Tag Archives: The Psychology of C.G. Jung

January 23, 2021 · 8:42 am

A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious

A momentous shift in values is taking place today. Dwarfed by the fascination with technology, the wisdom of the soul sinks under the weight of concrete knowledge. Science and religion have become adversaries; the individual, a mere tool for powerful interest groups. Our dual natures are increasingly brought into relief by ideological and political conflicts, the split in our personalities reflected back to us as in a mirror. — Evan Hanks

This post is about a book of poetry — but, it is first and foremost a psychological work. As such, it is a spiritual one, for the aims of psychology are (or should be) inseparable from those of religion and philosophy; namely, to define human consciousness in relation to the instinctual psyche.

Based on the psychology of C. G. Jung and inspired by Goethe’s Faust, this book is a chronology, in poetic language, of the change in perspective prompted by the mid-life transition.

Jung wrote that the unconscious has been engaged in this process over hundreds of thousands of years, and for most, it guides them through it with relatively little friction. But for those who are deeply moved by it, it is a spiritual and psychological journey which leads into the individuation process.

This process involves coming to terms with the unconscious, and the change in thinking required for it is founded on the conflict of opposites. It has many parallels with the cultural shift in values we are experiencing today. The old religious view of good and evil is giving way to a rational, scientific one which only further splits our notions of reality. Science has dissolved the metaphysical images of the past and conceived a new objectivity. So fascinated by it is this new-found vantage point, it assumes that it can be applied to the psyche as it is to the physical world. It cannot. The psychic world of images is only indirectly based on concrete reality.

Jung has demonstrated that what we identify with as consciousness is only one partial complex of associations in an animal psyche forged over eons of evolution. To add to this problem, Jung saw the intellect as only one among a set of balancing functions which orient perception. As an information processor, it must be supplemented by its opposite, feeling, to give it meaning and value in the context of a greater whole.

Along with the subjective nature of consciousness, the alternating development of opposing functions only compounds the problem of observing ourselves with any verifiable objectivity. Consciousness changes over time, and we have no fixed reference point by which to observe the psyche as science has in the material world.

Because the effects of the unconscious can only be inferred, Jung compared our dual perceptions of the inner and outer worlds historically, over time. He found that consciousness is relative to changes in focus which reflect swings in our development.

This book is a story and an example of how such changes may be perceived when a dialogue, an exchange of ideas, is entered into with the symbolic figures of the unconscious. This dialogue is presented in the form of an exchange between four figures. Three represent the unconscious standpoint; the fourth, the reactions of consciousness to the spiritual/philosophical demands which initiate the individuation process.

It began with eight illustrations portending the journey in pictorial form, and these are dispersed throughout the text according to the development of the ideas with which they are associated. The conversations describe the gradual elaboration of them through focus and concentration on dream images. Poetry seemed best suited to express the emotional conflicts I experienced and so began a sixteen-year process of recording my reflections on the “voices” which speak though the unconscious.

As self-reflecting animals, we are many things. Our natures will always defy our own definitions, for we are not products of ego-ideals. We are natural beings shaped by inborn functions with which earthly reality has outfitted us. To come to terms with our own wholeness; to resolve the split between man and nature, conscious and unconscious, science and religion, we will be compelled to listen to nature more closely — beyond the loud din of those who cannot hear her voice. It is the soft, almost inaudible whisper of the human soul that wants to be heard: the search for subjective truth in a concrete world of illusion.

See Amazon.Read preface.

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April 10, 2014 · 3:34 pm

A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations with the Unconscious

A Subjective Study of Science, Religion, and Consciouness

A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious

For those interested in new interpretations of old ideas, this post describes a very different kind of book, many years in its development. If you choose to read it, if you’re interested in the relations between conscious and unconscious, between man and nature, science and religion, it will be among the most original books you’ll ever read. It will likely upset your ideas of what your mind is for, just as it upset mine when I was forced by my own illusions (and those I inherited) to come to terms in some way with the unconscious.

It’s well known that new and original ways of looking at things take time to sink in, at least for those revolving around the self-flattering notions of who we think we are — or should or would be. Centuries-old religious ideals convince us even today that we can be who we “should” or would be, simply by believing it. This is the age-old way of ego, and most will remain convinced of its illusion as a defense against the unconscious — or, if you prefer, a God who makes demands on us and not just a comforting image of wishful thinking in times of despair.

The scientific view is equally convinced of this same illusion, having inherited it as duly as one is born with eyes and ears. Though, with no conception of a Deity but only an unconscious will to power, it seeks to “conquer” an external nature without taking serious note that she also works within; and dangerously so, for the double-sided hubris of humanity has been recorded since biblical times. The artificial reality we’ve spent millennia to achieve has become so toxic today, however, the current form of education will not much longer support it…

Based on the psychology of C. G. Jung and inspired by Goethe’s Faust, this book is a poetic description of the change in perspective prompted by the mid-life transition. For many, it will be only an odd curiosity. But for those who are deeply moved by this process, to confront the strange, symbolic figures which lead into the collective unconscious, this book will serve as a living example of the ideas and emotions encountered when an exchange, a dialogue, is entered into with the other side.

The subtitle, A Subjective Study of Science, Religion, and Consciousness, reflects the spiritual character of the philosophical depths to which these figures point; for as Jung wrote: because the unconscious consists of a living history of our mental functioning, any serious inquiry into it leads straight into the religious problem.

This problem is grounded in the opposites, and old religious ideas of good and evil still form the foundations of our world-views, whether we accept them consciously or not. They’re how we secretly see ourselves; how we relate to a greater whole both within and without, formed over centuries of intense concentration on the puzzling contradictions of subjective thought.

A major shift in values marks today’s fascination with science and technology, and the spiritual/emotional functions it ignores and represses only multiply the unforeseen consequences they create. The wisdom required to comprehend them is not accessible to the blind quest for rational facts — as if they alone would reconcile the inner division which is our fate.

Lacking an orientation to the inner counter-pole of the unconscious, we can only relate to it through the old concepts. But, these no longer suffice the complexity, the subtlety and diversity, the relativity of the changes taking place today. Without serious re-examination of our repressive view of nature and the psyche, we are only led deeper into the hidden snares which threaten from the dark shadows of an unconscious earthly reality.

Today, information and knowledge have become compensations for wisdom. The paradox is that the wisdom we need is secreted away in the knowledge we’ve repressed: the undeveloped soul of a human animal who yet sees nature as an antagonist and cannot accept the double laws of her demands. As a return for that, we’ve become our own greatest problem — and nature’s as well.

This book isn’t a remedy for this problem. It’s a way to identify and accept it; to find new ways to confront it; to enter a new psychological stage in nature’s ceaseless urge for development.

See Amazon.

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November 29, 2011 · 6:46 pm

The Psychology of C.G. Jung: It’s All In How You Look At It

Confusion and misunderstanding are almost similes for Jung’s psychology. Is it a science? If so, what kind is it? To understand his ideas, an overview of the unconscious psyche and natural law is helpful. Because they’re synonymous and function in a counter-intuitive way, Jung’s approach was not causal or rational from the common perspective. I would like to share some of my understanding of his method.

Because consciousness is under the influence of unseen forces, their effects can only be inferred. Just as physicists infer the existence of unseen bodies in space by their effects on visible ones, when considering unconscious effects Jung employed an indirect method called the phenomenological approach. The products of the mind comprise its study and consist of observable phenomena which are the result of unconscious effects on our thinking.

Since the basic qualities of consciousness are focus and direction, it excludes information not relevant to its attention at a given time. Jung compared it to a searchlight in a forest and the illumination of a small area in the darkness. What is beyond it still exists, though not until the light moves can it be seen. When it moves, what was formerly lit fades back into darkness. Just as in a forest, what is outside its beam works according to natural processes.

Biology has proven that all natural processes are purposeful. Despite what ego tells us, the human animal is no less the product of purposive nature than any other observable phenomenon. Jung’s method began with natural science, and he worked honestly to make it consistent with its discoveries.

His model differs from the causal approach, because psychology is the study of the psyche observing itself. It doesn’t have the luxury of an objective standpoint outside itself as natural science does. Since the unconscious organizes ideas differently than consciousness, its language is not directly accessible.

To work round the problem, to achieve a perspective beyond a subjective one, Jung used a comparative approach. As comparative anatomy studies differences and similarities in the structures of animals to arrive at common heritage and form a concept of evolution, Jung used the vantage-point of history to lend an “outside” perspective to psychic development.

To bridge the difficulty of direct measurement in natural science, he adapted its laws by formulating them in a way particular to the individual. By viewing it as a “relatively closed system” he showed the general laws of energy to apply to the psyche also.

Psychic energy could be measured in terms of value. A value represents a sum of psychic energy, and estimates of its relative importance in the individual could be determined by the frequency and intensity with which certain unconscious complexes of ideas intruded into the conscious “field.” These ideas are “feeling-toned”, emotionally charged, and their intensity and frequency measures their value.

His association tests validated the phenomena, and he found that the complexes revolved around instinctive functions. Like comparative anatomy discovered, they conform to the general laws of nature. The estimates of value provided an objective assessment, though relative to the individual.

In the course of Jung’s broad analytic experience he observed patterns in the ideas and dreams of his patients. They conformed in a remarkable way to those in religion, myth, philosophy, and literature which comprised his comparative material. They emerged as forms of thought which could be reduced to a fundamental few in comparison with the swarming, chaotic buzz (think statistics) of qualitative description. These forms are perceptible through recurring themes which reflect instinctive, pre-determined modes of perception and experience and their unconscious organization — the mind’s structure.

Jung compared his patients’ dreams with his historical studies of ideas. These included direct observations of primitive African cultures as well as American Indians in the western United States. Something emerged which was completely outside the bounds of what science regarded as material for research: the psyche had a religious function; he found that the value (the intensity and frequency of the intrusion of that complex of ideas) was one of such significance in the constitution of the mind, it required investigation.

His experience with his patients confirmed his research. This historical aspect of the psyche, developed through religious and philosophical ideas, conditions consciousness as powerfully as the objective outer world; indeed, it was the objective inner world.

Owing to his intellectual integrity, Jung allowed the material he compared and collated to “shape itself” according to the conformities reflected in it. He didn’t begin with a theory and adapt his own ideas to it. He may have begun with certain intuitive ones, but he strove to make them compatible with the material. This is the way of natural science. He wrote that a “mode of observation” had “reality-significance” if it produced results.

His method differs from statistical evaluation for reasons I hope are evident. Recent developments in neuroscience, which relies on instruments to record the data of brain processes, are just now beginning to discover “facts” which Jung observed over a century ago. Is his method too complicated for them? I doubt that. It’s more likely attributable to their focus. Is it working? Their own statistics suggest otherwise.

How many “scientific” studies only reinforce what intuition and common sense tell us? We’re so focused on the material value of  the “scientific method,” so in awe of our intellects for having conceived it, we can’t see around it. These unseen influences are psychic phenomenon: material for the psychological empiricist.

The comparative method enabled Jung to see around the facade of modern ego, peer into the history of the mind, and allow consciousness to observe its own development. It lent an important perspective to subjective value and historical conditioning — as well as the important role of religious and philosophical ideas in our development.

 

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