The purpose of this site is the exploration of the unconscious psyche. If you have emotional resistances to such ideas, you should visit the more popular, glitzy sites intended to attract you through their commercial appeal. You won’t find that here. Also, if your focus is limited to catch-words and videos, you may likewise prefer the current pop psychology designed for attention deficit.
This site is intended as an open exchange of ideas for those drawn toward self-development. The treadmill of standardized thought appeared one-dimensional and counter-intuitive to me, and it was Carl Jung’s psychology that offered the tools for a more comprehensive understanding of how our minds work beyond conscious assumptions.
These are often veiled wish-fulfillments and diversions and are easily exploited by commercial interests which are deeply opposed to psychological development. For those who suffer conflicts of the soul, adhering to societal demands may be the greatest obstacle to their search.
Despite its scientific facade, mainstream psychology is founded on statistical norms, even as Jung showed the individual’s relation to his/her unconscious nature to be the primary source of conflict. Science proceeds from the collective physical realm, and though the psyche is far more complex and individualized, many psychologies remain fixed on a generic medical model.
The statistical measure of averages is superficial by definition, and the collective standard is often little more than philosophy disguised as science: an inadequate application of fixed method to the diversity and complexity of the psyche. To hold the individual to cultural ideals is to repress the meaning and purpose of our inmost beings. It sounds strangely philosophical to the science of today. It is.
Subjective experience lies outside the bounds of statistical valuation or material causation. Beyond the surface appearance lies a depth and purpose which can’t be measured logically. The nature of the unconscious psyche is not accessible through norms, averages, and rational thought.
The opposition between a subjective mind, born into a particular time, and an inherited mental structure forged by eons of development, reflects the interplay of two relative psychic systems. Only the tension between them produces the energy for consciousness. This creative process can be meaningfully explored only through the most personal and intimate reactions of one to the other. To subject individual characteristics to general standards is the antithesis of personal development.
Jung has demonstrated its religious and philosophical character. To begin an exchange on this level is to enter into psychic history. His comparative studies have shown this inner exchange to be of the highest value in the evolution of culture. If psychology doesn’t acknowledge this, it remains an isolated function of intellect.
For those driven to search beyond the superficiality of statistics, to seek personal growth and engage the conflicts of the soul, a collective ideal only contributes further to their problems. It emphasizes an anonymous, impersonal standard that negates the individual values upon which culture depends for balanced direction.
The individual, alone, holds the values which inform our relation to a greater whole. These have a spiritual character: the unknown which has always been conceived as divine, though we may have different ideas about them today.
Due to changes in consciousness, the advance toward subjective differentiation is increasing exponentially; what was true fifty years ago may not apply today. The prevalence of psychic problems and the proliferation of methods to treat them suggest the need for a more relative approach than presently assumed by most psychologies.
Spiritual needs are beyond the purview of science; it doesn’t have the concepts to relate to them. Yet, religious feelings remain the most profound expressions of our beings. The old values are so far removed from modern thought, they no longer resonate in the soul but to a declining few — and even these are changing form. No sensible religious framework exists which can incorporate the scientific attitude of today. It must be re-created by the individual.
Jung’s method of investigating religious images was empirical, though not the sort natural science is accustomed to. A comparative, analogical view is required for the psyche to observe itself, as he maintained. Their depth requires an indirect, symbolic approach which is relative to each and not grounded in logic, cause and effect, and collective ideal.
Jung’s work is the focus of this site; it will reflect my interpretation of his psychology in some form. To the extent our perception of the psyche is restricted to rational and materialistic interpretation, a genuine sense of individuality will remain inferior to the weight of collective thinking.
If conflicts of the soul are interpreted only objectively (collectively), we will never penetrate below symptoms and attempts to modify or control them. Often, the more objectively and rationally they’re interpreted, the more violence is done to the individual; the more he /she is alienated from his/her nature.
This website is dedicated to the value of Jung’s discoveries in understanding the human soul, and my book is a poetic account of coming to terms with it through the benefit of his work.
Learn more here.
A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious
With your very easy to read and sympathetic language you introduce the reader to the concepts of Jungian psychology. I find ideas similar or complementary to mine (see my website). The big problem is how to pave the way for more people to experience individuation – as a foundation for a collective individuation. I am very happy to have found your website.
Best wishes – Peter
Peter,
Thank you for your response. I looked at your website — thanks for bringing it to my attention.I’ll be reading more of it, as I think you raise some very important issues. Our destruction of nature has a psychological history I think is vital to understand if we are to leave a habitable planet for future generations. The rational, cause and effect approach to solving our problems isn’t working. Thanks again!
Hello,
Do you consider ideas, notions, concepts that expand and extend Jung’s psychology?
Hello,
I have in the past more often than now, as I became a little discouraged at what some considered the expansion of Jung’s concepts. Enjoyed the article on your website: Wolfgang Geigerich describes the dilemma Jung’s psychology faces today. I have only one problem with it:
“…Jung’s high claim that his psychology was in the status of a strictly empirical science has proven untenable…”
Though difficult to conceive by sciences founded on rationality, statistics, and ‘objectivity’, Jung’s science was empirical — just not in the conventional sense in which empiricism is understood; and in that sense, I think, it’s still not understood in light of the irrationality, diversity, and indirect nature of the study of the unconscious. You may find this post interesting. Thanks for directing me to your site.