Archive for the 'books' Category

I know you think you understand what you heard me say …

Published
by
Ken
on May 3, 2008
in bible, christianity and zen and the birds of appetite
. 3 Comments

… but you don’t realize that what I said is not what I really meant. Language sure is a sneaky little bugger. A quote from Thomas Merton in Zen and the Birds of Appetite:

The language used by Zen is therefore in some sense an antilanguage, and the “logic” of Zen is a radical reversal of philosophical logic. The human dilemma of communication is that we cannot communicate ordinarily without words and signs, but even ordinary experience tends to be falsified by our habits of verbalization and rationalization. The convenient tools of language enable us to decide beforehand what we think things mean, and tempt us all to easily to see things only in a way that fits our logical preconceptions and our verbal formulas. Instead of seeing things and facts as they are we see them as reflections and verifications of the sentences we have previously made up in our minds. We quickly forget how to simply see things and substitute our words and our formulas for the things themselves, manipulating facts so that we see only what conveniently fits our prejudices. Zen uses language against itself to blast out these preconceptions and to destroy the specious “reality” in our minds so that we can see directly. Zen is saying, as Wittgenstein said, “Don’t think: Look!”

In light of this, think about the Bible as the inerrant, inspired, yada, yada, yada, Word of God. Feel free to fill in as many adjectives as you deem appropriate. The transfer from God to the original writers to the words printed in your KJV or NIV or NAS or 21CKJV may be perfect. But the transfer from the words on the page to your mind to what you say is definitely not. Our interpretation of the words is subject to the falsification that Merton discusses. Why do you think so many different people can get so many different interpretations from the same Bible?

As a child, I believed the same things my parents did. I was naturally influenced by the biases and rationalizations of my parents and those who taught me in the church and so I saw things in the world as they did. As I was not exposed to very much influence other than my parents and our church, my logical preconceptions and verbal formulas were the same as my parent’s. Hence, what fit nicely into their way of thinking also fit nicely into mine. Even though I struggled with those beliefs and even though I felt they didn’t “work” for me, I did not have the tools to change my habits and rationalizations and so I could not accept any other belief. I had to get to a point of desperation and throw everything away — telling everyone that I no longer believed anything anymore.

But even though I made this declaration, the beliefs still stuck with me and troubled me. I still had a very difficult time accepting any belief different from those with which I was raised — I still felt they were all “false.” But since I couldn’t go back to my old beliefs, I had no where to turn; I had nothing to believe. Eleven years after my denouncement, I was still trying to find common ground among different beliefs. Not between Islam or Buddhism and Christianity but between the Lutherans or Methodists or Episcopalians and the “real” Christians (i.e. how I was raised)

It took a long time and a large separation between me and my parents and the religion of my youth before I was able to step out of my preconceptions and look at things differently. And, at least for me, that separation was crucial. I needed the physical and emotional space to be there before I could relax my defenses, so to speak, and allow new ideas to seep in without immediately judging them from my old perspective.

One of the easiest ways to get stuck in the rut of “see[ing] things only in a way that fits our logical preconceptions and our verbal formulas” is to limit our exposure to new ideas and differing opinions. As a child, I only listened to preachers who agreed with the pastor of our church and I only read approved books, etc. All else was off limits because it was dangerous to expose ourselves to wrong ideas — at least ideas that we said were wrong because of our preconceptions. I would bet that many, if not most, of determinations of what was appropriate and what was not was made because someone else — someone trusted as a spiritual leader — said so. The books were not read first hand but were simply dismissed because so-and-so said it was evil. And so, we were constantly exposed to in-bred ideas and as a result, our minds atrophied and became inflexible which made it harder for us to entertain differing opinion. A vicious, downward spiral.

One solution is to do what Cliff Martin proposes in the comment thread to a post at OutsideTheBox: “Just as The God Delusion should be required reading for all believers, the McGrath’s wonderful little answer[, The Dawkins Delusion,] should be required reading for all atheists!!”

The Creation of Consciousness: V

Published
by
Ken
on April 26, 2008
in books, carl jung, edward edinger and the creation of consciousness
. 0 Comments

We know turn to Jung’s amazing work Answer to Job. At the outset, the reader should be aware that Answer to Job is offensive. Edinger warns:

These are the two most common sources of offense to the readers of Answer to Job. Either one is offended that Jung describes Yahweh so outrageously, in contradiction to the dogmatic God-image in which he believes, or one is offended that Jung takes so seriously the primitive, anthropomorphic image of God that has long since been discredited by the rational intellect. I venture to assert that every person on first encounter with Answer to Job will be offended to some extent in either on or the other, or perhaps both, of these ways.

Whoever is gravely offended will have nothing more to do with Answer to Job, and that is proper since one man’s meat can be another man’s poison.

So, if you’re still with me, lets get to being offended!

Jung wrote Answer to Job during an illness. He said that the book “came to me” and that he felt “its content as the unfolding of the divine consciousness in which I participate.”

Edinger could not have put more emphasis on Answer to Job. He felt that “it has the same psychic depth and import as characterize the major scriptures of the world-religions.” Edinger also considered the book as a new dispensation. (I warned you that this would be offensive!)

Jung identifies the audience for the book:

I am not . . . addressing myself to the happy possessors of faith, but to those many people for whom the light has gone out, the mystery has faded, and God is dead. For most of them there is no going back, and one does not know either whether going back is the better way. To gain and understanding of religious matters, probably all that is left us today is the psychological approach. That is why I take these thought-forms that have become historically fixed, try to melt them down again and pour them into moulds of immediate experience.

The central theme of Answer to Job is “the relationship between man and Yahweh.” Jung’s psychological approach to the issue requires us to understand two things. First, we must understand that Jung recognized “the full reality of all psychic phenomena.” [1]

For Jung the psyche is not less real than the body. Though it cannot be touched, it can be directly and fully experienced and observed. It is a world of its own, governed by laws, structured, and endowed with its own means of expression.

Whatever we know of the world or our own being comes to us through the mediation of the psyche. [2]

Second, we need to understand what Yahweh means psychologically. Edinger summarizes this point thusly:

. . . Yahweh as a psychic reality is a personification of the collective unconscious especially in its aspect of center and totality, the Self. It expresses itself in dreams and fantasies of an archetypal nature; in affects, instincts and intense energy-manifestations of all kinds; in psychic and somatic symptoms; and in its specific quality of “otherness” which goes contrary to the desires and expectations of the ego. Since the phenomena of synchronicity imply a fluid boundary between inner and outer reality, the unconscious can come to us from without as well as from within. Hence Jung can say, “God is reality itself.”

We’ll start looking at the Edinger’s commentary on the book next time.

—————————————————
[1] Jolande Jocobi, The Psychology of C. G. Jung, 1973, p. 1.
[2] Ibid.

God begins to learn who He is

Published
by
Ken
on April 5, 2008
in edward edinger, god and the creation of consciousness
. 0 Comments

I offer you a personal fantasy. Suppose the universe consists of an omniscient mind containing total and absolute knowledge, But it is asleep. Slowly it stirs, stretches and starts to awaken. It begins to ask questions. What am I? — but no answer comes. Then it thinks, I shall consult my fantasy, I shall do active imagination. With that, galaxies and solar systems spring into being. The fantasy focuses on earth. It becomes autonomous and life appears. Now the Divine mind wants dialogue and man emerges to answer that need. The deity is straining for Self-knowledge and the noblest representatives of mankind have the burden of that divine urgency imposed on them. Many are broken by the weight. A few survive and incorporate the fruits of their divine encounter in mighty works of religion and art and human knowledge. These then generate new ages and civilizations in the history of mankind. Slowly, as this process unfolds, God begins to learn who He is.

Edward F. Edinger, The Creation of Consciousness

Favorite sentences from children’s books: I

Published
by
Ken
on April 4, 2008
in books
. 0 Comments

That very night in Max’s room a forest grew
and grew—
and grew until his ceiling hung with vines
and the walls became the world all around
and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max
and he sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks
and almost over a year
to where the wild things are.

Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak

What’s your favorite sentence from a children’s book?

The Creation of Consciousness: IV

Published
by
Ken
on April 4, 2008
in books, carl jung, edward edinger and the creation of consciousness
. 0 Comments

We know turn to the meaning of consciousness. Etymology indicates that consciousness is made up of two factors: knowing and withness. That is, it is the experience of knowing together with an other.

Edinger tackles the act of knowing from a psychological-empirical approach rather than a philosophical approach. Through the former approach, says Edinger, “the experience of knowing can be at least descriptively elaborated.”

The psychological function of knowing or seeing requires first of all that undifferentiated, diffuse experience be split into a subject and an object, the knower and the known. . . . As [Erich] Neumann says, “This act of cognition, of conscious discrimination, sunders the world into opposites, for experience of the world is only possible through opposites.”

This is exactly Jung’s individuation process which is realized through the experience of the tension of the opposites. Each new increment of consciousness that we collect requires a repetition of this same process of separating object from subject. Schopenhauer talks about the ability for a man to step away from his struggling, suffering life and observe it as if he is a spectator to a play. All the things that were intensely emotion are now cold, foreign, and strange. It is this process that turns an “unconscious complex which has one by the throat into an object of knowledge” and is “an extremely important aspect for increasing consciousness.” The myth of Perseus and Medusa also demonstrates the power of reflection. Once cannot look upon Medusa directly but one can view her via the mirror-shield — the process of human culture or art.

Being known as object is the other half of the process of knowledge. The ego as “knower” is only providing simple knowing. “To achieve authentic consciousness the ego must also go through the experience of being the object of knowledge, with the function of the knowing subject residing in the ‘other’.” This “other” must ultimately be the inner “knowing one,” i.e., the Self or inner God-image. The “Last Judgment” is the ultimate experience of being the object of knowledge. It “can be understood psychologically as a projection into the afterlife of the ego’s encounter with the Self and the archetypal experience of being the known object of a transpersonal subject; it is an awesome experience, as the myths make clear, an experience that man has understandably tried to postpone as long as possible by transferring it to the afterlife.”

We all begin as the known object and slowly, as the ego develops, become the knowing subject. This is a tranquil and powerful state since the subject dominates the object and the object is the victim of the knower. But we must give up our relative freedom as we realize that we are also the known object, once again, to the Self. So, we alternately must play the role of subject and object. The real key to the process is the realization of the “dynamism of connectedness, the relationship principle” that is knowing with. It is a coniunctio, a union, of Logos (knowing) and Eros (withness) and, as such, we are simultaneously playing both parts. Furthermore, this process also applies to the Self which must also be the known object to the ego’s subject. In Answer to Job, Jung says:

Existence is only real when it is conscious to somebody. That is why the Creator needs conscious man even though, from sheer unconsciousness, he would like to prevent him from becoming conscious.

What we see in Job is that “because Job has seen Yahweh’s amoral nature, Yahweh is obliged to change.” In other words, God — or the Self — needs man to promote the Self’s consciousness.

This reciprocal relation between the ego and the Self — in which both are object and subject — has some interesting implications. The unconscious provides the material of our dream life and thus the Self becomes visible to the ego. But what if the life dramas of the ego are the dreams of the Self, the process of God becoming aware of himself?

In this modern age, religion is the Eros, or withness, factor and seeks the maintain man’s connectedness with God and is Self-oriented. Science is the Logos, or ego-oriented, factor and seeks human knowledge at the expense of the connection with the other. Science alone inadequate to the needs of the whole man and the intellectually naive standpoint of religious faith is equally inappropriate for us today. It is the synthesis and linking of these two factors that will increase consciousness in the universe.

The Creation of Consiousness: III

Published
by
Ken
on April 3, 2008
in books, carl jung, edward edinger and the creation of consciousness
. 2 Comments

[ Finally getting back to this book. I actually lost it for a while in the black hole residing in the center of my office. But I've managed to rescue it from the event horizon and now we'll continue... ]

It is the union of opposites that is the essential feature:

Consciousness is the third thing that emerges out of the conflict of twoness. Out of the ego as subject versus the ego as object; out of the ego as active agent versus the ego as passive victim; out of the ego as praiseworthy and good versus the ego as damnable and bad; out of a conflict of mutually exclusive duties — out of all such paralyzing conflicts can emerge the third, transcendent condition which is a new quantum of consciousness.

It is in “paralyzing conflicts” that we grow, learn, and mature. It is the no-win situation that makes us confront our passive, un-examined beliefs and prejudices and figure out what we truly believe. Being in a rut — physically, emotionally, mentally — simply atrophies our being. Nothing new comes from one-track thinking and avoiding to actually make the tough decisions.

Edinger then goes on to talk about the Trinity and how the Holy Spirit could only come after Jesus’ death in which the opposites of the Father and the Son collided on the cross. In this respect, the Holy Spirit embodies the creation of consciousness and thus the indwelling of the Parachlete “thus anticipates the new myth which sees each individual ego as potentially a vessel to carry transpersonal consciousness.”

As two archetypal figures who both represent the idea of a carrier of consciousness, Christ and Buddha give us the opportunity for comparison and objectivity.

As long as there is but one figure embodying supreme value he can only be worshipped but not understood. With the presence of two we can discover the separate third thing which they both share; understanding and greater consciousness then become possible.

I think this is exactly the situation of the Old Testament God versus the new Testament God. In the Old Testament, there was only the one God and so he could only be worshiped; there was no point of comparison from which he could be understood. It took Jesus, as the wrathful, jealous God’s opposite in order for us to be able to put them both in perspective.

The new myth suggests that man is an experiment in the process of creating consciousness; “that the sum total of consciousness created by each individual in his lifetime is deposited as a permanent addition in the collective treasury of the archetypal psyche.” There are many mythical images that talk about the transfer from the personal life of the ego to the eternal realm: the early Egyptian idea of the dead being turned into stars and the translation of dead kings to the heavenly realm; Christian symbolism of the righteous ascending into Heaven; the promise in Revelation that the victorious will be a pillar in the temple of God.

This new myth gives meaning to our mundane life:

Every human experience, to the extent that it is lived in awareness, augments the sum total of consciousness in the universe. This face provides the meaning for every experience and gives each individual a role in the on-going world-drama of creation.

The Creation of Consiousness: II

Published
by
Ken
on January 11, 2008
in carl jung, edward edinger, god, myth, religion and the creation of consciousness
. 2 Comments

Jung states the new myth more succinctly in Psychology and Religion: West and East where he says:

Existence is only real when it is conscious to somebody. That is why the Creator needs conscious man even though, from sheer unconsciousness, he would like to prevent him from becoming conscious.

and

Whoever knows God has an effect on him.

Edinger states the basic idea as “the purpose of human life is the creation of consciousness” and then acknowledges that talking about consciousness is a difficult task. In the next chapter, Edinger clarifies that his approach to consciousness (and the inevitable tie-in with epistemology) is “not philosophical but psychological-empirical” and this should be kept in mind throughout.

Edinger calls consciousness a “psychic material” and this must be understood in light of Jung’s conception of the psyche. As Jacobi explains in An Introduction to the Psychology of C.G. Jung, the psyche is something “not less real than the body” and “[t]hough it cannot be touched, it can be directly and fully experienced and observed. It is a world of its own, governed by laws, structured, and endowed with its own means of expression.”

So, our purpose is to create consciousness and this creation is the process of individuation — the process whereby psychic contents (complexes and archetypal images) “become actualized and substantial” … “when they enter an individual’s conscious awareness and become an accepted item of that individual’s personal responsibility.” This process involves the “encounter of opposites” such as subject and object or myself and the “other.”

The encounter of opposites is a big part of Jung’s psychology and he points to a long history of mythical ideas and to alchemy (which was not really about turning literal lead into literal gold just as Moby Dick was not really about a literal whale and its literal pursuer) as evidence of how pervasive this idea is in human history. Psychologically, the creation of consciousness — the process of individuation — involves being confronted by the unconscious with the contrary when the ego identifies with one of a pair of opposites. This confrontation happens over and over and over again and we find ourselves tossed “back and forth between opposing moods and attitudes.” But, the one who deliberately seeks out these encounters — who deliberately tries to resolve inner and outer conflict by coming to terms with the opposite and experience both, opposing, viewpoints simultaneously — is creating a new increment of consciousness.

The key, as the alchemical myth tells us, is the union of opposites, the coniunctio.

Contrary to the implications of the erotic imagery, the coniunctio of opposites is not generally a pleasant process. More often it is felt as a crucification. The cross represents the union of horizontal and vertical, two contrary directional movements. To be nailed to such a conflict can be a scarcely endurable agony.

The Creation of Consciousness

Published
by
Ken
on December 28, 2007
in carl jung, edward edinger, god, myth, religion and the creation of consciousness
. 0 Comments

I am reading Edward F. Edinger’s The Creation of Consciousness (1984) and my goal is to blog all the way through this short but very deep book. (Wish me luck!) The subtitle is “Jung’s Myth for Modern Man.”

Chapter 1, “The New Myth,” begins with a description of the problem:

History and anthropology teach us that a human society cannot long survive unless its members are psychologically contained within a central living myth. Such a myth provides the individual with a reason for being. To the ultimate questions of human existence it provides answers which satisfy the most developed and discriminating members of the society. And if the creative, intellectual minority is in harmony with the prevailing myth, the other layers of society will follow its lead and may even be spared a direct encounter with the fateful question of the meaning of life.

It is evident to thoughtful people that Western society no longer has a viable, functioning myth. … Meaning is lost. In its place, primitive and atavistic contents are reactivated. Differentiated values disappear and are replaced by the elemental motivations of power and pleasure, or else the individual is exposed to emptiness and despair. With the loss of awareness of a transpersonal reality (God), the inner and outer anarchies of competing personal desires take over.

The loss of a central myth brings about a truly apocalyptic condition and this is the state of modern man.

Edinger says “[I]t is the loss of our containing myth that is the root cause of our current individual and social distress” and that the only solution is to discover a new one. Edinger’s claim is that the work of Carl Jung — particularly his discovery of his own individual myth — is the first emergence of our new collective myth.

An example of a functioning central myth was found by Jung among the Pueblo Indians in 1925. He was able to gain the confidence of a chief of the Taos Pueblos, Mountain Lake, who related the following:

“[W]e are a people who live on the roof of the world; we are the sons of Father Sun, and with our religion we daily help our father to go across the sky. We do this not only for ourselves, but for the whole world. If we were to cease practicing our religion, in ten years the sun would no longer rise. Then it would be night forever.”

Jung realized that the Mountain Lake — and the other Taos Pueblos — saw life as “cosmologically meaningful” and therefore had “dignity” and “tranquil composure.”

Now, of course, this sounds like a bunch of poppycock to us “intelligent” folks. And I am in no way trying to suggest that we should take over this sun-god myth — that would be totally ridiculous. The point is that they had a myth and the myth worked for them. It gave them a reason to get up in the morning and made their lives peaceful and meaningful. This is exactly what we are lacking today.

Another important point is that the Pueblos practiced their religion “for the whole world” and this is crucial. Arguments that I’ve heard against religious pluralism, and something that I struggle with myself, is “where do we draw the line?” How can Nazism co-exist with Judaism? How can Fundamentalist Christianity co-exist with Fundamentalist Islam? If we allow religious tolerance, then how can we say that Nazism is wrong? Doesn’t our defense of tolerance mean we need to defend the Nazi’s belief system? Well, the acid test is: is that religion practiced “for the whole world”? Obviously, Nazism is not — it is in direct conflict with and seeks to destroy a part of the world and so it does not have to be lumped in with “valid” beliefs. Of course, I realize that it’s not always so easy. In the case of Fundamentalist Christianity/Islam, for example, I’m not sure either side is practicing “for the whole world.”

Later, Jung started crystallizing the formation of the myth while traveling in Africa and visiting a great game preserve:

From a low hill in this broad savanna a magnificent prospect opened out to us. To the very brink of the horizon we saw gigantic herds of animals … There was scarcely any sound save the melancholy cry of a bird of prey. This was the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been, in the state of non-being; for until then no one had been present to know that it was this world. …

Now I know what it was, and knew even more: that man is indispensable for the completion of creation; that, in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world, who alone has given to the world its objective existence … Human consciousness created objective existence and meaning, and man found his indispensable place in the great process of being.

I’ll leave you to ponder this until next time …

Ellul: gripping stuff … thank you, John H.

Published
by
Ken
on August 24, 2007
in books, buddhism, christianity, jacques ellul, mysticism and zen
. 0 Comments

I’ve been lightly skimming (no offense intended ;-) ) the Confessing Evangelical’s posts on Ellul’s What I Believe. But I went back and looked more carefully at The Word That Grips Us and then at the list of Ellul’s other publications on Jesus Radicals. I just want to say a huge “thank you” to John for leading me to Ellul. It looks like fascinating stuff that’s right up my alley and I’m definitely going to read him. Well, I’m definitely going to put him on my stack of books to read. But up near the top! (I’m finding less and less time to read these days.)

Just a comment on The Word That Grips Us …

Ellul’s statement:

The revelation is not for me a matter of mystical contemplation. It is more like what many of us are familiar with; a word suddenly becomes so true to us that we can no longer doubt it.

We know well how astonishing this experience can be. I read in the Bible texts that I have read a hundred times, that I know by heart, that are part of my objective knowledge of the biblical God, and suddenly the word that I know so well intellectually takes on an unexpected significance, a blinding force that constrains me to accept it as truth, as a truth at once comprehensible, irrational, and rigorously certain.

seems to me to be precisely “mystical contemplation.” It immediately evoked images of Zen monks achieving a moment of satori or enlightenment as the master raises a finger or slaps across the face. The “contemplation” part was when Ellul read these passage “hundreds of times” and committed them to memory. And the revelation is when you suddenly see what you’ve been staring at. You see it in a totally different from; from a new angle; with “fresh eyes.” It’s been there the whole time but something in you has changed so that you really see.

Now, I don’t know Ellul and of course I can’t speak for him. If he does not consider this as “mystical contemplation” then it’s not. I just can’t help but notice the similarity.

I am outraged! They must stop!

Published
by
Ken
on June 1, 2007
in books and evil
. 0 Comments

I’ve been reading more reactions to Tom’s book burning and I’m amazed at the range of response. Well, I’m not really amazed. I mean, come on. I’ve been around for a few decades and have seen a lot of responses to a lot of things. People get their tighty whities all up in a bunch at just about anything and everything. So, no, I’m not amazed.

But, really, folks. These are books for God’s sake! Not people. Not animals. Not flags. Not effigies of you-know-who. Books. Some people are outraged that Tom’s burning the books instead of quietly throwing them in a large landfill. Is there really a difference? Whether they are being burned or dumped or left sitting to rot and mildew the end result is the same, right? No one is reading the damn books!

Now, I know there’s all this stigma to “book burning” and some people even have pictures on their blogs of a large bonfire of burning books with people all around doing the “sieg heil.” That’s not happening in ol’ K.C., folks. Just because someone once burned a book as a form of censorship should not forever more taint the burning of books as censorship. That is not Tom’s motive.

And Tom’s even giving every one a chance to save the books from the ashes. Just buy the damn things! Give them a good home. Dust them off once in a while. Open their tender little pages and READ THEM!

So, some people are getting all outraged at someone else burning books and are morally and ethically offended but don’t DO anything to stop it. Send me a check and I’ll go rescue the books. Rent a damn truck and go pick them up. Organize a donation somewhere — I’ll even help you lug them around. But do something instead of pissing and moaning about what someone else is doing when you can remedy the situation.