posted January 30, 2009 03:21 AM         

~ C.G. Jung

Confrontation With The Unconscious

An incessant stream of fantasies had been released, and I did my best not to lose my head but find some way to understand these strange things. I stood helpless before an alien world; everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible... One thunderstorm followed another... Others have been shattered by them -- Nietzsche, and Holderlin, and many others. But there was a demonic strength in me, and from the beginning there was no doubt in my mind that I must find the meaning of what I was experiencing in these fantasies. When I endured these assaults of the unconscious I had an unswerving conviction that I was obeying a higher will, and that feeling continued to uphold me until I had mastered the task.

I was frequently so wrought up that I had to do certain yoga exercises in order to hold my emotions in check. But since it was my purpose to know what was going on within myself, I would do these exercises only until I had calmed myself enough to resume my work with the unconscious. As soon as I had the feeling that I was myself again, I abandoned this restraint upon the emotions and allowed the images and inner voices to speak afresh. The Indian, on the other hand, does yoga exercises in order to obliterate completely the multitude of psychic contents and images.

...First I formulated the things as I had observed them, usually in "high-flown language," for that corresponds to the style of the archetypes. Archetypes speak the language of high rhetoric, even of bombast... I had no choice but to write everything down in the style selected by the unconscious itself. Sometimes it was as if I were hearing it with my ears, sometimes feeling it with my mouth, as if my tongue were formulating words; now and then I heard myself whispering aloud. Below the threshold of consciousness everything was seething with life.

From the beginning I had conceived my voluntary confrontation with the unconscious as a scientific experiment which I myself was conducting and in whose outcome I was vitally interested. Today I might equally well say that it was an experiment which was being conducted on me...

In order to grasp the fantasies which were stirring in me "underground", I knew that I had to let myself plummet down into them, as it were. I felt not only violent resistance to this, but a distinct fear. For I was afraid of losing command of myself and becoming a prey to the fantasies -- and as a psychiatrist I realized only too well what that meant. After prolonged hesitation, however, I saw that there was no other way out. I had to take the chance, had to try to gain power over them; for I realized that if I did not do so, I ran the risk of their gaining power over me.

...Soon after this fantasy another figure rose out of the unconscious. He developed out of the Elijah figure. I called him Philemon. Philemon was a pagan and brought with him an Egypto-Hellenistic atmosphere with a Gnostic coloration...

Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon repressented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies, I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air... It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through him the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought...

Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru... And the fact was that he conveyed to me many an illuminating idea.

It is of course ironical that I, a psychiatrist, should at almost every step of my experiment have run into the same psychic material which is the stuff of psychosis and is found in the insane. This is the fund of unconscious images which fatally confuse the mental patient. But it is also the mythopoetic imagination which has vanished from our rational age. Though such imagination is present everywhere, it is both tabooed and dreaded, so that it even appears to be a risky experiment or a questionable adventure to entrust oneself to the uncertain path that leads into the depths of the unconscious. It is considered the path of error, of equivocation and misunderstanding. I am reminded of Goethe's words: "Now let me dare to open wide the gate/Past which men's steps have ever flinching trod." The second part of Faust, too, was more than a literary exercise. It is a link in the Aurea Catena* which has existed from the beginning of philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous, it is a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world.

...I dedicated myself to the service of the psyche. I loved it and hated it, but it was my greatest wealth. My delivering myself over to it, as it were, was the only way by which I could endure my existence and live it as fully as possible.

Today I can say that I never lost touch with my initial experiences. All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912, almost fifty years ago.** Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although at first only in the form of emotions and images.

...My experience and experiments with the unconscious had brought my intellectual activity to a standstill. After the completion of The Psychology of the Unconscious I found myself utterly incapable of reading a scientific book. This went on for three years.... nor would I have been able to talk about what really preoccupied me. The material brought to light from the unconscious had, almost literally, struck me dumb. I could neither understand it nor give it form. At the university I was in an exposed position... It would be unfair to continue teaching young students when my own intellectual situation was nothing but a mass of doubts.

I therefore felt that I was confronted with the choice of either continuing my academic career, whose road lay smooth before me, or following the laws of my inner personality, of a higher reason, and forging ahead with this curious task of mine, this experiment in confrontation with the unconscious. But until it was completed I could not appear before the public.

Consciously, deliberately, then, I abandoned my academic career. For I felt that something great was happening to me, and I put my trust in the thing which I felt to be more important sub specie aeternitatis. I knew that it would fill my life, and for the sake of that goal I was ready to take any kind of risk.

What, after all, did it matter whether or not I became a professor? Of course it bothered me to have to give this up; in many respects I regretted that I could not confine myself to generally understandable material. I even had moments when I stormed against destiny. But emotions of this kind are transitory, and do not count. The other thing, on the contrary, is important, and if we pay heed to what the inner personality desires and says, the sting vanishes. That is something I have experienced again and again, not only when I gave up my academic career...

The consequence of my resolve, and my involvement with things which neither I nor anyone else could understand, was an extreme loneliness. I was going about laden with thoughts of which I could speak to no one: they would only have been misunderstood. I felt the gulf between the external world and the interior world of images in its most painful form. I could not yet see that interaction of both worlds which I now understand. I saw only an irreconcilable contradiction between "inner" and "outer".

However, it was clear to me from the start that I could find contact with the outer world and with people only if I succeeded in showing -- and this would demand the most intensive effort -- that the contents of psychic experience are real, and real not only as my personal experiences, but as collective experiences which others also have. Later I tried to demonstrate this in my scientific work, and I did all in my power to convey to my intimates a new way of seeing things. I knew that if I did not succeed, I would be condemned to absolute isolation.

...It has taken me virtually forty-five years to distill within the vessel of my scientific work the things I experienced and wrote down at that time. As a young man my goal had been to accomplish something in my science. But then, I hit upon this stream of lava, and the heat of its fires reshaped my life. That was the primal stuff which compelled me to work upon it, and my works are a more or less successful endeavor to incorporate this incandescent matter into the contemporary picture of the world.

The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life -- in them everything essential was decided. It all began then; the later details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetime's work.

~ Carl Gustav Jung
"Memories, Dreams, Reflections"

*Aurea Catena -- 'The Golden (or Homeric) Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men,
beginning with Hermes Trismegistus, which links earth with heaven.' - editor's note

**Jung was born in 1875, so this "beginning" of his development occured in his mid-to-late thirties.
(He is in his early eighties, at the time of this writing.)

posted February 01, 2009 06:55 AM         

i ask because (and if i've misunderstood you, my sincere apologies)i believe work is not a barrier to thought or spiritual development. i don't think that those who are 'men of the world' are somehow removed from the lofty heights of deep philosophical musings. i see it as a matter of contributions - from the person who sweeps the street to the person who fixes broken bodies, each has an essential place and service to offer. if they can add spirituality into the mix then WOW! what a potent brew we have....bringing an element of the divine to the everyday....bringing an element of deep love and respect.....

as to the 'dreamers' of course we need those - but its what they offer; its their 'service' to mankind....and granted, its not always easy to see how such people fit into the acccepted functions of society....but i've known many deep thinkers who earn their crust via tasks such as cleaning - not because they can't do anything else but because it gives them the space they need to think! manual labour requires little mental input....and they pass their thoughts and knowledge to the world in small ways.

just some thoughts...

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Out of clutter find simplicity.

From dischord find harmony.

In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

posted February 01, 2009 05:48 PM         

Thanks for taking an interest and taking the time to read it.

I do need to clarify my position, as some others have misread it, too.

A discussion of types such as this one ought not to be taken literally, just as there is no such thing as a pure Leo, or a pure Capricorn, though we may still speak of Leos and Capricorns, and we may make more or less absolute statements concerning these people (i.e. these signs), with the provision that we are always speaking in the abstract (i.e. speaking of signs, and not actual people). Jung's primary division of men into the two types, introvert/extrovert, is a parallel example of what I am attempting to do here. Yes, everyone is a combination of the two, but everyone is primarily one or the other, and some people are more polarized than others. I am primarily concerned with the marginalized ones, the unsung ones.

"I speak for the exception, so long as he does not wish to become the rule." (~ nietzsche)

posted February 02, 2009 07:27 AM         

please do not, for one moment, think that i take a flippant view when it comes to philosophy. i like to read your posts because i appreciate what it is you do. I spent some time (many years ago) studying philosophy in an academic capacity and those tentative steps have left me with a life-long interest which, much to my disappointment, i have little time to pursue!

i also understand the essay is an ongoing process and not to be taken in a 'literal' sense.....

i am trying to explore my inner response to what i read and whilst i do agree that truly deep thinking requires time and space - two very precious things in this day and age - i am not sure you ought to feel insulted at the suggestion that you can do menial tasks and have deep thoughts! also, as someone who is essentially a philosopher, such a subject is very close to your heart and therefore it is easy to take criticism to heart, regardless of how much time you spend trying to intellectualise this response.

it is natural to feel what we do is essential - it is also very easy to fall into the trap of feeling misunderstood. philosophy, by its very nature, is open to misunderstanding and multiple interpretation. in its essence it get people thinking.....and not always in the way you hope when you put ideas 'out there'.

we all have a sense of duality - its part of the human condition. agreed, some people inhabit the inner/outer world more than the other. i consider much of this inner conflict arises not from contradictory thoughts but from inhibition and the inability to truly express our innermost needs.

i am required to present an 'image' to world. this image may be contrary to what is natural for me - therefore conflict will be created.

again, just some thoughts and prob a bit off the subject..............!

------------------
Out of clutter find simplicity.

From dischord find harmony.

In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

posted February 02, 2009 08:13 PM         

For my part,

Nobody gave me the time. I took it.
My creed: "Give me Philosophy, or give me death."
When you are willing to die for it, you make the time.

My emotional reactions can always be softened and refined, yes.
But I struggle with understanding the place and effectiveness of passion.

Being misunderstood is a thorn, and one which I must come to expect and resign myself to.
But, in this case, my reaction concerned the depreciation of philosophy in our present age.

You would not want to have surgery performed on you by a doctor
who only studied and practiced medicine in his spare time, would you?
Sure, he can cut you open, maybe even sow you back up without complications,
but can he really work amid the intricate business that goes on inside you?
And if a person asserted that he could perform surgery on you,
while attending to some other matters at the same time, would you trust him?

To me, the role of the philosopher is as important as the role of the clinical physician.
Our modern world is deeply sick on account of its lack of appreciation for this fact.
The sickness is shown by the superficiality of people's thinking.
The depth of the sickness is shown by the denial and ignorance of this superficiality.

quote:

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i consider much of this inner conflict arises not from contradictory thoughts but from inhibition and the inability to truly express our innermost needs.

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This may be the case with some people. Have you ever studied the water houses, in astrology? The water houses involve deeply complex and semi-unconscious processes. It is often the work of a lifetime, bringing their wisdom to the surface. Even if, like me, you have Mars conjunct Mercury in Sagittarius trine your Jupiter (in Leo) and sextile your Moon (in Aquarius), and are honest and uninhibited to a fault, particularly in the expression of your innermost needs, still, it will not suffice to render your thoughts free of contradiction, or, for that matter, your insides free of conflict. At least, not if you are driven to investigate the hidden recesses of the water houses. And when the 12th house is implicated, there really are no easy, or easily expressed, answers. The result of thoroughly understanding oneself in this area of life will never be what the world understands as clear expression, though it may well be the enlightenment of buddhas. Even then, -- especially then, -- the thoughts you express will tend to appear highly equivocal and ambiguous to those uninitiated in similar depths. Nevertheless, you will trigger insight in those with ears to hear.

quote:

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i am required to present an 'image' to world. this image may be contrary to what is natural for me - therefore conflict will be created.

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I have lived my life so as to by-pass the situations in which such dissimulation is required of me.

To the extent that I do present an image of myself to the world, it is an image of myself as I am in earnest; in all my complexity, and without denying or neglecting to reflect a single dimension of my thought or experience. The result, as you can see, is not a cardboard cut-out of some easily defined personality and worldview, but, rather, a figure with more dimensions than can be counted; with dimensions spontaneously springing into being, and, without skipping a beat, just as spontaneously springing into expression. The more deeply I conceive of myself and my inner world, the less clear and rigid my conceptions must appear from the outside. Until I have brought it all up.. all that is within me.. up and into consciousness, it will be a profound and increasing mystery to myself and others. After, it will be enlightenment to me, and remain a mystery to others. Either way, I will bring up insights which will prove illuminating, or, at least, amusing, to many people, though their fullness will not, cannot, be completely understood.

A quote from Jung on the archetypal Merlin may prove useful here:

"Merlin represents an attempt by the medieval unconscious to create a parallel figure to Parsifal. Parsifal is a Christian hero, and Merlin, son of the devil and a pure virgin, is his dark brother. In the twelfth century, when the legend arose, there were as yet no premises by which his intrinsic meaning could be understood. Hence he ended in exile, and hence 'le cri de Merlin' ['the cry of Merlin'] which still sounded from the forest after his death. This cry that no one could understand implies that he lives on in unredeemed form. His story is not yet finished, and he still walks abroad. It might be said that the secret of Merlin was carried on by alchemy, primarily in the figure of Mercurius. Then Merlin was taken up again in my psychology of the unconscious and remains uncomprehended to this day. That is because most people find it quite beyond them to live on close terms with the unconscious. Again and again I have had to learn how hard this is for people."

quote:

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again, just some thoughts and prob a bit off the subject...

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By no means "just thoughts". And by no means "off the subject".

Amor Lux,