Steven SPIELBERG (réalisateur): startinghere71

Special to Earthpages.org

With new funding from India, Oscar winner Steven Spielberg is ready to move ahead with production and we all shall be able to see six-plus foot invisible rabbit “Harvey” in the near future.

Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed says that they were glad to see the legendary director back in filmmaking. Spielberg has not reportedly produced after Transformers since separating from Paramount Pictures. Deal with India’s Reliance on Monday breathed life back into Spielberg’s dormant DreamWorks Studios and he can now start directing “Harvey”.

Spielberg’s directorial project “Harvey” is remake of Oscar winner James Stewart (The Philadelphia Story) starring 1950 film based on Mary Chase Pulitzer Prize-winning play, about amiable and eccentric bachelor Elwood P. Dowd and his friendship with imaginary Harvey. Oscar nominated Henry Koster (The Bishop’s Wife) directed the 1950 Harvey, which won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

It is reportedly a co-venture between the new DreamWorks, Disney and 20th Century Fox. Spielberg and Don Gregory (Fire in the Dark) will be the producers. While casting and pre-production is expected to begin immediately, the production will begin in early 2010.

As Oscar winner Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) has reportedly said no to the role of the polite Dowd, Spielberg will be looking for another likable top-notch leading actor who can convincingly talk to the invisible rabbit.

in the Marais by Frederic Argazzi

In common parlance the terms unconscious and subconscious are used as if they expressed some kind of scientific or even religious certainty.

This may be convenient. After all, we wouldn’t get very far if we always stopped to analyze every word we use.

Tacit conceptual agreements facilitate conversation and make for easier reading. Obviously there’s some advantage to our collective unthinking.

But there’s a downside too. All too often socially accepted words become more than mere tropes and catchphrases. Their repeated use can lead to reification.

Reification occurs whenever social groups assume that mere ideas represent a real entity or thing–for instance, the idea of the ’state.’ Reified concepts may also point to detailed legal entities or religious teachings.

But the question remains: Does the thing written and talked about actually exist as its described?

Is ‘unconscious’ just a word that we’ve unwittingly incorporated into our belief systems due to its repeated usage?

We can’t exactly see, hear, smell, taste or touch the unconscious. Instead, it seems we merely experience images and reflections of its mysterious workings.

Some Definitions

Black’s Medical Dictionary defines the unconscious as “a description of mental activities of which an individual is unaware” (“Unconscious.” Black’s Medical Dictionary, 41st Edition. London: A&C Black, 2006. Credo Reference.) And medicinenet.com describes it as “that part of thought and emotion that happens outside everyday awareness.”

Psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious, while not always recognized as scientific nor convincingly proven to be therapeutic, are often included in medical definitions.

Unconscious is also used in psychoanalysis to characterize that section of a person’s mind in which memories and motives reside. They are normally inaccessible, protected by inbuilt mental resistance (Black’s, op cit.).

John F. Abess, M.D. describes it as:

That part of the mind or mental functioning of which the content is only rarely subject to awareness. It is a repository for data that have never been conscious (primary repression) or that may have been conscious and are later repressed (secondary repression).

David Macey says the term is “widely used to refer to any element of mental activity that is not present within the field of the conscious mind at a given moment” (The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory, p. 386 [emphasis added]).

This presents a more dynamic view. Instead of an unconscious only rarely subject to consciousness, Macey’s description portrays the mind as if it were a switched circuit. At one moment we plan to brush our teeth, the next moment the doorbell rings and we completely forget until the evening.

This leads to the notion of the subconscious. The unconscious is often contrasted with the subconscious although some writers, particularly novelists, use the two terms interchangeably. Black’s continues:

This [the unconscious] contrasts with the subconscious where a person’s memories and motives, while temporarily suppressed, can usually be recalled.

All very well and good. But already we see subtle variations in the idea of the unconscious. And if psychoanalytic theories of the unconscious are invoked, then a whole host of uncertainties can arise.

For instance, some writers take into account Carl Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious. And from Jung the more recent idea of transcultural psychiatry has arisen, where the unconscious seems collective and yet culturally specific.

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History Recalls

From a historical perspective, the unconscious is a centuries-old idea where few agree as to its precise character. Raymond E. Fancher notes that the philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716)

postulated a continuum of consciousness, ranging from the clear, distinct and rational apperceptions through the more mechanical and indistinct perceptions and terminating in what he called minute perceptions (Pioneers of Psychology, p. 68).

This differs from contemporary definitions of the unconscious. But it paved the way for conceptualizing the subconscious, selective attention and the autonomic nervous system, ideas which later would emerge in psychology and physiology.

Along these lines, Arthur Koestler wrote that before the word unconscious was coined, people already knew about it. Koestler cites several examples where the idea of the unconscious is implied in the arts and philosophy–e.g., Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Kepler and Kant.

Koestler also says that consciousness and unconsciousness are not discrete states but exist along a continuum (“Thinking Aside” in The Act of Creation, pp. 147 -177).

From Koestler it seems reasonable to suppose that the range of this experiential continuum varies from person to person. That is, some individuals consciously access different thoughts and emotions than others.

Freud is usually credited with being the first to conceptualize the unconscious as something beyond mere subliminal perceptions and autonomic functions.

Both he and Jung believe that the task of analysis is to bring unconscious contents to the light of consciousness. By doing so a person gains mastery over impulses and tendencies which formerly controlled or unduly influenced them.

The implication here is that conscious and unconscious contents are forever changing. From this we can say that one person’s idea of consciousness could be another’s about unconsciousness. Moreover, these discrepancies could occur both within and across cultures.

The Hero and the Underworld

Another seminal thinker to appear with Freud and Jung was Joseph Campbell. While some (probably jealous) academics still trash Campbell as a ‘popularizer,’ in recent years this dismissive evaluation has taken a turn for the better.

Freud, Jung and Campbell each in their own way were fascinated with the unconscious. It’s not commonly known, however, that all three of these theorists believed that the contents of the unconscious were essentially collective. And all three used the language of myth to express the unconscious.

Jung and Campbell likened the successful integration of unconsciousness within consciousness to myths about the hero.

The hero’s quest entails a journey into some strange, exotic landscape. Traditionally, this takes the form of a descent into the underworld.

This symbolic voyage below ‘normal’ consciousness is potentially dangerous. One can feel totally lost along the way and unusual or hard to recognize allies and enemies typically arise, each possessing paranormal abilities.

In this enchanted or, perhaps, cursed land, the hero must hold fast and remain true.

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Most hero myths entail a precarious journey in search of the pearl of wisdom, elixir of immortality or sacred object or magical key that is jealously guarded by a horrible creature–usually a dragon, an ogre or, in underwater variants, a sea monster.

After defeating the enemy and attaining the proverbial pearl of wisdom (i.e. knowledge of the eternal self), the hero returns to everyday life with enhanced wisdom.

To account for this dynamic in psychological terms, Jung developed his theory of the archetypes and archetypal images.

Archetypes are unconscious powers, themselves. As the German philosopher Kant put it, the ding an sich. Although we can’t see these directly we can infer their existence.

Archetypal images, on the other hand, are those expressions of archetypal power that are represented through psycho-cultural filters (e.g. dreams, the arts and architecture).

It is true that Campbell popularized Jung’s approach. But he also added his own insights into the many ways that consciousness relates to unconsciousness.

The Romanian author and scholar of religion Mircea Eliade met reguarly with Jung, Campbell and other leading figures like Karl Kerényi.

Along with Jung and Campbell, Eliade realized that the ancient hero motif was alive and well in the media. But Eliade focused less on the idea of psychological transformation. Instead, Eliade outlined how hero mythology adds thrill and adventure to everyday life.

The characters of the comic strips present the modern version of mythological or folklore Heroes…The myth of Superman satisfies the secret longings of modern man who, though he knows that he is a fallen, limited creature, dreams of one day proving himself an “exceptional person,” a “Hero.” Much the same could be said of the detective novel. On the one hand, the reader witnesses the exemplary struggle between Good and Evil, between the Hero (= the Detective) and the criminal (the modern incarnation of the Demon). On the other, through an unconscious process of projection and identification, he takes part in the mystery and the drama and has the feeling that he is personally involved in a pardigmatic-that is, a dangerous, “heroic”-action (Myth and Reality, p. 185).

It should be no surprise that filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola directed a movie, Youth Without Youth (2007), based on an Eliade novella.

While Campbell and Jung have been accused of glossing over cross-cultural nuances in depth psychology, Eliade focused on the historical contexts out of which myth and cosmology arose.

Despite their differences, all three thinkers recognized that, at some point, the psyche becomes a mystery. And perhaps most important, each acknowledged the limits of his own theorizing.

This leaves to present and future generations the task of rethinking the nature of consciousness, unconsciousness and their ever-changing connection.

Further Reading

• Franz G. Alexander and Sheldon T. Selesnick’s The History of Psychiatry: An Evaluation of Psychiatric Thought And Practice From Prehistoric Times To The Present (Harper & Row, 1966).
• Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949).
• Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality (1963).
• Henri F. Ellenberger’s landmark study, The Discovery of the Unconscious (Basic Books, 1970) suggests that the unconscious was never discovered, per se, but was created by a handful of 18th-20th century Europeans such as Adler, Binet, Carus, Fechner, Flournoy, Freud, Janet and Jung.
• Fancher, Raymond E. Pioneers of Psychology, 3rd Ed. (1996).
• Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id (revised by James Strachey, 1960).
• Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961) provides a good summation of his life’s work.
• Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. New York: Penguin [Arkana], 1989.

Figures

1. Detail from Aztec calendar showing deity (Xipe Totec) clothed in human skin and massive serpent devouring human being. Color version can be seen here » http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/calendar.htm
2. Jonah being swallowed by the whale.
3. German alchemical illustration, circa 1600, of the spiritus mercurialis “and his transformations” as found on the front cover of C. G. Jung’s Aspects of the Masculine.
4. Contemporary writers follow Jung, Eliade and Campbell in viewing superhero comics and B-movies as modern myths. Most see sci-fi, horror and fantasy as manifestations of a collective unconscious. Along these lines, Jung felt that the UFO craze of the 1950’s for the most part could be explained by manifestations of a mandala archetype (UFOs in that era were primarily saucer-shaped).  Campbell was particularly inspired by Star Wars and the film’s creator, George Lucas, consulted with him to ensure that the archetypal characters conformed to existing mythic cycles.
5. Freud likened fundamental contents of the unconscious to ancient archaeological ruins. His psychoanalytic and Jung’s archetypal theory resemble one another on many points.

“The Unconscious – Rethinking the Unthinkable” © Michael W. Clark. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2009 Patricia F. Hare. All rights reserved.

I am speeding forward. It is very difficult to see. I know there are dangers to the right and left but I cannot see what they are. Slow down!-I tell myself-slow down! I do slow down and find that I feel less afraid, though I still have great difficulty seeing.

The next morning I awoke early to drive to Charleston. I needed to be there by 7:30 a.m. and it was still dark when I left Columbia. Once on I-77 headed for I-26, a fog began to thicken around my car. Driving at conservative interstate speeds, I realized that I still had trouble seeing the lane lines-if I drove too far right, I could go into the bank. If I drove too far left, I might be hit by the 18-wheelers I could hear (but barely see) whiz by. I remembered the message of the dream-slow down-and I did. Better to arrive in Charleston late than not to arrive at all. I made it safely out of the rough patch and was on time for my appointment.

No one who knows me would mistake me for a psychic. Yet, some part of me knew what was going to happen in my future. And that part of me was able to communicate what my conscious, (but still waking-up) waking mind needed to clearly hear at that early hour of the morning-slow down.

Dreams are often dismissed as night-time mental discharges of energy. Since many people remember their dreams we can’t deny they exist. But our culture largely doesn’t pay much attention to them, and more often than not their value goes unrecognized.

It was once claimed that 90% of the brain went unused. We couldn’t figure out what we did with it, so it was assumed to be superfluous. Our dream-life is kind of like that-it exists, but, gee…who can make sense of that crazy stuff?

Actually, YOU can. Understanding the meanings of your dreams is a skill that can be learned by anyone who is able to dream. The benefits of developing this skill are many. Dreams help us solve problems we are working on; gain access to the information in our subconscious mind; provide insights into perplexing life situations; warn us of upcoming events or energy dynamics; and-yes-sometimes help us to discharge excess mental energy left over from a busy day.

The primary language of dreams is visual imagery. But sometimes we hear things, feel things, and even smell things in our dreams. The primary tool of dream communication is symbolism. The images we see in our dreams represent information and ideas we are trying to tell ourselves about.

For example, not long ago I dreamed of a fence around a yard I was in. This fence had several openings in it; not gates, but sections where the fence was simply missing. As I looked through these open spaces I could see large, monster-like creatures passing by. One resembled an alligator, the other a rhinoceros. They did not seem to notice me-but I noticed them!

The fence is a symbol of protection, boundary, and limitation. I was preparing to teach courses again-work that would take me out of my safe (but limiting) home office environment and into the local public arena. I had mixed feelings about this. The missing sections of the fence reflected the change in privacy status I would need to deal with. My boundary of protection was still there, but it was no longer as solid and impenetrable.

And what was out there on the other side? Two very intimidating “monsters”! My dream books interpret the symbol of the alligator as, “tough hide, treachery, primordial fear.” The rhinoceros is interpreted as, “blind strength, armoring, unpredictability, aggressiveness, and small intellect.” So it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I was expressing, through this dream, fears of vulnerability that I was experiencing in anticipation of making this change in my professional life.

Do dreams ever offer good news? Sure they do! Not long ago, I dreamt of a delightful waltz with a man who was a physicist (not my husband). A week later, I exchanged emails with a journalist who was interested in new consciousness ideas and Quantum Mechanics-the back and forth of the exchanges felt just like that waltz!

Patricia F. Hare’s website » www.learntovisualize.com

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light?

-John Milton, Paradise Lost

The term numinosity isn’t too well-known beyond the academic study of religion and anthropology.

In a sense numinosity is like the more familiar term luminosity.

But numinosity refers to a subtle, spiritual light instead of an outwardly visible light such as the luminosity of the moon.

While numinosity and luminosity may coexist, they remain somehow different.

The term perhaps first appears in 1647 when Nathaniel Ward wrote in The simple cobler of Aggawam in America:

The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kinde of vast universality in it.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

Rudolf Otto

In his groundbreaking work The Idea of the Holy (1923) The Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto uses the term numinous to describe a personal experience of spiritual power.

Otto borrows from the ancient Latin, numen, usually translated as “the presence of a god or goddess,” or more precisely, “the power or nod of a deity.”

For Otto, numinosity originates from outside the self but is perceived within. And as a higher process than the magical, the numinous takes many forms.

Otto says the numinous has primitive, daemonic and dark as well as elevated, noble and pure aspects.¹ He calls the absolute and purest experience of the numen “the Holy.”

Sometimes Otto implies that the numinous is identical among all religions. Other times he reveals a definite Christian bias, suggesting that the numinosity experienced through the Bible and by various Christian mystics is absolute and pure.

From today’s standards, Otto’s definition of numinosity seems a bit vague and unsystematic. But his work is regarded as a milestone and continues to have a profound influence in depth psychology and comparative religion.

C. G. Jung

The Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung’s view of numinosity builds on Otto’s.

For Jung, numinosity is an alteration of consciousness involving an experience of spiritual power.

Like Otto, Jung differentiates types or qualities of numinosity. But Jung’s work is arguably more detailed and systematic than Otto’s.

According to Jung, numinosity may be healing or destructive, this depending on the strength and attitude of the conscious ego along with the particular character of a given numinous power.

Psychologically speaking, healing numinosity involves personal humility while destructive numinosity may lead to neurotic self-dabasement or, alternately, self-aggrandizement.

But this just scratches the surface. In actual fact the relation between the character of the psyche and type of numinosity experienced is as complicated as life, itself.

Jung says the light of the numinous passes through the lens of the personal unconscious. A traumatized person, for instance, may distort the numinous, turning what could be positive spiritual experiences into paranoia.

Accordingly, an unhealthy psyche may distort some forms of the numinous into something frightening and demonic. Meanwhile, a healthy psyche may be able to distance itself from a numinous trigger, thus converting the whole experience into a positive–e.g. enjoying a scary Batman movie.

But it’s not that simple because Jung says the experience of the numinous is really the experience of an archetype. And not all archetypes are created equally.

Through years of professional practice Jung observed different types of archetypal energies. Specific types of numinosity are often attracted by the psyche. And the type of power attracted depends, in large part, on the health of the psyche.

Imbalanced, immature and grandiose personalities, for instance, may invite and come to identify with archetypal forces reinforcing an imbalanced, grandiose outlook on life.

On the other hand, Jung says that the psyche is on a natural trajectory towards health and balance, which he calls wholeness.

This natural tendency to become whole involves the experience of positive, healing instances of numinosity which may heal psychological wounds lingering in the personal unconscious.

Both the healing and destructive aspects numinosity are further discussed in Angels: Agents of Discord and Love, ET’s, UFO’s and the Psychology of Belief, Farewell to Karma and Elements of Prophecy.

Mircea Eliade

Many suggest that the numinous is identical among all spiritual and religious paths.

Some say that walking into a Mosque or a Hindu temple is “just the same” as walking into a Catholic cathedral or Jewish temple, for instance.

The Romanian scholar, Mircea Eliade, however, builds on Otto and Jung’s work by noting that numinosity exhibits diverse intensities, qualities and effects.²

Never trying to place religious experience into some kind of forced, politically correct homogeneity, Eliade is just as interested in difference as he is in similarity. And he does an admirable job of outlining these differences by examining a staggering amount of religious data (something that many tin-pot scholars just fail to do).

Freud, Marx, Weber and Beyond

While the experience of the numinous may be influenced by the unconscious it seems superficial to reduce so many diverse accounts of numinosity to mere regression. And that’s pretty much what Sigmund Freud did.

Freud saw the numinous in terms of remembering a unified “oceanic bliss” which everyone apparently basked in within the mother’s womb. Perhaps Freud’s greatest flaw was his inability to appreciate the upper reaches of the spiritual life. A genius no doubt, he nonetheless reduced all things spiritual to all things psychological.

For centuries saints, seers, gurus and shamans have claimed to work in numinous realms. The idea of the numinous is found in virtually all spiritual traditions.

This emphasis on the numinous arguably separates religion from mere social movements such as Marxism and the often reductive claims of postmodernism. Some say, however, that Max Weber’s sociological term charisma might act as a bridge between spirit and society.³

The religion scholar Ninian Smart suggests that people using the term numinous tend to view the Godhead as something other, that is, beyond self and cosmos. Those using the term mysticism, Smart says, tend to see self and Godhead as one.

Although riddled with generalities and, arguably, errors, I quote Smart at length because he provides some thought-provoking contrasts:

If you stress the numinous, you stress that our salvation or liberation (our becoming holy) must flow from God or the Other…though his grace. You also stress the supreme power and dynamism of God as creator of this cosmos. If on the other hand, you stress the mystical and the non-dual, you tend to stress how we attain salvation or liberation through our own efforts at meditation… There is another way in which we may look at the distinction between the numinous and the mystical. In the numinous, the Eternal lies, so to speak, beyond the cosmos and outside the human being. In the mystical, the Eternal somehow lies within us. In the first case we need to be dependent on the Other, in the second case we may rely on our own powers. The numinous, in encouraging worship, encourages a loving dependence on the Other. The mystical, in encouraging meditation, encourages a sense of self-emptying…The two can go together. But there are differing accents.⁴

Again, this is an oversimplification beset with difficulties. But in his defense, Smart attempts to differentiate various modalities of religious experience.

Joseph Campbell in The Masks of God also differentiates several types of religious experience.

For our purposes we’ll break these down into two Weberian ideal types:

1. Those who see themselves as perfectly holy and equal to God–i.e. a pure manifestation of God on Earth.
2. Those who see God as holy, regarding themselves as imperfect, individual creatures created by God.

While these are ideal types, the differences they suggest are directly observable.

Like Jung, Campbell says the first type usually leads to self-aggrandizement as the ego identifies with a spiritual power or powers which are less than God.

The second type often leads to humility and the experience of God’s grace, a grace which originates from beyond the self.

Great historical figures have spoken about the numinous as a spiritual realm pervading the visible world.

The Bengali Nobel Prize laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, for instance, termed this subtle presence the surplus.

But it’s important to remember that this ’surplus’ is described differently among world traditions. And even within a single tradition, individual difference seems to be the norm.

In fact, one could spend a lifetime studying the complexities of the numinous. And even then, its diversity and subtle interpersonal dynamics most likely would not be fully understood.⁵

In my Father’s house there are many mansions

- John 14:2

Notes

1. a) Otto says a morally evil action is “self-depreciating” and “pollutes,” leading toward imagery that suggests the need for “washing and cleansing.” Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy, second edition, trans. John W. Harvey, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973 [1923], p. 55. This idea, often overlooked by popular writers, is treated in Farewell to Karma and Saints, particularly with regard to the notion that spiritual pollution may transfer.

b) See my outline of Otto’s The Idea of the Holy.

2. See for instance, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.

3. The issue of Weber’s term charisma as a bridge between sociology and spirituality is elaborated upon by George Hansen in The Trickster and the Paranormal.

4. Ninian Smart, Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983), pp. 71-72. Many use the term mysticism in the I-Thou sense as outlined by Martin Buber.

5. The interpenetration of numinosity from one living being to another is hinted at in many traditions, to include C. G. Jung’s psychological treatment of alchemy. The psychoanalytic terms transference and countertransference arguably point in a similar direction-especially the idea of syntonic countertransference. As for the transfer and intermingling of numinosity from an object to a person, here we have the much misunderstood anthropological term, fetish. Further discussion of this idea, however, is beyond the scope of this article.

Links » Jung-related Links » Graduate Papers » Viewpoint » Psychology and Myth » Numen » Numinous

“Numinosity – another kind of light” Copyright © Michael W. Clark. All rights reserved.

Elements of prophecy – reflections on the interior life

Copyright © Michael W. Clark 2008. All rights reserved.

Steven Spielberg’s science fiction film Minority Report (2002) contains an interesting idea.

Three clairvoyants called PreCogs (i.e. precognitives) spend their lives floating in a pool of water, wired up to a kind of amplifier in a state of deep meditation.

The PreCogs’ job is to predict murders that could happen in the future.

Tom Cruise, a good and honest cop, relies on the PreCogs’ leads to arrest would-be criminals just before they’re about to commit a homicide.

The film puts an interesting twist on the idea of precognition, mostly because in today’s society people with such gifts are often treated with suspicion and even disrespect.

But the PreCogs’ abilities are esteemed and they enjoy a kind of eerie reverence.

In my journey on and offline, many complex, fascinating – and even a few disturbed – seekers have crossed my path.

Some say that spirit beings or God appears or speaks to them. Others claim to see objects, places and souls through astral travel. Several believe they can read minds. And some say have had a vision of Christ or the Holy Trinity.

And like the PreCogs, others claim to foresee the future.

I studied these topics in school. It’s one thing to read about them, another to actually interact with people claiming to possess so-called paranormal gifts and abilities.

Believers in God would probably say that I’m providentially hooked up with the right people at the right time to continue to learn and grow.¹

Dealing with alleged psychics and mind-readers can be rewarding but also challenging. If psi abilities are real, to my mind there’s no guarantee they’ll be used in a sane or ethical manner. For instance, those who haven’t dealt with personal pain could take a compensatory turn to self-aggrandizement–and that kind of self-delusion could lead even the best down a very dark lane to nowhere.²

One might regard visionary and prophetic claims as a sure sign of mental instability, perhaps even insanity. But in my adult years I don’t dismiss this end of the human spectrum without careful investigation and, perhaps more importantly, recognizing the limits of conceptual understanding.

While a graduate student I became acquainted with some of the homeless in the cold streets of Ottawa, Canada. Before graduate school, I did volunteer work in a psychiatric ward in Peterborough, Canada.

All the while I’ve tried to talk to people as people, rather than as sterile objects scoped out by the clinical gaze of 21st century medicine.

Nor have I fallen into the common practice of scapegoating those who happen to be different. Scapegoating is an age-old practice alive and well today, one perpetuated by ignorance, cowardice and a brutish mentality.

But some folks do take wrong turns in the spiritual life, and some might even be continually deceived. Interior perception is an exacting process and it seems not everyone can do it very well.

Leading writers on mysticism such as Evelyn Underhill say that the sincere mystic must be humble and painstakingly analytical to avoid deception, either by the imagination or by negative spiritual influences.

When it comes to prophets, it seems most speak in such roundabout terms that their predictions could mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people. And when flat wrong, the hokey prophet tends to fudge it.

False prophecies once brazenly proclaimed as fact are quickly swept under the rug or perhaps recast as “symbolic” predictions.

Philosophers of reasoning call this an ad hoc hypothesis or possibly an instance of ex post facto [after the fact] reasoning. Rather than openly admitting mistakes as an emotionally mature psi researcher would, sham mystics usually do their best to cover it all up. Sometimes intelligently, but it’s still a cover-up, still a deception.

Genuine forms of prophecy involve a supernatural source of revealed or infused information. But this information likely passes through and is reinterpreted by the recipient’s personality.

In some instances, arguably not all, the degree of prophetic accuracy is directly proportional to the spiritual purity of (a) the recipient’s personality and (b) the information source. In other words, a message may be subject to personal interpretation, gross distortion, or worse, distorted to begin with.

But it’s not quite that simple.

If God is all-powerful, weak and tawdry personalities could be chosen for genuine prophecy, even for a short while, like a temporary override or “download” from above.

To draw an analogy, a hostile spy uses the internet illicitly but once in a while visits life affirming web sites. Recall from the Biblical tradition that the young David slew Goliath in the name of the Lord, later to become an adulterous King. David wasn’t a prophet, per se, but he’s a good example of God doing miraculous things through a weak personality.

An integrated model of prophecy sees the prophetic content and the personality of the prophet as two items in dynamic relationship where two events happen as they should.

According to this schema, God knows in advance how a prophet will interpret a given revelation; therefore God tailors the style and content of that revelation to fit with the prophet’s psychological makeup. The final result is a message appropriate for a given culture at a specific historical time and place.

Most Muslims, for instance, believe that Muhammed is God’s perfect messenger. The Koran says that Moses and later Jesus were prophets right for their time, but a much-needed update was provided in the person and teachings of Muhammed.

Meanwhile Jews tend to see Jesus as a very wise man–nothing less, nothing more. And Hindus tend to see Christ as another avatar or messenger who is special but not unique.

Often glossed over by well-meaning seekers and dignitaries, these three interpretations differ from the Christian tenet that Jesus is not just another prophet, messenger or nice guy but the long-awaited messiah and savior.

Some get upset over this kind of statement, probably because of Christian abuses throughout history, and perhaps in some cases because people are angry at a significant other or event and transfer that unresolved anger onto Christianity as a whole.

But facts are facts. Different faith groups see Jesus differently. And politically correct or not to say so, non-Christian religions often directly or subtly challenge the Christian belief that Jesus is the unique incarnation of God and man.

Further to Christianity, another issue arises concerning prophecy. For believers, Jesus’ accurate predictions were often misunderstood and mocked. But for Christians the greater meaning of the message more than compensates for any initial misunderstanding. For Christians, Jesus’ prophecy is about the triumph of good over evil.

Consider the following:

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19)

Later, Christian theologians would say the ‘temple’ is God’s own body. Three days after Jesus’ crucifixion (i.e. the destruction of the temple), he rises again (i.e. the rebuilding of the temple).³

While the meaning of this particular prophecy isn’t clear at the outset, believers say it is couched in symbolic terms for soteriological purposes.

The Jesus of scripture doesn’t use his gifts to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, nor does he try to conscript workers for overt sociopolitical activism (at that time Judea was under military occupation by the Romans). His mission is about leading souls to their rightful place in everlasting heaven.

Not just a good man or another avatar, Jesus, so Christians believe, is perfect and unique. As God’s only son and as part of the Holy Trinity, he is both fully human and fully divine.

Christians, on the other hand, are imperfect. Thus for sincere Christians the issue of prophecy occurring after the time of Jesus becomes problematic because imperfect believers can be easily deceived.

In Catholicism, personal revelations among common folk are called private revelations. Private revelations occurring after the time of Christ are said to add nothing to the Christian faith as defined by the Catholic Church.

But revelations declared authentic may contain personal, inspirational or cultural value.

Throughout the ages, there have been so-called “private” revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church. Christian faith cannot accept “revelations” that claim to surpass or correct the revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such “revelations”⁴

Of course, many question the teaching authority of a body of individuals who’ve proved to be susceptible to temptation and prone to human error just like everybody else.

Viewed historically, it the Catholic Church has made gruesome mistakes, only to apologize hundreds of years later. Joan of Arc, for instance, was terrorized, brutalized and burned alive at the stake in 1431 as a heretic. In 1920, almost 500 years later, Joan was canonized.

Could a more subtle kind of persecution occur if a sincere saint were alive today?

The Church will find itself attacked by waves of a secret sect,
and corrupted priests will scandalize the Church

- Sr. Marianne de Jesus Torres (17^th century)

This prophecy of St. Marianne de Jesus Torres has proved to be at least partially true.⁵ And it might point to one of the reasons why so many intelligent and caring people are asking tough questions about not only Catholic, but most forms of organized religion in the 21^st century.⁶

Notes

1. It’s always been my hope that others will gain something positive from these interactions.

2. Many saints lament that vanity and jealousy figure in the spiritual life. Apparently the more we open to spiritual realities, the more we become vulnerable to temptation and deception. Because evil is about destroying souls, the saints say that it uses every trick in the book to trap souls in astral realms or worse, hell itself. As the Book of Genesis suggests, the serpent is the subtlest of all creatures in the garden of Eden.

3. (a) Related passages:

“We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.’ ” (Mark 14:58)

“for we have heard him say that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place and alter the customs which Moses handed down to us.” (Acts 6:14)

“You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40).Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, “Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, (Mark 15:29).

Source: New American Standard Bible.

(b) This is not the place to outline theological debates about the apparent harmony or, on the other hand, contradictions of the Christian Bible. Much has been written both for and against the many slight and significant discrepancies which, depending on one’s theological position, do or do not occur.

(c) Various issues arise when we consider that some of the early Christians mistakenly believed that Jesus would return within their generation (see, for instance, Matthew 10:22-23; 16: 27-28; 24: 30-34, 1 Peter 4:7, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Hebrews 1:1-2). The following questions have been asked: With regard to Matthew, were Jesus’ words meant to be taken literally? Was Jesus, himself, mistaken? What did Jesus really say (if anything) before this gospel was written? Did Jesus convey these words through the vehicle of the gospel writer? Concerning Matthew and the remaining passages, did powerful spiritual experiences eclipse the gospel writers’ better judgment? On this point, human beings often make interpretive mistakes when confronted with overwhelming experiences. Did the early Christians literally interpret revelations which later took on theological meanings?

4. Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 67. Catholic theology has looked at the problem of prophecy in its own unique way. St. Thomas Aquinas is often cited in Catholic discourse about prophecy. But we should recall that Aquinas apparently said that his voluminous writings seemed like a “house of straw” after he had a direct encounter with God toward the end of his life.

5. While some try to downplay pedophilia among the priesthood and subsequent cover-ups, there really is no way to put a good face on this perverse and shameful phenomenon.

6. Jeffrey Mishlove reviewed Speilberg’s Minority Report from a different angle. The review is informative and has some good links.

Jung Dream

Originally uploaded by illustratorsam

Ego, Archetype and Self:
C. G. Jung and Modernity

Copyright © Michael W. Clark, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Introduction

This essay was written in 1993 as a graduate student in the department of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

My thinking has matured since that time but I post it here for its sound coverage of Jung’s ideas and for several interesting asides.

When citing this essay please use one of the standard citation styles for online sources.

–MC, October 8, 2008

Elsewhere I have indicated that the work of C. G. Jung reveals his bent for constructing elaborate psychological theory on the basis of selective data. This charge was mingled with a somewhat reluctant admiration for the creation of a fictional system that seemed to surpass the usual, and I would add, artificial dictates of scientific rationalism. Like a political leader who after safely retiring exposes party corruption, Jung retrospectively concedes to being a myth maker in what was then, modern times.(1)

To continue from previous work, I will examine Jung’s concepts of ego, archetype and self to determine if the above charge of selectivity – not to preclude other potential difficulties – applies to these seminal components of his analytical model of the psyche.(2)

* * *

Jung speaks of ego as a highly continuous “complex of ideas which constitutes the centre of [one's] field of consciousness”(3) Ego is also referred to as the “point of reference”(4) of the psyche; its partly biological inheritance is offset by unconsciously acquired material.(5) Ego is not the entire psyche, but, according to Jung, it has a monumental role in the regulation and maintenance of psychic balance.(6) To illustrate precisely what is balanced by the ego, we must examine Jung’s constructs of archetype and self.

Archetype. It sounds impressive: definite, timeless, metaphysical; Jung made an astute choice by modifying this essentially Platonic idea, providing a certain scholarly credibility to work that was quite avant-garde for the medical science of the time. While Jung had not fully developed a definition of archetype for entry into Psychological Types (where we find most of his terms described), a survey of various statements he makes about archetypes renders their character fairly clear.

Jung’s mature thought demarcates the archetypal image from the archetype proper. As a sort of crystal-lattice structure inherent in all nature,(7) and thus a bio-culturally transmitted content of humanity’s collective unconscious,(8 ) the essence of the archetype is not amenable to representation.(9) Of the numerous archetypal structures, their diversity is represented by so many archetypal images and ideas,(10) and is individually experienced with the evocation of corresponding feeling values, these sometimes taking the form of ‘magical’ heightened awareness.

This ‘luminous,’ ’spiritual’ aspect of archetypal experience may be either healing or destructive for the overall psyche, depending on its relation to the ego.(11) When made conscious by the ego, the archetypal image is positive; if not encapsulated by ego consciousness, it may be regressive.(12) Yet we have seen that Jung stresses the archetype, itself, to not be accessible to representation. Elsewhere he says that it cannot reach ego consciousness.(13) Granted Jung introduces the archetypal images and ideas, we must still ask: if the extra feeling value of the archetypal image or idea originates from the archetype, how is ego unaware of that archetypal source which it ‘feels’?

An additional function of the archetype is to organize images and ideas.

Archetypes, so far as we can observe and experience them at all, manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this will always be an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterward.(14)

From this it seems that the archetypal images and ideas are productions of the hidden, secret aspect of the archetypes. Now according to Jung, the self – our final concept to be illustrated – is itself an archetype.(15) And here Jung seems to say that the self can be anything. If an archetype, then it has an unmanifest, invisible aspect that cannot be grasped. That is, part of our own self must be inaccessible to ourselves. But that is not all. The self is alternately described as the “sum total of conscious and unconscious contents,”(16) a “complexio oppositorium,”(17) and as the “psychic totality of the individual.”(18 ) I do not object to Jung describing the self as illimitable, I do object, however, to his use of the term individual. Individuals cannot all be infinite. There must be some mark of difference among them. And Jung seems to agree with me: he himself says that the unconscious part of the self “cannot be distinguished from that of another individual.”(19)

Lets untangle this mess, and in so doing, try to be fair to Jung. It seems the problem lies in his notion of self as a “psychic totality.” For Jung really offers a two-tiered model of the psyche. The conscious part is individual, the unconscious collective aspect is impersonal. Jung would have done better to dismiss the “totality” component of his definition of self. As he did not, however, “self” is ambiguous and indistinct from a strictly theoretical standpoint. Why call it self if indeed it is everyone?

As I am not one to admire muddled, confused systems, Jung’s primary mentor Freud might suggest that unduly punitive washroom socialization resulted in my fixation at the latter’s ‘anal stage’ of psychosexual development.(20) Such a psychoanalytic interpretation may not have been entirely dismissed by Jung. Part of his self includes the personal unconscious, yet for Jung and quite unlike Freud, the personal unconscious is “more or less superficial;”(21) and Jung would not necessarily have given a psychosexual etiology(22) to an obsession with order. In fact, Jung would most likely view the above paragraph as a temporary intrusion of the “trickster” archetype – a mildly evil, sometimes positive archetype – into my ego consciousness. Recall that as mediator that strives for psychic integrity (see top to endnote 12), ego must balance good and evil,(23) these polarities producing a tension that for Jung is a universal law.(24) So we see two differing analyses – Freudian and Jungian – which perhaps points more to the role of investigation and interpretation of a situation than to the supremacy of either model.(25) But perhaps not. It is possible that one system explains events better than another. And if in our uncertainty we choose to define theory as an approach to an ever-changing, relative ‘reality,’ as do anti-theorists Paul Feyerabend(26) and Jean Baudrillard,(see endnote 25) we cannot escape the fact that even anti-theory is a type of theory.

Jung calls all this intellectual diaphaneity ‘rationalistic twaddle’ and claims, as do his adherents, that the value of his system lies in its practical application. While academic analysis implicity and expressly states one should not dispense with critical reflection, Jung also does not advocate the abandonment of critique. As Naomi Goldenberg points out:

According to Jungian lore, Carl Jung once said he was glad to be Jung and not a “Jungian.” As Jung he could be a thinker who tested ideas and modified theories to fit maturing insights and experiences. As a Jungian he would be pressured into defending dogma and clutching to ideas which had outlived their utility.(27)

* * *

With the basic explication of ego, archetype and self complete, I will now offer a more intensive appraisal, recalling that to be critical is to assess the positive and negative aspects of a given truth-claim. For the last half of the paper I will reverse the order and first look at self, then archetype, and lastly, ego.

Jung says the self as archetype is represented by the mandala, a sanskrit term meaning ‘circle.’(28 ) Part of the self, as noted, cannot be represented. This “psychoid” aspect is “identical in all individuals.”(29) The act of representing the self, such as in the visual mandala, brings order to chaos(30) as the tension of opposites is, if not permanently, at least to some degree reconciled.(31) Because the mandala (self) may imprison or protect the individual (ego),(32) it is like the archetypal mother–it absorbs or nurtures. Thus the mandala is also said to parallel the mother archetype.(33)

But Jung takes the mandala out of context. For mandala is an eastern construct specifically designed to both represent and aid in the abolition of the ego. Mandala refers to that beyond ego; it does not include ego as suggested by Jung. For instance, Lama Anagarika Govinda notes that the Tibetan ‘Mandala of Highest Bliss’ is “a vehicle of an all-embracing, imperishable wholeness, in which the limits of individual egohood do not exist any more.”(34) Likewise, W. Y. Evans-Wentz says the ‘Mandala of Liberation’ entails a “gradual dispersion of the psychic or mental atoms of the…thought body.”(35) Prior to Buddhism, the Hindu mandala refers to each of the ten books of the Rig Veda, which collectively are designed to return one to an undifferentiated original state that apparently existed prior to such dualisms as life/death, real/unreal, good/evil and, I should add, self/ego.(36) As a symbol of self and its relation to ego, Jung could have equated mandala with the absorbing, yet not the nurturing aspect of his mother archetype. This self-mother-mandala triad provides an excellent example of unwarranted and selective cross-referencing within the exposition of Jung’s theory.

Previously I have argued that Jung confuses the asian atman with his definition of libido.(37) To complicate matters, Jung seems to equate atman with his concept of self.(38 ) Thus perhaps not in the way Jung constructs quaternities, we may draw from his work our own analogical foursome: self-mother-mandala-libido. What else will he add to the list?

Archetypes, as I have noted, have two faces. One face is forever turned away, essentially supramundane and inaccessible to women and men; the other expresses various healing and destructive images and ideas into mundane psychological reality. But archetypes need not take a human or animal form. For cohesiveness, we will look at Jung’s views on Ufos, specifically on flying saucers, for in their circular shape they may be likened to the mandala symbol. In this connection we should note that for Jung flying saucers were the quintessential Ufos(39) and something of a pop phenomenon in the 1950’s: the pre-Star Wars/Star Trek era of modernity in which Jung’s writings on the subject are located.(40)

In flying saucers, then, we have an archetype that Jung says, by virtue of its shape, is analogous to the mandala,(41) and by implication, the self.(42) Belief in, or dreams of the saucers, like any archetypal formation, represents a double-edged desire for individuation(43) in combination with a fear for personal destruction: Alien inhabitants of the saucer could be benevolent, benign or malicious. Likewise, the journey to mandalic totality (to use Jung’s selective interpretation) has potential danger in that immense and equally tumultuous psychic forces may be unleashed from the collective unconscious, which if not successfully integrated by consciousness, could lead to psychic ruin–recall the absorbing, also referred to as the ‘devouring’ mother archetype as the negative instance of the self.

If one, however, believed or dreamed of extraterrestrials as being neither helpful nor harmful, this for Jung would indicate a state of psychic stagnation–no loss nor advancement within the individuation process. And a belief or dream of pleasant aliens would suggest that one’s ‘yonder shore’ of the collective unconscious is about to guide the ego toward a new, more comprehensive ontology. I noted above that critique should be balanced, and here indeed we find a good example of Jung’s impressive ability to adapt his theoretical structures to the symbols and social imagination of his time. Not to imply that Jung is merely vying for popularity and personal recognition. His work is too thorough, thoughtful, and serious to be so summarily dismissed. But as suggested elsewhere, he also knew the professional legitimacy of his writing necessitated scrupulous selectivity; he thus displays great acumen for creating schematic ‘meaning’ out of a massive and diverse body of data, even if that data is liberally corralled into his analytic theory.(44)

This leads us to the problem of agency, identity and ego. Ego is said to emerge from the self; its relation to self is one of “moved to the mover.”(45) Although it may be subsumed by the archetypes, as in inflation, ego is also the real limit of the person.(46) Ego is not to be confused with the self; although Jung claims ‘ordinary’ persons, in ignorance, take ego as the entire psychological being. Not so for Jung. When ego is unaware of, or attempts to deny the self’s existence, the ’sleeping giant’ of the unconscious(47) self may grumble mightily at any time. The result: psychic catastrophe.(48 ) That is, ego becomes assimilated by the self–a situation praised in eastern religious and cultural ideals, but not endorsed within the scientific materialism of western modernity.

Thus as mentioned at the outset, ego plays a tremendous role in Jung’s vision of the psyche. By balancing inner and outer realities, it serves to regulate both collective unconscious and collective conscious forces(49) (and implicitly, moral opposites of good and evil residing in the psyche and expressed in the sentiments and acts of external reality). Ego is, therefore, busy. So busy that Jung sees it as the high achievement of western humanity. Unlike the so-called ‘primitives,’ the egos of modern individuals are more differentiated and less luminous than those of their, as Jung would have it, cruder ancestors.(50)

Concerning luminosity and ego, two points should be made. First, Jung says even modern persons have egos surrounded by a “multitude of little luminosities.”(51) Their unconscious provides various shades and textures to ego consciousness. And considering everyone is variously configured as such, each possessing different ‘lights’ from the unconscious, we must ask how Jung is able to make sweeping statements regarding the ‘normal’ ego constitution of western women and men. To propose for the sake of argument two stereotypes, does an artist necessarily see and experience in the same manner as an astrophysicist? Jung would say no, of course.(52) While he humbly acknowledges being a lay-person and doctor who happens to be very well read, at times his lack of academic training (and rigour) shows. By analogy, Albert Einstein admits to being poor at math, and Jung’s achievement was perhaps made possible by the fact that he was not confined by corridors of acceptable thought. But in spite of this, certain unacceptable margins of vagueness and redundancy may be discerned in his writing.

Another issue to be raised concerning luminosity and ego is in their application to Jung’s so-called ‘primitives.’ Jung visited Africa and India, so unlike ethnocentrics such as Emile Durkheim – who never travelled to places written about – we would suspect him to be in a better position to understand the inhabitants of foreign societies. But right from the outset Jung envisions such ‘native cultures’ as possessing the stereotypical attributes of ‘primitive man,’ and while he shows some appreciation for indigenous cosmologies,(53) and even made some attempts to learn local languages prior to departures, he nevertheless seems to wear, as it were, his safari hat throughout his adventures into lands exotica. I mean to say, he never let his European side slip–perhaps because he truly showed tendencies towards racism.(54) Possibly Jung’s comments on the luminous primitive ego reflect in part his own fantasy world: a projection of Jung’s psychic contents to others.(55)

* * *

To conclude, in reviewing ego, archetype and self, it seems my suspicions have been further confirmed. Jung’s analogic method displays an almost artistic collage of seemingly related concepts; upon close and careful examination, however, we have seen that mandala is not taken in situ, but rather as Jung – consciously or unconsciously – chooses to portray it. Regarding Ufos, Jung provides a detailed psychological exposition after professing ignorance as to their actuality.(56) While he mentions (in passing) that exclusively psychological relationships to Ufos as archetypal images would not dismiss the possibility of genuine Ufos,(57) he nonetheless proceeds to systematically squelch any tinge of ambiguity as to the latter’s authenticity with an apparent certainty that makes us wonder: is Jung the open-minded investigator he claims to be, searching for knowledge on the basis of empirically demonstrable facts, or is he one of the truly great doctrinaires of modernity, holding fast to new dogma of his own design?

In all likelihood, he is probably both; and that, in Jung’s own fashion, would be consistent with the ‘unity of opposites’ motif postulated within his system. Whether such theoretical coherence arrived with or without ethical consequence remains open to various avenues of debate.(58 )

Endnotes

1) See my unpublished paper for the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, “Plumbing the Depths: Carl Jung, Freud and Hinduism.”

2) Until the entirety of Jung’s work is studied, forwarded conclusions must be tentative. This critique is based mostly on C. G. Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vols. 1-11.

3) C. G. Jung, Psychological Types in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 6, 425.

4) C. G. Jung, Mandala Symbolism from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 9/1 par. 717.

5) C. G. Jung, “Analytical Psychology and Education,” The Collected Works of C. G. Jung Vol. 17, par. 169, cited in Daryl Sharp, Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms and Concepts (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1991: 49).

6) Jung, Mandala Symbolism, par. 563.

7) C. G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 8, 210.

8 ) C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 11, 50.

9) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 214. Jung seems to overlook the fact that the words he writes are a type of representation.

10) Ibid, 214.

11) Ibid, 205.

12) C. G. Jung, Civilization in Transition in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 10, 237.

13) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 213.

14) Ibid, 231.

15) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 156.

16) Ibid, 82.

17) Here Jung refers to dialectical opposites of, for instance, good and evil, masculine and feminine, hatred and love. Ibid, 443.

18 ) Ibid, 156.

19) Ibid, 277.

20) As in my previous paper, “Plumbing the Depths,” time restraints necessitate reference to Freud via secondary sources. In this case: Lectures on Psychoanalysis for undergraduate course conducted by Dr. Donald Carveth, 1981-1982, York University, Toronto.

21) C. G. Jung, Four Archetypes from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 9/1 par. 3; Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 291.

22) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 349-350.

23) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 219.

24) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 197.

25) As an extreme anti-theorist, Jean Baudrillard comments that good theory should lose its own meaning when “pushed to its conclusion” at the “limits of the text.” Jean Baudrillard, Forget Foucault/Forget Baudrillard (New York: Semiotext( ), 1987: 38 ).

26) See, for example, Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: Humanities Press, 1975).

27) Naomi R. Goldenberg, “Reply to Barbara Chesser’s Comment on ‘A Feminist Critique of Jung,’” Signs (Spring 1978): 724.

28 ) Jung, Mandala Symbolism, par. 713.

29) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 436.

30) Jung, Mandala Symbolism, par. 645.

31) Ibid, par. 637.

32) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 95-96.

33) Jung, Four Archetypes, par. 156.

34) Lama Anagarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (New Delhi: B.I. Publications PVT Ltd., 1960: 166-171).

35) W. Y. Evans-Wentz ed., The Tibetan Book of the Dead, trans. Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960: 126, footnotes 1-3).

36) Troy Wilson Organ, Hinduism: Its Historical Development (London: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., 1974: 59, 76-77, 80).

37) Clark, “Plumbing the Depths,” 10.

38 ) C. G. Jung, Aion in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 9/2, 144, 194, 222.

39) Jung briefly notes that he cannot determine the falsity or truthfulness of numerous Ufo accounts. See Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 10, 309.

40) Star Wars and Star Trek introduced variously shaped interstellar crafts to the popular imagination.

41) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 10, 325.

42) William McGuire & R. F. C. Hull eds., C. G. Jung Speaking, Bollingen Series XCVII (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977: 414).

43) Jung’s concept that refers to the goal of psychic totality, differentiation and socio-environmental confluence. See Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 258-259.

44) See Clark, “Plumbing the Depths,” 8-10.

45) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 259.

46) Ibid, 470.

47) Which is nonetheless conscious of itself.

48 ) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 9, 24.

49) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 217-218.

50) Ibid, 189.

51) Ibid, 190.

52) In later work I will elaborate on Jung’s 4 by 2 model of the psyche, consisting of thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, as well as introversion and extroversion.

53) Especially with the Pueblo Indians. See Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 10, 211; and C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, revised, ed. Aniela Jaffé, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Vintage Books, 1961: 250).

54) For example, he believes individuals of all the colonies of England are “slightly inferior,” and that “there are facts to support this view” (in America, this being the psychological influence of the “lax, “childlike” and “inferior” blacks). Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 10, 46-47, 121, 507-509).

55) We are indebted to Freud for the mechanism of projection; Jung also recognizes the primacy of projection and notes that archetypes are usually expressed through this process. Dr. Donald Carveth, Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1981-1982; See also, C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, ed. William McGuire et al., trans. R. F. C. Hull, Bollingen Series XX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954-79) Vol. 7, 95.

56) Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 10, 309.

57) He utilizes the concept of ’synchronicity’ to account for this. Ibid, 313. Unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this paper to do justice to this pivotal component of Jung’s schema.

58 ) Jung’s theoretical extrapolations reveal not only racist, but strong sexist tendencies. While apparently progressive, saying women should be regarded on the basis of “merit not gender,” Jung also exemplifies the expected ‘men are men, women are “girls”‘ mentality of his day. Jung, The Collected Works, Vol.7, 25; and Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 8, 286. Concerning his sexist views on rape, and for other examples of extreme sex-role stereotyping, see Jung, The Collected Works, Vol. 9/2, 15-17; and Jung, The Collected Works Vol. 10, 117-119. On marriage, he claims i) all women desire children and ii) are attracted only to one man while married men are naturally attracted to many women; at the same time, however, iii) women aim to “loosen” the marriage structure. Ibid, 101 (i), 42 (ii), 132 (iii). Jung also assumes all lesbians are interested and/or active in gender/political issues by categorizing lesbian love as a stimulus for women to organize for increased social empowerment. Ibid, 99. Lastly, Jung’s professional practice entailed having sex with at least two of his female clients. Naomi Goldenberg, “Looking at Jung Looking at Himself,” Soundings, 73/2-3 (Summer/Fall 1990): 395.

Copyright © Michael W. Clark, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Special to Earthpages.org

A unique first of its kind eco-friendly festival celebrating Mahatma Gandhi’s life and message will be held in Nevada (USA) on Jul 26.

According to Tom Stille and Doug Keeney, coordinators of this Gandhi Fest; drummers, fire spinners, artists, healthy and organic food chefs, yoga teachers, DJs, and sustainable living advocates will join hands to celebrate peace, love, freedom, non-violence, self-power and conscious living as promoted by Gandhi.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Indo-American leader, will be the keynote speaker who will talk about Gandhi’s life, philosophy, and experiments, and answer questions of the participants during this festival.

To be held at River School Reno, this festival will continue till two am, and will include folk dancing, musical performances, sustainable goods displays, nature tours, fire spinning, kite flying, yoga shows, organic food demonstrations, etc. Each festival participant will artistically contribute to a “Gandhi collage”, to be created on the occasion. A competition will be held to make Gandhi sketches. Plans are being formed to make this Gandhi Fest an annual feature.

There is a renewed interest world over in Mahatma Gandhi and his ideas, who is universally venerated as one of the paramount moral, political, and social leaders of the recent history, Rajan Zed adds.

Dreaming Girls Head

Originally uploaded by Elfleda

No one really knows just what dreams are or where they come from.

Materialists usually say that dreams are a random product of memory, based on the brain’s acquisition and interpretation of sensory stimuli.

Others speak of a release of physiological, sensory and psychological data accrued through waking and sometimes sleeping hours.

Freudians try to decipher the alleged true meaning of dreams according to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. By and large Freudian dream interpretation reflects Freud’s atheistic understanding of the dreamer’s real and imagined world.

Jungians arguably take a more comprehensive approach, saying that dreams involve the biological, psychological, cultural, transpersonal and spiritual aspects of the self and life in general.

A Quick Look at Dream Theory

Human beings have been interpreting dreams for centuries.

The ancient Greeks practiced ‘dream incubation’ to try to cure illnesses often associated with the displeasure of a deity. The afflicted would enter a sacred chamber, allowing visionary or incubated dreams to guide them towards health.

This practice was based on the belief that angry deities made people unwell but divine mercy could also heal them.

Meanwhile, Joseph of the Bible became a powerful figure in Egypt because he was a gifted dream interpreter. But dream interpretation was by no means unique to the ancient Israelites. Most ancient cultures studied dreams to prophesize, predict, assist and inspire.

The early Christian Tertullian (155-230 CE) believed that dreams came from God or Satan, and that some dreams were produced by the individual soul in connection with nature.

Macrobius (395-423 CE) was one of the first dream theorists to look seriously at nightmares.

In medieval times the paranoid side of humanity was prevalent with the Christian Inquisitions, irrational witch hunts and the burning of heretics. And dream theory within the Church reflected that paranoia.

By the 16th and 17th centuries Father Gracian, St. Theresa’s confessor, wrote that “it is a sin to believe in dreams.”¹ Gracian and other notables of the day placed much emphasis on Satan, linking the devil to the sexual content of dreams.

A few centuries later Freud said that dream analysis is the “royal road” to the unconscious and made a distinction between the manifest and latent content of dreams.

The manifest content is the dream remembered by the conscious mind, usually a condensed, displaced or symbolic version of the latent content.

The latent content consists of the dreamer’s unconscious feelings, perceptions and desires, to be deciphered through psychoanalysis.

Freud believed that upsetting and sleep-disturbing latent content is psychologically censored, just as a newspaper editor censors articles that would be too disruptive if published.

Freud also felt that environmental stimuli, such as traffic sounds outside the dreamer’s window, could influence the manifest content.

Alfred Adler once belonged to Freud’s inner circle but eventually broke with Freud over professional differences.

Adler argued that Freud placed too much emphasis on sex. Adler also regarded conscious intent as equally if not more important than unconscious impulses.

He believed that dreams help to identify and overcome daytime problems. Life wasn’t about accepting “normal human unhappiness” as Freud once put it. Alder saw life as an opportunity to overcome unrealistic feelings of inferiority and superiority. Through a process of self-improvement individuals gain an increased sense of mastery–and happiness.

Like Adler, Freud’s prodigy Jung once followed but ultimately critiqued Freudian theory. Sparking off a permanent rift in their relationship, Jung openly questioned Freud’s theories by suggesting they were reductive and unscientific.

Jung outlined two main types of dreams, unpretentiously called big dreams and little dreams.

Big dreams contain archetypal material originating from the collective unconscious. They may be visionary, involve grand themes, such as the mythic journey of the hero, and usually compel the dreamer to make a significant course correction in life.

Little dreams are more of the Freudian sort. They involve the personal unconscious and upper layers of the collective unconscious, such as the archetype of the shadow, and tend to be more about psychological touch ups instead of dramatic life changes.

The Gestalt theorist Fritz Perls believed that every aspect of the dream points toward some unconscious aspect of the dreamer’s total personality.

Contemporary parapsychologists say that dreams may be predictive and a link to the spirit world.

Jung too believed in these aspect of dreams but he was careful to integrate the physiological, psychological and spiritual dimensions as he understood them.

How Dreams Can Help

The following builds on several leading perspectives and includes some original ideas.

These categories aren’t watertight nor exhaustive. But hopefully they’ll illustrate some of the promise and complexities of dream interpretation.

Compensation

This occurs when the unconscious dreaming self attempts to restore or achieve balance within the conscious daytime attitude. A daytime racist, for instance, might dream of an enchanted encounter with someone of another color. Or a daytime gay basher might dream about having an enjoyable homosexual affair.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the dreamer should literally act out their dream content in daily life. Rather, the dream merely opens doors to new possibilities, encouraging an increasingly comprehensive, less judgmental worldview.

A person wants to take a trip to the Barbados but can’t afford the time or perhaps money to get away. If their desire and need for this kind of outlet are strong enough, chances are they’ll dream about it.

The same applies to lonely people in search of a soulmate. They may never find them during the day. But their dreams can be rich and satisfying to the point where it may be upsetting to awake. On this the Japanese poet Ohtomo Yakamochi wrote:

[These] meetings in dreams,
How sad they are!
When, waking up startled
One gropes about,–
And there is no contact to the hand.

–From the Manyo Shu, compiled 760 CE

Purging

In this type of dream one rids oneself of negative feelings for another person or situation. Typically, a person will dream of screaming and yelling at someone else whom they consciously or unconsciously resent during the daytime. On waking they feel better.

Residual dreams illustrate leftover conscious or unconscious feelings from daytime. They can involve the purging of negative emotions (above) but also celebrating positive feelings.

Getting in touch, seeing where it hurts

This differs somewhat from purging and residual dreams since on waking one may still be upset, even shaken. But this can be therapeutic. For to not know ourselves is usually a recipe for disaster.

The content of feeling tone dreams are not remembered but on waking instill an emotional climate appropriate for the day. The waking self is emotionally prepared to “get up and go.”
An example would be a traveler who wakes up in a foreign country, eager to explore various architectural landmarks.

Feeling tone dreams may also be a bit more subtle. A grouchy spouse, for example, might wake up feeling more favorably disposed toward his or her partner and children.

These dreams provide solutions to vexing issues and practical problems encountered by the waking self. The answer may be cloaked in symbolism but more often some kind of direct statement is produced.

A lost ring, for instance, might be located through a dream in which a voice simply says, “look under the mat.” This might seem trite but it points to the idea that in many instances the dreaming self is more knowledgeable than the waking.

Transformational

This is like wish-fulfillment (see above) but transformational dreams signify general motifs or trends as opposed to specific objects of desire.

For instance, we dream of flying around the neighborhood or to distant countries. The weightlessness is sheer joy. This could symbolize “taking off” in life, socially or professionally.

Creative and Inspirational

These dreams contain specific content that a person may apply to their daytime work. Music composers, for instance, sometimes dream about melodies and arrangements.

And history records not a few inventors who dreamed of devices and innovations before implementing them.

Nightmares are generally viewed as warning dreams. The nightmare is trying to jolt us into recognizing and readjusting an inappropriate conscious attitude or situation. A recurring nightmare points toward something in ourselves or in life that urgently requires change.

Visionary

Here we have wonderful or perhaps horrific dreams of things to come; that is, the future of humanity.

It seems that such dreams and their interpretation are almost always colored by personal and cultural filters. Some visionaries recognize this while others tend to habitually mistake their vague predictions for precise ones.

Precognitive

Precognitive dreams are similar to visionary dreams but not as momentous. Here one simply dreams of something which, in fact, occurs later in waking reality.

Controlled

Also called conscious or lucid dreaming, this is a controversial technique based on shamanic traditions where one actively creates or has a conscious effect on the dream content.

Some control their dreams for pleasure. Others strive to improve conditions in the everyday world, this premised on the belief (and perhaps observation) that dreaming and waking realities are intimately, if mysteriously, connected.

Empathetic

Here the dreamer experiences another person’s problems, concerns or situation. During the dream the dreamer fully believes that he or she is confronted with issues that, in actuality, pertain to somebody else.

An extreme example would be a law abiding person dreaming they are a desperate criminal, always worried that he or she will be tossed into jail.

The value of this type of dream is that the dreamer, upon waking, gains insight and can be sympathetic to the plight of others without actually doing the bad thing.

Although this differs from Intercession Dreams (below), the empathetic dream can be an explanatory companion to them–i.e. the dreamer better understands why they must spend time in contemplative or vocal prayer for another person.

This kind of dream is especially valuable for contemplative saints (or saints to be) who are said to ‘take the sins’ or ‘receive the karma’ of others less appreciative of esoteric, spiritual realities.

Intercession

Intercession is a theological term relating to the idea that souls mediate God’s graces to one another. In the context of dreaming, intercession may or may not take place in real time. That is, one may dream of a negative situation that could take place in the future.

In the dream state the dreamer mediates graces to another soul so as to engender healing or to encourage that person to avoid making a negative choice.

This kind of dreaming is related to or, we could say, exhibits aspects of precognitive and controlled dreaming. But it differs in the sense that, within the context of the dream, one prays in a contemplative way for another person.

As with daytime intercessory prayers, the ultimate source of healing and positive redirection is God, not the dreamer.

It’s conceivable that intercession dreams are effective in real time and, given the relativity of space-time, also with past events. Here, dreamers would intercede in a positive way, for example, for victims of past wars and other atrocities.

Moreover, intercession dreams may be related to Empathetic Dreams (above).

Paranormal

The terms ‘paranormal’ and ‘normal’ seem arbitrary, perhaps more reflections of the status quo than absolute categories. They’re mentioned here for convenience.

With paranormal dreams, believers claim that the psyche accesses information normally restricted by conscious and unconscious attitudes and also by the selective attention needed for daytime activity.

These dreams range from contacting the dead, traveling through time and taking astral journeys to faraway countries, distant galaxies, exotic realms and other dimensions. They also involve communing with aliens and perceiving other people’s thoughts, emotions and inclinations.

While some report seeing or contacting themselves in past lives (i.e. reincarnation), it’s important to realize that this is not necessarily fact. As a rule of thumb, paranormal dreams must be carefully interpreted and assessed.

To take paranormal dreams at face value without informed analysis seems unwise because there is no guarantee that the dream information is trustworthy or correctly interpreted.

Hellish

Hellish dreams are different from usual nightmares. On waking the dreamer feels as if they have had an actual glimpse or personally experienced an actual hell. The experience is far more profound than a mere frightening series of events, characteristic of most nightmares.

Hellish dreams arguably aren’t just imaginal representations but ontological encounters that occur during the sleep state. This is the very real feeling of being damned and tormented for all time.

Due to the immediacy and intensity of the hellish experience, on waking the dreamer usually feels it’s a dire warning to change some kind of attitude or behavior for the better.

Heavenly and Blissful

Some don’t agree with differentiating heavenly from astral realms and their respective numinous qualities. But one could reply that such folks haven’t matured enough in their spiritual formation to be able to appreciate the difference.

Many believe that heaven is of an entirely different order and beauty than astral realms, the ‘energy’ of the cosmos, etc.

At any rate, in this kind of dream one experiences heavenly realms and all the contentment, love, grace and profound peace that accompany them.

Here, heavenly bliss is often distinguished from natural and aesthetic beauty, vital pleasures (e.g. sex and eating) endorphin and adrenaline rushes, alcoholic merriment, drug-induced altered states and forms of intuitive or extroverted pseudo-spirituality characterized by immaturity, egoism and an absence of genuine love.

To what degree heavenly bliss might coexist with other, lesser pleasures remains a matter of much debate. But even if heavenly graces were to coexist with lesser pleasures, we can still discern the different components of a given experience. By way of analogy, water may be combined with coffee, sugar and cream but these various elements remain different.

The notion of a hierarchy of pleasures, from vulgar to heavenly, isn’t terribly new. The idea appears in ancient Indian and Greek philosophies. Tertullian noted that some dreams are an ecstatic, purely spiritual experience, in contrast to those generated by the soul and nature.

More recently Sri Aurobindo had much to say on different levels of spiritual experience. Aurobindo also warned against the deceptive influences of astral realms.

However, Aurobindo didn’t have too much to say about dreams per se because for him, sleep was something to be overcome. Aurobindo claims he eventually overcame “The Sleep,” as he put it, replacing it with the preferable state of meditation.

Final Word

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of dreams is their tendency to synthesize a great deal of information.

Assuming that one has a feel for dream interpretation, it seems that past, present and future possibilities as well as feelings, attitudes and suggestions for improvement are combined in a brief production often reminiscent of a great movie.

Because most ‘dream movies’ exhibit such a high degree of intellectual and artistic excellence, it seems improbable that the dreamer is their sole creator and director. Indeed, most of us could never hope to write a novel or screenplay containing the wisdom and brilliance of dreams.

This synthetic aspect suggests that some mysterious agency beyond the body, brain and soul is at least partly responsible for dream production.

And all we have to do is stop, look and listen.

—

¹Father Gracian cited in Robert L. Van de Castle, Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994, p. 83.

Further Reading

Castaneda, Carlos. The Art of Dreaming. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Nobody knows whether Castaneda was writing fiction, fact or some combination therein. But he admirably illustrates a shamanistic perspective through his account of Don Juan.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Penguin Freud Library Volume 4. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976.

Hall, James A. Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1983.

Jung, C. G. Dreams, trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, New Jersey: Bollingen Series XX Princeton University Press, 1954. This is a good collection of Jung’s work on dreams from diverse sources.

Lewis, James, R. The Dream Encyclopedia. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1995. This isn’t just another “10,000 Dreams Interpreted” type book. It contains referenced and insightful comments throughout.

Pliskin, Marcia. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Interpreting Your Dreams. New York: Alpha Books, 1999. Don’t be biased against the fact that this is an Idiots Guide. It’s a good introduction.

Telesco, Patricia. The Language of Dreams. Freedom, California: The Crossing Press, 1997. I found Part One of this book, ‘A Time to Dream,’ most useful.

Van de Castle, Robert L. Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. An excellent survey and resource book for further study by Dr. Van de Castle.

Some Interesting Dream Quotes » http://www.quotegarden.com/dreams.html

Disclaimer: This article does not possess any kind of medical or legal authority. Those with mental or physical health issues are advised to consult an appropriate health professional.

“Deciphering dreams – how to get the most out of your downtime” © Michael W. Clark. All rights reserved.

Copyright © Anita Welsh 2008.
All rights reserved.

If one had asked me 20 years ago if “we are alone”, my answer would have been definitely “yes.” Today, I am not sure. My research into the phenomena known as alien abductions began 13 years ago, in my home on a farm in Rockwood, between Guelph and Acton Ontario. At that time, my husband, myself and daughter (with her young son of 2 years old) all worked for the Ontario Government. Our ritual was to get up each morning before 6 a.m. and leave for work in downtown Toronto, dropping the infant off at the babysitters. This particular morning, we all slept in until 10 a.m.

Our first instinct on waking so late, as if we all had hangovers,’ was of a power cut causing the alarms to not go off. But what most caught our attention was a two-year-old telling us that he had met “God” during the night. His description of “God,” and of being taken up through his bedroom window in a blue light to a space ship, certainly woke us quickly. Of course, our natural instinct was to put it down to a dream. I remember asking my daughter what on Earth he’d been watching on television. Remarkably, the two-year-old turned to me and said “they said you would not believe me Nanna.” Not wishing to call the child a liar, I instinctively said “of course I believe you.” His next words sent a chill down my spine. “They told me to tell you to find the book that grandpa Lennie gave you in England, and read the last two lines on page..” (I cannot remember the page number now). I had to think what book he was talking about; then I remembered that on my last visit a few months earlier to England, my father had given me a book to read on the plane back to Canada. Because it dealt with a form of spiritualism, which I could not understand, I didn’t bother to read it. On my return, it had been thrown in the junk drawer. My daughter and I turned the house upside-down searching for this book. On turning to the page indicated by my grandson, I read out loud the two lines he told me to read “there are more things in heaven and earth than what any of us understand”..

What is so extraordinary about this, is that my two-year-old grandson, who could not possibly read, or have known about this book, was able to tell me about two unusual lines contained in it.. This started me wondering about what he was telling us, and if it could have some truth to it. He also told us, quite in detail, about the ‘children on the space ship’ who were children but not really children–in fact adults; also, about animals in cages that had been taken from other planets, which were nothing like animals on earth. He then told us about a lady and another little boy who looked after him while he was on board this ship. His description of “God” was as one would want to think of him, yet he described the children as having large heads and big eyes. It was not until later that I discovered, through researching aliens, that there have been various descriptions as to what aliens look like. In one description, they were depicted as tall, with golden hair and beautiful. Could these aliens have been the ones that my grandson had met?

The years went by, and we would tease my grandson..”if the aliens come again, wake us up this time and take us with you”…but my grandson always remarked that they had said they would come back for him when he was older – which was very chilling to hear, so we stopped asking.

One morning, I woke feeling groggy and told my husband that I wasn’t going to work that day (my daughter had moved out with her son to a distant town). For some reason, I went back into a deep sleep, only to wake up very suddenly during the morning. I got out of bed, went into the living room, and turned on the television. It was a show called “Bob McLean and Friends.” He was interviewing a lady called Betty Stewart, who claimed to have been abducted on quite a few occasions. As I listened to her, I knew immediately, how I do not know, that this was the woman whom my grandson had said looked after him on the spaceship. Without hesitation, I contacted the television station and was immediately given the producer, who happened to be Bob McLean’s wife. She arranged for me to speak with Betty. During the conversation with Mrs. McLean, however, I discovered that this show, which normally went out live, was a recording which had been put on at the last minute, due to technical problems.

Betty Stewart phoned me back. We discussed my grandson, and I was amazed how she described him in detail, and knew immediately what I was talking about. She also told me about the other little boy with him. While on the phone, I heard my front door open, and to my utter surprise, my daughter and grandson were standing there. They were just as shocked to see me, as I normally would have been at work. For some reason, my daughter had decided to make a surprise visit. Betty asked me to ask my grandson if he had been fed on the spaceship. I thought it a strange request, but found the reply even stranger. My grandson said they had given him a milk-like substance to drink; but it wasn’t milk. Betty confirmed this. She then asked me to ask if the aliens had eaten with him. My grandson became annoyed, “no grandma they do not eat like us, they absorbed the food through their skin…” Betty also confirmed this. The conversation lasted quite some time, and questions were thrown back and forward. Betty then told me that her abductions had been profiled on the CBC television show “Man Alive” and that she would send the video tape to me. She then asked me to show it to my grandson and ask him if he recognized anyone on the show. When watching the tape, my grandson on seeing Betty cried out, “that is the lady on the space ship.. but her hair is funny.” I phoned Betty and told her this. She laughed, “I was wearing a wig on the show. When I was abducted with your grandson, it was night and I obviously was not wearing a wig, so he saw me as I really look.”

Betty had asked me to return the tape, but somehow, I never got around to it. Then another strange thing happened. It was Christmas, and as such, we who did not have small children worked to give those with kids a chance to spend more time with them. Because of my position with the Government, I received phone calls after they’d been screened by reception. A man on the phone told me that he was a friend of Betty’s, and that she had died. He also said that it was Betty’s wish for me to carry on her work. I had to tell him that, because of my position with the government, I could not possibly do this; it could jeopardize my work. We discussed the funeral plans and he hung up. I went up to the receptionist, as we were the only ones in, and told her about the call which she had just transferred to my office. She then told me that she had not put through any calls to me..

On arriving home, I immediately phoned Betty’s home to speak to her. A woman answered the phone, and I explained about the man who, calling that morning, had told me of Betty’s death. The woman was very abrupt. There was no way I could have known–Betty had only just died, and there were no men there. In fact, they were still trying to get hold of her son to notify him. I hung up the phone, not sure what to make of the whole thing. I never heard from Betty’s family or about attending the funeral, so decided to try and forget.

As the years passed, strange things would happen that were hard to explain. However, in 1997, my home was destroyed by fire. All my tapes except one, the “Man Alive” tape with Betty on it, were lost to the flames. I can remember laughing when the insurance adjuster, going through the rescued items, handed it to me. Again not thinking, it was thrown into a box. Recently my grandson, now nearly 17, came to live with me. He found the tape, and asked if he could look at it. Suddenly he yelled, “Nan come here!” and rushing into the room, was pointing at one of the people investigating Betty. It was Terrence Dickenson, the Canadian Astronomer. What made this so remarkable, is that when my grandson was 10 years old, he had an urge to contact Mr. Dickenson after reading his books on space and astronomy. He and Mr. Dickenson hit it off, and it was arranged for my grandson to go to McMaster University in Hamilton to attend meetings with some of the students and persons interested in astro-physics. Unfortunately, a few months after going to McMaster, my daughter and her new husband took my grandson to live in British Columbia, and the contact between him and Mr. Dickenson ceased. Mr. Dickenson, however, had phoned me about my grandson, and remarked how at his age of 10 he knew so much about space, and that most of the people who read and understood his books were university students.

So another part of the puzzle was unfolding. I decided that it was time for me to take up Betty’s work. I had retired from the government, and had free time. So I started researching into alien abductions. Among other things, I wanted to contact Mr. McLean who had originally interviewed Betty, over 10 years prior. I was able to track him down, and spoke once again with his wife. She remembered the show, and told me that she had received another call from a Guelph couple, who like me, had been drawn to watch the show because their son, like my grandson, had told the same story. They didn’t want any publicity, but it seemed that after the “abduction” their child began to have terrible nose bleeds. A medical operation revealed that something, metal like, had been inserted in the nose. It was removed, and although examined, no-one could say just what substance it was. My grandson has also had terrible nose bleeds since this incident, which raises the question, “did he receive some kind of implant, the same as this other child?”

Betty, in one of our conversations, had told me that the children had been implanted with some kind of “tracking device.” Still not sure, we wondered if the whole thing was an imagination problem which should be ignored. Now, we still are not sure…

There have been so many coincidences that I have not written about all of them, or of my research into alien abductions. I am now working on a seminar about these phenomena, and look forward to talking with people about it over the next few months. Anyone wanting to book me for an after-dinner/corporate event, or just for an unusual talk/seminar, can contact me at: afwelsh@yahoo.com

Different Approaches

If we look at the news today the word ‘myth‘ takes on several meanings ranging from the sublime, the heavenly, the horrendous and the mundane.

Common among all contemporary usages is the notion that myth points to something beyond the ken of science.

Scholars such as the Indologist Wendy Doniger suggest that most myths possess an inherent structure that reveals some kind of hidden rationality.

And the pioneer mythographer Sir James. G. Frazer said that underneath their colorful imagery myths are, in fact, a kind of primitive protoscience.

Other scholars say that myth is ‘more sacred’ than the arts because at different points in history myth connects with ritual.

And yet others emphasize the literary and artistic dimensions of myth, arguing that ritual itself does not ensure the presence of the sacred.

Myths and Fairy Tales

According to professor T. Henighan,¹ the Freudian child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim says that myth:

• Contains particular heroes with unique names
• Tells of heroes that are ‘larger than life’
• Involves majestic and ‘spiritual’ divine beings
• Relates an often tragic and pessimistic story²
• Reveals conflict between the superego (i.e. internalized social conscience) and id (i.e. instinctual drives of love and death that seek gratification)
• Sets unrealistic demands that normal human beings can never fully achieve

Whereas fairy tales are a type of folk tale in which:

• The names of heroes and heroines are absent or ordinary³
• Supernatural but not divine beings are mentioned
• Positive outcomes are the norm
• Childhood and adolescence figure prominently
• The actual content (i.e. Oedipal material) is obscured through elaborate symbolism

This, of course, is just one point of view. Specialists hardly agree as to whether myths and folk tales are essentially equivalent or categorically different. Moreover, some contend that myth precedes the folk tale, others the reverse.

True and False Stories

In his book Myth and Reality Mircea Eliade maintains that “societies in which myth is—or was until very recently—’living,’” distinguish true from false stories.⁴

Eliade gives examples from two American Indian groups, the Pawne and the Cherokee. And from Africa he cites the Herero and the inhabitants of Togo.

As any good sociologist or anthropologist will observe, however, Eliade seems to naively take existing ethnological research at face value.

He asserts that these cultures believe their myths are true stories while folk tales are apparently regarded as morally instructive but false stories.

Here, Eliade is not referring to the myths of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. And he rightly notes that mythic stories were not universally accepted as truth in ancient societies where different beliefs and philosophical schools often competed for legitimacy.⁵

But the idea that all members of a given “living” society privately regard hegemonic myths as true stories is open to question. It would be unwise to assume that mythic beliefs are universally accepted in any culture or, for that matter, subculture. As with the ancient world, external displays of acceptance – among both leaders and community members – very likely could be feigned out of prudence or for political expedience.⁶

Hard to Define

As to a defintion of myth, Eliade says:

It would be hard to find a definition of myth that would be acceptable to all scholars and at the same time intelligible to nonspecialists. Then, too, is it even possible to find one definition that will cover all the types and functions of myths in all traditional and archaic societies? Myth is an extremely complex cultural reality, which can be approached and interpreted from various and complementary viewpoints.⁷

While there is no unanimous agreement as to the meaning of myth, this multiplicity speaks to its richness and importance.

The following summarizes some of the leading and interrelated theories on mythology, with an attempt to illustrate its contemporary relevance.

This list is far from exhaustive. It should be taken as a set of general reference points designed to encourage independent research and analysis.

Psychological

• Conceals our instinctual and repressed unconscious desires and tendencies (Sigmund Freud)
• Reveals our “personal infantile history,” particularly with regard to the creators and followers of hero myths (Otto Rank)
• Reflects transpersonal, elementary ideas (Adolf Bastien) or a collective unconscious revealing through mythic images a deeper meaning in life (Carl Jung)
• Provides imaginal signposts along an inner and outer journey, helping heroic individuals gain enhanced wisdom (Carl Jung, James Hillman, Joseph Campbell)
• Mythic thinking may be a survival mechanism for painful ritual abuse but in the negative unresolved instance, mythic thinking may culminate in sociopathic behavior-e.g. the ethical insanity of a Hitler (Chrystine Oksana)

Sociological

• Codifies, legitimizes and strengthens dominant beliefs, practices and relationships based on power in a given society (Antonio Gramsci, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault)
• Fosters social cohesion, functioning, development or chaos (Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton, Emile Durkheim);
• Contributes to egoism, altruism, alienation and anomie (Emile Durkheim)

Cultural

• Reading myths affords aesthetic charm to the, at times, “stale, flat and unprofitable” task of living (C. S. Lewis, [quotation: William Shakespeare])
• Provides religious or heroic legends that the audience knows are fictional (Robert Graves)
• Helps us to meaningfully interpret and transform our world (Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung)

Anthropological

• A non-scientific attempt to explain natural phenomena (E. B. Tylor)
• Archaic source of oral stories, history and cultural identity (Micea Eliade, Clifford Geertz)
• The second stage in mankind’s evolutionary sequence of symbolical, mythical and logical modes of thought (J. J. Bachofen)
• Directs individuals through important stages of life, in many cultures marked by solemn or sacred “rites of passage” (Karl Kerenyi, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell)
• Provides communal meaning about ancestors and the afterlife (Carl Jung)
• Myth is best understood as the sum total of its variants and is a tool that can help solve cultural problems, paradoxes and contradictions (Claude Lévi-Strauss)
• Offers a grid defined by its own rules of construction. This grid doesn’t explain the meaning of myth in itself but creates a “matrix of intelligibility” which facilitates understanding of the world by revealing structural laws of human thought, communication, interaction and behavior (Claude Lévi-Strauss)
• Legitimizes beliefs in magic, which for so-called primitives is a kind of protoscience that may be used for practical purposes, such as regulating the harvest (Sir James. G. Frazer)
• Magic is recognized a kind of myth by so-called primitives, used symbolically to relieve natural anxiety and express their hopes for positive outcomes–e.g. while hunting or fishing in dangerous places (Bronislaw Malinowski)

Historical

• Provides information about historical conditions, especially about those with the power to create myths (John Noss)

Political

• May be used as global propaganda (e.g. Marxist Theory of History) and for political agendas–e.g. glorifying oneself and demonizing opponents, as in election-time TV ads (Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes)

Ethical

• Outlines right and wrong, and inevitable punishments and rewards for dishonorable and praiseworthy acts (Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell)

Pedagogical

• Teaches individuals how to conform and advance in society, especially in archaic cultures (Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell)

Cosmological

• Provides a working “map” of the conceivable universe (S. H. Hooke)
• Relates to a Creation of the World and the subsequent interaction of gods, goddesses, semi-divine beings, human beings, animals, vegetation and the geographical landscape (Donna Rosenberg)

Magical

• A story designed to evoke magical powers (Jane Harrison)

Spiritual

• Symbolizes and possibly leads to an awareness of dimensions and beings beyond the mundane world (Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung)
• Mythic rites and rituals bring forth a ’sacred history’ within the context of human life (Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell)

Philosophical and Theological

• Myth arises from incorrect insights, that is, intuitions about ultimate reality (or specific situations) which have not been questioned nor empirically investigated “until no further relevant questions arise” (Bernard Lonergan)
• A symbolic means of expression through which mankind attempts to answer existential questions-i.e. achieve self-understanding in a world where the transcendental is often seen as immanent (Rudolf Bultmann)

Transformational

• Recent figures like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Carl Jung, Melanie Klein, Joseph Campbell, Mary Daly and Barbara Walker implicitly or explicitly say that their own modern myths (i.e. theories about myth and related cosmologies) contribute to the betterment of self and society

Economic and Entertainment

• Film, music, videos, literature, TV, advertising, video games and most other forms of popular culture belong here (and in some of the above categories). To mention a few: Kyle XY, X-Men, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, BattleStar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, The Flintstones, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, The Incredible Hulk, Xena the Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV Hercules, KISS, Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson, HALO 3, Super Mario

Conclusion

As noted in the opening paragraphs, some scholars contend that myth is ‘more sacred’ than the arts because at various points in history myth connects with ritual.

But to further complicate matters, the definition of ritual is also open to debate.

Could watching a favorite science fiction TV show with fellow fans every Friday night, for instance, be considered a ritual?

This doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Not a few scholars discuss Star Trek, for instance, as if it were a religion or perhaps a mythology.⁸

Myth seems to overlap with legend, folk tale, religion and entertainment, among other human pursuits. Some go as far to say that everything is myth–that is, even science is regarded as a hallowed if somewhat hollow god.

Amid the ongoing debates one thing seems certain. Mythology is as diverse, ancient and new as mankind. And most sensible, well-rounded thinkers woud agree that the word ‘myth’ describes an incredibly complex range of phenomena.

Notes

1. Tom Henighan. ITV lecture for English 18.208 (Myth and Symbol) televised at Carleton University, Ottawa: January 29, 1998.

2. This is debatable, particularly with regard to Hindu myth.

3. Cinderella might seem an exception but as ’Microglyphic’ pointed out at the former Askme.com, she’s renamed as such by her step-sisters. See, for instance the Brothers Grimm variant of the tale.

4. Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963, pp. 8-10.

5. (a) Anaximander (611-547 BCE) and Xenophanes (570-480 BCE) for instance, directly challenged the anthropomorhpic gods of ancient Greece. And doubts most likely existed among the historically invisible (i.e. the vast majority of people who never became famous enough for the history books). And in ancient Egypt crudely made statues apparently mocked Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, likely carved by dissenters.
(b) Military conquerors and occupying powers also influenced local myths in the ancient world. Conquerors would sometimes replace indigenous myths with their own. Other times they would import myths yet tolerate those of the subjugated. Military victors also synthesized their own myths with those of the defeated populations, as in India and Rome.

6. (a) John Noss in Man’s Religions (1957: 45-96) outlines some of the political and socially stratified aspects of pagan worship in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
(b) A contemporary example of this might be found within the Roman Catholic Church, where penalties can be harsh for disobedience among the clergy and also among wayward believers (e.g. women ordained as ‘priests’).

7. Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 5.

8. Of course, second-rate thinkers with little or no appreciation for the nuances of contemporary Western culture might not be able to see it that way.

“Into the Mythic: A fresh look at some old ideas” © Michael Clark. All rights reserved.