Ascent functions in the depth-psychology corpus as a master trope unifying shamanic, alchemical, Platonic, and Christian spiritual itineraries under a common structural logic: the soul, spirit, or consciousness moves from a lower to a higher register of being, and this movement is at once cosmological, psychological, and soteriological. Eliade establishes the archaic ground: from Siberian initiation rites to Australian medicine men, shamanic vocation is inseparable from the capacity for celestial ascent—by ladder, tree, rope, smoke, or ecstatic flight—and this motif ramifies across cultures too numerous to trace to a single origin. Climacus systematizes the figure into the thirty-rung Ladder of Divine Ascent, making hierarchical moral and contemplative progress the very architecture of the spiritual life. Jung and the alchemical corpus he reads disclose a paradox: genuine ascent requires a prior or concomitant descent—the spagyric foetus rises to heaven only to descend again, transformed. Sri Aurobindo configures ascent as evolutionary necessity, the means by which consciousness surpasses the mental plane and enters supramental existence. Nussbaum’s Platonic analysis of the Diotima ascent in the Symposium interrogates its cost—what unique erotic attachment to individuals must be relinquished for philosophical elevation. Across all these registers, the tension between ascent as liberation and ascent as renunciation remains irreducible.
the ability to ascend (or to fly magically) is essential to the career of medicine men, shamanic initiation includes an ascensional rite.
Eliade establishes ascent as the constitutive mark of shamanic vocation, making the ascensional rite structurally inseparable from initiation itself.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951thesis
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 entire spiritual life as an urgent, ordered ascent, the rungs of the Ladder encoding stages of virtuous and contemplative progress toward divine union.
, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 600thesis
St. John of the Cross represents the stages of mystical perfection as a difficult climb; his Ascent of Mount Carmel describes the necessary ascetic and spiritual efforts in the form of a long, trying ascent of a mountain.
Eliade situates St. John of the Cross’s Ascent within a cross-cultural typology of ladder, tree, and mountain imagery, demonstrating the universality of the ascensional symbol across shamanic and Christian mysticism.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951thesis
the course of our evolution could rise by a sublimer ascent and get beyond the mental into the supramental and the supreme spiritual nature.
Aurobindo recasts ascent as evolutionary necessity: consciousness must surpass the mental plane through a supramental ascent in order to achieve integral self-knowledge.
, The Life Divine, 1939thesis
this earthly, spagyric foetus clothes itself with heavenly nature by its ascent, and then by its descent visibly puts on the nature of the centre of the earth, but nonetheless the nature of the heavenly centre which it acquired by the ascent is secretly preserved.
Jung’s alchemical reading discloses that ascent and descent are paired operations: the spagyric foetus rises to acquire heavenly nature but must descend again, retaining its celestial transformation within earthly embodiment.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967thesis
No one ascends into the heaven which ye seek, unless he who descends from the heaven which ye do not seek, enlighten him.
Dorn, as read by Jung, paradoxically conditions ascent upon a prior, unrecognized descent, revealing the dialectical structure at the heart of alchemical and psychological transformation.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis
Obedience, put into action through the practice of the commandments, builds a ladder out of various virtues and places them in the soul as rungs by which to ascend.
The Philokalia presents ascent as the cumulative architectural product of obedience and virtue, the ladder of the soul’s rungs built through disciplined practice leading to love and ultimately to Christ.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis
ecstatic ascent of a tree-ladder, symbolizing the journey to heaven; prayer addressed from the platform to the Supreme God or the celestial Great Shaman, who are believed to grant the machi both curative powers.
Eliade documents that shamanic initiatory ascent serves a dual function: it enacts the cosmological journey to heaven and simultaneously secures divine transmission of healing powers.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
its original meaning implied the shaman’s ascending to heaven to ask the celestial God to put an end to the sickness.
Eliade traces the therapeutic function of ascent: the shaman’s celestial journey is not merely mystical but intercedes with divine powers on behalf of a suffering community.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
the identity in expression between such superhuman experiences and the archaic symbolism of ascent and flight, so frequent in shamanism.
Eliade identifies structural identity between Buddhist magical translation, yogic siddhi, and shamanic ascent, arguing that flight and ascent constitute a universal grammar of superhuman attainment.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
we cannot simply add the love of Alcibiades to the ascent of Diotima; indeed, that we cannot have this love and th[e ascent simultaneously].
Nussbaum exposes the Platonic ascent’s irreducible cost: the move toward universal beauty through Diotima’s ladder is structurally incompatible with the particular passionate attachment that Alcibiades embodies.
, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 1986supporting
Socrates says that he was persuaded by Diotima to undertake the ascent, which promised freedom from the slavish love of unpredictable individuals.
Nussbaum reads the Diotima ascent as a philosophical program of liberation from erotic dependency on particular persons, achieved by sublimating desire toward the Form of Beauty.
, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 1986supporting
a tripartite reading of the Ladder reminds us just how much progress means to John. The ascetic life can be divided into stages through which monks progress.
Sinkewicz demonstrates that Climacus structures ascent as tripartite progressive stages—fundamental, practical, and contemplative—encoding a heavenly trajectory within the formal architecture of the Ladder.
, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, 2003supporting
The ἄνοδος is open, but only to those who are not liable to the demons. Indeed, only after demonic accusations fall flat did ‘the way become fr[ee]’.
Sinkewicz shows that in Athanasius’s Life of Antony, the ἄνοδος (ascent to God) is contingent upon complete moral accountability; demonic gatekeeping renders the ascent a forensic as well as spiritual passage.
, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, 2003supporting
The rung of the ladder was not meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
Coniaris presents the ladder as the image of inexhaustible spiritual growth rather than perfectionist arrival, each rung a temporary foothold propelling the ascent toward ever-deeper knowledge of God.
, Philokalia: The Bible of Orthodox Spirituality, 1998supporting
Mythical heroes and medicine men ascend to these celestial beings by using, among other things, the rainbow.
Eliade catalogues the variety of symbolic vehicles—rainbow, ladder, tree, rope, mountain—by which archaic ascent mythology reaches toward the Supreme Being enthroned in the upper sky.
, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1951supporting
beings with both bodies and souls, set at odds by sin, yet destined to rise together.
Sinkewicz reads Climacus’s Ladder as addressed to composite human beings whose bodily and spiritual dimensions, though divided by sin, are jointly destined for ascent—resisting any purely spiritualizing interpretation.
, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, 2003supporting
the experience of the fourth quarter, the region of fire (i. e., the inferior function), is described by Maier as an ascent and descent through the seven planetary spheres.
Jung shows that in Maier’s alchemical peregrination, the opus culminates in ascent and descent through the seven planetary spheres, mapping the individuation journey onto a cosmological itinerary.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955supporting
How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation—when it is not immersed in the foul mire of earth?
Tarnas cites Petrarch’s ascent of Mont Ventoux as an emblem of the soul’s upward reach toward contemplation, contrasting the physical summit with the far greater height of interior spiritual ascent.
, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, 2006supporting
Amoun’s soul is borne aloft by angels, just as they carried him across the river Lycus.
Sinkewicz documents Palladius’s elaboration of Antony’s vision: Amoun’s angelic ascent at death is continuous with his angelic aid in life, demonstrating that ascent is the eschatological fulfilment of the ascetic vocation.
, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus, 2003supporting
Reason and Eros in the Ascent Passage of the Symposium… stress the role of need and dissatisfaction in moving the agent from one level to another.
Nussbaum notes that scholarly readings of the Symposium ascent passage locate its motivating dynamic in need and dissatisfaction, not merely rational choice, complicating purely intellectualist accounts of Platonic eros.
, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 1986aside
three stages of salvation, namely that of virtue, that of spiritual knowledge and that of theology.
The Philokalia presents a triadic schema of ascent—virtue, spiritual knowledge, theology—embodied typologically in Elijah, Moses, and Christ at the Transfiguration.
, The Philokalia, Volume 2, 1981aside