Jung Thread - Take 2

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Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else. ~ Ogden Nash

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[Francis]

  Man does not live very long in the infantile environment or in the bosom of his family without real danger to his mental health. Life calls him forth to independence. That is to say, to the renunciation of all bonds and limitations which the soul has taken from the period of childhood into adult life.  292

The mother-imago possesses its power from the son’s tendency to glance backwards at the pampering sweetness of childhood, to that glorious state of irresponsibility and security with which the protecting mother-care once surrounded him. 289

 The son becomes mortal by separating himself from the mother. [He is in a sense ‘immortal’ before this because, when he is connected to the mother, through her, he is connected with the immortal source of all life, thus, his fear of death drives him to stay in the infantile state] 285

When the libido leaves the bright upper world, whether from the decision of the individual or from the decreasing life force, then it sinks back into its own depths, into the source from which it has gushed forth, and turns back to that point of cleavage, the umbilicus, through which it once entered into this body. The point of cleavage is called the mother because from her comes the source of the libido. Therefore when some great work is to be accomplished, before which man recoils, doubtful of his strength, the libido returns to that source- and this is a dangerous moment in which a decision takes place between annihilation and new life. If the libido remains arrested in the wonder kingdom of the inner world, then the man has become for the world above a phantom, then he is practically dead or desperately ill. But if the libido succeeds in tearing itself loose and pushing up into the world above, then a miracle appears. This journey to the underworld has been a fountain of youth, and new fertility springs from his apparent death. 284

The willed introversion of a creative mind, which, retreating before its own problem and inwardly collecting its forces, dips at least for a moment into the source of life, in order to wrest a little more strength from the mother for the completion of its work. 290

The onward urging, living libido which rules the consciousness of the son, demands separation from the mother.  [The hero faces death] 288

The kingdom of the mother is the kingdom of the unconscious fantasy. As long as the libido is satisfied merely with unconscious fantasies, it moves in itself, in its own depths, in the mother. The hero, of many words, who performs few deeds and indulges in futile yearnings, is the libido which has not fulfilled its destiny but which turns round and round in the kingdom of the mother, and, in spite of all its longing, accomplishes nothing. Only he, who possesses the will to live and the heroism to carry it through, can break this magic circle. 269

Man wishes to be a child too long because he is afraid of death. The fear of death manifests as a fear of life because, to venture into life and progress toward adulthood, is unconsciously associated with the march toward death. Thus the adult remains fixed in an earlier infantile mode of thinking.  Yet to remain fixed upon infantile goals is no longer practical, since nourishment and physical protection at the hands of the parents are no longer possible, due to the incest prohibition. The desire is therefore never made conscious and is sublimated into some more acceptable or attainable desire.  The introvert gets absorbed is unrealistic fantasies and wishes. The extrovert will have numerous torrid affairs, failed marriages or even commit crimes.  D373

Reproach and hatred are due to some unrecognized longing. P269

Comment:  Frustrated desires to be praised and loved, coupled with fear, are likely the cause of this. The vibe is kind of like: ‘if nobody’s going to love me or praise me, then none of them people should get any love or praise either’  - and they proceed to slander and defecate, I mean deprecate.   

Regressions of the libido often result in infantile megalomania. P271

The individual self, the ego, is created when the libido breaks free of the mother-imago. 372? 

 Libido is therefore an inversion of the urge of incest. A primary goal of socialization is the successful inversion of the infantile psychic compass. The infantile urge to return to the mother is redirected outwardly during the socialization process. Psychic weaning.
When the libido turns inward to face the mother it should also see a great chain of connections, the cosmic web of life.

 What robs nature of its glamour and life of its joy is the poison of retrospective longing. [For the infantile state] 380

Comment: Buddhism teaches that all suffering is caused by longing (desire). Jung is asserting that retrospective longing is far more painful and consuming than prospective longing. Retrospective longing is reunion with the mother and the immortal source of life. Prospective longing is the longing of the liberated (outward facing, extroverted, mortal) libido.  The soul knows that returning to the past is impossible, but longing for an external object always has at least some chance of success. It’s hopelessness versus hope.
Painstaking work for a long time and for a remote object is not in the nature of child and primitive man. The psychic life on a primitive stage; be it of an infantile or archaic type, possesses an extreme inertia and irresponsibility in production and non-production. 381

The mother possesses the libido of the son, and jealously does she guard it. Positive transference [transfer of emotion from mother-imago to some other object] succeeds only from the release of the libido from the mother-imago, the incestuous object in general. Only in this manner is it possible to gain one’s libido, the incomparable treasure, and this requires a mighty struggle, the whole battle of adaptation. 340

By far the majority of the cases of insanity consist in the domination of the individual by the material of the incest fantasy [i.e. insanity is usually caused by a fixation on the mother-imago]. The power of the ‘terrible mother’ [i.e. ‘devourer of men’] is magical and irresistible, working upward from the unconscious. 346

The hero striving toward the mother is the dragon, and when he separates from the mother he becomes the conqueror of the dragon. 350

Through introversion one is fertilized, inspired, regenerated and reborn from the God. Here the hatcher and the hatched are not two, but one in the same identical being. He creeps into himself, he becomes his own uterus becomes pregnant with himself, in order to give birth to the world of multiplicity. Self-incubation, self-castigation [self-renunciation] and introversion are closely connected ideas.   356

Comment: introverts tend to ‘beat themselves up’

The old longing will come again, for it is a peculiarity of unconscious complexes that they lose nothing of their original affect. Meanwhile, their outward manifestation can change almost endlessly. P80

Comment: an unconscious complex is another term for an unconscious inner conflict. An inexpressible and therefore insatiable longing (e.g. the incest wish) continually manifests as a severe conscious frustration. However the consciousness fixes on all manner of surrogates in lieu of the real (unconscious) wish. Like the guy who is looking for his keys under a streetlamp, though he lost them in the dark alley.   
“When I see the living light, all weariness and need are lifted from me, then too I feel like a simple girl instead of an old woman.” 88

Comment: the source of all life (God) is immortal. The mother-imago is a symbol for this source because all life arises from the source through a progenitor, and for humans, that progenitor corresponds to the parents, especially the mother. When a person feels that they have lost contact with their source, which is common in the development of the ego, they often hark back to their memories of being united with their mother. They crave to be reunited with their mother for this reason; to regain their feeling of connection to the immortal source of all life. Yet physically reuniting with their mother is not possible anymore since they are no longer an infant, except as incest, which is not permitted socially.  So the person becomes frustrated because he has repressed his true desire. However, the mother is not the source of all life; she is merely the conduit for that source to manifest for this or that particular individual.

The phallus is [a symbol for] the source of life and libido, the great creator and worker of miracles…like the ever-rutting ass.  90

A certain inclination to listen to low nocturnal voices must be assumed; otherwise such fine and hardly perceptible experiences pass unnoticed. We recognize in this listening a current of the libido leading inward, and beginning to flow toward a still invisible, mysterious goal. It seems that the libido has suddenly discovered an object in the depths of the unconscious that powerfully attracts it. The life of man turned wholly to the external by nature does not ordinarily permit such introversion. 169

The libido springs from the mother, and with this weapon alone can man overcome death. 387

Wisdom dwells in the depths, the wisdom of the mother; being one with it, insight is obtained into the meaning of deeper things, into all the deposits of primitive times, the strata of which have been preserved in the soul. 388

 Sacrifice of the regressive longings of the incestuous libido is imperative to good mental health. This sacrifice is best accomplished through a complete devotion to life. For it is necessary for the well being of the adult individual, who in his childhood was merely an atom revolving in a rotary system, to become himself the center of a new system. Let us consider that Christ’s teaching separates man from his family without consideration. When man allows his incestuous libido full play, and does not liberate it for higher purposes, then he is under the influence of unconscious compulsion. His unconscious incestuous libido fixes the man in a corresponding primitive stage, the stage of ungovernableness and surrender to the emotions. p389-390

Comment: the infantile experience is natural and pleasurable for the infant, but the adult needs to find other ways to satisfy the desires for nutrition, security and affection. Just as the diet changes as we grow up, so too does the manner in which we receive security and affection. The problem is that a fear of death can sometimes manifest as a longing to return to the infantile state and a resistance to redirecting the libido energy toward new objects.  In this case, the infantile state becomes more idealized that it would otherwise be and, as a result, people become unconsciously fixated with it. 
Consciously directing the libido energy toward various life interests is our primary responsibility as sovereign individuals. Gaining the control to consciously direct this energy is the key to obtaining personal fulfillment.
The same libido energy that the young child directs toward nutrition is re-directed toward sex in the young adult. The mature adult redirects the energy away from sex and into art. The ultimate goal of the libido energy (and the will of God) is to make the life of the individual into a work of art. The under-developed adult has too much libido energy bound up in the pursuit of nutrition (e.g. Oprah) and sex (e.g. Tiger Woods).     

[Jana]

God I hate the idea of sex energy (libido) being used for higher purposes. Sex energy is for sex if you can find it, and your life energy is used for socalled higher purposes. Sex energy is a subset of the general life energy...

That conversation of Jung's is related to presovereign and prepersonal.
Emancipation from the parents should occur in the teens, but in our codependent society this is not often the case. But it is not so much an Oedipal situation, rather it is simply that our society has only a "surface" and token approach to establishing the right of an Individual to a spiritual sovereign core. We may be a society of individualists, but we are not yet Individuals...we have to "transcend" the existing paradigm in order to establish the personal-impersonal-transpersonal levels. Our sense of being “lost” is not so much that we want to return in regressive nostalgia to the womb, a Garden of Eden, or a euphoric utopia...it is just that at this point in history if we want to be sovereign or "whole" then we have to set off and do it for ourselves. We have to take charge of our own Individuality for everything in this world will try and revert us to the codependent, addicted Dark Mother of the cooked, material Borg society. This is so because there are so few sovereigns in existence and no one is going to tell us how to do it, although my book attempts to do just that.

Most people in a fear-based "spiritually prepersonal" society would interpret the conversation about sovereignty as a crazy, threatening idea and consider you as some kind of rebellious freak. In a few years however every man and his dog is going to want a piece of the sovereign pie. And remember that narcissism is a sign of our attempts to establish the “personal” in a society that resists the establishment of the personal level. In a sovereign or mystic society the spiritual sovereign core of the individual is respected, accepted and seen as self-evident in all of human life and therefore the pathology of the personal level “narcissism” wouldn’t exist, for it would be corrected by the pleasures and the profundity of the impersonal and transpersonal levels.

[jimtzu]

does Jung differentiate between Un- and Sub- consciousness?  from my limited reading all i've seen him talk about is the unconscious and am wondering how he uses that concept. 

[Jana]

I think Jung and Freud were dealing with the shadow/unconscious in general. Thanks to them we can at least talk about our unconscious drives today, even if we are not that further along.

I think Jung's "unconscious" includes the morphogenic preconscious-biosphere, the negative and positive shadow (unseen), and the unknowable nonlocal noospheric supermind as well. That is both sub and trans-conscious...everything but the small fraction of conscious self-reflexivity.
He really should have made up his own term for it. Damn him.

You can visualize this by considering that the entire alchemical uroborus is "unconscious" except for the "eye" of the snake...but you do not get the "eye" without the entire snake.

[Francis]

I don't know that Jung ever used the term 'subconscious'. perhaps he did. Now that you mention it, both Jung and Freud wrote in German, so maybe they used the same German word and the translators were different. I'd like to see the German terms and compare them etymologically. Personally, I prefer the term subconscious and I don't know that that there is any substantial difference between the concepts of 'subconscious mind' verses 'unconscious mind'.

[Jana]

Collective consciousness:  mass-mindedness dominated by isms and out of touch with instinctuality. Similar to Freud's superego.
The unconscious isn't just an appendix of consciousness. It also contains future developments and the archetypes.
The unconscious isn't a thing, it's a process.

 Unconscious:  a topographical term for the unknown process of the psyche. The unconscious is unconscious only to the ego--we don't know if it is actually that way.

The deeper you go, the more collective its contents. The unconscious divides into two layers:

1. Personal (subjective) unconscious: the layer containing subliminal impressions and repressed contents. Filled only with personal life-experiences. Includes the shadow and the inferior function.

2. Collective (impersonal, transpersonal, objective) unconscious: an immensely old psyche at the basis of ours, filled with nonpersonal, species-wide, inherited, and permanently unconscious complexes called archetypes and with instincts. Nature doesn't build from scratch each time (see Koestler). Energy in solid forms from old, like coal mines, but that pours out into active images. The psyche's equivalent of those (living!) remnants of previous evolutionary stages we carry in our bodies (going all the way back to the earliest organic forms) and so a potential system of adapted functioning. It's the biological, prehistoric, and unconscious development in archaic man. (Just as human bodies have two eyes, our brains have features in common.) At bottom this psychoid layer fuses with physical processes and (includes) the sympathetic nervous system, which experiences from within as opposed to the cerebrospinal system, which senses outer things and maintains the ego. In fact, Jung thought the sympathetic system a deeper, wider, and more embracing psyche than the cerebrum's cortical fields and less exposed to the endocrine system. The highest differentiation of the collective unconscious is the ego, a relatively new combination of ancient elements.

The unconscious always first appears in projection; and it "projects" and is the lifelong matrix of the ego. Contact with the collective unconscious puts us in touch with our historical continuity (which we must harmonize with the present) and offers ingrained reaction modes for urgent situations. Carries and triggers the great collective events of the time; works on and sends out enormous collective fantasies and primordial images; it's where history prepares itself. It also contains, not just past stuff, but future stages of development. Unless the energy of the collective unconscious is used consciously via the transcendent function (=communing with the gods), it swamps the ego and causes collective psychic infections.

Stratification: individuals, families, clans, nations, large group (like European man), primate ancestors, animal ancestors, "central fire" (a shaft of which extends all the way into the individual sphere).

In the unconscious things not only personify themselves but run together in contaminations, parallels, relationships, identifications (which is why every content splits into its opposites when it approaches the ego, one side remaining unconscious), and time/space limits vanish. All events happen in the present for it, and it thinks only concretely and instinctively. When something happens in a part of the collective unconscious it happens everywhere. Its complexes and archetypes show a kind of multiple luminosity or "quasiconsciousness" symbolized in alchemy by sparks, the starry heavens, the fishes' eyes, etc.

We have to imagine a millennial process of symbol-formation which presses towards consciousness, beginning in the darkness of prehistory with primordial or archetypal images, and gradually developing and differentiating these images into conscious creations. "The intangible, the psyche, becomes the ground and substrate, and the 'merely vegetative' sympathetic system the possessor and realizer of unthinkable creative secrets, the vehicle of the life-giving World Soul, and, ultimately, the architect of the brain, this newest achievement of the pre-existent creative will." (The Symbolic Life)

www.terrapsych.com/jungdefs.html  Craig Chalquist, MS PhD,

[Francis]

 2 part video on the legacy of Jung:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5drUNviakdk&feature=player_embedded