Jung's warnings

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

jonsjourney wrote:I am bit tied up today, but have recently finished reading Jung's commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower and I think it will lend a great deal to this conversation. Will be posting soon!...
Sounds good Jon but I might add something here on "The Secret of the Golden Flower." I have a lot of friends who are both Buddhist and Taoist scholars and they refer me to a later translation of this text by Thomas Cleary.

They claim it to be superior to the one Jung worked with and it is recommended by June Singer, a Jungian analyst of great repute. Singer put forth her theories on the "androgyne."

The Secret of the Golden Flower
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Golden-Flo ... 0062501933

There seems to be considerable debate among Jungian analyst between these two translations and Jung's interpretations. I found many seminars posted that addressed the differences between the two as well as published papers by various scholars.

This one looked quite interesting but they wanted $36 for a reprint and I'm not sure I'm that interested...
Journal of Analytical Psychology
Volume 54 Issue 4, Pages 493 - 511

Published Online: 15 Sep 2009

© 2010 The Society of Analytical Psychology

Analytical psychology and Daoist inner alchemy: a response to C.G. Jung's 'Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower'
Caifang Jeremy Zhu 1 ,
1 Beijing, San Franciso, USA
Copyright © 2009 The Society of Analytical Psychology
KEYWORDS
backward flowing/reversing method (meditation) • Buddhism • higher consciousness • original face • self • unconscious
ABSTRACT

Abstract : This paper provides a historical, religious-philosophical context for the study of the Daoist text known as The Secret of the Golden Flower. An updated study is conducted into the controversy over the source of the text including the editions translated by Richard Wilhelm and Thomas Cleary. The main teachings of the text and the basics of two major denominations of Daoism are introduced to ground later critiques of Jung's commentary. The psychodynamics of analytical psychology, especially those concerned with integration of unconscious contents and the realization of the self (individuation) are compared with the psycho-spiritual dynamics of integration in Eastern spirituality based on the Golden Flower text. The paper concludes that it was amiss for Jung to have equated the Western 'unconscious' with states of higher consciousness in Eastern meditation practices, although his claim that Eastern higher consciousness is characterized by a nebulous state of non-intentionality does raise questions about the appropriateness of calling Eastern meditative states 'consciousness'. A new concept is required to characterize the special qualities of this psychic state shared generally by Eastern spiritual traditions and a more meaningful comparison may be found in Jung's concept of the self.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0

Dr. Zhu is no light weight on the subject and I found him on facebook:

Colleges:
* California Institute of Integral Studies '10
* Ph.D., East-West Psychology
* Harvard University '04
* Master's, Buddhism and Psychology
* Bejing International Studies University '86
* B.A., English
http://www.facebook.com/jeremy.c.zhu

I did find one publication on-line that addresses some of the issues in International Journal of Transpersonal Studies:
Towards a Transpersonal Psychology of Daoism:
Definitions, Past Research, and Future Directions
Christopher Cott Adam Rock
Deakin University
Burwood, VIC, Australia

Excerpt:

Wilhelm and Jung disagreed to some extent regarding
whether hun should be translated as animus or logos. Jung
rendered hun as animus in females and logos (i.e., the
“masculine clarity of consciousness and reason”; p. 117)
in males, and po as anima, the feminine, emotive aspect
of man, unthinking and independent of the conscious
mind (Jung & Storr, 1983). It would seem Jung decided
to render hun differently for males and females because,
he suggested, the Chinese neglected to address the
“female mind” (Wilhelm & Jung, 1931/1962, p. 117) in
any great detail and consequently overlooked the need
for such a distinction. Despite considerable evidence to
the contrary,13 if one accepts Jung’s position that Daoists
tended to only consider the male mind, then the Taiyi
Jinhua Zongzhi is likely to only be discussing male
psychology and so hun may be rendered as logos and po
as anima.

Jung’s (and Wilhelm’s) decision to render hun
and po as logos and anima, respectively, was in the
current authors’ opinions an error, as from this point
on the terms of Jung’s textual analysis were vis-à-vis
set a priori. In other words, if Jung were conducting a
qualitative analysis of the text, his approach imposed
certain limited criteria on the text, rather than
allowing the meaning of terms such as hun and po
to be drawn from the text itself. Furthermore, a new
translation of the text (Cleary, 1991a) has demonstrated
Wilhelm’s translation of the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi not
only to be incomplete but, in many places, textually
inaccurate. Thus, the use of an inaccurate translation
and a constrained qualitative methodological approach,
coupled with lacunae in Daoist scholarship prior to
the past 20 years or so (see above), led to an inevitably
limited interpretation of the text.

Based on the new translation by Cleary
(1991a), and facilitated by personal communications
with Daoist teachers (e.g., Verdesi, 2008, 2009), the
present authors would tentatively interpret the text
of the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi as follows: Rather than
purely psychological constructs, hun and po are two
of the five souls of some Daoist worldviews, to which
Daoists attribute a metaphysical reality (e.g., Pregadio,
2008b). Hun facilitates seeing by day and dreaming by
night, and thus appears to be related to the conscious
experience of something, particularly in relation to visual
phenomena. Po is the source of emotions and desires and
is what binds the self to the physical body and ordinary
worldly experience. Interestingly, if one interprets logos as
essentially relating to consciousness and anima as relating
to the individual unconscious, then Jung has effectively
attributed consciousness to hun and unconsciousness to
po. However, as the text clearly stated, “The lower soul
(po) functions in association with consciousness, and
consciousness develops based on the lower soul” (Cleary,
1991a, p. 14). Of course Jung did not have access to
this particular translation, but this passage would seem
to suggest that the majority of human psychological
experience, under ordinary circumstances, is the domain
of the po. Indeed, under ordinary circumstances the po
is allowed to subjugate the hun, resulting in the ordinary
mind, the conscious spirit, the light of consciousness. What
the text compels the reader to do is to invert the position
of hun and po, refine the hun and control the po. This
configuration will, in turn, bring about, rather than
the ordinary mind, the celestial mind, rather than the
conscious spirit, the original spirit. This celestial mind is
the final goal, and the text associates it with a multitude of
lofty spiritual attainments. While this is a rather cursory
summary, it would appear that there is certainly room to
correct and expand on Jung’s initial interpretation.
Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi.
http://www.transpersonalstudies.org/Ima ... 20Rock.pdf

While I claim no expertise in this area, it would seem that the integration of Eastern and Western thought is an evolutionary subject that did not end with the work of Carl Jung. While he was an integral part of the process, he seems to be far from the "last word" on the subject even among contemporary Jungian analysts.
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

Hi Clemsy,

A quick question for you. I don't post here often and I'm afraid I blundered into something. I didn't intend to start a new thread separate from the original "East-West Integration" thread.

Is there anyway to concatenate the two threads back together or are stuck with it now as such?

Jung's warnings are germane to the essential topic of the original thread.

Thanks and sorry for any inconvenience.

Kynikos
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Clemsy
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Post by Clemsy »

Hi Kynikos. We haven't the capability to merge threads to the best of my knowledge. Not a big deal. You can copy/paste what you wish to the other thread and this one will either lay fallow and sink down on the page... or another conversation will continue here.

No problem. I'll check with the Web Wizard about thread merging. It would be a valuable tool because you're not the only person to have started a new topic when they meant to post to an existing one.

Cheers,
Clemsy
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

Thanks Clemsy... will do.
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

Kynikos
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Post by Kynikos »

Replies to this thread should be posted to:

http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... 0024#60024

The separate thread was posted in error.

Sorry, my bad,

Kynikos
"Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
---Eugene Ionesco

sharibanflynn
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Post by sharibanflynn »

Kynikos,
Another kind of warning that remains deep within me is that Jung's statement: 'We live in the shadow of our ancestors'
and this is increasingly being validated by science too..(so it must be true etc,...)
Michael Skinner Molecular Biologist at Washington University has discovered the following:
(Quote)
'We have just published a paper last month (November 2010) confirming epigenetic changes in sperm are carried forward transgenerationally. This confirms that these changes can become permanently programmed.'
..says Skinner making it feasible to see whether life experiences leave indelible marks on the sperm or eggs that give rise to children and grandchildren. Since the answer so far is yes consider it a warning to hold off on your unhealthy behaviour until after your have kids.' (unquote)

The 'what if'.... we are also affected by our ancesors behavour too! so.. our children are also affected by our 'doings' too! herein might be found the origin of Evil and suffering..and that would indeed be a wow! But sure! just a thought. :cry:
I still work with people who are suicidal. my main interest is in sculpture via ceramics

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Michael Skinner Molecular Biologist at Washington University has discovered the following:
(Quote)
'We have just published a paper last month (November 2010) confirming epigenetic changes in sperm are carried forward transgenerationally. This confirms that these changes can become permanently programmed.'
..says Skinner making it feasible to see whether life experiences leave indelible marks on the sperm or eggs that give rise to children and grandchildren. Since the answer so far is yes consider it a warning to hold off on your unhealthy behaviour until after your have kids.' (unquote)
Unfortunately, this is nothing new. This topic was discussed at the Mind and Life conferrence in 2003 with the Dalai Lama. However, there is also evidence that our inborn traits are not permenant. This is where the neuroplasticity of the brain allows us to change our behavior.

Honestly, I don't make this stuff up. There is plenty written on the topic.
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

jonsjourney
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Post by jonsjourney »

I posted this in the East/West thread recently and it seems completely relevant to this current discussion...
"We may think that our agitation is ours alone, but if we look carefully, we'll see that it is our inheritance from our whole society and many generations of our ancestors. Individual consciousness is made of the collective consciousness, and the collective consciousness is made of the individual consciousness. They cannot be separated. Looking deeply into our individual consciousness , we touch the collective consciousness." -taken from The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh (1998), pg. 75.
If all is interconnected, then there is no reason not to believe that our actions have consequences that will live on in many ways beyond our finite existence. It also means that the actions of those who have lived before us affect us in profound and probably largely misunderstood ways. I remember a couple of years ago, Neo and I discussing Dawkins' idea about memes quite a bit.

The interesting question is just how much of an effect is being caused by previous actions and instincts of our ancestors. Also, how much did/do social factors mediate such actions and experiences? And...how does this idea affect our notion of having free will or agency in determining our course of actions? Memes, like genes, are frequently tools that take us down a very deterministic path.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

Memes, like genes, are frequently tools that take us down a very deterministic path.
Yes! The "cooties" are back! (This was actually one of my favorite and memorable discussions.) :D :D

However, I now understand much more about the concept; from Jungian, Scientific and Metaphysical points of view. :D

However, the concept is still similar;

Get rid of the cooties you're born with and be mindful not to catch anyone else's. :lol: :wink:
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

sharibanflynn
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Post by sharibanflynn »

I remember reading in one of Gurdjieff's books in my teens (the 1960's!!) about sexual intercourse being likened to a syphon of mutual exchange of energies between the sexes, whereby the negative forces of one is syphoned off into the other and visa versa. This mutual exchange of energy, albeit negative in the first instance, is also echoes in Jung's statement that there is no such thing as 'casual sex'.
The notion of spiritual evolution certainly involves adherence to a code of sexual behaviour inso many 'schools of thought and behaviour' and is epitomised in the 'line' of David from which Christ arose..resulting in the purity of his birth.
In any event, whatever the lasting result is in such casual union, as a young man, I was sore affected and still carry within me this notion/belief to this day, that the act of sexual union is likened to an act of mutual exchange. Jung's 'Psychology of the Transference'- was also a profound piece of reading for me and remains so with the notion of ones own anima/animus joining in on the act! The 'inferior other' acquires ones own persona in such union.
The notions of imprinting on the DNA or on the Collective psyche or on the Collective unconscious remains at best a truism. The 'What if of sexual union' whoever restates this message in present day rhetoric simply states a deep knowing of each about oneself and about us all..
What does Thou say? This is the base line here, as all manner of evidence abounds. :roll:
I still work with people who are suicidal. my main interest is in sculpture via ceramics

stephen Neece
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Post by stephen Neece »

sharibanflynn wrote:Kynikos,
Another kind of warning that remains deep within me is that Jung's statement: 'We live in the shadow of our ancestors'


The 'what if'.... we are also affected by our ancesors behavour too! so.. our children are also affected by our 'doings' too! herein might be found the origin of Evil and suffering..and that would indeed be a wow! But sure! just a thought. :cry:
The thought has been around awhile.

Deuteronomy Chapter 5
: You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, and doing mercy to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Jung says that the way parents affect their children the most is through their unlived lives.
Every inspiring ideal grasps for some perpetuating symbolism-seeks some technique for cultural manifestation which will insure survival and augment realization-and the cult achieves this end by fostering and gratifying emotion TUB

sharibanflynn
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Post by sharibanflynn »

Hi Stephen,
And its one stephen to another... what I have found with some of those who attempt/plan suicide include those whose depression matches their potential- 'Where there's a low there is always a corresponding high'- Jung does state that depression is caused by not using ones potential-
As the Tarot would have it, the Death card represents change - and working with clinicallty Suicidal people there is no 'going back' to what was dringing them to what the American's call 'self murder' and what I refere to as 'an accident that can be avoided'. But Sure! The archetype of Judas is never far away and all its unfolding predudice and superstition.
I still work with people who are suicidal. my main interest is in sculpture via ceramics

stephen Neece
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Post by stephen Neece »

sharibanflynn wrote:Hi Stephen,
And its one stephen to another... what I have found with some of those who attempt/plan suicide include those whose depression matches their potential- 'Where there's a low there is always a corresponding high'- Jung does state that depression is caused by not using ones potential-
As the Tarot would have it, the Death card represents change - and working with clinicallty Suicidal people there is no 'going back' to what was dringing them to what the American's call 'self murder' and what I refere to as 'an accident that can be avoided'. But Sure! The archetype of Judas is never far away and all its unfolding predudice and superstition.
sharibanflynn

Maybe enantiodromia at work, from Jung:

Enantiodromia: superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite

Enantiodromia is typically experienced in conjunction with symptoms associated with acute neurosis, and often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.

Jung used the term particularly to refer to the unconscious acting against the wishes of the conscious mind. (Aspects of the Masculine, chapter 7, paragraph 294).

The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia, and what good
may very possibly lead to evil. ("The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales", Collected Works 9i, par. 397)

The term has also been applied as a neologism to describe the tendency of a younger generation to manifest the undesirable traits of a previous generation, despite the repudiation of these traits when they were young.

Enantiodromia. Literally, "running counter to," referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time. This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious
performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control. ("Definitions," ibid., par. 709)
various Jung works

Has it been your experience, that people who attempt/plan suicide are oblivious to the unconscious side of life?

And do the exhibit a dominate one-sided tendency in conscious life.?

Do they speak of a general daemon archtype?

From my own experience, there seems to be a tremendous amount of projection going on
Every inspiring ideal grasps for some perpetuating symbolism-seeks some technique for cultural manifestation which will insure survival and augment realization-and the cult achieves this end by fostering and gratifying emotion TUB

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

Likely could be, Stephen. If you're interested in my related Jungian thoughts along this line, please read these two posts:

http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... 6600#56600
http://www.jcf.org/new/forum/viewtopic. ... 6618#56618

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

sharibanflynn
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Post by sharibanflynn »

Stephen,
Will respond later to the thumb nail defiinition that covers the whole world of activity..
and given that no two people think alike there are other ways of interpretation of same.

see WWW. Diadhuit.ie.......for starters on this one as 2 people a day kill themselves in Ireland now due to ...fallout of bailout?? absence of Taboo man cannot keep his hands off his ....own throat...
I still work with people who are suicidal. my main interest is in sculpture via ceramics

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