I'm at Cooks Chili Parlor on West North Grand Ave in Springfield, IL. I'm having oatmeal and homemade bread.I Hope to not bite my lip as it is still numb from the dentist.
I revisited Lincoln's tomb just now. I'm struck again , "My God what consciousness has wrought." I know none of us can have made conscious more than the tip of the iceberg of what Carl Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. This is a present day psychological way of thinking about the source of all that is or can be, of God or the Self. We all can and do experience its contents becoming conscious, some probably more than others.
While again trying to comprehend the great moral advance in American culture heralded by Lincoln's courageous encounter with life's tensions; I felt, like so many have, the rush of archetypal, sacred like, emotions.
With that stimulation fresh I'd like to describe some basic premises of the work of Swiss psychistrist Carl Jung, a resource that much helps me explain some of my own experiences and unexpected changes in personal points of view.
What Jung may not have always made clear to the typical reader is that the complicated mythological development he describes(Such as in his very late little book "Answer To Job") which resulted in the Christ Story becoming culturally universal- was weaved, from archetypal energies, by the not perfectly developed conscious mind of the Collective Unconscious. Not by human plan but something beyond human consciousness, yet even that great God power was not fully conscious of itself.
From exceptional leaps in personal human consciousness, such as Jung experienced, some have in recent centuries been able to 'see' or comprehend that psychological fact(The imperfect God consciousness) and also help make it conscious to others.
This in turn comes to mean that 'God' , in God's need, at times is 'heard', in its own suffering tensions, by the human. And, like us when we are really heard, God has been made more morally conscious of Itself. The Biblical record as a whole describes this process of the evolution or transformation of the God consciousness. As it also shows the same happening to the human who contains within ourselves the full and exact image of the creator. This is the psychological situation for both the Divine and all humans. This is an insight not possible until modern times and still only partially conscious.
What we call God and Human are seen working collaboratively for the increased consciousness of both. This is to be expected because the human really is made in 'God's image', both it's perfection and imperfection. This idea remains a great challenge for our usual Western religious point of view. It feels at first too much like blasphemy and stirs a reaction of guilt and fear. But it actually offers a sounder understanding I think of many urgent questions and inner disturbances. And such an idea honors an enhanced more conscious fullness of God which is so needed for an already begun new epoch of global human evolution.
The imperfect mind of evolution, of God, (Think of it as like God's ego)was not fully conscious of its own creativity and much more. Many of the most remembered Old Testament stories picture this lack of ethical consistency in the God image of Yahweh. Such as his quickness to hot anger, thin skinned jealousy, ignoring its own ethical laws, blaming the human for all errors and extreme punishments of any who offend him. These are ever present along with a genuine desire to be loving, faithful and dependable. And the God is pictured as being talked out of such moral lapses by the cautious words and better judgment of his human creatures such as Abraham, Moses and Job. The result always being that the God is influenced to a higher ethical decision, God 'changes' its imperfect mind.
These images of God's imperfection are being noticed by many and are seen at first in direct and troubling opposition to the image of God as transformed and morally elevated in Jesus the God-Man of the New Testament.
God's highest creation, the human, is described in the Biblical narative as made in God's spiritual/psychological image. And the human ego we know from honest personal adult experience is also not at first conscious of the full meaning of its own creative works and behaviors.( This is a common confession of many of the world's most creative geniuses and more conscious very ordinary people.)
It is as if God and Human are dependent on each other's conscious feedback and mirroring for mutual fuller moral and self awareness.
Similarly, on a smaller scale, this same process is true of all culture changing events, such as the Lincoln story. In this same way we humans are first affected unawares by spontaneous and strong rich emotion by the activated archetypes of the Collective Unconscious(Which are always unconsciously dormant within us all. Much like the biological instinct is already present for a bird to build a very specific kind of nest.) And then, maybe now or later, we become conscious that we have been so affected by such archetypal autonomous energies..
This way we come to know, be conscious of, something important about the nature of our personal archetypal 'religious ' like experiences (ones that are far broader than only formal organized creedal religion and which always go beyond our rational thinking). These experiences are what make and shape the meaning of our fully human lives. By having some awareness of these natural internal processes we become more conscious beings. And we can trust the same is true of all other humans as well.
Being somewhat conscious of these internal processes need not take away the wonder(numenosity) or authority of such experiences. But allows us to know the natural psychological principles underlying such emotional life changing and enriching phenomena. And the great epoch making evolutionary ransformations they bring, for good and bad, to humanity's course. (We still most humbly know these living internal autonomous factors, called archetypes, are far beyond our most conscious rational grasp. And we have no way of knowing, and may never, the why of these things.)
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: There are very practical and needed implications of thinking of God and Human this way. Here are a few:
1. It helps us move away from the archaic notion that God is a 'being' out there much like us only far more powerful and perfect in its morality and use of its power. Such a God is completely unaccountable and as the Bible stories show can often get as off track ethically as the human creature. It means that everything that goes wrong is not always and only human failure, though there is plenty of that. This outgrown image of God is called an anthropomorphic view of the divine. Science and especially Quantum Physics has pushed modern humans to move to a much broader view of God where God is fully present within us and also embedded in all that is beyond us.
2. It does not mean that God can't be thought of as that to which we can personally relate but it also means that God is an embedded continually active mind factor in all of creation and in the deepest strata of our human Collective Unconsciousness; that the Collective Unconscious, which can now be explored, is what most reflects the reality of God to modern persons. This means we are all connected to God similarly and can potentially become more conscious of what that connection means in terms of the meaning and challenges of our personal and collective human life.
3. This view of God not being a perfect mind but an evolving one is not at odds with real science like anthropomorphism is. It is very consistent with the central science theorem of universal evolution. This means that one thing we can always count on is that everything which has come from God is in a state of evolving, of changing from one level to another over, what seems to us, long periods of time. Some more progressive traditional theology has accepted evolution about most parts of the universe but not usually about the deepest origins of the universe or what we call God. It is logical that if the creation bears the image of the creator that, like the creation, God also is an evolving reality. And as described above that involves the mind of God and the ethical moral consciousness of God; that it is changing. The changes are potentially toward the better and in need of evolving human consciousness to help God in God's development just as the human is need of reflections of the divine in order to become more morally conscious, more fully human and divine. It is a mutually dependent collaboration of God and Human that is so needed to address the problems the world urgently faces.
Without such a potential change the imperfect human consciousness, with its increased power of the past several centuries, is nearly certain to destroy both itself and the creation. This is the path we are most noticeably on at present. Peace on Earth can be a meaningful hope only to the extent that the moral consciousness of both God and Human are making progress through much creative human and divine suffering.
4. This view means the idea and experience of God , which can only be carried by the human consciousness, can affect humans who are not moved by any of the forms of institutional religion toward any 'belief' in God. This opens up a way , without negating their best thinking or their conscience, to consider a God image maybe for the first time. This would mean such persons could confess their authentic hunch of something that is 'more than' personal or collective human ego as a best explanation of the fullness of reality. That the universe and human experience is not simply physicality and rational materialism.
5. It implies that more traditional religious people would no longer live with the motivation , " I'll do good so that I might be rewarded now or later by the Great God." This motivation is of a lower more self centered level and does not really give the human something to aspire to with the most valued parts of themselves. It would instead make ones motivation to live, strive and yearn , " to be honest, loving , compassionate and fair" in our dealings so that which is God becomes more that way also. Alone our human striving may be seen as futile but with also an increasing moral consciousness of the God factor it can become a practical hope of a new epoch. This all means that God needs us humans as much as we need God, and that all of life is for the purpose of expanded moral consciousness via the Human-God interdependence . This world view offers a genuine hope and reason to work for the goal of Peace on Earth and good will to all humankind.
I revisited Lincoln's tomb just now. I'm struck again , "My God what consciousness has wrought." I know none of us can have made conscious more than the tip of the iceberg of what Carl Jung calls the Collective Unconscious. This is a present day psychological way of thinking about the source of all that is or can be, of God or the Self. We all can and do experience its contents becoming conscious, some probably more than others.
This process can be the source of major life changes in personal and collective views of life and the world. It can also be a dangerous overwhelming of the far smaller but amazingly essential conscious human ego.
 |
| A Suffering Luncoln |
With that stimulation fresh I'd like to describe some basic premises of the work of Swiss psychistrist Carl Jung, a resource that much helps me explain some of my own experiences and unexpected changes in personal points of view.
What Jung may not have always made clear to the typical reader is that the complicated mythological development he describes(Such as in his very late little book "Answer To Job") which resulted in the Christ Story becoming culturally universal- was weaved, from archetypal energies, by the not perfectly developed conscious mind of the Collective Unconscious. Not by human plan but something beyond human consciousness, yet even that great God power was not fully conscious of itself.
This in turn comes to mean that 'God' , in God's need, at times is 'heard', in its own suffering tensions, by the human. And, like us when we are really heard, God has been made more morally conscious of Itself. The Biblical record as a whole describes this process of the evolution or transformation of the God consciousness. As it also shows the same happening to the human who contains within ourselves the full and exact image of the creator. This is the psychological situation for both the Divine and all humans. This is an insight not possible until modern times and still only partially conscious.
What we call God and Human are seen working collaboratively for the increased consciousness of both. This is to be expected because the human really is made in 'God's image', both it's perfection and imperfection. This idea remains a great challenge for our usual Western religious point of view. It feels at first too much like blasphemy and stirs a reaction of guilt and fear. But it actually offers a sounder understanding I think of many urgent questions and inner disturbances. And such an idea honors an enhanced more conscious fullness of God which is so needed for an already begun new epoch of global human evolution.
The imperfect mind of evolution, of God, (Think of it as like God's ego)was not fully conscious of its own creativity and much more. Many of the most remembered Old Testament stories picture this lack of ethical consistency in the God image of Yahweh. Such as his quickness to hot anger, thin skinned jealousy, ignoring its own ethical laws, blaming the human for all errors and extreme punishments of any who offend him. These are ever present along with a genuine desire to be loving, faithful and dependable. And the God is pictured as being talked out of such moral lapses by the cautious words and better judgment of his human creatures such as Abraham, Moses and Job. The result always being that the God is influenced to a higher ethical decision, God 'changes' its imperfect mind.
These images of God's imperfection are being noticed by many and are seen at first in direct and troubling opposition to the image of God as transformed and morally elevated in Jesus the God-Man of the New Testament.
God's highest creation, the human, is described in the Biblical narative as made in God's spiritual/psychological image. And the human ego we know from honest personal adult experience is also not at first conscious of the full meaning of its own creative works and behaviors.( This is a common confession of many of the world's most creative geniuses and more conscious very ordinary people.)
It is as if God and Human are dependent on each other's conscious feedback and mirroring for mutual fuller moral and self awareness.
Similarly, on a smaller scale, this same process is true of all culture changing events, such as the Lincoln story. In this same way we humans are first affected unawares by spontaneous and strong rich emotion by the activated archetypes of the Collective Unconscious(Which are always unconsciously dormant within us all. Much like the biological instinct is already present for a bird to build a very specific kind of nest.) And then, maybe now or later, we become conscious that we have been so affected by such archetypal autonomous energies..
This way we come to know, be conscious of, something important about the nature of our personal archetypal 'religious ' like experiences (ones that are far broader than only formal organized creedal religion and which always go beyond our rational thinking). These experiences are what make and shape the meaning of our fully human lives. By having some awareness of these natural internal processes we become more conscious beings. And we can trust the same is true of all other humans as well.
 |
| The Empty Tomb |
Being somewhat conscious of these internal processes need not take away the wonder(numenosity) or authority of such experiences. But allows us to know the natural psychological principles underlying such emotional life changing and enriching phenomena. And the great epoch making evolutionary ransformations they bring, for good and bad, to humanity's course. (We still most humbly know these living internal autonomous factors, called archetypes, are far beyond our most conscious rational grasp. And we have no way of knowing, and may never, the why of these things.)
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: There are very practical and needed implications of thinking of God and Human this way. Here are a few:
1. It helps us move away from the archaic notion that God is a 'being' out there much like us only far more powerful and perfect in its morality and use of its power. Such a God is completely unaccountable and as the Bible stories show can often get as off track ethically as the human creature. It means that everything that goes wrong is not always and only human failure, though there is plenty of that. This outgrown image of God is called an anthropomorphic view of the divine. Science and especially Quantum Physics has pushed modern humans to move to a much broader view of God where God is fully present within us and also embedded in all that is beyond us.
2. It does not mean that God can't be thought of as that to which we can personally relate but it also means that God is an embedded continually active mind factor in all of creation and in the deepest strata of our human Collective Unconsciousness; that the Collective Unconscious, which can now be explored, is what most reflects the reality of God to modern persons. This means we are all connected to God similarly and can potentially become more conscious of what that connection means in terms of the meaning and challenges of our personal and collective human life.
3. This view of God not being a perfect mind but an evolving one is not at odds with real science like anthropomorphism is. It is very consistent with the central science theorem of universal evolution. This means that one thing we can always count on is that everything which has come from God is in a state of evolving, of changing from one level to another over, what seems to us, long periods of time. Some more progressive traditional theology has accepted evolution about most parts of the universe but not usually about the deepest origins of the universe or what we call God. It is logical that if the creation bears the image of the creator that, like the creation, God also is an evolving reality. And as described above that involves the mind of God and the ethical moral consciousness of God; that it is changing. The changes are potentially toward the better and in need of evolving human consciousness to help God in God's development just as the human is need of reflections of the divine in order to become more morally conscious, more fully human and divine. It is a mutually dependent collaboration of God and Human that is so needed to address the problems the world urgently faces.
Without such a potential change the imperfect human consciousness, with its increased power of the past several centuries, is nearly certain to destroy both itself and the creation. This is the path we are most noticeably on at present. Peace on Earth can be a meaningful hope only to the extent that the moral consciousness of both God and Human are making progress through much creative human and divine suffering.
4. This view means the idea and experience of God , which can only be carried by the human consciousness, can affect humans who are not moved by any of the forms of institutional religion toward any 'belief' in God. This opens up a way , without negating their best thinking or their conscience, to consider a God image maybe for the first time. This would mean such persons could confess their authentic hunch of something that is 'more than' personal or collective human ego as a best explanation of the fullness of reality. That the universe and human experience is not simply physicality and rational materialism.
5. It implies that more traditional religious people would no longer live with the motivation , " I'll do good so that I might be rewarded now or later by the Great God." This motivation is of a lower more self centered level and does not really give the human something to aspire to with the most valued parts of themselves. It would instead make ones motivation to live, strive and yearn , " to be honest, loving , compassionate and fair" in our dealings so that which is God becomes more that way also. Alone our human striving may be seen as futile but with also an increasing moral consciousness of the God factor it can become a practical hope of a new epoch. This all means that God needs us humans as much as we need God, and that all of life is for the purpose of expanded moral consciousness via the Human-God interdependence . This world view offers a genuine hope and reason to work for the goal of Peace on Earth and good will to all humankind.
