Monthly Archives: October 2016

October 19, 2016 · 11:41 am

Back to Basics

In 1912, Einstein introduced his theory of special relativity. One experiment he devised to test his intuition that time and space might be relative to the observer was surprisingly simple:

He set two cameras at either end of a train platform. A car was prepared so that a small explosion triggered at the mid-point of the platform, and the cameras then photographed the explosion at the instant of its detonation. The exact times were recorded at each location; a difference was found between them.

We’re familiar with the impact Einstein’s theories had on science. He proved that time and space are relative to the observer and also to motion. He revolutionized existing conceptions of energy and paved the way for modern technology.

In the same year, C.G. Jung introduced his theory of psychic energy: an analogy of Einstein’s physical discoveries. He showed that perception is relative to the individual; that our human objectivity is not what it appears to be. His ‘subjective factor‘ is still little acknowledged today even by psychology, much less science, a century since. Each in his own field showed that any depth perspective of nature is counter-intuitive.

Einstein’s later theory of general relativity turned Newton’s assumptions about gravity upside down. He proved that the gravitational effect of a body in space is proportional to its mass; that its effects are not immediate but relative to the speed of light. Jung’s studies of complexes again had remarkable similarities with the physical concepts. 

The mass, or value, of a complex of ideas determines the gravitational effects of an instinctual function. The more vital the function, the more its energy draws psychic material to it, creating a complex of emotionally charged associations. Though the function itself is common to all, its subjective value is relative to the individual, and this general principle is borne out by experience:

So much so that the idea of complexes is now used in everyday speech. One may have a ‘power complex’ or an ‘inferiority complex’ or a ‘sexual complex’. It’s part of what makes us unique; a visible form of psychic energy which is expressed in symbols or symbolic behavior.

Jung showed how images reflect natural functions; that the unconscious psyche expresses them in this symbolic picture-language. Much as one might interpret an unknown language through the comparative analysis of the associations and context of certain words and ideas, he discovered basic themes which recur in the myths and symbols of all people. These analogies reflect our common structure.

Personal values both conceal and reveal the dual nature of symbols according to individual disposition. More general perspectives are partially determined by a favored subjective function such as thinking or feeling, and also by the attitude-type. In the extraverted type, the weight of value lies in the external world. In the introvert, the accent is on the internal ‘object’. These, combined with the unique nature of consciousness, are the pre-conditions of perception. 

It’s not exactly a paradox that physical discoveries and their psychic parallels are so unevenly acknowledged. The complexities of self-observation depend on laws which are just as objective as those governing any natural process; but because the subjective mind is unique, they can only be inferred through a process of self-analysis in which the unconscious supplies the objective material for comparison. Few outside observers have the ability beyond their own projections to evaluate the effects of individual development.

Jung’s concepts were as revolutionary as Einstein’s. They’re even more vital in the wake of technological advancements. The quantum physicist is motivated by the same human fears and insecurities as in biblical times — but can he conceive a psychological equivalent of ‘E=MC²’? (Maybe: Psychic energy=concrete thought x the evolution of consciousness²?)

The rational perspective only magnifies the split between an artificial reality and an unconscious psychic one which would guide us in a natural direction. That nature’s inborn wisdom exceeds conscious knowledge is apparent to a reflective mind. But, the ego-projections behind ideological and political disputes make science and technology as dangerous as it is productive. Where is the science of the mind?

Ego-psychologies based on collective norms have failed to deliver. The tension between conscious and unconscious has now reached epic proportions. There are special reasons for this which standardized methods can’t address. That spiritual reflection might be as basic a demand as biological and social ones is beyond their purview.

Spiritual development, the extension of consciousness and not just intellect,  is opposed to the world of the senses; it’s that opposition we’re facing now. Jung conceived a model over a century ago which outlined our modern conflicts. To make any sense of them requires psychological knowledge and reflection, not just conscious belief or rational assumption. 

Jung demonstrated that the religious factor is a vital human function. Has it just disappeared, or have the symbols changed form? The old religion was ineffective to the extent that ego identified with its own compensations. Do we think we understand what that means and what it’s for any more than what E=MC² means to the inner beast that exploits the knowledge in it? 

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October 10, 2016 · 3:00 pm

Psychic Relativity

Science has proven that nature operates by the law of opposites. Jung based his psychology on that basic fact, and alchemy provided much philosophical material for his research.

It’s best illustrated by analogy, and Goethe was a master of its poetic form. His story of Faust, the alchemical doctor who confronted his inner opposite in a ‘pact with the Devil’, was a continuation of the symbolic tale of conscious development which earlier appeared in Job:

The bargain between Jehovah and Satan foreshadowed a personal dialogue with the spirit in which consciousness began to take an active role. Developmentally, it meant a capacity for choice, to question and doubt —  even the authority of God, so that man could participate in his own fate.

The depth of Goethe’s experience was described by Jung as a spiritual advance; a foreshadowing of the religious task confronting modern man. As with Job, a new perspective of the inner world and the personal responsibility it carries with it, means a confrontation with collective values.

Faust’s inner journey begins when rational thought no longer serves the purposes of development. He feels the dark influence of the earthly spirit: “No dog could live thus any more!/So I have turned to magic lore…” It signals the mid-life stage when the paradox of individuality asserts itself.

The spirit’s energy exceeds consciousness; as it steadily accumulates over the first half of life, it can be frightening when it first emerges: this spirit confronts Faust as he reflects on the the depth of its symbol: “…what a pitiable fright/Grips thee, thou Superman! Where is the soul elated?/Where is the breast that in its self a world created?/… Is it thou, who by my breath surrounded,/In all the deeps of being art confounded?“

This inner challenge is not a one-time experience; it informs a subtle invasion of consciousness that makes Faust question the primacy of collective values. The creative power continues to work in him as he strolls home with Wagner, his rational counterpart. Suddenly, a black dog appears and circles around them curiously. Faust senses a strange connection to his dark preoccupations:

“He seems in magic nooses to be sweeping/Around our feet, a future snare to bind.” The rational part sees only the thing itself, and Wagner responds: “I see he doubts, he’s timidly around us leaping/Two strangers — not his master — does he find.” Faust perceives its symbolic portent: “The circle narrows, he’s already near!” Wagner can’t see it: “You see a dog. It is no spectre here.“

Faust befriends the black dog and lays a cushion for it behind the stove in his study. He begins translating the Bible into his beloved German. He ponders the first line, ‘In the beginning was the Word’ and concludes: “It seems impossible the Word so high to prize, I must translate it otherwise.“

So begins Faust’s confrontation with traditional religious philosophy. The black dog begins to sniff and snarl behind the stove. Suddenly, it swells into a terrifying beast in a cloud of smoke, red eyes glowing through the mist. Faust casts a spell, and out of the vapor steps Mephistopheles (he with the cloven hoof) dressed as a scholar. Faust asks who he is:

Mephistopheles: “The question seems but cheap/For one who for the Word has such contempt,/Who from all outward show is quite exempt/And only into beings would delve deep.” Faust senses his uncanny power and again asks who he is:

“Mephistopheles.  Part of that Power which would/The Evil ever do and  ever does the Good./Faust.  A riddle! Say what it implies! /Mephistopheles.  I am the Spirit that denies!”                                                          

Faust is confused: “You call yourself a part, yet whole you’re standing there.” Mephistopheles: “A modest truth do I declare./A man, the microcosmic fool, down in his soul/Is wont to think himself a whole.“

He explains: “… part of the Part of Darkness which gave birth to Light“; the ‘haughty’ light which ‘disputes the ancient rank of its mother’, the unconscious guiding principle which Faust’s rationalism has attracted through the “chance” meeting with the earthly, animal spirit.

Goethe’s intuitive nature met the spirit through the inner opposite; a profound increase in man’s moral awareness: the recognition of two opposed yet related principles which Christian philosophy has divided into two irreconcilable halves. A new stage of psychic evolution was forming. 

The identification of good with conscious desire and evil with the fear of what opposes it results only in unconsciousness. That they’re two side of the same coin is not only a paradox of the unconscious psyche but of life itself. 

The world is smaller today even than in Jung’s time; the more pressurized and compact technology makes it, the greater our adverse impact. The damage we’ve done to our environment in just the last century seems only to predict a darker future than any past history has seen.

I read an interview with Stephen Hawking in which he said that man’s future is in space; that we must accustom ourselves to the idea that we will one day live on a distant planet. He was as convinced of it as any religious zealot’s dissociated ego-projections into the unknown.

Who would want to live on a dead planet in a plexi-glass bubble, subject to a mass of artificial contraptions contrived to keep you alive? What would it say of us to have sacrificed the beauty and mystery of a living Eden for the dry, arid pursuit of a dissociated intellect — and for not much more than self-worship and the projected fear of our own natures? Which witch is which?

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October 3, 2016 · 4:40 pm

Image, Symbol, and Function

“Because a limited will only partially creates our conditions, the deeper effects of our actions are shrouded by the veil of conscious intent. We also react to inner circumstances which are just as real as the outer ones, unseen by the fascination with the sensual and concrete. What we see and what we can’t see are determined by the concepts which shape our perceptions. A different… view is required to grasp the effects of the psychic reality we can’t see: a symbolic one.” — A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious

Four hundred years ago, the facts of a heliocentric universe were empirically established. Though the science of the time proved it beyond doubt, it was not generally accepted for several generations. 

Two centuries ago, Darwin introduced another idea which shook collective views — one still not accepted by many: that the human animal is a product of natural history and not ego-assumptions. His intuitive ideas of adaptation through form and function, natural images previously distorted by religious projections, were confirmed scientifically by observation and comparison.

A hundred years ago, Freud introduced clinical evidence of an unconscious mind. In contrast to prevailing medical views, he applied his observations to the subtle complexities of the psyche.

Fifty years ago, Carl Jung established a body of empirical facts which proved that our views of ego-consciousness are dangerously over-estimated. One of his most important contributions was the idea of symbolic thinking. His in-depth studies of symbols followed directly from his own psychic experiences, and through them he discovered a wealth of information previously hidden in the peculiar language of the so-called primitive psyche.

That the unconscious was seen as primitive in the negative sense was due not only to Freud’s influence in the early years of psychoanalysis but to the role generally ascribed to consciousness. The mind of that time couldn’t imagine that thought was not its own arbiter. Freud showed clinically that it wasn’t — at least not in ‘neurotics’. Psychology was for those who were ‘sick’ or had special weaknesses. Jung challenged the assumption by proving psychic experience to be relative to the individual — often contrary to social labels and expectations.

Freud’s philosophy, while acknowledging an unconscious mind, considered it a kind of crude inheritance which modern man would soon overcome by a superior intellect. He theorized ‘archaic vestiges’ as primitive relics which consciousness had outgrown the need for; though the conflicts they created couldn’t be denied.

As a result, concepts of unconscious mental functioning were slow to develop. Our egocentric notions of who and what we are were again threatened. Though men have always thought they knew what they were doing, yet they haven’t — the very idea of an unconscious psyche contradicted it.

Our views of ourselves have been forged mainly by such inflated self-opinions. An honest examination of history confirms our possession by them. Unbiased observation and evaluation by those who thought outside that mold has provided overwhelming evidence for it.

As Jung’s historical setting required a model that grew out of medical pathology, the conflicts of development were initially seen as ‘diseases.’ They were certainly outside the collective norm of the time, but that they might be the inner demands of a transitional stage of consciousness had yet to be conceived.

Without concepts of unconscious psychic functions — their opposition and their purposes — how else could the seeds of inner development appear to a collective ego based on causality but as diseases? Jung showed conclusively that the psyche is purposive as well; causality only half the picture.

Today, the material philosophy of an objective science is the possession of all — while consciousness remains the creation of an instinctual psyche whose symbolic language has evolved for the purposes of Nature; ego but another idol in the dark strivings of a human-like animal who would have ‘god-like’ qualities, yet for two thousand years has been unable to see through the curtain of its own subjective image enough to truly pursue them.

Jung wrote that sooner or later we’ll discover that consciousness has evolved for higher purposes than itself; obscured in the analogies of ‘primitive’ images which are forward oriented but require reflection to perceive. The guiding principle of instinct, in outright opposition to ego’s own over-valuation, now works against us with the same fury of our resistance. 

We can no longer pretend that we know who or what God is. Because we rarely reflect on anything beyond ourselves, that opposite now confronts us. What are the dual purposes of ‘god’ and ‘devil’? The modern task of consciousness is to reflect on the images that would orient us to a bi-polar inner reality and not the literal and one-sided ego-fantasies we’ve so far constructed in the outer world; to reflect on why we’re here and for what.

You may read a review of my book here.

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