CARL JUNG
Posted by anthonynorth on July 15, 2007
Paranormal research is more than narrating the cases an investigator comes across. Also important is the idea that the cases can be analysed in order to provide theory for what is going on. As data leads to theory in science, so too with the world of mystery.
The problem with this approach, however, is that few theorists have achieved the audience they deserve. However, some stand out above the throng. Perhaps the greatest of those was psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung.
YOUNG JUNG
Arthur C Clarke once commented that not only did the paranormal not have its Einstein, it was still awaiting its Aristotle. I disagree with this statement. Jung fits the bill more than adequately, rationalizing the paranormal like no other researcher.
Jung was born in 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland, the son of a very spiritual family. As an adult he became vain and obsessive and had many affairs, having almost a sex addiction. However, he was very much a genius, trapped between the academic and the more esoteric.
This was apparent to him from the age of three when he began to have mystical dreams and was convinced another person lived inside him. He named this person Philemon and saw him as age old wisdom.
THE PSYCHOLOGIST
If Jung hadn’t become an academic, he would have become a great medium, already exhibiting elements of other personalities inside him. However, he trained medically in Basel before moving to a Zurich psychiatric clinic in 1900, eventually becoming a student of Freud.
Vital to this period was his identification of two states of mind – introversion and extroversion. The mentally healthy person formed a balance between these two extremes, finding himself and realising who he is through a process Jung was to call Individuation.
Most people only discovered their true self following what Jung termed a ‘midlife crisis’, when material values failed to satisfy, requiring an understanding of the more esoteric.
THE MYSTIC
This was very much self-reflection on Jung’s part. Following a break with Freud, Jung had a severe mid life crisis, descending into six years of mental illness, which Jung called a ‘creative illness’. He began communicating with spirits in himself.
Devising a form of self-analysis he called ‘active imagination,’ he produced hallucinatory images. But these images fascinated him to the point that he intuited a totally radical view of mind.
Turning his studies to Hermetic philosophy, he realised that much of the imagery he discovered was common to all, and often appeared in dreams, myth and folklore. It was here that Jung came up with his idea of a shared influence he called the ‘collective unconscious.’
PARANORMAL MIND
Images, which he called ‘archetypes’, rise from this shared mind to guide the personal mind. By his death in June 1961, he hadn’t placed a ‘mechanism’ on this process. But he had identified a process whereby infiltration of the personal mind occurred, due to some communal process.
Jung’s collective unconscious became a model for channelling paranormal experiences. Soon, researchers were allying the process with the quantum field where similar paranormal events seem to occur, with spontaneous action independent of distance.
Without doubt, Jung’s theorizing on the ‘collective unconscious’ revolutionized our understanding of the mind, showing a link between the individual and community at a psychological level. And equally without doubt, this relationship has led to an opening up of rational understanding of a possible paranormal mind.
THE ALCHEMIST
At one stage, Carl Jung decided to study alchemy, the search for the Philosopher’s Stone that transmutes lead into gold. But to Jung, alchemy was not aimed at the transmutation of metals, but at the transmutation of the soul.
Noting the mystical nature of the practice, alchemy was, to him, nothing more than the age old process of transcending normal consciousness and achieving an altered state. This began an interest in other areas of mysticism.
Typically, he studied Gnosticism and the symbolism of the ‘mandala’, his works on the subjects going on to revitalize interest in mysticism – a process that was fundamental to the New Age revival of the 1960s.
PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE
Jung experienced paranormal phenomena throughout his life. A student of Freud, they eventually argued, with Freud becoming convinced Jung had put a death wish on him. He twice fainted in Jung’s presence.
In 1944 Jung had a near death experience after a heart attack. From the Himalayas and the Mediterranean, he left Earth and visited a Hindu in a temple. A nurse observed that he was surrounded by a halo of bright light.
At one point he became immersed in the world of the dead, and later wrote that the spirits were the ‘voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved and Unredeemed.’ He went on to fear for mankind, arguing we could only be saved by becoming more conscious.
SYNCHRONICITY
Jung’s research on the collective unconscious led to many coincidences he could not understand. Influenced by physicist Wolfgang Pauli, he went on to develop his theory of ‘synchronicty.’
He explained the process as a unifying principle behind ‘meaningful coincidences’, arguing there was such a thing as ‘an acausal connecting principle’ behind them, seeming to connect unrelated and unconnected events.
Many have since argued that synchronicity could be a process whereby the mind is active in the world. In other words, our thoughts can have an active role in organizing the world and our lives. Combined with the collective unconscious, synchronicity, if proved, could go a long way to explaining a great deal of paranormal phenomena.
IN CONCLUSION
An academic who was eventually shunned by his peers for daring to go where they dare not, Carl Jung was a man caught between the rational and the mystical. For this reason, he is not given the important place in the history of knowledge he deserves.
Sometimes his own behaviour could be responsible. For instance, after his wife died in 1955, he began building a stone castle, complete with mystical symbols, and saw it as an expression of the symbolic role of his life.
This greatest thinker in the history of the paranormal died on 6 June 1961, three days after a dream in which he symbolically saw his death as a ‘completion’, symbolized by tree roots interlaced with gold. According to the myth, at the moment he died, a storm broke out and lightning struck his favourite tree.
© Anthony North, July 2007
Click Tony On, on Blogroll, for my current affairs blog. For more mysteries, see Mysteries page, above.
Marsha J. O'Brien said
Very interesting post. I knew some about Jung, but this was fascinating. Thanks so much.
“…tree roots interlaced….” Very interesting to me too. Before my mama passed on she told me that there were ropes and string all over the home, all interlaced and tying together. She was lucid and had her wits about her.
Again, thanks!
mrachel said
This was a great read! Thanks for posting it.
mrG said
um … I notice you kinda skipped over the part where our noble Carl Gustav rose up through the ranks to become editor in chief of the war-time Nazi psychological journal, you know, the one that excused little quirks of cognition like the Final Solution and his famous quote on how women and blacks would be unable to reach the higher states of human consciousness apparently reserved for the male Aryan mind. Bit of a bent way of seeing for a ‘mystic’ wouldn’t you say?
anthonynorth said
Hi MrG,
At one point Jung DID have anti-semitic views, and was a Nazi sympathiser, though certainly not a Nazi, and later tried to work out psychologically why he was like he was. By the late 1930s he considered Hitler ‘sinister’.
Many people went through such a process at the time. Yes, I maybe should have mentioned it. I offer no excuses. Very few writers do mention it.
So okay, let’s put him alongside Heisenberg, who made the greatest advances in quantum mechanics (he tried to make a Nazi Atom Bomb), and von Braun (and all those V1 and V2s), who put Americans on the Moon.
Oh no, we can’t put them alongside Jung. They DID work for the Nazis, didn’t they?
Greg said
Tony,
Nice reply to Mr. G. Similar accusations were leveled at Joseph Campbell (anti-semitism) after he died. Intelligent observers realized that, if true, this did not overshadow his accomplishments in some of the same areas as Jung, and did not appear to inform his opinions on spiritual matters, at least as far as anyone could tell.
In a similar vein, many of Elia Kazan’s films remain benchmarks, even though he rolled over for HUAC.
anthonynorth said
Hi Greg,
Thanks for that. What a lot of people don’t realise is that the 1920s and 30s were a crazy time. The world had been shook by the Great War and flu pandemic. Intellectualism had led to communism, which really spooked the right. ‘Strange’ movements like socialism and feminism were changing society.
The natural answer to communism was capitalism, but America had withdrawn into its shell, and the British Empire was failing. Suddenly capitalism seemed to be the answer, then it fell apart in the Wall Street Crash and Depression.
In such an intellectual environment, fascism seemed the only safeguard against communism – in Italy many leading Jews were actually part of Mussolini’s regime. Some of the liberal left actually toyed with eugenics – H G Wells, for instance.
Yes, this was all wrong, and many instinctively felt so at the time, but there was nothing else they could see. And believe me, we can ‘tarnish’ most intellectuals in this way if we want to cause enough mischief. But the point is, putting today’s standards onto them doesn’t wash. We’re in a different world. Smugness is unattractive.
Adam said
Hi Anthony
That reply to the Nazism slur really hits the mark – and the poster forgets the sycophantic behaviour of the Left towards Stalin’s regime. Smugness assumes that nothing new has been learnt since the 1930s – but humanity has learnt, in blood, the dangers of totalitarianism’s false promises.
Edd Morton said
I believe that in all religions,doctrines,and ideologies,there is some degree of truth in each.In the age of political correctness,and ethnic sensitivity,we do in fact become smug,and fail to recognize these truths,often because of the extreme negativisms attached to each.From Freud to Jung,from naziism to scientology,i have found some elements of merit in each.Abstinence from any and all ideology enables us to see more clearly!
JAMES M HNYLAND said
There is a famous quote that “the past was a different place”. An excellent short essay on a very under-rated intellectual.I think that Synchronicity (not synchronicty as the author spells it) and the collective unconscious will be major parts of Science in the future
jaako said
The New Age crowd and the Nazis did not need Jung himself as an adherent. They needed looney ideas he misconstrued from Freud and gave them his own spin. Freud really got upset with Jung for this dalliance with some sort of neo-platonic cosmic consciousness, etc psycho babble system he created with his symbol fixation. As a psychiatrist Jung was so inept, by todays’ standards he would be considered a quack. His remission rates were abysmal, his patients rarely got better, they were hospitalized longer and treated ineffectively. than standard care of the day. Jung made these comments about himself when asked why his methodology was not working.
Jung as a moral ethical entity was not prisitine, he collaborated more than folk are aware of. Check out Brills biog of Freud for insights into Jungs dalliances.
Jung was unstable from the jump, as he himself admittted, he was at peace with himself and sought respite in his alter egos. Adler, broke with Freud due to his insistence folk were either introvert or extrovert, even broke with Jung. I am not sure what the status with another dubious entity , Wilhelm Reich who Freud wrote off due to his organon screed.
I see similarities between Reich and Jung. Both were quite strange and encapsulated themselves in their own worlds. Reich was marginalized and ended up n obscurity. The only thing that saved Jung from obscurity was the New Age crowds’ identification with him.
Robin Edgar said
What better day than the 8th anniversary of the appearance of the total solar eclipse “Eye of God” in the skies over Europe to call attention to this highly meaningful “coincidence” –
http://images.google.ca/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=%22total+solar+eclipse%22+%22Eye+of+God%22
Waldo Skipsey said
Archetypes are probably the Genes of human behaviour and our psychic evolution.
anthonynorth said
Hi Waldo,
I thought about this myself, and it could well be true. But I’ve a suspicion about behavioural genes. For instance, I’m not sure they exist.
Rather, they seem to be a congregation of genes, rather than single ones. I’ve a suspicion that a type of behaviour causes a form of gene ‘networking’, rather than the genes causing the behaviour.
This may be wrong, but it’s too early in research to be sure.
Fausto Intilla said
a)The Jungian Theory of Syncronicity, is a clear demonstration that
everything in this Universe is predeterminated.The Heisenberg’s
Indetermination Principle comes from the human ignorance
(we cannot see the reality in its totality)…so only an ignorant,can believe in Free Will.
b)Matter is a complex form of energy; Energy
is a complex form of Information; Information…is God’s Thought.
The Universe is God…so we are parts of God.
c) Every kind of “human desire”,is followed by a Chain of “Electron wave
functions collapses” (in agreement with Schrödinger’s Theory) which will not
follow ours expectations! …So the paradox is: if we want to get hold of
something,we shouldn’t have to search for it. (Men stay still,and the mountains move…).
A curiosity: The connection between the electron
wave-function and the human intent has to do with the fact that
experiments have proved that the intentions of the operator of a radio
transmission facility, directly and instrumentably alter the
“footprint”, the radiation pattern of the antenna. It has also been
shown that the intent of the human being causes a divergence in
the quantum field (which is the information field).
Any divergence in the information field results in
alterations of “probability”, which directly influences
the outcome of any system which contains any element
of chance, directly influencing the resulting observable
events. (See the work of Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Research at http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/).
Notes:
“In agreement with Henri Bergson’s thought (see the last pages of “Entre
le temps et l’éternité” of Ilya Prigogine ,Librairie Arthème Fayard,Paris),
we can accept the idea of a “Space-time absolute value”, where
all the “Space-time relativ values” are incorporated (in agreement with Einstein’s
theory of relativity); the conclusion is that there is only one Real
Matrix of the Universe…so every other possible /potential parallel
“event/dimension/future” it’s only a human illusion.
All the other parallel Universes (or Multi-Universes,as Phd. Everett said)
can only exist in our minds…perhaps whilst dreaming.
Unfortunately several physicists are conditioned by Heisenberg’s Principle of
Indetermination…which, as you will know, is enough explain the
existence of Free Will.
Well, the Principle of Indetermination is hardly bound by the limits of
observations made by the human brain.
(We cannot see the reality in its totality…Bohm taught).
If we accept the idea that our Universe really is God,well,in a infinite
Caos of Energy too, there must to be a logical (but not for human
brain),exact,specific,and perfectly organized …Plan.
How many significant (important) coincidences can happen to a person in his
life,living in a unorganizated and stupid Universe?…I think no-one.
Every synchronism in our life, is like an open-eyes-dream (Jung
taught)…and we can thank the fine intelligence of our Universe…if
they happen.”
Fausto Intilla
(Inventor-scientific divulger)
http://www.oloscience.com
Jerry Heath said
The Genetics of Culture
The genetics of culture is in the stories we tell.
The stories are the genes of culture.
As we tell the stories we are guaranteeing the replication of the culture.
How they are woven into the society is the DNA.
The stories are woven into the fabric of the society and they reappear sometimes very visible and sometimes hidden but very apparent.
As the stories appear and reappear they carry out their goal of replicating the culture represented.
The most important stories are the ones we tell little children.
When scientists talk about myth it is like taking the genes of society and analyzing them with a butcher knife.
This is because it is exactly at the boundary between the unquestionable real and the borderline myth in a story that we find the power of stories to replicate the culture.
The necessity for the mythical portion is that our minds live in dualism; whether the physical universe is dualistic or not.
Then to call them just stories or to call them mere myth misunderstands the whole process of culture.
Stories are not transferable between cultures because the myth is typed (e. g. King Arther, Daniel Boon, Sun Yat-sen, Gandhi).
Understanding culture, requires that we recognize the meaning of those stories as they are woven into the fabric of the society.
But to understand, we cannot question or alter the meanings that these stories provide to that fabric, even though the stories from another culture may never fit into our own culture.
To understand the culture we must understand the myth.
The story becomes more important as it comes closer to the physical center of the group.
The story becomes more important as it comes closer to the mythical center of the group.
To exactly the extent that we do not understand the way the stories are woven into the texture, we do not understand the culture.
Jerry Heath
anthonynorth said
Hi Jerry,
I think I’ve asked before for shorter comments.
Myths, archetypes, I would see as a duality. They can be seen as species traits, in that they are universal; but then they have ‘place’ impregnated upon them. This is where, I suggest, the ‘differentness’ lies. But strip the ‘culture’ away, and they are identical the world over.
Jerry Heath said
Myth and Phoo Loop
All our plumbing may be the same. Chomsky demonstared this in the study of how we deal with language. Jung was pointing to this in psychology. The link in psychology has not been demonstrated as in language, but that is probably because there are a large number of (American) psychologists who want to look at the brian as though it were a scientific instrument, very much like a computer. In such an instrument myth has no meaning, or is just a fun joke.
I think that though the plumbing is the same the results are quite different. Myth type is an excluding methodology. We reject myths that are not in our typology. Much of modern Western intellectual thought excludes anything that is not cause and effect. Of course we know our non-intellectual community has other myths.
Try this report:
Click to access jss34172-175.pdf
It took me a couple of reads to get it completely. There is a myth type here that seems to exclude approaches we have ingrained in us. The plumbing may be the same but the culture (myth type) determines how the plumbing is used.
Jerry Heath
Dan said
From your essay: “As an adult he became vain and obsessive and had many affairs, having almost a sex addiction.”
I’ve never heard of Jung having any other extramarital affairs besides Tony Wolf. Nor have I heard he was a “sex addict”. I have to say that it would not in the least diminish my interest in his theories nor dimish my respect for him as a thinker. However I am curious what your sources are for this information. Thanks.
anthonynorth said
Hi Dan,
Most of my info here is from books that are not well mentioned on the internet. However, it took me seconds to Google the following:
See Deception #3 on this
From 3rd para here
2nd para here
TONY ON TARGETS, LEAF & MORE « BEYOND THE BLOG said
[…] Paranormal research is more than narrating the cases an investigator comes across. Also important is the idea that the cases can be analysed in order to provide theory for what is going on. As data leads to theory in science, so too with the world of mystery. The problem with this approach, however, is that few theorists have achieved the audience they deserve. However, some stand out above the throng. Perhaps the greatest of those was psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung … … read more … […]
D bissell said
I could use some assistance in locating a short piece of prose that CJ wrote suggesting that one use compassion to “heal the beggar within” as a fundamental while we forgive or show compassion for those outside ourselves. I found it to be a poignant reminder to forgive ouselves as we forgive others. Thanks.
D Bissell
anthonynorth said
Hi D Bissell,
I’m sure you can get hold of the collected works. A library may be able to help you. There’s a lot of volumes, but it should be in there.
Jayasimha said
I am happy 2 have found a place 2 discuss my doubts.The joungian terminologies are bit heavy 2 understand. Right now I am reading on Mysths dreams and symbols.I find it very interesting.
You have captured Joung in a nut shell.
I have a doubt he says knowing the Yin and Yang not by intellect
but by ur experience.I was trying 2 experience that.
I keep reading over agian and again from http://www.jungny.com/carl.jung.13.html.Some time I am gripped the fear of unknown as to where this will lead .
bye
Jayasimha
anthonynorth said
Hi Jayasimha,
Thanks for that comment. Much appreciated.
James said
There is no truth in philosophy because it engages in questions that it has invented for itself, or it tries to answer questions based on suppositions that are unrelated to practical experience (it tries to speak about the “abstract form”).
Even when philosophy speaks about our world, it doesn’t reason about it practically. That is to say, it speaks about something as a form or essence that’s separate from matter. Therefore, all the philosophical conclusions made throughout all of human history were erroneous at worst, or imprecise at best.
anthonynorth said
Hi James,
A fair point. Although I would argue this is the same for all conceptual knowledge. Which leaves a problem – what is knowledge for?
Knowledge, to me, is not something that defines the universe, but ourselves within it.
Carl Jung said
If you read Jung’s book “Memories Dreams Reflections”, you will be amazed at what he describes of his mother. Yes, Jung was a psychic and probably inherited some of his properties from his mother.
Shane Haley said
Jung is something I’ve just recently read into although a favorite band of mine, Tool, has been greatly influenced by his theories. I was astounded and hooked when I read about his Anima Animus theory. This was something I had recently discovered for myself about humans and when I read about this, I found that he not only knew far more than what I was grasping but he knew much more about many more things. I’m still processing his info but I know this…
I am 21 years old. I have had a very eventful and profound life thus far and along the way I’ve devoted every ounce of mental energy to understanding myself in my entirety for what I am and in doing so I’ve been looking for people who know something about the things that I have discovered…I used to say, I want doctors and scientists to be “on call” for me because I need people to talk to about many things.
Much of what I’ve found about myself is somewhat explained by Jung and i agree almost totally with him (as far as I can tell) and I’ve only known anything about his theories for a month and a half. So What I’m saying is, Jung’s cool. I want to know more and would like to discuse many things.
Earl Harris said
Shane, I am glad that you found Jung. He provides the best models I have found to understand life.
It all started for me in a little news store in 1993. The proprietor had become a casual friend, since I saw him every day. One day I made some comment about somebody in the news being an a—hole. Dennis said, “Do you know that the reason you have that reaction is because he represents the quadrant of your personality that you have not yet integrated?” For some reason I was lucky enough to accept the possibility of his assertion and I began to read the Great Doctor’s work. Then, as you say, the anima…and I could suddenly understand the cause of hate crimes, and on and on and on. It has been all very liberating but has also isolating, because I would guess there is maybe one in 100 million people who understands what is going on at Jung’s level.
I should mention to James, too, that Jung agrees with him on the erroneous business. He said, “Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.”
atoms55 said
thank you-very informative. Synchronicity was attributed to Einstein by Jung himself, though Pauli may have had a part. I wrote a biographical short-story on it.
Is anybody privy to to information about how Jung influenced the creation of AA, except what can easily be googled? thx, tom alexander atoms55@hotmail.com
atoms55 said
response to James Said… James, you just don’t get it. When we engage in questions that are invented for the concept at hand, we’re involved in cocreating the universa–so conceptualizing and sharing concepts has ULTIMATE pragmatic value! atoms55@hotmail.com
atoms55 said
addendum to above google “holographic cause for consciousness” if you dare!
atoms55 said
Jerry Heath, will you do the above and then e-mail me and tell me what you think? atoms55@hotmail.com Tom Alexander
“Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle” by Carl Jung | 21tiger [新代老虎] books. biz. asia. said
[…] I’ve wanted to read this book for a number of years; I’ve been a huge fan of Jung’s work since I started reading his amazing insights into personality development (Id, ego, projection, etc). Synchronicity goes beyond those ‘theories’ of psychology and borders on the paranormal. […]
Lewis Lafontaine said
I would like to invite those interested in Carl Jung’s work to join the Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/56536297291/
Your input and participation will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you