• Introduction
• Words on the psychic realms

Main Visions of Jung

One has to remind oneself again and again that in therapy it is more important for the patient to understand than for the analyst's theoretical expectations to be satisfied. [Carl G. Jung, in Man and His Symbols. (1964) Essay retitled "Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams" In CW 18: P.61]

Carl Gustav Jung

"Practical analysis [had better be a genuine art] ... Learn your theories as well as you can, but put them [underneath things somehow] when you touch the miracle of the living soul. Not [reducing] theories but your own creative individuality [should be in the front seat then]." [Carl G. Jung, Contributions to Analytical Psychology. (1928)]

Understand, says Jung, "To be "normal" is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful". If so, to deviate well enough - in good and fair ways that suit you and so on, is a task of often overlooked importance. What do you think?

  Understand, says Jung; you often have to "do it" yourself. By grappling with ideas you may eventually form your mind stuff in ways that harmonise with some of your past or present experiences as well as the words you hear or read of. This peculiar "congruence" is often hailed in good schooling. But one can also see - have insights - without being told. Even animals reach up to that.

Anyway, there can be wide and narrow gaps between being told and instructed that things are so-and-so, and gaining favourable insights or realisations of it personally. The essence of good schooling lies in getting rid of very many essential gaps by certains strides, where learning can be boosted "upwards-inwards" into personal insights. It can be done stepwise, and often should.

The two methods can be combined. In sane schooling or learning experiences they should, much as Dr. Benjamin Bloom and others lay bare in the favourable taxonomy of learning. [Tece; appendix A]

"My views are grounded in experience." - Carl Jung. [CW18.1731]

Ask politely: "What sort of experience?" Despite the ensnaring citation above, much of what Carl Jung thought up, is inside the huge "big bag" that's normally called speculation. Not a few tenets from that sac may lead one into a sort of cul-de-sac. If so, it's not a good thing that has happened.

We should be regularly aware of speculation, and as rigorously as goofs maintain it. The counteractions have to be at least equal to the harassments around, and as steady as they are. One reason is that steady, rewarding and easy enough living is aided by tenets that have been proven over and over in settings like "ours" somehow.
      Thus, tenets that have not been tried or tested over - say - five or four generations in daily living, may be faulty or of not so significant worth that it matters so much. Or, put in other words: Let the one who asserts or proposes the tenets, also bring about the proof of how valid his statements are, under what conditions, and what are the needed specifications. From what "platform" is the guy's utterance, for example? It makes a difference if these facets are checked and found not wanting. A quote:

"My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the psychological truth." - C.G. Jung (In a letter to Sigmund Freud)

There should be nothing wrong with that sort of study or research in itself (per se). Yet ideas of whatever source or harvested by whatever measures, need to be carefully checked before they are launched onto others. That's where empirical know-how in handling ideas sets in has has its place. In all-round science it is the same. You get ideas, and need to present them to the satisfaction of the scientific community also. Certains steps or strides need to be taken. They are in the scientific process, and neatly described in books on how to do research or present scientific papers. The basics are easy to learn and lovely to remember. They can often be put to very good use. Now, look at one more Jung quote:

"One can expect with considerable assurance, that a given well-defined psychological situation will be accompanied by an analogous astrological configuration." - C.G. Jung

If rigorously held speculation is steadily maintained, does it become true and relevant by that, as time passes by? We hardly think so. For the lack of good evidence, one should know better than just asserting this and that on top of one's voice, for assertions depend on authority, and may eventually harm it for the lack of good and staunch evidence.

Midway between good and firm evidence and no evidence is the realm of what looks plausible - at least to some. Jung's assertions often come under that heading: "plausible". What remains to please a hard-headed researcher, is much and savoury verification of this and that tenet.

In fair science, wherever it can be found, the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the proponents of this and that grand-looking assertion or hypothesis. The general idea in science that matters is that it's not correct to push the strain of finding likeable verifications on the shoulders of the receivers. That's the main thing to remember. For the lack of that principle from the realms of science, many persons get dumbfounded, or turn into lame ducks mentally. There should be no need for that. Carl Gustav Jung has one more thing to insist on:

"Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside wakes." - C.G. Jung

"Who looks outside wakes," is the correct take. Put simply: Let's not forget that most of the time that is how it is. This, however, doesn't rule out there is a sphere of endeavours where the Jungian tenet we have looked at, may come in handy. And yet, if those basic conditions are not specified, there is no real need to become a tendendious Jung-believer on top of brittle (unverified) tenets. You owe that to yourself, to your personal development, and to Jung too. He says flatly: "I can only hope and wish that no one becomes 'Jungian.'"

However, many findings that have been academically classified as just plausible, or not good enough, may still work considerably well in real life - that large, looming web we're inside. Unverified doesn't mean untrue, but unproven. And what looks good in basic science and its laboratory settings, may fall short in real life, which is another scenario - one marked by much lack of control, not just a few influences, but many, many - and overt difficulties to make sense out of things or possible results. Thus, to cut through much folly: what looks good in the limited setting (where experiements are done) may not serve man anyhow, perhaps much like results of Behaviouristic rat experiments applied to man. Note the idea: If you look on man as an overgrown rat, you may reduce him mentally though it. That's not fair at all.

The realm of plausible assertions has it corresponding realm of research in these days: it's statistics. Statistics is devised to help us handle odds or insecurity by strategical measures. One result of that sort of averaging business is that you invent the average man - he's just hypothetical. No one is really average in every way. Even twins don't have identical finger prints.

And more important still, what appears to be valid in average, is not directly related to the single person. You can't deduce anything but odds from something that has been estimated (computed) by use of levelling measures revolving around certain "averages" to one person. That's pinpointed and deserves its saying.

There is a time for this, a time for that - "a time for everything," insists the Bible. In our times there is an awakening interest in Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of a world-wide therapeutic community. Some seem increasingly able to understand his central meanings. Many books on him attest to that interest. "Jung is hot again" in the United States. We've taken into account a wide range of Jung's verbal outputs here. And your part is to bear in mind that the main parts have nowhere been exemplarily tested - not yet, at any rate.

And as we wait for that little miracle to happen - the bold and good verifications of such as Jung's visions of archetypes "in the thin air" beyond the normal range of mind - let us not forget to maintain our "tandem couple" of getting ample rest as we link up to steady pursuits in between.

We won't say his main tenets are good or bad or in between good and bad here, only that they are much unverified. To let main tenets rest unverified often breeds unhappy situations. What is more or less true, is that Carl Jung established a sort of legitimated belief system in partial competition to that of Dr. Sigmund Freud's. Let's check what Carl G. Jung came up with better before we try to evaluate it. That's fair, and in line with more than one saying of Jesus.

Jung on the Psychic Realms

A Carl Gustav Jung stamp

"In the collective unconscious you are the same as a man of another race." - C.G. Jung. [Cla 128]

COMMENT. His belief is thus, for the collective unconscous is no proved thing.

"We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, it is rather as if the dreams came to us. They are not subject to our control but obey their own laws. They are obviously autonomous psychic complexes which form themselves out of their own material. We do not know the source of their motives, and we therefore say that dreams come from the unconscious." [Carl G. Jung, "The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits" (1920). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P.580]

"The strength of Jung's whole approach lay in his attempt to integrate his theory of archetypes into a unified theory ... and hence that 'man must remain conscious of the world of the archetypes, because in it he is still a part of Nature and is connected with his own roots'". - J.J. Clarke [Cla 128-9]

"Every human being ... is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. ... The human psyche is ... the product of evolution which ... shows countless archaic traits." - C.G. Jung. [Cla 104]

COMMENT. "Speak for yourself," does hardly apply to Jung and the many unprovables of his.

"The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is." [Carl G. Jung, "The Practical Use of Dream Analysis" (1934). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy. P.304]

"In many ways the philosophy of Schopenhauer was the culmination and apotheosis of Romantic philosophy, with its picture of life as a great journey, an odyssey of cosmic and human transformation. The idea ... can be traced back at least as far as the Roman Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus (c. AD 205-62) who envisaged the world as engaged in a cyclical journey involving an emanation from the original One, a fall into division, multiplicity and individuality, and finally (a) return to the original unity." - J.J. Clarke [Cla 153]

"While endorsing much of Schopenhauer's analysis of the human situation, and his refusal to postulate some ultimate transcendent purpose to human striving, Nietzsche rejected his nihilistic conclusions. The goal of life, as Nietzsche came to see it in his mature philosophy, lay ... in the the path of self-overcoming. ... Most people are content to be carried along by the flow of life, thereby disguising from themselves its ultimate futility, but some are able to fulfil a higher destiny for mankind by facing into the darkness without cringing and by affirming their own value as world-makers. [This] stands for the rejection of mediocrity and conformism, and for the joyful commitment to life in all its shades (...)

"Jung showed greater affinity with Nietzsche, and especially with the figure of Zarathustra who symbolized Nietzsche's affirmation of life and refusal of despair." - J.J. Clarke [Cla 154]

"Jung's whole treatment of the question of individuation arose, as it did for the Romantics and for Nietzsche, out of a sense of historical crisis." - J.J. Clarke [Cla 155]

"Thus, while always tied to instinct, the development of human personaity 'brings with it the possibility fo deviating from ... inherited psychic structures ... and hence from instinct." - J.J. Clarke [Cla 134]

"In the absurd tragi-comedy of life, Schopenhauer tells us, 'no-one is happy, but every man strives his whole life long after a supposed happiness which he seldom attains, and even if he does it is only to be disappointed with it'" - J.J. Clarke [Cla 153]

"Critics have suggested [Carl Jung] failed to look sufficiently deeply into the cultural as opposed to the biological origins of sterotypical male or female characteristics. He certainly tended to assume that the male/female distinction as it appears in Western male-dominated society is a universal archetype, and to that extent he was caught up in the prejudices of his culture." - J.J. Clarke [Cla 160]

[3.3]

A Few More Jung Quotations

The dream has for the primitive an incomparably higher value than it has for civilized man. Not only does he talk a great deal about his dreams, he also attributes an extraordinary importance to them, so that it often seems as though he were unable to distinguish between them and reality. To the civilized man dreams as a rule appear valueless, though there are some people who attach great significance to certain dreams on account of their weird and impressive character. This peculiarity lends plausibility to the view that dreams are inspirations.

"The Psychological Foundations of Belief in Spirits" (1920). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 574

"Obviously it is in the youthful period of life that we have most to gain from a thorough recognition of the instinctual side. A timely recognition of sexuality, for instance, can prevent that neurotic suppression of it which keeps a man unduly withdrawn from life, or else forces him into a wretched and unsuitable way of living with which he is bound to come into conflict. Proper recognition and appreciation of normal instincts leads the young person into life and entangles him with fate, thus involving him in life's necessities and the consequent sacrifices and efforts through which his character is developed and his experience matured. For the mature person, however, the continued expansion of life is obviously not the right principle, because the descent towards life's afternoon demands simplification, limitation, and intensification-in other words, individual culture." [Carl G. Jung: "On Psychic Energy" (1928). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 113]

"It even seems as if young people who have had a hard struggle for existence are spared inner problems, while those who for some reason or other have no difficulty with adaptation run into problems of sex or conflicts arising from a sense of inferiority." [Carl G. Jung: "The Stages of Life" (1930). In CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 762]

Persona

The persona of Jungian thinking [Cf Olk 32]

The common psychic way of behaving towards the surrounding world is called persona in Jungian thinking. Man comes in touch with and adapts to the surrounding world by a mental connectivity system, is Carl Jung's postulate. The figure suggests how that system also surrounds the "I" like a sheath.

In the figure, thought is reckoned with as the main function; therefore it lords almost completely over the I-sheath, ie, man's persona. The servant functions, intuition and perceptions, take far less part in the persona, and the inferior function of feelings, is almost completely outside, all according to Jung.

The persona is a section of the "I", the part of the "I" that is directed toward the surrounding world. In Jung's thought, the persona is a complex (bundle) of functions for adapting, and is not the same as the individuality. The persona deals solely with linking oneself to outward things, the outer realm. The persona makes itself into a compromise between individuality and society. I may have said: a buffer zone somehow.

The persona's concerns encompass: (a) the egohood ideal, if any is sensed; it is how he wants to look like or emulate; (b) the pictures and attitudes that important and significant elements of the surrounding world have "glued together" of the person in question, according tastes and ideals of the dominating surrounding elements, roughly said. (c) The given bodily and mental conditions that frame in the actualisation of the I-ideals and the ideals of influencing surroundings.
      So, in between the surrounding world and the individual's inner, structural make-up we find the persona. An individual that in time builds his persona solely on the features that are endorsed by outer collective units, tends to end up with a mass man's persona, which may work for good or bad or "in between" those poles apart, and with different blends and hues included.

On the other hand, the one who takes into account only is own personal needs, wishes and ideals and tries to live them out, may end up like Adolf Hitler, or prehaps less drastically: he ignores proper concerns for others, gets a reputation as odd, a loner or perhaps a rebel only. But being a rebel can be healthy and OK in some cases.
      The persona includes mental abilities, ways of dealing and bartering in social spheres, habitual peculiarities such as the way of walking, posture, hair-cut, clothing, grimaces and facial wrinkling at times, usual smiles and sighs, and so on.
      It is thought to be necessary to have a persona to get well-adapted through, but what about the artist? Is is good to have some elastic wall (persona) between the I-ness and others, instead of being "just oneself" primarily and go into contact as such? It could be good. For the persona contains inherent dangers. If all goes well in the "adaptation circus", one may feel like behaving naturally in balanced, regular ways at first. But if the persona becomes something to hide oneself behind because it seems to be an easy way of adjusting oneself at first, the adaptation manoeuvres may stiffen, get rigid, maybe automated or too mechanical too. Then the persona is a fake image of the one inside it, and the impression others may get, tends not to be true. Seducers may have personas like that.

Behind the persona that turns into a mask, the individuality may stiffen, get stultified and perhaps weeded out, transgressed against, maybe even choked.
      Identifying oneself with position, office and rank may be seductive along the lines we have etched above, and therefore many men and women feel they are nothing much and look down on themselves beyond the allotted or lent "dignity". Many who retire from active work, have severe identity problems in line with these phenomena; and there are others as well.

Jungs cautions against expecting to find much of value behind a persona that has gone rigid. A personality is not found inside that shell, just a pathetic little human being. Dr. Jung's words sound a bit harsh, admittedly. He also considers that we all know the professor who uses up all of his individuality ont he professor's role. Behind that facade or mask there is nothing but sourness and infantility to be found.
      So even if a persona works and is confirmed through habitual ways, it should not be allowed to become opaque. There should be transparency through which to get glimpses of who's inside. The persona should not grow so firm that one can't get rid of it. The consciousness of the individual inside it should use it expediency by being very conscious of things like these.

According to Dr. Jung, thinking helps to solve riddles in this line, but he surely considers that most adaptations are more willy-nilly and inferior to that.
      Censorship and rigid pressures in the education may foster a wrong development, so that the persona is no longer elastic, a tool or thing to handle from inside. If that happens, one may become a jumping-frog or even laughing-stock in the hands of others. One may in the long run become compulsive through rigid habituation, and perhaps neurotic too. In those situations the persona doesn't work well, is not as differentiated and effective as it needs to be, and may mislead not a few to form wrong estimates of the character involved.

Dr. Jung postulates that there is a collective consciousness that big bosses may or may not express favoured sides of. He also thinks that deep inside anyone are much unconscious depths that contain archetypes of great figures. He may feel fairly attuned to one or more of those, and perhaps read them onto great guys. Among these ideal figures are the revenger, the saviour of humankind, the martyr, the outcast, the vampyre and others.

The more hardened or encrusted the persona turns and the more one identifies with the persona, the more dangers ay accrue. The reason for that is that in such cases the inner personality loses empathy, turns into a cencor too, or gradually begins to harbinger repressed suppressed, undifferentiated content that can be charged with threatening dynamisms and involve psychic crises of various sorts.
      But a persona that is well placed and soundly functioning, is a good help to go on living year after year. [Rooted in Olk 31-34]