the opus. John Climacus consecrates ascending as the governing metaphor of the entire contemplative ladder — the graded, willed movement of the soul toward divine union. The Gnostic material (Meyer) presents apocalyptic ascent as a liturgical-cosmological act, the soul re-ascending to its originary light. The I Ching (Ritsema/Karcher) treats Ascending (Hexagram 46) as an oracular category of effortful, step-by-step advancement through accumulated labor. Craig’s neuroscientific corpus uses ascending anatomically for spinothalamic and interoceptive pathways that carry homeostatic signals upward to the thalamus and cortex — a somatic counterpart to the vertical metaphors of the soul traditions. The convergence of these registers — mythological, alchemical, contemplative, gnostic, and neurological — makes ‘ascending’ one of the corpus’s most semantically layered terms.
the one ascending the spiritual impetus of the puer aeternus, the winged godlike imago in us each, the beautiful boy of the spirit—Icarus on the way to the sun, then plummeting with waxen wings
Hillman identifies ascending as the defining movement of the puer archetype — a spiritual drive inseparable from the danger of catastrophic fall, requiring integration with soul rather than pure transcendence.
, Senex & Puer, 2015thesis
There are, after all, other modes of ascending—wings, hopes, songs. Ascending by means of the vertical spear no longer reflects the intentions of Eros, but of Ares, Lord of Battle.
Hillman differentiates legitimate modes of ascending (Eros-inflected, creative, winged) from hubris-driven vertical aggression, arguing that the mode of ascent determines whether the movement belongs to spirit or to destructive inflation.
, Senex & Puer, 2015thesis
Ascend, my brothers, ascend eagerly. Let your hearts’ … What is the mode, what is the law joining together those steps that the lover has set as an ascent in his heart?
Climacus frames the entirety of the spiritual life as a willed, graduated ascending, making the term the structural and teleological center of his contemplative theology.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600thesis
To the left, the descending, to the right, the ascending, transformation process.
Jung presents ascending and descending as structurally paired poles within the alchemical transformation cycle, embedded in a mandala image that maps the stages of individuation.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959thesis
Blessings on those who have proclaimed the son before he came down, so that, when I did come, I might ascend … We sent our minds up further. We saw with our eyes and heard with our ears hymns, angelic praises, and angelic rejoicing.
In the Gnostic apocalyptic frame, ascending is the destined return of divine light to its celestial origin, enacted through praise and the elevated mind moving through hierarchical heavenly realms.
, The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus: The Definitive Collection of Mystical Gospels and Secret Books about Jesus of Nazareth, 2005thesis
Subtle penetration and coupling within slowly ascends to a higher field of activity … Assembling and-also the above implies designating’s Ascending. Anterior acquiescence has the use-of Ascending.
The I Ching’s Hexagram 46 treats ascending as the outcome of patient inner work — subtle penetration accumulating into upward movement toward a higher order of activity.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
Ascend, SHENG: go up; climb step by step; rise in office; advance through effort; accumulate; bring out and fulfill
The lexical entry for SHENG in the I Ching glossary defines ascending as deliberate, incremental effort-based advancement, contrasting it with passive or sudden elevation.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994supporting
the sun god appears in two aspects: first emerging from the sea house, then ascending the world mountain
Campbell’s mythic image of the sun-god ascending the world mountain presents ascending as a cosmological archetype — the solar principle’s emergence from primordial waters into the heights of divine order.
, The Mythic Image, 1974supporting
The ascending axons in the lateral spinothalamic pathway originate mainly in lamina I at the top of the dorsal horn … the lateral spinothalamic pathway ascends in the middle of the white matter on the side of the spinal cord
Craig’s neuroanatomical description of ascending spinal pathways locates the biological substrate of interoceptive feeling in upward signal transmission from body to brain, grounding the metaphysical axis of ascent in somatic architecture.
, How Do You Feel? An Interoceptive Moment with Your Neurobiological Self, 2015supporting
The ascending neural activity that represents temperature and other physiological conditions of the body is conveyed by the lamina I spinothalamocortical pathway
Craig identifies ascending neural activity as the mechanism by which bodily homeostatic states become conscious feeling, linking somatic ascent to the emergence of subjective interoceptive awareness.
, How Do You Feel? Interoception: The Sense of the Physiological Condition of the Body, 2002supporting
Progress, perpetual, 57-58 … Theosis, 54 … Transfiguration of Christ, 1-2, 56
The index of The Ladder of Divine Ascent clusters ascending with theosis, transfiguration, and perpetual progress, confirming that the entire text is organized around a graduated ascent toward divine transformation.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600aside
the alchemists left us a rich heritage of symbolic material which describes the phenomenology of the individuation process
Edinger’s discussion of the alchemical symbolic heritage implicitly situates ascending within the individuation process, though the term itself is not the passage’s focal point.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972aside