Archive for the 'carl jung' Category

The Creation of Consiousness: III

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Ken
on April 3, 2008
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[ 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.

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C.G. Jung on the purpose of religion

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Ken
on February 18, 2008
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But the collective unconscious is a very irrational factor, and our rational consciousness cannot dictate to it how it should make its appearance. Of course, if left entirely to itself, its activation can be very destructive; it can, for instance, be a psychosis. Therefore, man’s relation to the collective unconscious has always been regulated; there is a characteristic form by which the archetypal images are expressed. For the collective unconscious is a function that always operates, and man has to keep in touch with it. His psychic and spiritual health is dependent on the co-operation of the impersonal images. Therefore man has always had his religions.

What are religions? Religions are psychotherepeutic systems.

C.G. Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice

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C.G. Jung on Fanaticism

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Ken
on February 14, 2008
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Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt. You can study that in the history of the Church. Always in those times when the Church begins to waver the style becomes fanatical, or fanatical sects spring up, because the secret doubt has to be quenched. When one is really convinced, one is perfectly calm and can discuss one’s beliefs as a personal point of view without any particular resentment.

C.G. Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice

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Now that’s a REAL God

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Ken
on January 14, 2008
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This quote from Just Genesis via a comment on Chris Tilling’s blog:

The silence was broken again, this time by a middle-aged man. “I’ll tell you the meaning this story has for me. I’ve decided that I and my family are looking for another church.”

“Why?” I asked in astonishment. “Why?”

“Because when I look at that God, the God of Abraham, I feel I’m near a real God, not the sort of dignified, businesslike, Rotary Club god we chatter about here on Sunday mornings. Abraham’s god could blow a man to bits, give and then take a child, ask for everything from a person and then want more. I want to know that God.”

If you read the rest of the post, you’ll see a classic example of an archetype at work. A Sunday School class views a movie about Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and the reaction is unexpected, unfounded, and totally un-comprehended — all the tell-tale signs that something from the unconscious is rearing its ugly head.

But the man’s reaction I quote above is particularly interesting to me. This man essentially is longing for a return to the monster-God of the O.T. If he characterized any human with the same words, that human would be a merciless tyrant. But that’s what this man expects from a God. Why would someone long for the kind of God who “tests” people the way the Christian God “tested” Job? Or Abraham? Why regress so far into the past when we have the God of the N.T.? Is it because it is easier to follow the O.T. concept of God in the same way that it is easier for a toddler to obey his parents? The toddler, you see, has no relationship with his parents because there is not enough consciousness for a relationship. There is simply a list of rules to follow and a list of consequences if the rules are not followed, a.k.a. The Law. (Having just written that statement, I’m instantly reminded of The Island of Doctor Moreau where the “beasts” are reciting The Law.) There is less freedom and so we don’t have to be conscious in order to please that kind of God. Of course, we also don’t have much of a relationship with that kind of God — what relationship there is is simply awe and fear and trembling and worry that our sacrifices are not good enough. We’ve come so far in our relationship with God but that means it’s harder work and so some would rather go back to the way it was.

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The Creation of Consiousness: II

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

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The Creation of Consciousness

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Ken
on December 28, 2007
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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 …

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Man’s task is . . .

Published
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Ken
on December 23, 2007
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. . . to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious. Neither should he persist in his unconsciousness nor remain identical with the unconscious elements of his being, thus evading his destiny, which is to create more and more consciousness. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.

C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 326

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Anais Nin and Carl Jung

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Ken
on December 22, 2007
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As I paused in my computer programming to take a break after finally getting the regression test to give me the right answer, I spotted one of Anais Nin’s diaries on the floor of my office. It was volume 4: 1944-1947.

I picked it up and opened to a random page and read:

There is an analogy between the bombardment of the atom and the bombardment of the personality by the method of analysis, the dismemberment, separation of the elements of the psyche which may release new energies. I believe scientific principles can be applied to the life of the psyche. . . . The time has come to give the psyche a concrete symbolism.

Another random page led me to:

The personal, if it is deep enough, becomes universal, mythical, symbolic; I never generalize, intellectualize. I see, I hear, I feel. These are my primitive instruments of discovery. . . . The primitive and the poet never parted company. . . . Intellectual knowledge is not enough. Music, the dance, poetry and painting are the channels for emotion. It is through them that experience penetrates our blood stream. Ideas do not. . . . There is a prejudice against subjectivity, because it is believed subjectivity is a narrowing of the vision. But this is no more true than to say objectivity leads to a larger form of life. Nothing leads to a vaster form of life but the capacity to move deeply inward as well as outward. . . . The most important problem for the novelist is that each generation must create its own reality and its own language, its own images. Each one of us must re-create the world.

Wow, I thought, this sounds a lot like Carl Jung! So, I did a quick search and found out that Nin actually underwent therapy with Jung! Talk about synchronicity!

The second quote is very meaningful today. In this age of science, many people think that “intellectual knowledge” is enough but it’s not. Objectivity is sought in everything and expected everywhere and it’s thought that this leads to a more complete picture of our reality but it doesn’t.

I would emphasis the “its own images” part of the second to last sentence. Symbols and images are extremely important as they are the mediators between us and the archetypes or collective unconscious. They are how we deal with our “inner world” which is there whether we believe in it or not. We need symbols and myths for our age of science and science itself is not giving them to us. Trying to use the symbols from yesteryear is not working either — simply look at the rejection of all the “old time religions” that is going on. This is not to say that religion is wrong or bad; on the contrary religion is exactly what supplies the symbols and images we need. But we need symbols that are meaningful to us today in this age of science and not the symbols from earlier generations.

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Seeing God through polarized sunglasses

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Ken
on December 18, 2007
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Polarized sunglasses work by letting through light that is aligned in only one direction. This acts to reduce the number of photons getting through and therefore reduce the intensity of the light. Polarized sunglasses work very well to reduce the intensity of light being reflected off (and therefore polarized by) a lake or highway. Polarized sunglasses also work very well to reduce the intensity of God and that’s exactly what religion does. As Carl Jung said, “One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.” After all, Moses could only see the fleeting arse end of God without being instantly killed and just that tiny peek was enough to make him glow.

Another interesting aspect of this analogy is the effect of holding two polarized lenses with one in front of the other and then rotate one of them 90°. What happens? Everything goes black! This is because the first lens is letting light through that is only vertically polarized whereas the second is letting light through that is only horizontally polarized (or vice-versa). The result is nothing gets past them both — they are mutually exclusive. Kind of like Christianity and Islam, for example. The trick is to realize that they are both looking at the same sun but have selected different aspects of that sun while the other aspects have been removed for our own protection.

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Can’t get there from here …

Published
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Ken
on October 7, 2007
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… unless we’re already there and just don’t know it.

It seems to me that there is a disconnect in salvation. If we are totally depraved and can do nothing good without God then how can we receive the gift of God’s son? How can we, as sinners, bring ourselves to realize that we even need God let alone bring ourselves to find God? Through the urging of the Holy Spirit? I think not because the Holy Spirit needs to appeal to something in us which can know God and we in our sinful state cannot.

By way of (obviously imperfect, as all examples are) example, let’s say that I am trying to get Joe, who has been blind from birth, to understand the color red. He has been separated from color all his life (born color-depraved, so to speak) and so has nothing within himself with which he can begin to understand color. No matter how hard I press and explain and urge him to understand the color red, it isn’t going to happen. Any understanding of the color red at which Joe does arrive will, obviously and necessarily, be extremely different from the understanding that I have.

Isn’t that the predicament we are in? If we are 100% separated from God and always have been (and I’m talking about each person and not “man” and “woman” as created by God) then there is no way we are going to understand anything about God no matter how hard the Holy Spirit urges. Unless there us a bit of God in us — a seed or a kernel — then there is no way we can understand our need of God’s salvation and no way we can receive it. This reminds me of something C.G. Jung said:

For it is not that ‘God’ is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man.

We all have a “divine life” in us. We all have the image of God within. Sometimes that image is buried quite deeply and we have absolutely no recollection of it but it’s there. It has to be there in order for the Holy Spirit to work. So we are not given the image of God when we are “saved” but that (perhaps tiny) part of us that already is the image of God is brought to our attention.

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