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Natural Science in an Artificial Consciousness

I recently quoted Erich Neumann’s observations on the “mass man” and related them to the social-commercial mindset which has been so carefully cultivated since his time. Just as there are historical reasons for what’s happening today, there are also hidden purposes which lend perspective to the unconscious processes behind the causes.

To say that mainstream psychology has not only failed to address what may be one of the most defining cultural transitions in human history, but actually contributes to its unconsciousness, might seem a harsh statement. But as much as Jung cautioned against giving too much weight to technique and statistical evaluation, current trends confirm his concerns:

There are reasons for the increase in psychological disorders in the last fifty years that reach far below the surface god-likeness of the medical persona, the subjective nature of psychological diagnosis, and psychiatry’s unvarnished partnership with the pharmaceutical industry.

Jung defined two kinds of science: the rational, statistical kind more designed for a concrete world of objects and the subjective, symbolic kind which is relative to how we perceive it. To establish a verifiable science of the inner world of perception required the comparative reduction of ideas to their common properties: instinctual patterns he called archetypes. His was a science of philosophy: a means of accessing unconscious values never before conceived. Here are some empirical facts as Jung described them in, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche:

This discussion is on the “… scientific, but purely rationalistic conception of the unconscious. When we speak of instincts we imagine we are talking about something known, but in reality we are talking about something unknown. As a matter of fact, all we know is that effects come to us from the dark sphere of the psyche which somehow or other must be assimilated into consciousness if devastating disturbances of other functions are to be avoided.

“… just as a person can repress a disquieting wish and thereby cause its energy to contaminate other functions, so he can shut out a new idea that is alien to him so that its energy flows off into other functions and disturbs them.” The process I would draw attention to is the increasing repression of the religious instinct. Science and religion today are at odds as never before, and that conflict is certain to have disturbing effects.

“… Under these circumstances, the unconscious seems like a great X, concerning which the only thing indisputably known is that important effects proceed from it. A glance at the world religions shows us just how important these effects are historically. And a glance at the suffering of modern man shows us the same thing — we merely express ourselves somewhat differently.”

Though the jargon of “mental disease” has changed since Jung’s time, his message has not: “Three hundred years ago, a woman was said to be possessed of a devil, now we say she has a hysteria. Formerly a subject was said to be bewitched, now the trouble is called a neurotic dyspepsia. The facts are the same; only the previous explanation, psychologically speaking, is almost exact, whereas our rationalistic description of symptoms is really without content. For if I say that someone is possessed by an evil spirit, I imply that the possessed person is not legitimately ill but suffers from some invisible psychic influence which he is quite unable to control. This invisible something is an… unconscious content beyond the reach of the conscious will.”

Jung’s argument was a response to the prevailing Freudian idea of “mother-fixation” which conceived the problem of ego and instinct in terms of “infantile dependence” on the mother — a literal idea which shows the ego’s disdain for its subjection to natural law. It’s the cold teat of technology, the unconscious pabulum of political ideology, and the projection of a too-child-like psychology onto objects which now trades on our most intimate desires.

Jung described it as an unconscious longing, “… an insistent demand, an aching inner emptiness, which can be forgotten from time to time but never overcome… It always returns… A good deal can be conjectured, but all that can be said with certainty is that… something unconscious voices this demand independently of consciousness and continues to raise its voice despite all criticism.

“… The primitive mind has always felt these contents to be strange and incomprehensible and, personifying them as spirits, demons, and gods, has sought to fulfil their demands by sacred and magical rites. Recognizing correctly that this hunger or thirst can be stilled neither by food nor drink… the primitive mind created images of invisible, jealous, and exacting beings, more potent and more dangerous than man, denizens of an invisible world, yet so interfused with visible reality that… spirits… dwell even in the cooking-pots.”

This, Jung called the natural psyche: the still-living instinctual source of our life-energy. “Our world, on the other hand, is freed of demons to the last trace, but the autonomous contents and their demands have remained. They express themselves partly in religion, but the more the religion is rationalized and watered down — an almost unavoidable fate — the more intricate and mysterious become the ways by which the contents of the unconscious contrive to reach us. One of the commonest ways is neurosis.”

Modern notions conceive it only negatively; a projection of guilt, a peculiarly religious attribute: “A neurosis is usually considered to be something inferior… from the medical point of view. This is a great mistake… For behind the neurosis are hidden those powerful psychic influences which underlie our mental attitude and its guiding principles… Materialism and mysticism are a psychological pair of opposites, just like atheism and theism… two different methods of grappling with these powerful influences from the unconscious, the one by denying, the other by recognizing them.”

Science and religion are not adversaries but complimentary ways of looking at life. So fixed is this duality in the intellect, even for psychology, that a living example of coming to terms with the unconscious would be outside its rational purview.

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