Tag Archives: the original human condition

Spirit and Water

The Hebrew word for the ark, teba, occurs only twice in the Bible: in the flood narrative and in the Book of Exodus, where it refers to the basket in which Jochebed places her son, the infant Moses… In both cases teba has a connection with salvation from waters. It is made of “gopher” wood, a word which does not appear elsewhere in the entire Bible, and is divided into qinnim, a word which always refers to birds’ nests elsewhere…” — Wikipedia

The association of spiritual salvation with water, arks, baskets, gophers, and birds in this biblical context is not so strange as it may appear. In another post, I referred to Brian Greene’s, Elegant Universe. In it, he cited the four dimensions orienting us to physical reality: three in space, “left-right” (say, a street address), “back-forth” (an intersection), “up-down” (a floor number); and time, or “future-past” (my weekly sessions with Dr. Drowse).

Though Einstein demonstrated how time and distance make events relative to the observer in the external world, Jung described the internal conditions of the psyche — with all the qualities of spatial dimensions but in the form of symbolic ideas designed to orient us inwardly. Left-right, back-forth, up-down, future-past are subjective coordinates which make the perception of reality relative. What if I showed up to Dr. Drowze’s office at the wrong time?

The quote from Wikipedia is an example of water’s relation to spirit, and the association of gophers with birds’ nests is striking. It may be readily seen how an ark or basket might represent conscious refuge from the waters of untamed instinctuality; or that a Celestial God was once needed to guide us out of them. But, how does the blind rodent burrowing under the earth connect to the bird soaring above it?

This special instance of biblical symbolism even described both as having the same spiritual function. But, weren’t we in a different stage of development then? Modern culture, whether seen through the eyes of preachers, pundits, or politicians suggests that we may have forgotten that a serpent was also needed to circumscribe the original human condition: “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”

In general psychological terms, Jung saw water as a symbol of psychic energy; but in a religious context as spirit — or more specifically, unconscious spirit. Symbolically, a flood or deluge is a powerful influx of unconscious energy, and it’s natural that consciousness would seek refuge from a force more powerful than itself. Jung’s empirical studies, however, show a different picture than the traditional one of a “Spirit” from above:

… while from below comes everything that is sordid and worthless. For people who think in this way, spirit means the highest freedom, a soaring over the depths, deliverance from the prison of the cthonic world, and hence a refuge… But water is earthly and tangible, it is also the fluid of the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the odour of the beast, carnality heavy with passion.” Faust echoed civilized man’s recurrent plea, “Wherefore the stream so soon run dry and I again thus thirsting lie?” Jung elaborated it:

The unconscious… reaches down from the daylight of mentally and morally lucid consciousness into the nervous system that for ages has been known as the “sympathetic.” This does not govern perception and muscular activity like the cerebrospinal system, and thus control the environment; but, though functioning without sense organs, it maintains the balance of life…” Hmm. Dr. Drowse didn’t say anything about that.

“In this sense it is an extremely collective system, the operative basis of all participation mystique, whereas the cerebrospinal function reaches its high point in separating off the specific qualities of the ego, and only apprehends surfaces and externals — always through the medium of space. It experiences everything as an outside, whereas the sympathetic system experiences everything as an inside.” Joseph Campbell described the snake as a symbol of the cerebrospinal system, connecting it to consciousness. Jung:

The unconscious is commonly regarded as… a fragment of our most personal and intimate life — something like what the Bible calls the “heart” and considers the source of all evil thoughts. In the… heart dwell the wicked blood-spirits, swift anger and spiritual weakness. This is how the unconscious looks… from the conscious side. But consciousness appears to be… an affair of the cerebrum, which sees everything separately and in isolation, and therefore sees the unconscious in this way too... Hence it is believed that anyone who descends into the unconscious gets into a suffocating atmosphere of egocentric subjectivity…” Dr. Drowse showed me that in his diagnostics manual.

True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see… his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation… This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people…” I think Dr. Drowse forgot that part.

“The meeting with oneself is… a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well… For what comes after the door is… a boundless expanse of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It’s the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic nervous system, the soul of everything living begins…” 

Well, I can tell you that this confrontation is no easy sell today, and I’m no salesman. But, you can peek behind the curtain of what modern science and psychology is selling you — right here.

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