Nietzsche and Intuitives and Zarathustra

“Nietzsche made far greater use of the intuitive source and in so doing freed himself from the bonds of the intellect in shaping his philosophical ideas – so much so that his intuition carried him outside the bounds of a purely philosophical system and led to the creation of a work of art which is largely inaccessible to philosophical criticism. I am speaking, of course, of Zarathustra… If one may speak of an intuitive method at all, Zarathustra is in my view the best example of it, and at the same time a vivid illustration of how the problem can be grasped in a non-intellectual and yet philosophical way.”
- Carl Jung, Psychological Types

“Many introverted intuitives are to be found among artists and poets. They generally are artists of the type which produces very archetypal and fantastic material, as in Nietzsche’s The Spake Zarathustra or in Gustav Meyrinck’s The Golem and Kubin’s The Other Side. This kind of visionary art, as one could call it, is generally only understood by later generations as a realization of what was going on in the collective unconscious at that time.”
- Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy

“It was his masterpiece and he knew it… Yet Nietzsche had a bitter time getting it into print; the first part was delayed because the publisher’s presses were busy with an order for 500,000 hymn-books, and then by a stream of anti-Semitic pamphlets; and the publisher refused to print the last part at all, as quite worthless from the point of view of shekels; so that the author had to pay for its publication himself. Forty copies of the book were sold; seven were given away; one acknowledged it; no one praised it. Never was a man so much alone.”
- Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

Hermes and the Guide in Active Imagination

I read this passage from von Franz three days after the Wizard archetype in my active-imagination meditations told me that his name was Herman:

"An important motif in the dream is the guide, who instructs the dreamer. Such a figure only appears if the analyst does not take its place. Hermes, the soul guide of the alchemists, called himself 'the friend of every solitary' (cuiusque segregati - each one who is separated from the herd). The most important result of active imagination according to Jung is getting the analysand to become independent of his analyst. For that reason, we ought not to interfere in it (with the exception of making corrections in the method). When an analysand reads me an active imagination, I often think, 'I would never have done or said that!' This shows in what an individual way the actions of the ego arise in relation to the unconscious in active imagination - and this is what determines what course the inner events will take."

Hillman on friends and relatives we see in dreams

The Dream and the Underworld is one of my favorite books on dreams. Hillman points out, the people you see in dreams who you recognize as friends or relatives are not representations of those people nor are they even aspects of yourself. They are archetypal, and for the dream to work its affect they must remain in the "underworld" and not be brought up into a recognizable "dayworld" position. Here’s a quote from Hillman:

"We associate my dream-brother and dream-father to my day-brother and day-father and, by this association, return the dream to the day. Jung’s method of interpretation on the subjective level takes the dream persons into the subject of the dreamer. They become expressions of my psychic traits. They are introjected into my personality. In neither method do we ever truly leave the personal aspect of the dream persons, and thus they remain in the upperworld. Dare I say it loud and clear? The persons I engage with in dreams are neither representations (simulacra) of their living selves nor parts of myself. They are shadow images that fill archetypal roles; they are personae, masks, in the hollow of which is numen." James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld

The Warrior Archetype

"The warriors inside American men have become weak in recent years, and their weakness contributes to a lack of boundaries, a condition which earlier in this book we spoke of as naivete. A grown man six feet tall will allow another person to cross his boundaries, enter his psychic house, verbally abuse him, carry away his treasures, and slam the door behind; the invaded man will stand there with an ingratiating, confused smile on his face." Robert Bly, Iron John

"Warriorship inside, then, amounts to a soul alertness that helps protect a human being from being turned into copper wire, and protects us from shamers, unconscious swordsmen, hostile people, and greedy interior beings." Robert Bly, Iron John

on dreams

"It has often happened that I have been profoundly shaken by a patient’s dream that he himself is recounting in a very cool and matter-of-fact way. I have learned in such cases not to hide my own feelings, not to hide how deeply touched I am emotionally, but to express it. In my experience this has always had a positive effect. Jung himself always had strong emotional reactions to dreams. He reacted to the dreams people brought to him with laughter, outcries of fear, ill humor, or excitement, and often his reaction would trigger in a patient a realization of what the dream was really about." Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy

still more quotes on active imagination

"However, beyond that and far more important is that active imagination makes the autonomy of the analysand possible altogether. Indeed Jung referred to acceptance and practice of this form of meditation as the criteria of whether an analysand was willing to take responsibility for himself or would seek to continue forever living as a parasite on his analyst." Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy

"Active imagination is produced entirely from within and is looked at in the same way, though it has sometimes an outer effect; indeed, one should only do it for one’s own inner sake. Jung has experienced that if it is done with living people, the other person is actually affected, though he could not explain how it works, but that is why it is dangerous, and we try to keep away from it. You can talk to your projection on the living person, but not directly to the living person." Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales

If we are upset about something, a discussion goes on all the time within us, but that is passive imagination and completely different from the difficult art of sitting apart and disidentifying and looking at something objectively. If it is done rightly, one is exhausted after ten minutes, for it is a real effort and not a ‘letting go.’" Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales

the meaning of vampires in dreams

"Like vampires, the anima and the mountain spirit love the blood of their victims. The vampire motif is worldwide. Vampires are the spirits of the dead in Hades to whom Odysseus must first sacrifice blood. Their lust for blood is the craving or impulse of the unconscious contents to break into consciousness. If they are denied they begin to drain energy from consciousness, leaving the individual fatigued and listless. This story indicates an attempt on the part of unconscious contents to attract the attention of consciousness, to obtain recognition of their reality and their needs and to impart something to consciousness." Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales

more quotes on active imagination

"Jung performed an important service, however, by showing that it is possible to relate to these contents, instead of repressing them, thus neutralizing their negative effects quite considerably. This can be done through the technique of meditation that is called active imagination. In this method the conscious ego permits the unconscious contents to come into the field of consciousness as fantasy images, as objectively as possible, and then enters into dialogue with them as with an autonomous vis-à-vis." Marie-Louise von Franz, Projection and Recollection in Jungian Psychology.

"Jung found that active imagination was practically the only possibility for assimilating the fourth function. He discovered that after having assimilated three functions, he couldn’t get on with his inferior function, and he began to play – to give his inferior function an expression through symbolic play." Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychotherapy

First Post

My very own blogger site... what will I do with this? I think I'll use this site to post quotes from Jungian authors on the topics of dream images and archetypes. I'll get to that sometime soon. In the meantime, here's a link to the web site where I chronicle the archetypal journeys of Aulden Schlief: http://www.willapabay.org/~js/