DIALOGUE

Spirit and Psyche ~ Complementary Paradigms

Posted by Mats Winther on July 6, 2015 at 10:06pm in Depth Psychology General

Spirit and Psyche ~ Complementary Paradigms

Abstract: Depth psychology cannot compensate for the loss of spiritual tradition, nor can God make his abode in the psyche. Today, spiritual symbols are often misinterpreted in psychological terms. To remedy this, psychological theory must be developed to accommodate spiritual transcendence as complementary to psychology’s worldly perspective. The path of worldly withdrawal and spiritual contemplation is equally important as the psychological integration of the unconscious and cultural expression. The article discusses various spiritual traditions and takes a critical look at the Hermetic tradition. The nature of faith is discussed.

Keywords: religiosity, faith, Neoplatonism, Hermeticism, metaphorical unconscious, mysticism, Wasteland, animism, synchronicity, Baining people, Pseudo-Dionysius, Kirpal Singh, Carl Jung.

Read the article here:

http://www.two-paths.com/spiritual_paradigm.htm

Mats Winther

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Tags: Hermeticism, Kirpal, Neoplatonism, Pseudo-Dionysius, Singh, animism, faith, metaphorical, mysticism, synchronicity, unconscious
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  • Organization
    klemens swib July 17, 2015 at 12:12pm

    alex

    agreed in principle. I would reword your last sentence, "And Jung's psychologizing has also become a piece of me." to... Something inside of me both consciously and unconsciously  appropriated elements of Jung's thought to use in the assembly of my own psychological construct.

              With that said i would like to clarify my thought on the outtake of an element of Jung's dream.... My tendency to get carried away with my thoughts obfuscated the essence of my limited  contribution to mats dream interpretation. It was an epiphany of the fool/archetype that filled Jung with the feeling of idiocy. Who else but a fool would inspire a man to posit a completely individual solution to the human predicament aka sponsor the purposive blossoming of individuality. And it would be the archetype of individuality and Jung's identification with it that prevented him from bowing his head completely to the ground before the manifestation of the self that confronted him in the dream. If one is going to reunite with the self shouldn't one do so with his head held high as a unique individual consciousness.  Is this what the dream is communicating to Jung...Isn't this what the neoplatonists were aiming at... an individual reintegration with the self. The culmination of the original process set off by our individuation from the neoplatonic Self. 

  • Organization
    klemens swib July 15, 2015 at 9:50am

    itinerant idealist 

    • Aleksandar Malecic > klemens swib July 17, 2015 at 1:50am

      Exactly. I was waiting for Mats to say something about it, but...

      Those who aren't affected by formal education or working experience (for instance with mental patients with suicidal or (self)destructive tendencies - hence I'm inevitably different than someone who deals with screams and mental pain on a daily basis) are interested in something else than other people. I am an engineer and as such more interested in how stuff works, hence more likely to make an (right or wrong) assumption that Jung should still be acknowledged as an important system theorist. And his colleagues cannot care less about it. As far as I'm concerned, Jung (since he is, again, the central figure of this discussion) was pushing just enough in the spiritual realm. He wasn't just psychologizing, just as religious people/agnostics among quantum physicists aren't just physicalizing. He has discovered (something resembling) the spiritual realm behind or beyond the psyche. He or anyone else for that matter wasn't able to please everyone. For instance, if a nun decides to be silent, her decision to behave like other nuns didn't just happen in a vacuum. Serbian is my terrestrial language and Christianity (combined with other stuff, including atheistic childhood) is my spiritual language. That's who I am and it's in no way better, deeper, or more complete than anything else. And Jung's psychologizing has also become a piece of me.

  • Aleksandar Malecic July 15, 2015 at 4:00am

    Mats and Klemens - If I may ask, what are your professions? If this comment receives any response, I'll write about why I ask that.

  • Organization
    klemens swib July 14, 2015 at 8:32am

    bonnie has amassed a great video collection.... Any of these videos she doesn't have would be great additions to her list...

    I for one am going to immediately watch Jung Legacy and Influence... My off the cuff summation of my personal understanding of Jungs influence definitely needs to be extended and supplemented. Thanks so much... 

  • Organization
    klemens swib July 13, 2015 at 2:40pm
    Tell me about it. I noticed one of the new members wrote a book about anorexia nervosa only to discover nobody wants to know. The road to being an overnight success is a long and lonely one.  
    I posted that Tacey audio on the depth alliance discussions way back when it first came out. In the very last paragraph at the bottom of page 2 of the replies i did reference your work.

    As you know i wrote a book about the psychology of individuation. The goal of individuation in the first half of life being the birth of the individual.  it incorporates my effort to integrate the spiritual/archetypal/transcedental and psychological tendencies into a unified ego based developmental paradigm.  I also see the potential for writing a book about the psychology of individuality. How the blossoming of our individuality is the medium by which we learn to come to terms with letting go of our material husk/nature in the face of the end game of the second half of life; impending death. It would also incorporate a combination of the spiritual/archetypal/transcedental and psychological developmental process. 
    I don’t see my admittedly intuitional and definitely theoretical construct being incompatible with the neoplatonic view of the end game of existence. 
     
    "We cannot pursue the Jungian path of integration concurrently with the spiritual path of abandonment” mats winther
     
    What is the ultimate goal involved in the  the neoplatonists effort to follow the spiritual path of abandonment. I suspect they were intent on preparing to isolate and separate the ego/spirit from its materially mortal husk, so the spirit/ego could return free and unencumbered to the self….Dealing with the loss of material form/husk/nature is the impending reality and end game of our mortal existence.The blossoming of individuality 'might' portend that the ego/spirit must follow its developmental destiny and evolve/grow in laborious step by step struggle against the manic aspect of our material nature so that we too can complete the end game of our existence. I would argue abandoning the world to pursue the spiritual path implicitly and by definition would involve enhancing the growth of the spirit/ego/consciousness in order to overcome materialities hold on the psyche/soul/spirit …. i think the growth in consciousness/spirit/ego could be exactly the same phenomenon in both neoplatonic and blossoming of individuality psychology…. the neoplatonists were not intent of abandoning consciousness/ego/spirit or whatever so that they could reintegrate with the self. They needed to synthesize a consciousness and that could theoretically allow them to merge with the self in the face of the impending loss of materiality….. i threw everything but heaven into the mix…. but it encapsulates my current perspective. 
     
    jung lived through one of the most insane eras in human history. He witnessed the irruption of madness from the greater european unconscious in its full lethality. Over 100 million were mercilessly slaughtered in the great european holocaust from 1915 to 1945. How many more died from the great flu epidemic and starvation that followed/resulted from the impoverishment of war. In his personal life he was not sure he wouldn’t go mad or be possessed by an archetype such as zarathustra or wotan.  Thus I suspect he had more insight into the devastating impact of the unconscious than anyone else in the last century. Is this why someone whose psychology grew out of his  efforts to reconnect with his own soul/psych inner spiritual being ended up writing such bland logical phenomenological descriptions derived from his empirical observations…. Is this also why he eschewed the guru and did not support  spiritual quests/reclusives such as the neoplatonists.  You never know when a lone wolf nutter might come down from the hills and lead us all wherever bad… I have got so many miles out of concepts such as the shadow and individuation that i don’t really know how to respond to your rejection of many of the jungian notions… Did Jung write a psychological system. He provided the world with his empirical observations and a way to approach the study of the unconscious… the unknown… he provided a path through which modern man could reconnect with his own soul/psyche. And then he placed the onus on the analysand to make his own individual/personal accommodation with the unconscious… 
     
    quick comments..
    I t would take much time effort and reading for me to come up to speed in order to enter a credible comparative discussion of the concepts of self in the works of the Neoplatonists and Jung. Currently I don’t have time or inclination to pursue this particular avenue of interest at this moment. There are too many other avenues of interest.. Ones that speak to the unfolding of my own psychological equation. I do have an inborn faith in the underlying order of existence... maybe that was due to the tutelage of a very strong consistent father figure…at any rate, I haven’t felt compelled to  question the definition of the self…. I am confident there is an order whether it emanates from the Neoplatonic ONE or the emanation of God through our medium of aperture the jungian self. Jung himself had to deal with the disorder presented by a father who had lost his faith…. My initial thought on on the differing concepts of the self and the neoplatonic self/one revolves around around the neoplatonics envisaging the self/theONE as a static philosophical construct. Whereas Jung saw a dynamic self in action due to the unfolding of the human life cycle. I would be thinking along the lines that a psychologist would have a different perspective of the self than a philosopher would. I would be looking to reconcile these two concepts as I amassed all the requisite writings on this topic

    as to the psychological typology I suspect it developed by Jung for understanding and orientational purposes. That some degree of integration of the inferior function happened during psychological growth was an important observation but was more an observable and secondary result of that growth…. chalk that up to my opinion...Introversion and extroversion are of decidedly more consequence.  I am tussling with these empirically observable phenomenon now… I suspect Jung was too restrictive when he empirically observed and defined them.

    but the idiot is the way… He is a different kind of pathfinder than Hermes for sure. A spiritual pathfinder as opposed to the Hermetic pathfinder. Hermes helps negotiate our way through the more material and concrete viscitudes emanating from both within the external and internal/unconscious aspects of nature. The Fool/epimetheus is one who lacks foresight only to endow us with Prometheus/foresight as a result of his originally foolish/seemingly idiotic lead. The realm of the spiritual operates in a completely different dimension than the material realm. Epimethus/Prometheus' olympian successor hephaestus to the merriment of all the Gods and against all odds and in a total mismatch of power outwits and chains his mother hera and forces her to acquiesce to his demands. He idiotically marries aphrodite and expects her to be faithful. Of course that is an impossibility and she flaunts him by having an affair with Ares. He then embarasses her by chaining her up with her lover Ares and exposes them before all the Olympians…. And they laughed at aphrodite and ares caught in this embarrssing predicament until all of Olympus shook…. the idiot got his way as aphrodite made the required concession that allowed her THE IDIOT IS OUR TRANSCENDENTAL guide through the realm of the spirit. Jung was being given a humiliating insight into the nature of his individuality in that episodal outtake from his dream
    Don't you think that it is problematic that Jung leaves no room for the spiritual reclusive in Jung's model—mats
     
    jungs ultimate model aside from his effort to reconnect modern man with his own psyche/soul was to endow us with the empirical method and the results of his own empirical observations so that we could face the unconscious/unknown with the benefit of his empirical experience so that we can discover our own individual/individuational way through the labyrinthe of the mind…. The empiricists will eventually emerge and take up the gauntlet….
     
     the spiritual reclusive has found his own individuational path already…. Jung generously offered the empirical tools to assist all… the path home the blossoming of individuality the Odyssesian journey home is an individual experience… Jung did not intend to be the analysands guide but to allow them to discover their own self and their own individual route so they could take up the task at hand
     
    that is my take for the moment… 
    . 
    David Tacey Hillman Critique Publication Pending
    What follows are a couple of rough quotes from the audio....hillman threw out Jung’s concept of the self as he considered it a fascist idea… restrict…
  • Organization
    klemens swib July 11, 2015 at 6:19pm

    mats:

    Yes your writing is difficult to decipher sometimes mats. You deal with complex issues and concepts on a level with which most readers would not be generally familiar with. Fair enough. The onus is on the interested reader to bring himself up to speed. With that said I really enjoyed your polite reference to my difficulty with apprehension. You should have hit me harder, as  you have given me no reason to abandon the gist of my intuitional construct. 
     
    Jung adamantly eschewed the guru’s path. He did so because he wanted to establish an empirically based psychology. So when i take up your statement I take it up with assumption that Jung was a psychological empiricist first and foremost.  Guru and Neoplatonic ‘ personas' did not find much of any representation in his collected writings. He endeavored  to build a psychology based on the foundation of empirical observation and synthesis. 
     "In Jungian literature, the way in which the "inward path" of latter life is generally understood is that of a continued excavation of the unconscious for the purpose of conscious realization.- mats
     
    The excavation of the unconscious for the purpose of conscious realization is correct but incomplete general formulation isn’t it. You have omitted the mention of individuation. Conscious realization which leads to the individuation or development of the individual. Does this not presuppose ones excavation/encounter/dialogue with the unconscious in the second half of life engenders the development/blossoming of ones individuality.
    AND AROUND THIS POINT THE EMPIRICAL IMPERATIVE BITES JUNG'S TONGUE. He is an empiricist after all. He has encountered and isolated the concept of individuation. Individuation as a purposive developmental process ongoing within the psyche. At this point I must concede that i have not assembled and collated all Jung’s thoughts on Individuation. I say this in the event I am not giving Jung full credit for
    the phenomenology of individuation he created via his empirical approach.
     
     
    So where Jung stops conjecture and theoretical speculation begins.  Hopefully this is all headed to creating bridge to the reconciliation between the traditional spiritual path of surrender to divine providence and the demonstrable tendency for individuality to unfold and blossom a la the Jungian opus.
     
     A simple definition of individuation within the second half of life would be the blossoming of the individual which emerged during the maturational struggle of the first half of our existence..  Could this blossoming of individuality be a universal phenomenon with roots in the archetypal sphere. Is there an archetype of Individuality.  One that sponsors the ego’s/our individualities transformation and growth along an as yet undefined but  definite and specifiable trajectory. I’ll put a hold on my Odysseusian paradigm for the moment. Is a potential candidate for the archetype of individuality Christ. Something to think about huh?   Well more importantly we have "concocted a theoretical" spiritual/archetypal potentiality and tied it to Jungian concept of individuation. Concocted is admittedly the appropriate word in this conjectural enterprise. So i have taken your original statement, as quoted above, and added individuation and a spiritual/archetypal dimension to it.  Was Jung also on the same traditional spiritual path. We’ll never resolve that question cause his commitment to empiricism outweighed his desire to be a guru whether neoplatonic or whatever. 
     
    "The traditional spiritual path represents instead a surrender, an "abandonment to divine providence”- mats winther
     
    So how does the blossoming/unfolding of our individuality or individualities developmental paradigm [theoretical]  “help us to let go of our material existence/material husk in the second half of life”. That is the mystery huh? I’ve already entered the heroic mythologem of Odysseus into the mix. For the archetype of individuality one definitely has to consider the dying and resurrecting Christ. A god who dies as we must  but is reborn. One who offers us salvation. Through individuation? He solves the problem of death that confronts us on the way home …in the second half of life…. I could introduce the concept of the manic aspect of nature here…. essentially the pleasures of material existence that keep us bound to our material nature/bodies. Isn’t life an interesting journey? We individuate…individuality blossoms... as Odysseus did in the struggle to overcome the hold our material nature has upon our piritual development.
     
    So now lets turn to the traditional spiritual path and the neo platonists. 
     
    Today, spiritual symbols are often misinterpreted in psychological terms. To remedy this, psychological theory must be developed to accommodate spiritual transcendence as complementary to psychology’s worldly perspective. - mats winter
     
    'If an archetype of individuality can indeed be attached to Jung’s concept of individuation' then we may be able to begin to develop a psychological theory which accommodates spiritual transcendence. Individualities blossoming would end up at the same final destination that the neo platonists speak of…. I don’t believe Jung wanted to destroy his empirical construct with spiritual referents. Just by looking at the Jungian community today one can see too many gurus and not enough empiricists. Imagine the chaotic thunder and clap trap that would occur if all these gurus were empowered by their attachment to spirits/archetypes. Heaven forbid. it is better he laid the ground work as he waited for the empiricists to emerge and take up his work some time in the distant future. 
     
    for the rest:
     
    I attempted to create such a unified phenomenon in my book…. 
     
    The greatest individuals in the history of humanity are sculpted in the Illiad.  Individuality triumphant is what fashioned the Greek character and the civilizational legacy we inherited from them. Alexander was a fervent believer in the heroic ideal…. of the heroic  individual  in the Homeric context. I just saw a documentary which attributed greek civilizations greatness to their peoples commitment to the heroic ideal.
     
    I attempted to create such a unified phenomenon in my book….   
    lastly the spiritual passion was eschewed by Jung because he wanted to erect a psychology based on empiricism
     
    • Mats Winther > klemens swib July 12, 2015 at 1:12am

      Klemens, I have gotten virtually no response from Jungian academics, although I have presented my ideas in an academic forum. (It's not that I expected it, but I would have benefitted from having my ideas challenged.) Your intellectual grasp is clearly better than the average Jungian's. In this interesting podcast (approx. 1 hour) at "Zurich lab" Sean McGrath is in conversation with David Tacey, who comments on the Jungian intellectual ineptitude. He discusses the "tremendously disappointing Jungian culture" and the inability of Jungian psychology to get recognition in academia. He also goes into Hillman and Giegerich: The Zurich Laboratory.

      I reject the Jungian notion of unceasing individuation, because it is extravagant and out of proportion. After all, nobody seems to have lived through his programme of individuation: from the shadow, via the anima and the wise old man, to the Self. To my knowledge, nobody claims to have followed this path. It's now gone a hundred years since he introduced his concept of individuation. Why aren't any empirical results forthcoming?

      According to Neoplatonism, the Self is One. Thus, it is simple--a 'coniunctio oppositorum' in which the opposites are cancelled out. In Jung's vision, however, the Self is a 'complexio oppositorum' where the opposites are held in tension, as if keeping each others in check. This means that the opposites are always ready to fly apart, and conscious personality must hold them on a tight leash. Thus, Jung's Self could easily become ambivalent. As I say in my article 'Ethical Complementarity':

      "It is obvious that there is a limit to the amount of opposites that can be integrated in personality, because at some point consciousness cannot stand the tension anymore. We don't have the energy and time for such a project, anyway. I cannot become equally much extraverted as introverted, or equally much feeling as thinking, or equally much instinctual as rational. I can only better myself to a degree, and take away the worst inbalances in my psychology. Only by adopting a more modest ideal can one avoid becoming ambivalent. So at a point in time we cannot go further on the path of integration. It is then that the spiritual Self becomes the goal, at the point of reversion (the Neoplatonic concept of epistrophê). So Jung's Self is overbearing and exaggerated and needs to be downsized. There is no such thing as an overpowering, ambivalent, multifarious Self that incorporates all the opposites." (here)

      Arguably, the Janusian complementarian Self, as I have defined it, appears in this dream of Jung's:

      "In his autobiography, Jung accounts for the dream about Akbar and Uriah (Jung, MDR, pp.217-220). Jung associated the sultan Akbar with the "lord of this world". Uriah represents the vertical striving, because he lives far above the mandala in a solitary (hermit's) chamber; a place "which no longer corresponded to reality". He is "the highest presence" and Jung is compelled to bow before him. But he could not bring his forehead quite down to the floor. This means that it never clicked. The coin never dropped. In the dream he is portrayed as an "idiot" who cannot understand his father's brilliant biblical lecture. His father, the minister, is a representative of the vertical path. Thus, we get an entirely different picture than his conscious view." (here)

      So here the two Self aspects have been downsized. It is not the Christ versus the devil. Rather, it is Uriah versus Akbar. These are two more modest Self-images. Akbar does not represent the worldly Self, who has integrated *all* the opposites, keeping them in suspension. He is merely Akbar, and he is whole to a sufficient degree.

      The dream relates that Jung's view of Self is a misconception, and that's why he is portrayed as an "idiot" who cannot bow down properly to the transcendental Self. Jung's "empirical spirituality" is a failure. The "conglomerative Self", where spirit is coalesced with psyche, only promotes unconsciousness and a revival of paganism.

      Don't you think that it is problematic that Jung leaves no room for the spiritual reclusive in Jung's model, that is, the personality who centers his life upon faith, ascetism, and simpleness? Spiritual tradition has had an enormous following throughout history. Still, Jung dismisses the contemplative life in an off-hand way. He also rejects the philosophy underlying spiritual practices of the East, such as Yoga (cf. Jung, CW11, p.484). It is implausible that such a central aspect of human nature and history should be the result of a mere miscomprehension in spiritual matters.

      Mats Winther

  • Aleksandar Malecic July 11, 2015 at 1:22am

    "They tried to make me go to rehab but I said, 'No, no, no.'" - Amy Winehouse

    There are all kinds of abandonment, but it seems to me that a psychological approach to individual and collective life isn't a totally bad idea. Maybe it doesn't provide all explanations, but there are far worse reasons to accept or abandon stuff.

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