Jung

 

 

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung provides a solid framework for understanding spirituality, and I work closely to explore his work (and professionals who have expanded on his work subsequently) in order to achieve an holistic understanding of religion, spirituality, mythology and folklore, and their effects and purposes, and prevent myself from permanently falling into narrow inroads defined by particular religions, denominations, doctrines, dogmas and traditions. 

 

Jung's belief was that our Psyche, the whole of our mind, is on a journey toward 'individuation', the balanced reconciliation of the opposing forces within ourselves, and that by doing so we seek to reach the Self - the higher state of consciousness. 

 

Briefly, the main components of his theory are:

 

 

 

A Jungian mind map (creator unknown to me)

    The Psyche (or Psychic World) - the whole of our mind, as much a part of, affected by, and influencing upon, any part of our body.

    The Conscious mind - the top-most layer of our Psyche, where the active and present psychic (mental) functions occur. 

    The Personal Unconscious - the next layer down, containing our stored memories, our neuroses and complexes, our shadow, and our opposing forces.

    The Collective Unconscious - the fixed blueprint buried at the foundational level of our mind. It contains the 'symbols' and 'archetypes', biological and cultural consciousnesses, and 'mana' personality (our religious mental state).

    Complexes and neuroses are what form when forces in our personal unconscious on not balanced.

    The Self (or God/Soul-image) - the Self is our highest state of mind, the endpoint of the individuation process, and the part of us that calls us to that process. Jung admitted that it's impossible for us to reach this: it's the journey that counts. The Self is 'God' - the divinity within us, our objective ideal, and while we cannot understand or comprehend it, it projects itself into our personal unconscious via the archetypes, particularly as a fatherly or godly figure.

    The Archetypes are personifications of the collective unconscious that take form in our dreams as people, places and events, and allow us to recognise certain symbols in our waking life. For example, dreaming of a goddess or enchanted motherly figure, represents the archetype of female divinity as recognised by cultures all across the world and throughout history.

    Instincts arise from the unconscious during our waking life, outside of the conscious mind's control, compelling us toward activities and decisions.

    The Ego is a little like a computer's RAM, providing our 'interface' and organising our thoughts, senses and feelings. It contains our sense of identity and is the centre of our conscious. Through the ego, we see the world, we understand the world, and we understand ourselves. It is the cockpit of our being we cannot exit.

    The Libido (or Ego-self axis) - the libido embodies our passions, will, interests and desires, and 'intercedes' between our ego and our personal unconscious. It 'runs' our brain like a CPU, pulling data from the unconscious into our conscious so we can complete tasks. However, because it is enslaved to the cyclical input-output nature of our ego and personal unconscious, the forces that generate it (survival instincts, sexual desires, social motivations, etc.), an unbalanced Psyche can lead to the libido launching a war with itself as two or more positions, some more developed than others, compete for dominance.

    Persona is the 'mask' your ego uses to protect itself and to function in external, mostly social situations. It is how we want others to see us, and how we wish to see ourselves. We may have more than one persona for different situations, and different personas may only have subtle variations.

    Projection is a key idea in Jung's thinking. It is the process by which we understand the world and others. Because we cannot exit our own brains, we cannot relate to anyone or anything by any other way than projecting what we know and understand about ourselves onto them. For example. if I take a dislike to someone, it is because I am projecting something I don't like about myself onto them that I have recognised.

    The Anima and Animus - that part of ourselves which is male or female (and in more recent thinking an androgynous position between the two), that we project onto others. Like everything else, these are just terms to understanding a psychic process, and in this case Jung (a man of his time) falls on dated generalisations. He posits that the anima is the caring, nurturing, creative and emotional side of the mind, the animus the strong, practical, logical side. We invoke the relevant force when we exercise the need for it (for example, if, as a man, I am painting a nice watercolour landscape, I'm invoking my anima), and when we fall in love, we project one or the other onto the person we desire - by casting my anima on a woman, thereby falling in love with her (or lusting after her), I am falling in love with myself. After all, we cannot exist outside our own heads, so love can only be experience internally (again, this does not detract from the beauty of love)

    The Shadow is that part of us that exists in our unconscious we keep repressed. It contains ideas we don't want to think about, flaws, our failures and shortcomings, our dark desires and thoughts of evil. It also contains empowering, life-affirming and benevolent aspects of ourselves, but ones we are nonetheless frightened of and want to keep buried. It is essential to unleash the forces of the shadow, to reckon with them, and bring our Psyche to balance. The overwhelming majority of people never do this. Even if we were to recognise and accept what's inside, dealing with it is shatteringly hard.

    Dreams and Visions - for me, the most interesting aspect of Jung's thinking. Dreams and waking dreams were very important to him, and he believed we can only reconcile of shadow and balance our Psyche by listening to what our personal unconscious is telling us, after all no-one is in a better position to know what's mentally difficult for them, than their own brain. To do this, we must listen to our dreams, analyze them, and listen to our stray waking thoughts, even engaging in meditative visualizations.

    Synchronicity is a fascinating proposition by Jung, and I have experienced it myself - almost daily. He felt that coincidences, sometimes, were just a little too coincidental to ignore. He'd dream of a kingfisher, and the next day a kingfisher (non-native to where he was living) would land dead in his garden, and so on. Synchronicity is when occurrences in the external world align with a person's internal world.

 

Another Jungian mind map (creator unknown)