A good number of people are aware that the work and writings of C.G. Jung were very helpful to me during my rather frightening mid-life transition some thirty years ago. In those confusing times some of the writings of Jung happened into my circle, and in them I found a voice that seemed to speak richly of the 'hope of light in the darkness'. This of course is a central archetypal kind of theme in the Bible as well. But the ways I had been taught to understand and use the Biblical material had not let me see the parallel message and experience there. Only afterward did I see the threads of hope I saw in Jung's work, often including much Biblical reference, were there all along in my own heritage, just buried to deep for me to access.
During the intervening
years in my work as licensed 'clinical
professional counselor', ordained pastor in the United Church
of Christ, Hospital and Hospice chaplain and as a science/math
teacher for high school freshmen at risk, Jung has continued to
challenge and inform me. This has been in the most comprehensive and
specific ways of any writer or journal-er of my acquaintance. I have come to see Jung is speaking of collective realities that do not just pertain to the individual but regard the whole of life and humanity. He is not the only one who has ever addressed the whole. I am very
grateful for the work and legacy he has left. He is presently being
re-evaluated in light of his family publishing what is called Jung's
Red Book six years ago. It is a painstakingly recorded account of his
most personal experiences with what he coined the Collective
Unconscious. It is giving a new insight into the origins of his most
creative written works and fresh insights into his most inner life.
Here I simply wish to
share one of the insights of Jung that is so relevant and timely to
our times of extreme cultural transitions in America and world wide.
He made clear that the content of the Collective Unconscious when it
occurs as direct personal experience is both a gift beyond measure
but also, depending on the level of human consciousness that
receives it and perhaps fate, a great and threatening danger to the survival of the individual, the
human species and of the planet.
One place where this danger is
described by Jung is in his close observation of the life and genius
of Friedrich Nietzsche- German philosopher 1844-1900. Friedrich
Nietzsche was a very rare genius of his day who apparently made
unprecedented contact with our human Collective Unconscious content
and whose ego unfortunately in the end was overwhelmed by it. He did
what Jung so warned himself and others of..... to not identify
personally with the mesmerizing numinous content of the Collective
Unconscious. To do so causes first an unconscious inflation of the
ego, of one's too high an estimate of his conscious self; to the extreme of
thinking of oneself as, or nearly as, God. This can result in total
insanity. Anyone who visits a hospital psychological ward would hear those who do not just talk about God and Jesus intently
but truly think they are such. More functional people are under the
same kind of unconscious influence and are our cultures'
megalomaniacs.
This can sometimes be seen tragically happening with
highly charismatic celebrities, public leaders, politicians and
dictators. Rare ones like Nietzsche, their ego- both as strong,
creative, genius and tender as it is- has been completely lost,
drowned eventually in the flood of the Collective Unconscious which
represents all that is,has been and can be. But Neitzsche was able to leave behind some of what he discovered in the depths.
Jung entered his
years(roughly 1915-1930) of the Red Book experience fully aware of
this danger and he took precautions. He had an objective trusted
person to debrief with after each encounter and he had a strong
daily routine of family life and of seeing several patients. (He gave
up most of his teaching and professional posts during these years.)
He says he often, to retain sanity, reminded himself that he "was
only Carl Jung who lived at 330 See Street in Kusnacht, Switzerland
and he repeated aloud the names of his wife and children."
He faithfully wrote down his nightly fantasies, commented reflectively and embellished it
all with calligraphy and paintings(The Red Book or Libra Novis as it
exists now.) He had to keep clear that the themes and figures of the
visions or fantasies, though a part of him and his psyche, were 'more
than' and 'other than' his personal conscious ego. Such experience
would help explain what lies at the foundation of all formal world religions
as the experience of a 'voice of God. ' Yet these religions
arrived powerfully in the past without the objective understanding we can have
of them now through the arrival of depth psychology. It offers us proofs of the Unconscious, beginning with Sigmund Freud at the beginning
of the twentieth century.
Jung's personal experience and objective
description of such natural phenomena of the collective human psyche is central
to his very unique contribution to human knowledge. Knowledge
based on recorded experience that I suspect has yet been barely
appreciated and benefited from. His seminars on Nietzsche show how he
recognized and understood the genius of that man's work. I've tried
to read Zarathustra a few times. It is a highly creative and
predictive lens into the evolving human situation or our times.
A strong collective danger, in times
of major transitions, is always that a large
narcissistic fearful part of a culture can identify with a
megalomanical leader and live through him. By following vicariously, without critical challenge, his self perceived 'god
almightiness', taking him as a long awaited hero who will save us all. This part of the collective culture will be
unconsciously drawn to such a person as if by a strong magnet. The result can be a Hitler-type of destructive collective phenomenon. There may be now a good number of such "I am God" persons
around the globe whuch masses of persons are attracted to, giving⁹ their
unquestioning full allegiance .
Only some critical mass of advancing
human consciousness can prevent this from happening. Is there enough
of that in America and the world right now is a big question mark.
Our civic institutions, churches or Sacred texts taken as
specific answers can't save us from such a tragedy, but only some critical mass of individual humans' evolved capacity for just enough suffering
consciousness which can be the new and necessary 'savior.' This is what Jung
was getting at and warning of as best I can understand him. His strikes me as likely a most timely contemporary voice among us at
our very critical historic moment.
*I apologize for getting so
serious without warning. It would be comical if not so real. So even
the most serious issues have some humor attached. 🙂 Here is a
letter from Jung on the influence of Nietzsche, written shortly before Jung's death:
January 5, 1961.
It would be too ambitious a task to give you a detailed account of the influence of Nietzsche's thoughts on my own development.
As a matter of fact, living in the same town where Nietzsche spent his life as a professor of philosophy.
I grew up in an atmosphere still vibrating from the impact of his teachings, although it was chiefly resistance which met his onslaught.
I could not help being deeply impressed by his indubitable inspiration ("Ergriffenheit").
He was sincere, which cannot be said of so many academic teachers to whom career and vanity mean infinitely more than the truth.
The fact that impressed me the most was his encounter with Zarathustra and then his "religious" critique, which gives a legitimate place in philosophy to passion as the very real motive of philosophizing.
The 'Unzeitgemiisse Betrachtungen' were to me an eye-opener, less so the 'Genealogy of Morals' or his idea of the "Eternal Return" of all things.
His all-pervading psychological penetration has given me a deep understanding of what psychology is able to do. All in all Nietzsche was to me the only man of that time who gave some adequate answers to certain urgent questions which then were more felt than thought.
Max Stirner, whom I read at the same time, gave me the impression of a man who was trying to express an infinitely important truth with inadequate means.
Over against him the figure of Zarathustra seems to me the better formulation.
Those are the main points I could mention about Nietzsche and his influence on my own development. If you have any further questions and if their answer is within my reach, I am quite ready to cope with them.
Sincerely yours,
C.G. Jung
*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-lachman/why-jung-is-important_b_2664409.html
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