Either this blog is drifting away from the topic of active imagination or my life is drifting from it. I'll try to refocus by throwing some thoughts about dreams onto this post. (With thanks to the writings of James Hillman for showing me some of these things.)
The dream world is backwards-land. The thing you feel love for in your dream is the thing you may be afraid of in your waking life. The thing you fear in your dream is the thing you must embrace.
The shorter-than-normal figures in my dreams - gnomes, dwarves, tiny dolls - function in the areas of my life that I haven't taken seriously; that I haven't given enough attention. They shrunk!
Giants in my dreams sometimes have an inflated ego! Some of them are figures of such importance and power that they have impressive size.
None of the archetypal figures represent anything. They ARE. They are who they are and they function as they function, and if we said they "represent" we'd be saying that they don't exist as themselves. Does that make sense? And each figure who you meet in your dream has a specific (primal, singular, one-dimensional) function within your psychological makeup.
Yadda yadda yadda. I'm fulla these thoughts.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Love and the Trickster
Jung and Sartre, different as they were, both wrote that love begins with projection. We project our own ideas of who we want the other person to be onto that person. We project ourselves onto the ones we love. The great archetypal trickster plays his tricks on us by letting us trick ourselves. Love, by beginning with projection becomes the greatest trick to be played on the fool who falls for it by fooling himself; the lucky fool.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
narcissism & fairytale beings
Elemental beings in folk legends and fairytales dwell in water, air, fire, earth, plants and animals. Among them are the nymphs, swan maidens, undines, and fairies. Emma Jung, in an essay titled "The Anima as an Elemental Being" compared the elemental to a man's internal anima.
While I read the essay, I noticed that the qualities Emma Jung described as belonging to the anima and the elemental coincided with qualities describing a narcissist.
I was intrigued and a little excited by this association. If a narcissistic romantic partner is similar in behavior to elemental beings of fairytales, then fairytales can be a guide on how to conduct a relationship with a narcissist in a positive framework instead of a negative one. After all, these elemental beings in fairytales have some very positive, magical qualities, along with their dangers.
Here is a list with some of the qualities of elemental beings which coincide with qualities of narcissists. Emma Jung, by the way, didn't mention narcissists in her essay. That's just my own observation. The list refers to narcissists in the feminine gender because the essay was on the anima, but I suspect the animus and male narcissists fit equally. The quotes are brief references to Emma Jung's essay.
1. The elemental and the narcissist deconstruct the partner in a relationship. "These beings (sirens, the Lorelei, and so on) lure a man into their realm, where he disappears forevermore, or..."
2. The Elemental and the narcissist use charm to captivated - to hold captive emotionally. "...they try to bind a man in love..."
3. The elemental and the narcissist lack a sense of self or "soul," so she adopts the interests of her partner. "...that they may live in this world with him."
4. The elemental and the narcissist are easily hurt in areas of unconscious content. "The nixie's disappearance into her element describes what happens when an unconscious content comes to the surface but is still so little coordinated with the ego consciousness as to sink back at the slightest provocation."
5. The elemental and the narcissist become easily angered because of a touchy inferior function. "There is a taboo connected with them that must not be broken."
6. The elemental and the narcissist take offense even if the offending action is unintentional. "The taboos are not always the same; sometimes the man may not touch his wife with iron, or he may not speak unfriendly words more than three times, and so on. But always the violation of the condition results from heedlessness, or a fateful accident; it is never intentional."
7. The elemental and the narcissist hide their reality, fearful of the partner seeing her true nature. "Purusavas must not be seen naked by Urvasi. ... Human reality is not to her taste."
8. The elemental and the narcissist lack empathy. "He, with human feeling, laments the loss of his beloved, he tries to find her again and wants to speak with her, but her words, when she says that women have the hearts of hyenas, are the expression of a soul-less elemental being passing judgement on itself."
9. The elemental and the narcissist cannot know the self and are largely not conscious of the Self. "We may conclude that the femininity represented by the nymph, Urvasi, is as yet too nebulous and incorporeal to live permanently and realize itself in the human realm, that is, in waking consciousness."
10. The elemental and the narcissist withdraw emotionally to make the other prove his commitment. "The (swan) maidens feel an overwhelming yearning for battle and, by flying away, draws the brothers after them..."
11. The elemental and the narcissist are restless and insecure in a relationship and look for other lovers outside of the relationship. "...In psychological language, this means that the yearning, the desire for new undertakings, makes itself felt first in the unconscious feminine."
12. The elemental and the narcissist desparately seek connections, even against being faithful to a different life, person or ideal. "From this it follows that they woo man, and that they seek him assiduously and in secret."
13. The elemental and the narcissist are cruel and make unreasonable demands. "Often she is cruel, demanding senseless and superhuman feats of her knight as the sign of his subservience."
14. The elemental and the narcissist have a godlike attitude. "The swan maiden's royal descent, shown by her crown, marks her as being from a higher order, and can be related to the superhuman, divine aspect of the anima."
15. The elemental and the narcissist when they lose their masks, and thus their power in a relationship, will end the relationship at the first opportunity. "Swan maidens... for the most part do not seek a relationship of their own accord, but by the theft of their garments fall into the man's power through a ruse. Hence they try to escape at the first opportunity."
16. The elemental and the narcissist are malicious without reason or remorse, just as nature and the weather have no moods. "To be discerned in the anima are the incalculability, mischievousness and frequent malice of these elemental spirits, which constitute the reverse side of their bewitching charm. These beings are simply irrational, good and bad, helpful and harmful, healing and destructive, like nature herself of which they are a part."
17. The elemental and the narcissist are easily projected upon. "It is easy for a man to project the anima image to the more elemental woman; they correspond so exactly to his own unconscious femininity."
18. The elemental and the narcissist find relationships opening when a man pours out his emotional problems. "He came upon three beautiful maidens sitting beside a stream, one of whom was Melusine. He poured out his sorrow to her and she gave him good counsel, whereupon he fell in love with her."
19. The elemental and the narcissist "seek soul" because they lack a sense of self. "Through union with a man they receive a soul and the children, too, of such a union possess souls."
20. The elemental and the narcissist use a mate's soul to compensate lack of self. "Her kind cannot win souls except through a bond of human love."
21. The elmental and the narcissist provoke conflict in order to test a relationship. "What brings about the catastrophe here is the conflict between the anima, that is the nature creature, and the human woman. In the Siegried legend this plays an important part, as the strife between the Valkyrie Brunnehilde and Chriemhilde, and it frequently leads to great difficulties in actual life. Fundamentally, such conflict expresses that opposition between two worlds, the outer and the inner, the conscious and the unconscious, which it seems to be the special task of our time to bridge."
22. The elemental and the narcissist have the power to captivate. "The song ends with the fairy taking her love away on the horse to her kingdom. Being carried away to fairyland is, psychologically, a very important motif." "That the anima rules this realm and leads the way to it is well known. The danger of getting lost there, that is, in the unconscious, seems to have been felt even in early times, for countless stories describe the knight, caught in the bonds of love, who forgets his knightly duties."
23. The elemental and the narcissist have a puer aeternus complex. "It is not a kingdom of the dead but is called 'Land of the Living' or 'Land under the Waves,' and is thought to be composed of 'green islands,' which are inhabited by fair feminine beings adn so sometimes called 'islands of women.' Eternally young and beautiful, these creatures enjoy a life without sorrow, full of music and dancing and joys of love."
24. The elemental and the narcissist bring sudden change into a relationship, moving from love to terror, to love to terror; the beautiful to the sublime.
From the Tannhauser Legend:
"Throughout the week they're fair all day
Decked out with silk and gold,
Rings and beads and crowns of May,
But Sundays they're otters and snakes."
25. The elemental and the narcissist can cause the other, in a relationship, to lose his or her sanity. "As life bestower and goddess of fertility, Cybele ruled the waters; as Mountain Mother and Mistress of Animals, she loved and ruled all that was wild in nature. She bestowed the gift of prophecy, but caused madness also."
26. The elemental and the narcissist with their ability to fascinate, lead partners to danger. "Fascinating all men who come her way with the beauty of Venus, the wisdom of the serpent, and the cruelty of the carnivore, she works irresistible magic upon them and without exception they perish. ... She is a purely destructive anima figure; those whom she enchants lose all of their masculine strength and virtue and finally die."
27. The elemental and the narcissist project themselves into their partner's world, and adopt his interests as her own, in order to "gain soul" or resolve a "lack of self." "When, as happens in so many legends, an elemental creature seeks to unite with a human being and be loved by him in order to acquire a soul, it can only mean that some unconscious and undeveloped component of the personality is seeking to become joined to consciousness and so to be informed with soul."
28. The elemental and the narcissist attach to a man's soul in order to uncover her own unconsciousness - to find herself. Because she does this in fear, she is prone to violence in the process. "The urge toward increase of conscousness in the material discussed above is expressed in the desire of a creature, still bound in nature and only half human, to approach a human being and be accepted by him, that is, by consciousness."
29. The elemental and the narcissist have father issues. "Elemental beings quite often possess a (more or less hidden) father. The Valkyries are Odin's maidens and Odin is a god of wind and spirit. In the tale of the huntsman and the swan maiden, who has to be released from the glass mountain, her father is with her and is released at the same time."
30. The elemental and the narcissist are nature-creatures and end a relationship without remorse or empathy, just as a storm in nature strikes without empathy. "The story comes to a natural conclusion; after they have lived together for a long time, the nymph one day says farewell to her husband, foreseeing that the end of her oak tree can no longer be averted. Then the tree is struck by lightening and she, whose life has remained bound to it despite her human quality, disappears forever."
While I read the essay, I noticed that the qualities Emma Jung described as belonging to the anima and the elemental coincided with qualities describing a narcissist.
I was intrigued and a little excited by this association. If a narcissistic romantic partner is similar in behavior to elemental beings of fairytales, then fairytales can be a guide on how to conduct a relationship with a narcissist in a positive framework instead of a negative one. After all, these elemental beings in fairytales have some very positive, magical qualities, along with their dangers.
Here is a list with some of the qualities of elemental beings which coincide with qualities of narcissists. Emma Jung, by the way, didn't mention narcissists in her essay. That's just my own observation. The list refers to narcissists in the feminine gender because the essay was on the anima, but I suspect the animus and male narcissists fit equally. The quotes are brief references to Emma Jung's essay.
1. The elemental and the narcissist deconstruct the partner in a relationship. "These beings (sirens, the Lorelei, and so on) lure a man into their realm, where he disappears forevermore, or..."
2. The Elemental and the narcissist use charm to captivated - to hold captive emotionally. "...they try to bind a man in love..."
3. The elemental and the narcissist lack a sense of self or "soul," so she adopts the interests of her partner. "...that they may live in this world with him."
4. The elemental and the narcissist are easily hurt in areas of unconscious content. "The nixie's disappearance into her element describes what happens when an unconscious content comes to the surface but is still so little coordinated with the ego consciousness as to sink back at the slightest provocation."
5. The elemental and the narcissist become easily angered because of a touchy inferior function. "There is a taboo connected with them that must not be broken."
6. The elemental and the narcissist take offense even if the offending action is unintentional. "The taboos are not always the same; sometimes the man may not touch his wife with iron, or he may not speak unfriendly words more than three times, and so on. But always the violation of the condition results from heedlessness, or a fateful accident; it is never intentional."
7. The elemental and the narcissist hide their reality, fearful of the partner seeing her true nature. "Purusavas must not be seen naked by Urvasi. ... Human reality is not to her taste."
8. The elemental and the narcissist lack empathy. "He, with human feeling, laments the loss of his beloved, he tries to find her again and wants to speak with her, but her words, when she says that women have the hearts of hyenas, are the expression of a soul-less elemental being passing judgement on itself."
9. The elemental and the narcissist cannot know the self and are largely not conscious of the Self. "We may conclude that the femininity represented by the nymph, Urvasi, is as yet too nebulous and incorporeal to live permanently and realize itself in the human realm, that is, in waking consciousness."
10. The elemental and the narcissist withdraw emotionally to make the other prove his commitment. "The (swan) maidens feel an overwhelming yearning for battle and, by flying away, draws the brothers after them..."
11. The elemental and the narcissist are restless and insecure in a relationship and look for other lovers outside of the relationship. "...In psychological language, this means that the yearning, the desire for new undertakings, makes itself felt first in the unconscious feminine."
12. The elemental and the narcissist desparately seek connections, even against being faithful to a different life, person or ideal. "From this it follows that they woo man, and that they seek him assiduously and in secret."
13. The elemental and the narcissist are cruel and make unreasonable demands. "Often she is cruel, demanding senseless and superhuman feats of her knight as the sign of his subservience."
14. The elemental and the narcissist have a godlike attitude. "The swan maiden's royal descent, shown by her crown, marks her as being from a higher order, and can be related to the superhuman, divine aspect of the anima."
15. The elemental and the narcissist when they lose their masks, and thus their power in a relationship, will end the relationship at the first opportunity. "Swan maidens... for the most part do not seek a relationship of their own accord, but by the theft of their garments fall into the man's power through a ruse. Hence they try to escape at the first opportunity."
16. The elemental and the narcissist are malicious without reason or remorse, just as nature and the weather have no moods. "To be discerned in the anima are the incalculability, mischievousness and frequent malice of these elemental spirits, which constitute the reverse side of their bewitching charm. These beings are simply irrational, good and bad, helpful and harmful, healing and destructive, like nature herself of which they are a part."
17. The elemental and the narcissist are easily projected upon. "It is easy for a man to project the anima image to the more elemental woman; they correspond so exactly to his own unconscious femininity."
18. The elemental and the narcissist find relationships opening when a man pours out his emotional problems. "He came upon three beautiful maidens sitting beside a stream, one of whom was Melusine. He poured out his sorrow to her and she gave him good counsel, whereupon he fell in love with her."
19. The elemental and the narcissist "seek soul" because they lack a sense of self. "Through union with a man they receive a soul and the children, too, of such a union possess souls."
20. The elemental and the narcissist use a mate's soul to compensate lack of self. "Her kind cannot win souls except through a bond of human love."
21. The elmental and the narcissist provoke conflict in order to test a relationship. "What brings about the catastrophe here is the conflict between the anima, that is the nature creature, and the human woman. In the Siegried legend this plays an important part, as the strife between the Valkyrie Brunnehilde and Chriemhilde, and it frequently leads to great difficulties in actual life. Fundamentally, such conflict expresses that opposition between two worlds, the outer and the inner, the conscious and the unconscious, which it seems to be the special task of our time to bridge."
22. The elemental and the narcissist have the power to captivate. "The song ends with the fairy taking her love away on the horse to her kingdom. Being carried away to fairyland is, psychologically, a very important motif." "That the anima rules this realm and leads the way to it is well known. The danger of getting lost there, that is, in the unconscious, seems to have been felt even in early times, for countless stories describe the knight, caught in the bonds of love, who forgets his knightly duties."
23. The elemental and the narcissist have a puer aeternus complex. "It is not a kingdom of the dead but is called 'Land of the Living' or 'Land under the Waves,' and is thought to be composed of 'green islands,' which are inhabited by fair feminine beings adn so sometimes called 'islands of women.' Eternally young and beautiful, these creatures enjoy a life without sorrow, full of music and dancing and joys of love."
24. The elemental and the narcissist bring sudden change into a relationship, moving from love to terror, to love to terror; the beautiful to the sublime.
From the Tannhauser Legend:
"Throughout the week they're fair all day
Decked out with silk and gold,
Rings and beads and crowns of May,
But Sundays they're otters and snakes."
25. The elemental and the narcissist can cause the other, in a relationship, to lose his or her sanity. "As life bestower and goddess of fertility, Cybele ruled the waters; as Mountain Mother and Mistress of Animals, she loved and ruled all that was wild in nature. She bestowed the gift of prophecy, but caused madness also."
26. The elemental and the narcissist with their ability to fascinate, lead partners to danger. "Fascinating all men who come her way with the beauty of Venus, the wisdom of the serpent, and the cruelty of the carnivore, she works irresistible magic upon them and without exception they perish. ... She is a purely destructive anima figure; those whom she enchants lose all of their masculine strength and virtue and finally die."
27. The elemental and the narcissist project themselves into their partner's world, and adopt his interests as her own, in order to "gain soul" or resolve a "lack of self." "When, as happens in so many legends, an elemental creature seeks to unite with a human being and be loved by him in order to acquire a soul, it can only mean that some unconscious and undeveloped component of the personality is seeking to become joined to consciousness and so to be informed with soul."
28. The elemental and the narcissist attach to a man's soul in order to uncover her own unconsciousness - to find herself. Because she does this in fear, she is prone to violence in the process. "The urge toward increase of conscousness in the material discussed above is expressed in the desire of a creature, still bound in nature and only half human, to approach a human being and be accepted by him, that is, by consciousness."
29. The elemental and the narcissist have father issues. "Elemental beings quite often possess a (more or less hidden) father. The Valkyries are Odin's maidens and Odin is a god of wind and spirit. In the tale of the huntsman and the swan maiden, who has to be released from the glass mountain, her father is with her and is released at the same time."
30. The elemental and the narcissist are nature-creatures and end a relationship without remorse or empathy, just as a storm in nature strikes without empathy. "The story comes to a natural conclusion; after they have lived together for a long time, the nymph one day says farewell to her husband, foreseeing that the end of her oak tree can no longer be averted. Then the tree is struck by lightening and she, whose life has remained bound to it despite her human quality, disappears forever."
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Edmond Burke's Sublime and Beautiful
All those posts I wrote about “impressiveness” – I didn’t know that a better word might be “sublime.” I just read A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmond Burke. Oh man, I’m no scholar but I should have known the definition of sublime. I’m terrible at Scrabble.
Burke associates the sublime with “terror,” and I think sublime has a wider meaning than that: awe-inspiring, amazing, astonishing, impressive, maybe terrible… heavy, overwhelming. To walk through life with a sense of the sublime is to carry sense of wonder. Okay – all those things have something to do with terror, and maybe Burke’s definition of terror 260 years ago was wider and different than the definition in my head.
My main thoughts are, 1) “sublime” might be a better word than “impressive” for the ideas I’ve been trying to express, and 2) … something about beauty…
I read Burke's old, difficult book (the writing is archaic!) because I wanted to understand what art-books meant when they talked about beauty. Burke writes that beauty is anything that inspires love and the sublime is anything that causes terror.
I wrote a lot of blog-posts saying that impressiveness is what wakes us up psychologically. The cool thing about Burke’s book is that he showed me there’s something else that wakes us up: the alternative to impressiveness / sublimity, which is beauty / love.
I should have noticed that love wakes us up psychologically, but I’ve been so focused on the painful anguish of the sublime that I lost sight of anything having to do with love. Interesting to suddenly see that again.
Here’s a quote from A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful:
“I have before observed, that whatever is qualified to cause terror, is a foundation capable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger have a similar effect, because they operate in a similar manner. I observed too, that whatever produces pleasure, is fit to have beauty engrafted on it.”
Burke associates the sublime with “terror,” and I think sublime has a wider meaning than that: awe-inspiring, amazing, astonishing, impressive, maybe terrible… heavy, overwhelming. To walk through life with a sense of the sublime is to carry sense of wonder. Okay – all those things have something to do with terror, and maybe Burke’s definition of terror 260 years ago was wider and different than the definition in my head.
My main thoughts are, 1) “sublime” might be a better word than “impressive” for the ideas I’ve been trying to express, and 2) … something about beauty…
I read Burke's old, difficult book (the writing is archaic!) because I wanted to understand what art-books meant when they talked about beauty. Burke writes that beauty is anything that inspires love and the sublime is anything that causes terror.
I wrote a lot of blog-posts saying that impressiveness is what wakes us up psychologically. The cool thing about Burke’s book is that he showed me there’s something else that wakes us up: the alternative to impressiveness / sublimity, which is beauty / love.
I should have noticed that love wakes us up psychologically, but I’ve been so focused on the painful anguish of the sublime that I lost sight of anything having to do with love. Interesting to suddenly see that again.
Here’s a quote from A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful:
“I have before observed, that whatever is qualified to cause terror, is a foundation capable of the sublime; to which I add, that not only these, but many things from which we cannot probably apprehend any danger have a similar effect, because they operate in a similar manner. I observed too, that whatever produces pleasure, is fit to have beauty engrafted on it.”
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Want Wish Will
Thinking about Nietszche's "will to power" and thinking about a woman I was once involved with. She'd frequently ask, "What do you want?" which I assumed meant, "What do you want in this relationship?" Truth is, at the time I wasn't sure what I wanted.
I eventually realized, however, that she shouldn't ask "what do you want?" A better question would have been, "Do you know yourself?" I know now, a man who knows himself knows what he wants, but a man who has no self-knowledge has no sense of his wants.
I'm weary of wanting and wishing. The last time a person asked me what I want I answered "I don't wan't." The Psalmist wrote "I shall not want." Wishing and wanting are connected with powerlessness, childishness and dreaming. Nietszche's concept of "will to power" puts things in a new perspective - of taking hold of personal power. I don't want, I will: I will to do these things that I once wished for and wanted.
Strikes me as a good idea, at least.
I eventually realized, however, that she shouldn't ask "what do you want?" A better question would have been, "Do you know yourself?" I know now, a man who knows himself knows what he wants, but a man who has no self-knowledge has no sense of his wants.
I'm weary of wanting and wishing. The last time a person asked me what I want I answered "I don't wan't." The Psalmist wrote "I shall not want." Wishing and wanting are connected with powerlessness, childishness and dreaming. Nietszche's concept of "will to power" puts things in a new perspective - of taking hold of personal power. I don't want, I will: I will to do these things that I once wished for and wanted.
Strikes me as a good idea, at least.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
A Nietzsche Quote
"My suffering and my pity - what of them! For do I aspire after happiness? I aspire after my work!"
Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Freedom and Loneliness
Last night I talked to a friend who was envious of my freedom. She has a relationship with a guy and, in fact, they're very happy together. But, she said, "It's so much work trying to understand him all the time and wanting him to understand me, and having to do things together when I just want to be left alone!"
I started laughing as she said this - I mean really laughing, more than I've laughed in a long time, because I know those feelings. She said that I should appreciate my freedom, and appreciate how because I'm alone no one puts any expectations on me.
I agreed, "The freedom is a trade off for the loneliness, but for now I'd rather have the freedom and live with the loneliness." The freedom to not be expected to understand a partner's thoughts and feelings all the time! Yes! Give me that for just a little longer!
Some day, though, I'd like to experience the work again of trying to communicate in a romantic relationship. There's nothing quite like it.
Here's a quote on the topic from Emma Jung:
"It happens only too frequently that instead of understanding a situation - or another person - through feeling and acting accordingly, we think something about the situation or the person and offer an opinion in place of a human reaction. This may be quite correct, well-intentioned, and clever, but it has no effect, or the wrong effect, because it is right only in an objective, factual way. Subjectively, humanly speaking, it is wrong because in that moment the partner, or the relationship, is best served not by discernment or objectivity but in sympathetic feeling."
It strikes me that freedom and aloneness go well together, and unlimited freedom means infinite aloneness. Maybe I'm wrong about this. We humans certainly crave the loss of our aloneness.
I started laughing as she said this - I mean really laughing, more than I've laughed in a long time, because I know those feelings. She said that I should appreciate my freedom, and appreciate how because I'm alone no one puts any expectations on me.
I agreed, "The freedom is a trade off for the loneliness, but for now I'd rather have the freedom and live with the loneliness." The freedom to not be expected to understand a partner's thoughts and feelings all the time! Yes! Give me that for just a little longer!
Some day, though, I'd like to experience the work again of trying to communicate in a romantic relationship. There's nothing quite like it.
Here's a quote on the topic from Emma Jung:
"It happens only too frequently that instead of understanding a situation - or another person - through feeling and acting accordingly, we think something about the situation or the person and offer an opinion in place of a human reaction. This may be quite correct, well-intentioned, and clever, but it has no effect, or the wrong effect, because it is right only in an objective, factual way. Subjectively, humanly speaking, it is wrong because in that moment the partner, or the relationship, is best served not by discernment or objectivity but in sympathetic feeling."
It strikes me that freedom and aloneness go well together, and unlimited freedom means infinite aloneness. Maybe I'm wrong about this. We humans certainly crave the loss of our aloneness.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Another Quote on Animals
"Suppressed and wounded instincts are the dangers threatening civilized man; uninhibited drives are the dangers threatening primitive man. In both cases the 'animal' is alienated from it's true nature; and for both, acceptance of the animal soul is the condition for wholeness and a fully lived life. Primitive man must tame the animal in himself and make it his helpful companion; civilized man must heal the animal in himself and make it his friend." - Aniela Jaffe
I think Jaffe considered this to mean the primitive and the civilized part of an individual as well as what we might label as a civilized or primitive culture. Those words bother me, but I don't want it to distract from the message which I like alot.
I think Jaffe considered this to mean the primitive and the civilized part of an individual as well as what we might label as a civilized or primitive culture. Those words bother me, but I don't want it to distract from the message which I like alot.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Animal instincts
The previous post, a quote about animals in dreams, points out that animals in dreams are expressions of our instincts. Jungians typically see dream figures as archetypes, and archetypes as instincts ... And I agree, even though I don't wish to be labeled as Jungian, although I mostly agree with those views and I turn to Jungian writers for understanding about ... everything. Omigosh, I might be Jungian.
Anyway, if frightening animals in dreams are instincts that need to be reintegrated, then the animals that we are on friendly terms with are conversely the animal-instincts that we have incorporated as part of our psychological make-up, which sounds almost academic but is actually really cool ~ ! To be friends with the primal animal instinct is to befriend one's self.
Anyway, if frightening animals in dreams are instincts that need to be reintegrated, then the animals that we are on friendly terms with are conversely the animal-instincts that we have incorporated as part of our psychological make-up, which sounds almost academic but is actually really cool ~ ! To be friends with the primal animal instinct is to befriend one's self.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Animals in Dreams
"The familiar dream in which the dreamer is pursued by an animal nearly always indicates that an instinct has been split off from the consciousness and ought to be (or is trying to be) readmitted and integrated into life. The more dangerous the behavior of the animal in the dream, the more unconscious is the primitive and instinctual soul of the dreamer, and the more imperative is it's integration into his life if irreparable evil is to be forestalled." - Aniela Jaffe
Impressiveness #6
This is my final post on impressiveness.
In the quote I posted earlier - Quote C - Jung discussed an ancient text, The Shepherd of Hermas. In the text, a woman makes such a strong impression on Hermas that when a feminine spirit appears to him later, the spirit takes on the appearance - the image - of that woman.
This also occures when a man's inner-feminine nature, the anima, or a woman's inner-masculine nature, the animus, takes on the image of another person. Jung calls this projection - projecting your own psyche onto another person, making that person and your own anima or animus (or whatever inner-figure it happens to be) indistinguishable from that external other. Jung, Sartre and others have written that love isn't possible without a degree of projection, and that the realization of projection can end love.
My interest here is in impressiveness and it's connection to images. The image alive in your unconscious psyche is able to break through the barrier into your conscious awareness when it causes you to become impressed by an external object with matching qualities.
I wrote in an earlier post about a tree that made an impression on me. In reality it wasn't the tree that impressed. It was an internal image trying to make me consciously aware of it by projecting itself onto the tree. This is why I consider it important to watch for moments of impresssiveness, because in those moments we learn most about ourselves. This is also why the connection between impressiveness and images, especially in dreams and in art, becomes important to understand.
In the quote I posted earlier - Quote C - Jung discussed an ancient text, The Shepherd of Hermas. In the text, a woman makes such a strong impression on Hermas that when a feminine spirit appears to him later, the spirit takes on the appearance - the image - of that woman.
This also occures when a man's inner-feminine nature, the anima, or a woman's inner-masculine nature, the animus, takes on the image of another person. Jung calls this projection - projecting your own psyche onto another person, making that person and your own anima or animus (or whatever inner-figure it happens to be) indistinguishable from that external other. Jung, Sartre and others have written that love isn't possible without a degree of projection, and that the realization of projection can end love.
My interest here is in impressiveness and it's connection to images. The image alive in your unconscious psyche is able to break through the barrier into your conscious awareness when it causes you to become impressed by an external object with matching qualities.
I wrote in an earlier post about a tree that made an impression on me. In reality it wasn't the tree that impressed. It was an internal image trying to make me consciously aware of it by projecting itself onto the tree. This is why I consider it important to watch for moments of impresssiveness, because in those moments we learn most about ourselves. This is also why the connection between impressiveness and images, especially in dreams and in art, becomes important to understand.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Impressiveness #5
The following quote from Aniela Jaffe shows impressiveness - having an impact on a person's psyche - in art:
"French painter, Marcel Duchamp set up an object chosen at random (a bottle rack) on a pedestal and exhibited it. Jean Bazaine wrote of it: 'This bottle rack, torn from it's utilitarian context and washed up on the beach has been invested with the lonely dignity of the derelict.'"
Jaffe continues to describe the bottle rack using the words "disturbing," "exalted," and "magical."
The quality of being magical wasn't in the bottle rack itself. The magical quality was imbued when viewers became disturbed and questioned whether the object qualified as art. This reaction shows that art makes an impression - has impressiveness - and has the power to move us psychologically.
"French painter, Marcel Duchamp set up an object chosen at random (a bottle rack) on a pedestal and exhibited it. Jean Bazaine wrote of it: 'This bottle rack, torn from it's utilitarian context and washed up on the beach has been invested with the lonely dignity of the derelict.'"
Jaffe continues to describe the bottle rack using the words "disturbing," "exalted," and "magical."
The quality of being magical wasn't in the bottle rack itself. The magical quality was imbued when viewers became disturbed and questioned whether the object qualified as art. This reaction shows that art makes an impression - has impressiveness - and has the power to move us psychologically.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Impressiveness #4
I visited a friend and as I walked through her yard to her front door I passed a tree covered in moss or lichen. She said, as a passing comment, "When the lichen falls off the tree it gives nutrients to the soil."
She then changed the subject and talked on something else. I'd been trying to condition myself to watch for moments that made an impression on my psyche - impressiveness. This was the moment but the conversation moved on.
That night I had a dream about that tree where I could see the lichen falling to the lawn. Later, I talked with my dream-mentor about it. She pointed out that the lichen falling from the tree was synonymous with unconscious understanding coming into consciousness. For me the encounter was an example of the benefit of watching for impressive moments.
She then changed the subject and talked on something else. I'd been trying to condition myself to watch for moments that made an impression on my psyche - impressiveness. This was the moment but the conversation moved on.
That night I had a dream about that tree where I could see the lichen falling to the lawn. Later, I talked with my dream-mentor about it. She pointed out that the lichen falling from the tree was synonymous with unconscious understanding coming into consciousness. For me the encounter was an example of the benefit of watching for impressive moments.
Impressiveness #3
In my meditation, glimpses of the future would come to me, precognitive images.
I didn't think of this as a psychic ability. It seemed more a byproduct of a great deal of time spent in a very intense introspection.
These flashes of precognition were puzzling because they were mundane, such as a vision of a coin falling to the floor. Nothing special - but they were little events I would see later in the day.
The question I asked myself was, why did my unconscious focus on these specific occurrences among the various happenings of the day?
The answer, although I have no evidence for proof, seems to be that the cause of those precognitive visions is that they had some level of impressiveness. When I saw the coin drop to the floor it made an impression on me so strongly that it passed precognitively into my meditation.
As von Franz points out (quote A) impressiveness is synonymous with energy, and as the literal meaning shows, the encounter of being impressed is to have the experience "forced in."
With that in mind, I realized the importance of watching for anything during my day that made an impression. Going through life as if asleep, not even noticing the most impressive events is all too easy. But if I can watch and see what it is that makes the coin dropping to the floor so important maybe I can live in a way as someone fully awake.
I didn't think of this as a psychic ability. It seemed more a byproduct of a great deal of time spent in a very intense introspection.
These flashes of precognition were puzzling because they were mundane, such as a vision of a coin falling to the floor. Nothing special - but they were little events I would see later in the day.
The question I asked myself was, why did my unconscious focus on these specific occurrences among the various happenings of the day?
The answer, although I have no evidence for proof, seems to be that the cause of those precognitive visions is that they had some level of impressiveness. When I saw the coin drop to the floor it made an impression on me so strongly that it passed precognitively into my meditation.
As von Franz points out (quote A) impressiveness is synonymous with energy, and as the literal meaning shows, the encounter of being impressed is to have the experience "forced in."
With that in mind, I realized the importance of watching for anything during my day that made an impression. Going through life as if asleep, not even noticing the most impressive events is all too easy. But if I can watch and see what it is that makes the coin dropping to the floor so important maybe I can live in a way as someone fully awake.
Impressiveness Quote C
“It is, in fact expressed quite clearly in the thought that he would have liked Rhoda for a wife, though, as Hermas is at pains to emphasize, it is confined to this simple statement since anything more explicit and more direct instantly fell under a moral ban and was repressed. It is abundantly clear from what follows that this repressed libido wrought a powerful transformation in his unconscious, for it imbued the soul-image with life and brought about a spontaneous manifestation.” Carl Jung, Psychological Types
From the 2nd century text, The Shepherd of Hermas:
Hermas 1:1 The master, who reared me, had sold me to one Rhoda in Rome. After many years, I met her again, and began to love her as a sister.
Hermas 1:2 After a certain time I saw her bathing in the river Tiber; and I gave her my hand, and led her out of the river. So, seeing her beauty, I reasoned in my heart, saying, "Happy were I, if I had such an one to wife both in beauty and in character." I merely reflected on this and nothing more.
Hermas 1:3 After a certain time, as I was journeying to Cumae, and glorifying God's creatures for their greatness and splendor and power, as I walked I fell asleep. And a Spirit took me, and bore me away through a pathless tract, through which no man could pass: for the place was precipitous, and broken into clefts by reason of the waters. When then I had crossed the river, I came into the level country, and knelt down, and began to pray to the Lord and to confess my sins.
Hermas 1:4 Now, while I prayed, the heaven was opened, and I see the lady, whom I had desired, greeting me from heaven, saying, "Good morrow, Hermas."
Hermas 1:5 And, looking at her, I said to her, "Lady, what doest thou here?" Then she answered me, "I was taken up, that I might convict thee of thy sins before the Lord."
From the 2nd century text, The Shepherd of Hermas:
Hermas 1:1 The master, who reared me, had sold me to one Rhoda in Rome. After many years, I met her again, and began to love her as a sister.
Hermas 1:2 After a certain time I saw her bathing in the river Tiber; and I gave her my hand, and led her out of the river. So, seeing her beauty, I reasoned in my heart, saying, "Happy were I, if I had such an one to wife both in beauty and in character." I merely reflected on this and nothing more.
Hermas 1:3 After a certain time, as I was journeying to Cumae, and glorifying God's creatures for their greatness and splendor and power, as I walked I fell asleep. And a Spirit took me, and bore me away through a pathless tract, through which no man could pass: for the place was precipitous, and broken into clefts by reason of the waters. When then I had crossed the river, I came into the level country, and knelt down, and began to pray to the Lord and to confess my sins.
Hermas 1:4 Now, while I prayed, the heaven was opened, and I see the lady, whom I had desired, greeting me from heaven, saying, "Good morrow, Hermas."
Hermas 1:5 And, looking at her, I said to her, "Lady, what doest thou here?" Then she answered me, "I was taken up, that I might convict thee of thy sins before the Lord."
Impresssiveness Quote B
“The erotic impression has evidently become united in the collective unconscious with archaic residues which have preserved from time immemorial the imprint of vivid impressions of the nature of woman – woman as mother and woman as desirable maid. Such impressions have immense power, as they release forces, both in the child and in the adult man, which fully merit the attribute ‘divine’ i.e., something irresistible and absolutely compelling. The recognition of these forces as daemonic powers can hardly be due to moral repression, but rather to a self-regulation of the psychic organism which weeks by this change of front to guard against loss of equilibrium. For if, in face of the overwhelming might of passion, which puts one human being wholly at the mercy of another, the psyche succeeds in building up a counterposition so that, at the height of passion, the boundlessly desired object is unveiled as an idol and man is forced to his knees before the divine image, then the psyche has delivered him from the curse of the object’s spell. He is restored to himself again and, flung back on himself, finds himself once more between gods and men, following his own path and subject to his own laws. The awful fear that haunts the primitive, his terror of everything impressive, which he at once senses as magic, as though it were charged with magical power, protects him in a purposive way against that most dreaded of all possibilities, loss of soul, with its inevitable sequel of sickness and death.” Carl Jung, Psychological Types
Impressiveness Quote A.
“As Jung points out at the end of ‘On the Nature of the Psyche,’ the concept of energy is originally derived from the primitive concept of energeia or mana, which simply means the extreme impressiveness of something. Whenever something is enormously or intensely impressive and therefore affects one psychologically, i.e., makes a psychological impact, then primitives say it is mana, or mugu. Therefore the original concept of energy was more the idea of psychological intensity.” Marie-Louise von Franz, Synchronicity and Divination
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Impressiveness #2
Before I post thoughts on "impressiveness" I'll post some quotes on the topic so I can refer back to them. Before those quotes, however, here are some words to consider:
Impress - force in
Depress - force down
Express - force out
Repress - force back
Impress - force in
Depress - force down
Express - force out
Repress - force back
Friday, March 18, 2011
Impressiveness #1
This is the first of several posts I'll make on the topic of "impressiveness" which seems to be the key to staying alive and awake psychologically. I'll write more about that in future posts. I'm posting with my i-phone, so I'll keep the posts short but more frequent. I don't think anyone reads these posts, at least not yet. Oh well, I write them for myself I suppose.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Changing your personality type.
Can a person consciously, as an act of the will, choose to become an introvert or an extrovert? Can I change my personality type, purposely and consciously? Joseph Campbell, in a quote I’ll include in this post, wrote that it’s possible. I’m not sure I agree. I think that a powerful experience can drive a person inside, into an introversion, or outside to an extroverted behavior. But this isn’t a conscious act of the will.
If a lost love or a financial crisis drives a person from extroversion to introversion, or visa-versa, this isn’t an act of free will. It is, however, a change in personality type.
I’m really intrigued by the idea that we can change. I’d like to be more extroverted – to be able to put my attention outside of myself instead of internalizing all my feelings and observations. I can’t remember where I read it, but I seem to remember that Jung felt that our personality types can be altered by the influence of our circle of friends. For example, an introvert who is surrounded by extroverts can be influenced into becoming more extroverted. Can we really? Maybe, maybe maybe. I’d like to think so. I’m feeling ready to get out of my own head.
Here’s that quote from The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell:
“Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate device. It drives the psychic energies into depth and activates the lost continent of unconscious infantile and archetypal images. The result, of course, may be a disintegration of consciousness more or less complete (neurosis, psychosis: the plight of spellbound Daphne); but on the other hand, if the personality is able to absorb and integrate the new forces, there will be experienced an almost superhuman degree of self-consciousness and masterful control. This is a basic principle of the Indian disciples of yoga. It has been the way, also of many creative spirits of the West.”
If a lost love or a financial crisis drives a person from extroversion to introversion, or visa-versa, this isn’t an act of free will. It is, however, a change in personality type.
I’m really intrigued by the idea that we can change. I’d like to be more extroverted – to be able to put my attention outside of myself instead of internalizing all my feelings and observations. I can’t remember where I read it, but I seem to remember that Jung felt that our personality types can be altered by the influence of our circle of friends. For example, an introvert who is surrounded by extroverts can be influenced into becoming more extroverted. Can we really? Maybe, maybe maybe. I’d like to think so. I’m feeling ready to get out of my own head.
Here’s that quote from The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell:
“Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate device. It drives the psychic energies into depth and activates the lost continent of unconscious infantile and archetypal images. The result, of course, may be a disintegration of consciousness more or less complete (neurosis, psychosis: the plight of spellbound Daphne); but on the other hand, if the personality is able to absorb and integrate the new forces, there will be experienced an almost superhuman degree of self-consciousness and masterful control. This is a basic principle of the Indian disciples of yoga. It has been the way, also of many creative spirits of the West.”
Monday, January 17, 2011
Thinking about the Bodhisattva.
Joseph Campbell explained, more eloquently than I could, that the Bodhisattva is in us and we are in the Bodhisattva, and the Bodhisattva is us and we are the Bodhisattva. What a crazy thing to declare, because I know I’m not perfect.
Campbell explained that the qualities that we perceive as positive and negative personality traits are all aspects of the Bodhisattva. The wide range of emotions and feelings that I’ve tried to recognize in myself are all human qualities that the Bodhisattva knows completely.
This made me laugh out loud when I thought about it during my work day. I’m a letter carrier for the postal service. I was delivering mail in the rain, and water had soaked my shoes and my socks, and two layers of jackets through to my shirt. Half-way through the day I became so frustrated, I stood in the rain with my arms full of soggy letters and catalogs, ready to cuss at the clouds. Instead I found myself laughing, and I said, “This is an example of the Bodhisattva feeling upset.”
Through the remainder of the day I laughed again every time I recognized an emotion rising up in me, and I would say, “This is the Bodhisattva feeling amused,” or “This is the Bodhisattva feeling hurried,” "This is the Bodhisattva feeling angry," or happy or… etc.
Of course, I am sooo far from being a Bodhisattva, and that’s what made me laugh: the reality that these feelings I recognize in myself are shared with one so far ahead of me on the path that he's made the return trip.
I feel somewhat insecure about sharing these thoughts. Maybe that’s why, until now, I’ve only posted quotes from books and I’ve avoided sharing what I feel about the quotes. This is the Bodhisattva feeling insecure.
Here are a couple of quotes from Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell on the topic:
“If the God is a tribal, racial, national, or sectarian archetype, we are the warriors of his cause; but if he is a lord of the universe itself, we then go forth as knowers to whom all men are brothers. And in either case, the childhood parent images and ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have been surpassed. We no longer desire and fear; we are what was desired and feared. All the gods, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas have been subsumed in us, as in the halo of the mighty holder of the lotus of the world.”
“This is the sense of the first wonder of the Bodhisattva: the androgynous character of the presence. Therewith the two apparently opposite mythological adventures come together: the Meeting with the Goddess, and the Atonement with the Father. For in the first the initiate learns that males and female are (as phrased in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) ‘two halves of a split pea’; whereas in the second, the Father is found to be antecedent to the division of sex: the pronoun ‘He’ was a manner of speech, the myth of Sonship a guiding line to be erased. And in both cases it is found (or rather, recollected,) that the hero himself is that which he had come to find.”
Campbell explained that the qualities that we perceive as positive and negative personality traits are all aspects of the Bodhisattva. The wide range of emotions and feelings that I’ve tried to recognize in myself are all human qualities that the Bodhisattva knows completely.
This made me laugh out loud when I thought about it during my work day. I’m a letter carrier for the postal service. I was delivering mail in the rain, and water had soaked my shoes and my socks, and two layers of jackets through to my shirt. Half-way through the day I became so frustrated, I stood in the rain with my arms full of soggy letters and catalogs, ready to cuss at the clouds. Instead I found myself laughing, and I said, “This is an example of the Bodhisattva feeling upset.”
Through the remainder of the day I laughed again every time I recognized an emotion rising up in me, and I would say, “This is the Bodhisattva feeling amused,” or “This is the Bodhisattva feeling hurried,” "This is the Bodhisattva feeling angry," or happy or… etc.
Of course, I am sooo far from being a Bodhisattva, and that’s what made me laugh: the reality that these feelings I recognize in myself are shared with one so far ahead of me on the path that he's made the return trip.
I feel somewhat insecure about sharing these thoughts. Maybe that’s why, until now, I’ve only posted quotes from books and I’ve avoided sharing what I feel about the quotes. This is the Bodhisattva feeling insecure.
Here are a couple of quotes from Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell on the topic:
“If the God is a tribal, racial, national, or sectarian archetype, we are the warriors of his cause; but if he is a lord of the universe itself, we then go forth as knowers to whom all men are brothers. And in either case, the childhood parent images and ideas of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ have been surpassed. We no longer desire and fear; we are what was desired and feared. All the gods, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas have been subsumed in us, as in the halo of the mighty holder of the lotus of the world.”
“This is the sense of the first wonder of the Bodhisattva: the androgynous character of the presence. Therewith the two apparently opposite mythological adventures come together: the Meeting with the Goddess, and the Atonement with the Father. For in the first the initiate learns that males and female are (as phrased in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) ‘two halves of a split pea’; whereas in the second, the Father is found to be antecedent to the division of sex: the pronoun ‘He’ was a manner of speech, the myth of Sonship a guiding line to be erased. And in both cases it is found (or rather, recollected,) that the hero himself is that which he had come to find.”
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