I haven't partaken for two years or so, and I'm sorry that I didn't see the private messages until now. It's too late to answer them. I've written this long article:
Critique of Individuation
Abstract: Individuation as the process of psychological maturation is connected with the ‘spiritual path’, the same as the ‘narrow path’. Worldly adaptation as a central aspect of individuation is overvalued. According to psychology, the symbolic transformations in the unconscious images fulfil a therapeutic function. This view is criticized as a way of upholding the stagnant ego, which should really undergo an authentic transformation. The notion of ego abandonment in spiritual tradition must be taken seriously. Central to psychology is the integration of the unconscious. But equally important is the opposite process of ‘complementation’. Consciousness is not only synthetic, it has also a ‘sympathetic’ function. Consciousness can give life back to the unconscious and not only empty it of its goods. To this end, a creative form of contemplation is recommended, in the way of painting or writing. The destruction of the stagnant state of personality, and the riddance of aspects of personality, are part and parcel of individuation. Today, adaptation and assimilation are overvalued whereas negation is undervalued. The self in Jungian psychology is a towering ideal, a conglomerate of contradictory aspects of personality. At a point in time, the spiritual seeker must abandon the ideal of completeness and begin to negate his worldly obsessions, which keep him involved in the many meaningless games of life.
Keywords: integration, complementation, negation, destruction, spiritual path, art, individuation, apotheosis, alchemy, Gnosticism, Holy Grail, C.G. Jung, Emanuel Swedenborg, Poul Bjerre.
Read the article here:
http://www.two-paths.com/individuation.htm
Mats Winther
Replies
Here http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/group/community-education-de... is a discussion topic on Cabiri, something that I find similar to your criticism of Hillman's approach. Not that we were particularly smart in that discussion, but I was (am) reluctant about Jung's approach in the Red Book. Visions and hallucinations for the sake of hallucinating are definitely something I disagree with.
Jung's thought revolves around the redemption of the conscious world, through the excavation of the unconscious. But I think we must think more in "Gnostic" terms, following the opposite principle of the redemption of the unconscious. In this new article, I demonstrate how how a certain fairytale, The Golden Blackbird, can be interpreted according to the principle of complementation, signifying a flow in the unconscious direction.
http://www.two-paths.com/blackbird.htm
/Mats
You are definitely talented to discuss about these things, to invite a reader to take a walk (trip, journey) in that fuzzy and abstract realm. The best text I've found about mind and matter that begins from matter and ends just a step away from Jung's (at least that's how I see it) approach to mind can be found here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/tract/projects/complexity-theory/summary... There is also a longer version (the shorter version has some parts that the longer one doesn't) under the same title: http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/dynamics-in-action-Alicia-Juarrero.pdf
We are talking here about pieces of matter (individual brains) more complex that the whole non-living universe interacting with each other. Imagination described by Hillman and attachment to images can go astray if one doesn't have some maturity (tools and terminology) about what's going on (hippies falling over the edge, self-destructive artists). The conscious-unconscious relations can't be explained away, something that Jung was sometimes trying to do (the people from the West should avoid yoga and similar activities no matter what), but contradicting himself in other texts (his introduction to The Secret of the Golden Flower).
It's difficult to (try to) understand and discuss about it, but here it goes.
It seems to me that a similar discussion to that Critique of Archetypal Psychology can be found here: http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/forum/topics/the-collective-...
Your sentence:
"But this is merely the remedy in special cases and, perhaps, during a specific period within an individual’s lifetime."
"Something was taking place there, something like a very slow, smooth but continuous flowing or melting; indeed, something melted or poured across from my image to that of Leo's. I perceived that my image was in the process of adding to and flowing into Leo's, nourishing and strengthening it. It seemed that, in time, all the substance from one image would flow into the other and only one would remain: Leo. He must grow, I must disappear." - Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East
Those specific individuals and situations can for instance be found in Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and books on occultism. I suppose that it isn't very different from crazy genius (rare individuals, but those who push things in weird directions). To make a dogma out of too much imagination and insanity is perhaps too much, but if an individual is already specific and in a specific situation, it would be nice to know that you are not alone in that tiny corner in the world of ideas or delusion, whatever that is in the individual life story.
I've written something here: https://www.academia.edu/7979222/Self-Referential_Complex_Systems_a... It will never be properly reviewed (reviewed at all - insulting me can't be considered a review) and I must accept that. Jung and Pauli could have been mentioned in the title just as Aristotle.
That chapter is approved. I don't want to be mystical too much about it, but the whole writing process (11 years) was in some kind of trance, out of my conscious control. It's as if I was supposed to develop and defend (or reject) something that is just out there, something that doesn't belong to me. Whether or not it provides a relevant description of reality is up to other people to decide. Since Mats lives in Sweden, it's interesting to me that there is the author most similar to my text, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, was born in Croatia (just like me) and lives and works in Sweden. She calls her model of reality info-computationalism. She still hasn't officially approved my text, but she knows much more about physics than me and doesn't disagree with me.
Hurrah?
There's one wrong definition in that text (I suppose I should call it BS since it just can't be properly reviewed and accepted or rejected) -
Strange loop: Tangled hierarchy, a circular logical structure.
I just find it irritating when I feel a need to work on something that will never bring any results and that's what makes mistakes like that one inevitable.
Anyway, Mats, you might find this one interesting: http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/forum/topics/the-archetypal-...
There's no point in comparing Jung and Hillman. Hillman lacks relevance. Read my Critique of Archetypal Psychology, which I wrote some 15 years ago. Your article about 'Self-Referential Complex Systems' exceeds my cerebral capacity, for the time being. (You know, there are pdf-editors that can be used to edit pdf-files directly, to correct small mistakes.)
/Mats