Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung (4/5)
A Commonplace Commentary
Click here for Part Three of this series.
PAGES 298 - 326
Page 298
I have also realized that one must accept the thoughts that go on within oneself of their own accord as part of one's reality. The categories of true and false are of course always present, but because they are not binding, they take second place. The presence of thoughts is more important than our subjective judgment of them. But neither must these judgments be suppressed, for they also are existent thoughts which are part of our wholeness.
Remarks
The thoughts that arise most from their 'own accord' are thoughts from some deeper regions of the self. The thoughts that judge those thoughts are from someplace different, and those that discern the dynamics between the first thought and the initial judgment are still different.
This reasoning is a point of genesis for the pluralistic psyche, the concept that the human psyche is not a singular unified entity but composed of distinct parts, aspects, or forms. The pluralistic nature of the self is one reason why rigid monotheism and the concept of an individual's possession of a fixed or semi-fixed identity are unnatural and force us into a reality that fits like a square peg in a round hole.
This passage also gives insight into Jung's views on reality. For Jung, reality isn't confined to the physical. The psychological reality is just as important, if not more, than the physical.
He saw psychic reality as amoral, just as physical reality. Value judgments take second place because of their fluid nature. Therefore, thoughts that arise of their own accord should be seen as naturally occurring objects. This is hard for the present-day Western mind to comprehend, but there's a theory that exemplifies this, even though it's controversial and unlikely.
Julian James proposed the bicameral mind hypothesis in 1976. James suggests that ancient people had two distinct minds, one dealing with routine functions and another doing higher thinking. Ancient people experienced higher thinking as auditory hallucinations or commands they would associate with the gods or ancestors. Eventually, as advanced society emerged, this bicameral system broke down. We began to personally identify with the thoughts previously attributed to the gods. This evolution of mind gave us a meta-cognitive thought process.
With archaeological evidence and advances in neuroscience in the 21st century, James' bicameral mind hypothesis is certainly outdated, if not outright incorrect. However, James, especially in his analysis of ancient culture, differentiates between different kinds of thoughts. He looked at the characters in Homer's Iliad and saw, in contrast to the Odyssey, the people in the Iliad followed and needed direction from the gods to carry out their tasks. However, meta-cognitive and self-lead thinking in The Odyssey dominates the characters' interior lives.
Compare the two passages below, describing conversations with Athena. First, with Pandarus the archer and then Telemachus Odysseus' son:
So would many a one of Achaeans and Trojans speak. But Athene entered the throng of the Trojans in the guise of a man, even of Laodocus, son of Antenor, a valiant spearman, in quest of god-like Pandarus, if haply she might find him. And she found Lycaon's son, peerless and stalwart, as he stood, and about him were the stalwart ranks of the shield-bearing hosts that followed him from the streams of Aesepus.
Then she drew near, and spake to him winged words: "Wilt thou now hearken to me, thou wise-hearted son of Lycaon? Then wouldst thou dare to let fly a swift arrow upon Menelaus, and wouldst win favour and renown in the eyes of all the Trojans, and of king Alexander most of all. From him of a surety wouldst thou before all others bear off glorious gifts, should he see Menelaus, the warlike son of Atreus, laid low by thy shaft, and set upon the grievous pyre. Nay, come, shoot thine arrow at glorious Menelaus, and vow to Apollo, the wolf-born god, famed for his bow, that thou wilt sacrifice a glorious hecatomb of firstling lambs, when thou shalt come to thy home, the city of sacred Zeleia."
So spake Athene, and persuaded his heart in his folly. Straightway he uncovered his polished bow of the horn of a wild ibex, that himself on a time had smitten beneath the breast as it came forth from a rock, he lying in wait the while in a place of ambush, and had struck it in the chest, so that it fell backward in a cleft of the rock.
From its head the horns grew to a length of sixteen palms; these the worker in horn had wrought and fitted together, and smoothed all with care, and set thereon a tip of gold. This bow he bent, leaning it against the ground, and laid it carefully down; and his goodly comrades held their shields before him, lest the warrior sons of the Achaeans should leap to their feet or ever Menelaus, the warlike son of Atreus, was smitten.
Then opened he the lid of his quiver, and took forth an arrow, a feathered arrow that had never been shot, freighted with dark pains; and forthwith he fitted the bitter arrow to the string, and made a vow to Apollo, the wolf-born god, famed for his bow, that he would sacrifice a glorious hecatomb of firstling lambs, when he should come to his home, the city of sacred Zeleia
THE ILIAD BOOK 4, TRANSLATED BY A. T. MURRAY
And to thyself will I give wise counsel, if thou wilt hearken. Man with twenty rowers the best ship thou hast, and go to seek tidings of thy father, that has long been gone, if haply any mortal may tell thee, or thou mayest hear a voice from Zeus, which oftenest brings tidings to men.
First go to Pylos and question goodly Nestor, and from thence to Sparta to fair-haired Menelaus; for he was the last to reach home of the brazen-coated Achaeans. If so be thou shalt hear that thy father is alive and coming home, then verily, though thou art sore afflicted, thou couldst endure for yet a year. But if thou shalt hear that he is dead and gone, then return to thy dear native land and heap up a mound for him, and over it pay funeral rites, full many as is due, and give thy mother to a husband.
Then when thou hast done all this and brought it to an end, thereafter take thought in mind and heart how thou mayest slay the wooers in thy halls whether by guile or openly; for it beseems thee not to practise childish ways, since thou art no longer of such an age. Or hast thou not heard what fame the goodly Orestes won among all mankind when he slew his father's murderer, the guileful Aegisthus, for that he slew his glorious father?
Thou too, my friend, for I see that thou art comely and tall, be thou valiant, that many an one of men yet to be born may praise thee. But now I will go down to my swift ship and my comrades, who, methinks, are chafing much at waiting for me. For thyself, give heed and have regard to my words."
Then wise Telemachus answered her: "Stranger, in truth thou speakest these things with kindly thought, as a father to his son, and never will I forget them.
THE ODYSSEY, BOOK ONE, TRANSLATED BY W. WALTER MERRY, JAMES RIDDEELL, D. B. MONRO
The difference between passages is clear. Athena speaks to Pandarus, and he does; Athena speaks to Telemachus, and he responds with conversation, making promises. James' theory claims that the difference is an evolution in thought, that Athena is a cognitive process personified, and the evolved people of The Odyssey learned how to negotiate with her and all the other gods and goddesses.
Jung diverted his ego from identifying with the thoughts that came to him by personifying them similarly. The Black Books and Red Book are packed with examples of how he navigated such personification. In one of Jung's imaginations, with the archetype he calls "Elijah," the whole matter is summed up and exemplified quite well.
E: "You have not forgotten it. It burned deep inside you. Are you cowardly? Or can you not differentiate this thought from your own self, enough so that you wished to claim it for yourself?"
I [Jung]: "The thought went too far for me, and I shun far-fetched ideas. They are dangerous, since I am a man, and you know how much men are accustomed to seeing thoughts as their very own, so that they eventually confuse them with themselves."
E: "Will you therefore confuse yourself with a tree or animal because you look at them and because you exist with them in one and the same world? Must you be your thoughts, because you are in the world of your thoughts? But your thoughts are just as much outside yourself as trees and animals are outside your body."
-C. G. JUNG, RED BOOK, LIBER PRIMUS, INSTRUCITON, FOL. vi(r)
To what extent one should identify with one's thoughts is a matter of circumstance. All notions that pass through the mind are 'existent thoughts which are part of our wholeness' and are simultaneously parts of us and others to us. We're porous to the world, people, and histories around us, and things unwittingly slip in, so to claim ownership in one way or another is to miss the point. One should not ask oneself if a thought is theirs but if they're being a good custodian of the mind and the thoughts therein. Is one tortured or slavish to thoughts, or are they effective negotiators and investigators of the thoughts? Many thoughts come to us with a task, charge, challenge, or will of their own. Therefore, as all things in one's mind are a part of one's wholeness, the things that one's thoughts bring up are a function of one's unique journey or path. To deny ownership entirely is to shirk god's will for us; to identify entirely is to will oneself a god; neither path is fortuitous.
Page 300
Most people identify themselves almost exclusively with their consciousness and imagine that they are only what they know about themselves. Rationalism and Doctrinarianism are the disease of our time. They pretend to have all the answers.
Remarks
This may be less true in our century than in the last, but this disease is still around.
It's interesting how Jung, who prided himself on being a scientist his whole life, would decry rationalism and doctrinarianism as a disease at the end of it. His use of doctrinarianism is enlightening, and the rigid belief of such a word colors what Jung was thinking of with his use of rationalism.
Jung had little against critical or rational thought in analyzing things. He took issue with the notion of rational thought as a superior or more true way of thinking than anything else. He would say that as much as man is a rational animal, he is also a mythic or symbolic animal.
There's a balance that needs to be struck in these matters because something of an irrational doctrinarianism, which is gaining in popularity, is no better. The rational and mythic is a dichotomous relationship containing a vast sea of gray between its poles. Any one judgment or synthetic theory damned to forever vacillate in its capture-understanding-approximation of the true. The dichotomy and spectrum contained therein must be some kind of universality because I wish it would go away. I dislike speaking of it because of its banal subjectivity, but something about the spectrum has an irreducibility to it. If a spectrum theory of reality were ever cohesively assembled, there would be some very useful stuff there. God help whoever has to write it.
I would like to leave the rest of Jung's quote mostly undisturbed, but I must emphasize that most people identify too much with their conscious experience. However, they also lack the language and models to experience and navigate those things of the Other, increasingly so in our secularized societies. English is lacking in words to describe inner experience effectively. This makes sense as English developed in a predominantly rationalistic society or, more accurately, a culture that wished to elevate rationality above other modes of thought. Having words and collective experiences that describe and explain confusing inner experiences will show people their consciousness is not the only thing about them. Without the words, it is too much of an investment for most people to undergo. There's also a political dynamic where control methods are harder to exert when people become more aware of the scope of their psyches. William Tyndale was executed for his 1526 English translation of the Bible. Power is threatened when people are allowed to look into matters for themselves.
Page 302
A man should be able to say he has done his best to form a conception of life after death, or to create some image of it - even if he must confess his failure.
Page 306
But while the man who despairs marches towards nothingness the one who has placed his faith in the architect follows the tracks of life and lives right into his Both to be sure remain in uncertainty but the one lives against his instincts the other with them.
Page 311
Myth is the natural and indispensable intermediate stage between unconscious and conscious cognition.
Remarks
This is one of the broadly sweeping conclusions that Jung spent the majority of his life working towards. It seems like a mystical and religious sentiment (and maybe it is), but Jung's work and Jungian post-Jungian work alike point to this statement as true.
Myth and mythopoetics are puzzles for the conscious attitude to solve, and to be solved, the conscious must convene with the unconscious. Frequently, the myth which consciousness encounters is born from the unconscious—as all great art springs from that source—of either the personal or collective. Therefore, the necessity of consciousness to explore the unconscious becomes necessary to work on the mythic puzzle.
This quote goes hand-in-hand with the one on page 316.
I've been stuck on this quote for over a week and still haven't found the train of thought that unpacks this statement in a way that satisfies the skeptical part of myself. I drew a diagram using the Rumsfeld Matrix as a background map to overlay the conscious-unconscious dynamics, but the diagram only confused me further.
Next, I imagined myth, or anything in a mythopoetic style (e.g., poetry and literature), to be fertile soil from which the unconscious contents could sprout. In other words, the myth doesn't explicitly express the conscious content as much as it gives the unconscious a blank canvas to express itself. There must be some percentage of the time this is correct. However, it doesn't explain the power of myth well enough, mainly when a myth affects people in the same way across space and time, for instance.
I had a small breakthrough while reading the previous paragraph on page 311 Jung says, "...we have long been in possession of mythologems which express the dynamics of certain subliminal processes, though these processes were only given names in recent times." Therein lies our clue: myth can explain that which we cannot put into words.
Jung's next hint is in the same paragraph as this quote on page 311 he says, "This process [of making the unconscious conscious] is convincingly repeated in every successful dream analysis."
One key tool for dream analysis is amplification. One takes the things that the dream or myth says and expands on them through cultural, mythological, personal, and historical orientations. Amplification is usually done for specific symbols, one by one until a story coalesces that feels 'right' to the dreamer.
The subconscious can't access language like us. Therefore, it must find other means to convey meaning—namely, symbols, their juxtaposition with other symbols, and the world around us.
With these two clues, we can posit that myth, through the use of symbolic language, can convey things that evade our ability to express plainly.
One doesn't need the ability to express something plainly in order to mythologize about it, just as one may not know the meaning of what they've dreamt upon first consideration. This allows unconscious contents to slip into reality and potentially life-changing information to be acquired through interpretation.
If the entire meaning of a myth could be known at the time of writing, then unconscious information could not be transmitted.
So, we've reached Jung's conclusion: " Myth is the natural and indispensable intermediate stage between unconscious and conscious cognition."
Occasionally, a dream or myth demands our attention, and we must unpack it. This demand for our attention is not mere coincidence; it could be the subconscious speaking to us. These myths wait for their contents to be unpacked and amplified into consciousness like messages in a bottle.
How does an archetype differ from a symbol? Is an archetype something like a living symbol? A symbol with a touch of animacy from Psyche?
Symbols are how archetypes communicate with the conscious world.
Amplification is a symbolic archeology that attempts to trace symbols back to their subconscious archetypal or psychic root.
Page 314
This paradox can be explained if we suppose that at one moment death was being represented from the point of view of the ego, and at the next from that of the psyche. In the first case it appeared as a catastrophe; that is how it so often strikes us as, as if wicked and pitiless powers had put an end to a human life.
...
From another point of view, however, death appears as a joyful event. In the light of eternity, it is a wedding, a *mysterium coniunctionis.* The soul attains, as it were, it's missing half, it achieves wholeness.
Remarks
Death is wholeness for Psyche.
But in this wholeness, there is a finality. An end to one's earthly tasks, which may not be able to be continued in the Underworld. This may be why suicide is, more often than not, a selfish and unnatural act. Other than the pain it may cause others, the one erasing themself quits their Earthly tasks before the natural end and possibly cheats themselves and the world out of the conclusions they may have discovered with their life.
Death in due time, however, is truly a joyous event. Sad, it may be, but only proper. Overwhelmingly, this reality seems like testing grounds for something greater once its course is complete. It would be odd not to leave the experiment once completed, but when is it complete?
Only at death is the experiment complete; even then, we may never know what the experiment was all about. 'Sufficiently certain' is as close as we come to such things, which is also proper since those who come after us also need something to seek. To know what happens after death is to dispand all meaning to life. We must retain a little doubt to continue living well.
Will we see the light or some great unfolding of the secrets once we die? Or, can the living only seek such things while the dead wait from beyond?
If the Ego is repulsed by death and the psyche rejoices in it, what could that tell us about it and the psyche? Perhaps this world is the only one where the Ego can take priority, and after death, it has to die and be absorbed back into Psyche with all the other archetypes or psychic forms. The Ego then is afraid of its temporality. The only time when it can be supreme is here, and this time is rapidly coming to a close. On the other hand, the psyche has a separate orientation; it's seeking wholeness, exploration, and expression.
Psyche's goals are on a scale that goes beyond the beginning and end of our personal lives. Maybe a different aspect of Psyche will take priority in another life, or our psyches may be absorbed into the collective after death. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so the psyche transfers into something else. Its contents could reconstitute something entirely foreign but essentially the same, a fractal self-similarity.
Given its propensity for expression and exploration, it is natural for the psyche to desire and celebrate its transformation through death. But who's to say that its desire for wholeness will be fully satisfied by its transformation in death? The idea that after death is what's "next" is rooted in a conception of temporality, which likely doesn't exist outside our reality (at least, not in the same way).
This current-reality-specific temporality argues against death being the next phase of some grand cosmic mission. Instead, it should be more of what already is, reformatted into a new, yet similar, form.
The psyche can then only be what it is; if it is in another form, it remains Psyche. After death, our psyches may return to a state of oneness with something other, like God or The One. The Ego must die with the body because our incarnate form is the root of our perceived separateness from the collective. The individual psyche would report its experiences to God or The One, becoming, again, one with it; this satisfies its desire for exploration, expression, and wholeness. But, of course, more is needed to solve the meaning of life, and this reasoning opens more questions than it answers, even if it's correct.
Page 316
Cut off the intermediary world of mythic imagination and the mind falls prey to doctrinaire rigidities.
Remarks
See remarks from page 154.
Page 318
The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world's answer.
Page 321
If there were no imperfections, no primordial defect in the ground of creation, why should there be any urge to create, any longing for what must yet be fulfilled. Why should the gods be the least bit concerned about man and creation? About the continuation of the Nidana chain to infinity? After all, the Buddha opposes to the painful illusion of existence his *quod non,* and the Christian hopes for the swift coming of this world's end.
Remarks
Jung seems to say that without imperfection, we wouldn't desire change, improvement, tasks, or purpose. Our situation must also be important because the gods are invested in this existence, too. And it also makes sense, if this reality is fundamentally flawed, for us to hope for its eventual demise, like a cosmic Freudian death wish.
There's a contradiction here: even if the Christian, and those like him, "hopes for the swift coming of this world's end," we must do everything possible to keep this world functioning. We've rapidly evolved into having existential power over the planet, and our maturity level has yet to equal it.
We must mature collectively and not let superstitions from past stages of societal development ruin the species. Christian theology must move past the teaching of a literal end to the Earth if it's to stop harming our species and solar system.
Page 324
...in the opinion of the "other side," our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose, like a dream which seems a reality as long s we are in it. It is clear that this state of affairs resembles very closely the Oriental conception of Maya.
Unconscious wholeness therefore seems to me the true *spiritus rector* of all biological and psychic events. Here is a principle which strives for total realization--which is man's case signifies the attainment of total consciousness. Attainment of consciousness is culture in the broadest sense, and self-knowledge is the road to knowledge of God.
Page 326
...man has been robbed of transcendence by the straightforwardness of the super-intellectuals.
...
It may be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.
Remarks
Who are the "super-intellectuals"?
Jung uses the term "super-intellectuals" as a derogatory term, so they are probably not people Jung respects as knowledgeable people. It seems the "super-intellectuals" believe the intellect and its products, logic, machines, efficiency, numbers, chemistry, etc., are the most important things for us to work for and towards. Super-intellectuals are the type of people who disregard anything without sufficient scientific evidence. "Sufficient amount" is a conveniently movable goalpost.
Super-intellectuals would include the Nazis and Soviets, people who thought they believed in logically sound explanations of how our reality operates and should operate. These "logical" ideas caused much more suffering when put into action than if they never existed. The ideas were pushed with a strong emphasis on their scientific and logical soundness and promise to deliver advancement, power, and efficiency.
In hindsight, there's little logical and scientific validity in the Nazi and Soviet experiments, but at the time, many discerning people believed there was. The super-intellectuals were led astray by their own master, the intellect. Many people who haven't created atrocities fall into this same trap of allowing their intellect to dominate their conscious lives.
When someone allows their intellect power over themselves, they frequently disallow unconscious contents to become conscious. Instead, the super-intellectual pushes communication from the unconscious (dreams, coincidences, somatic symptoms, unpleasant emotions, etc.) to the shadow, where they pursue revenge from the conscious personality. In such a state, one may lose access to the numinous; such a man would lose his transcendence.
Another reading could show that super-intellectuals are people who take things literally, the kind of people obsessed with the search for what actually happened and discount things that did not physically exist in three dimensions at some point in time.