outlawpsych | Psychology and Personality Development From A Jungian Perspective

Time 2021-01-07 08:03:12

Web Name: outlawpsych | Psychology and Personality Development From A Jungian Perspective

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God goes on working as before, like an unknown quantity in the depths of the psyche. We do not even know the nature of the simplest thought, let alone the ultimate principles of the psyche. Also, we have no control over its inner life. Because this inner life is intrinsically free and not subject to our will and intentions, it may easily happen that the living thing chosen and defined by us will drop out of its setting, the man-made image, even against our will. Then perhaps we could say with Nietzsche, “God is dead.” Yet it is truer to say, “He has put off our image, and where shall we find him again?” The interregnum is full of danger, for the natural facts will raise their claim in the form of various isms, which are productive of nothing but anarchy and destruction because inflation and man’s hybris between them have elected to make the ego, in all its ridiculous paltriness, lord of the universe. Carl JungBecause it contains our living history in symbolic imagery, Jung wrote that any serious inquiry into the unconscious leads straight into the religious problem. What he meant is not exactly what Stephen Hawking imagined as knowing the mind of God through the study of matter. It can t be defined or measured as precisely as physicists might prefer; and though it can be described empirically, Hawking s ideal is an intellectual paradigm with no psychological foundation to support it.  Jung s theory of different but equally valid psychic realities based on his types studies, the subjectivity of consciousness, the collective spirit of the times, the unconscious foundations of perception, the symbolic nature of the psyche, and the accidental and irrational realities of life make the study of the mind (and God) a very uncertain business. Behind Jung s empiricism lay a wealth of experiences and intuitions which led to his studies of symbols. Because he based his analysis of them on a comparative historical foundation, they don t really look like science to the standard formula of observation, experiment, repetition, and verification of the physical model (though, both forms of inquiry are intimately related). But, as he insisted, it s the only way we can observe ourselves outside the subjective limitations of a subtly ever-changing consciousness yet bound to its own time and place. Unconscious complexes express our functioning through symbolic ideas, and Jung s work was a conceptual attempt to relate us to the instinctual processes which push them into awareness. Emotions in general, and religious ones in particular, point to different needs than thought alone can perceive. Without some feeling-sense of how the psyche works some concept of its irrationality we re stuck in the intellect with no relation to the psychic functions which would maintain our connection to natural reality.Consciousness has changed considerably since the last generation of religious authorities instructed a believing flock on its accountability before God. Though lacking psychological knowledge, conscious devotion along with a philosophical mindset maintained the functional requirements with which nature outfitted us to contend with ourselves. But, the old metaphysical projections were not just static reflections of conscious development at a given point in time.Inflated ideas of divine heritage were not only symbols of how we once conceived ourselves but images of what we would become. The unconscious contains our history as well the seeds of our futures. Today, the old symbols are a frightening revelation of an ego so enamored with itself that it would willfully and knowingly destroy all that would sustain it and its children while still maintaining the god-given right to do so.Otherworldly fixations (yet based on unconscious religious images), along with our self-appointed, primitive, ego-based stewardship of the earth, have morphed into crimes against nature of cosmic proportion. Today, we re contending with everything and everyone but our own inner natures.The intuitive wisdom of the past was too subjectively and concretely conceived to apply to our modern conflicts. The new objectivity, however, is as literal and collective as the old view, though our values now shift to the material world and with it, new forms of destruction.The soul, the now-extinct and forgotten religious prototype of the individual s relation to a greater natural reality, now lies buried beneath statistical averages and social norms: the only truth the rational viewpoint can connect with. The contemporary cult of the commercial mass-man reflects an inner disorientation, and no objective science can replace the soul s value. The history of our mental functioning was the focus of Jung s work. To discover new meaning in the old symbols requires a psychological/spiritual model. In a culture driven by scientific materialism, the history of who we really are is repressed and denied to such an extent that we no longer recognize our animal natures; though, our world predicament still echoes that time-worn ancient story.  Self-confrontation was once the basis of religious conversion: the first-half charge of youth to forge its place in the world was eventually driven to reflect on a reality greater than its struggle with the external environment. The wisdom of the ages provided the reference points for that transition. Today, there are no ages of wisdom to submit to, no greater realities to accept or convert to. The new truth is a pre-packed conformity, marketed as progress, devoid of the history which alone informs where we are in our development.The old road map no longer reflects the topography of inner life. Our GPS vision can t pinpoint the intimate personal by-ways of the compulsions, phobias, depressions, anxieties, and over-consumption which now betray the soul s repression. Understanding the changes in consciousness, especially in the last century, becomes more important with each new technological advancement.The scientization of the soul can t tame the beast in us any more than could the subjective half-truths of the former view. The soul doesn t care about logic, statistics, or light-years. It s function is the emotional stability of the individual. As Jung remarked: a million zeroes don t add up to one.The alien face of an objective history now stares back at us through Nietzsche s dead god, the backward self-deception of commercialism, the needy diversions of technological obsession disorders in those whose unconscious natures can t and won t be reconciled to a cultural norm which only accentuates them.Below the material, the metaphysical, the new intellect s subjective objectivity, the dark mirrors of the soul seek the reflection of conscious light. Modern examples of the spiritual/emotional processes behind Jung s symbolic view hold little value for the narrow commercial focus of our world-view today. Jung s model of the psyche was a basic one with an immense body of empirical material behind it. It often requires going back to fundamentals to re-think the misconceptions he strove to clarify. More so today than in his time, an object-focused ego-perspective has difficulty connecting with the subjective nature of knowledge he advanced.The insights of depth psychology: our animalness, our bisexuality (psychically, not sexually) and the inherently spiritual character of the psyche which general knowledge is supported by the respective disciplines are more or less loose, dissociated facts until we can incorporate them into a meaningful whole. Today s specialized disciplines are so exclusive,  it s much too easy to lose sight of the psychological implications of that knowledge. One of the tasks of psychology is to give our search a human direction.What Jung saw as scientific materialism in the nineteenth and twentieth century a counter-swing away from metaphysics toward natural inquiry only gains momentum into the new millennium, as commercial interests enhance and exploit our fascination with things and technology in ever more deceptive ways.Just as an unconscious worldly spirit worked beneath the surface of alchemy to balance an otherworldly religious perspective and guide it back to earthly reality, the latest extreme swings toward its opposite. Symbolic disorders are replete with projections which, if not in theory at least in practice, are designed to relieve us of our spiritual confusion. What were once religious problems between man, god, and nature are now conflicts between man, his culture, and his own nature.A neglected soul imparts little wisdom to an intellect bound to the senses, and the universal mysteries once projected into religious ideas have fallen back into the personal psyche. As Jung showed, consciousness can in no way contend with such powerful instinctual forces solely on its own devices. Though we would be superhuman, our animal natures belie our grandiose self-images no less today than a thousand years ago.Jung intuited the image of man as pre-determined to an unknown extent. Just as every seed contains its future form, each is compelled toward what nature intended it to be. From the dawn of consciousness, symbolized in the story of Eden, through our evolution into civilized societies, natural instinctive processes have guided our development. The idea of being made in the image of God was a symbolic intuition of it, intended to carry forward that distant seed of  innate natural wisdom.The specific energy designed by nature to produce consciousness is generated by unconscious conflicts between contending stages of development. Every child is outfitted with the forms corresponding to their progression. On a deeper level than parental instruction, these archetypes support and prepare the developing mind and push it through its evolutionary history into the contemporary stage – give or take five hundred years or so.The process of becoming self-aware condensed in the story of Eden was felt as disobedience (or opposition) to the law of unconscious wholeness. It reflected a capacity for choice, for weighing possibilities beyond animal consciousness. As it grew, it gradually split the psyche into two separate systems. As the myth says, it was initiated not by a god but by the conflicts of conscious choice amid opposing impulses symbolized by the snake. It requires a natural spiritual function to mediate instinct in a split mind, and all choice is relative to it. Images of space and other worlds still describe our dissociation from earthly reality.As our double-sided nature evolves, we identify with certain functions which signal new stages of development. New forms supersede older ones, though the old functions don t disappear. The original Adam (consciousness) who emerged from the blind world of nature constitutes a profound spiritual conflict one we can no more outgrow than the mind can outgrow the body.The soul as mediator of spirit, of instinct, in its consciously developed form is a religious function which took centuries to define. Though it was a form of consciousness, intellectual understanding wasn t necessary to connect with it even a century ago. The development of thought has outpaced the older form of awareness, and today we need psychological tools to understand who we are beneath the subjective veil of conscious focus.  As we once bowed to a god as an image of unity, of unconscious wholeness, so we yield to natural laws.In The Origins and History of Consciousness, Erich Neumann addressed the uneven psychological development of the modern individual: This betrays itself in many ways for example, as a technologist he may be living in the present, as a philosopher in the period of the Enlightenment, as a man of faith in the Middle Ages and as a fighter of wars in antiquity all without being in the least aware how, and where, these partial attitudes contradict each other. We re products of nature. Beneath the illusion of conscious unity, we live on in old philosophical assumptions which have passed unexamined from generation to generation: symbols which secretly reveal our split natures. Our scientific materialism today is too deeply opposed to the natural symbolic view to facilitate reconciliation. Its truth is in need of its opposite. The door to that opposite was opened by Jung s comparative method, and we need to swing it wide to contend with the dangerous extremes produced by our conscious/unconscious natures.For an idea of the emotional processes which lead back into the symbolic world of reflection, read more here, or visit Amazon. I faced the stubborn and confusing question of paper or plastic? once again as I stood in the checkout line at my local Food Arcade. I use both types of bag depending on domestic need (I m bisacksual), and I happened to select paper on this occasion. As I received the printout from my Master Club Fool s Gold Card (down-graded from the Shiny Platinum Card I d earned twenty years ago), I felt the disapproving glares of customers behind me.The bag-boy sullenly packed my groceries, and the cashier eye-balled me with suspicion. A young man in line piped, Dude! Save the trees! and the young girl holding his hand looked up at him, Does that man hate trees, daddy? Publicly shamed, I thought about it on the way home. Had my environmental footprint turned me into one of those unwitting eco-terrorists I d read about?As a boy, I took paper bags for granted; though I still have vague memories of the parchment bags my mother used in the fifties. But, parchment soon became too expensive for a throw-away society s manufactured need to buy ever more of the flimsy products which exponentially increased industry profits and left in the wake of its greed the obsolete values of quality and pride once governing the production of decent products for reasonable prices while at the same time conserving finite resources  But, I recently saw a commercial touting that we have more trees now than ever. What about the biodegradability of the paper bag? I heard, too, that it takes twenty-five thousand years for a plastic bag to decompose. I thought about the millions of tons of plastic debris washed onto the world s coastlines; but also of the vast tracts of baby pine trees sentenced to death in carefully cultivated industry graveyards where most life-forms had been squeezed out by the careful cultivation required for quick commercial growth.More confused than ever, I contacted Handel dem Sachs, C.E.O. of Grocer s Choice Unlimited, the world s top supplier of grocery bags. He said that paper or plastic? was the theme of this year s corporate convention. We ve seen a lot of controversy in the bag business over the years, he said. The hand grip on the paper bag, for instance, is a sensitive subject for most retailers. Have you ever seen retailers offer both the bag with the hand grip and the one without it? I admitted I hadn t. Of course you haven t; you never will. These ideological sub-divisions were mapped out long ago. One can still see examples of it in the old papyrus bags of antiquity. Some of the bags unearthed in Egyptian tombs had hand grips and some didn t, depending on the beliefs of the reigning king and the merchants serving him. In most essential aspects, the entire history of the grocery bag industry was founded on the competitive spark provided by these two antithetical ideologies. I wondered how the plastic bag had evaded the controversies of the paper bag. Owing to the schism caused by the hand grip on the paper bag, he explained, the hand grip on the plastic bag was integrated with its conception and was inherent in it; only that and advertising appeals to the green movement and its fear-based propanda about diminishing resources allowed it to compete with the paper bag. It made sense.He suggested that the hand grip controversy may even have been fueled by the old Bag Czars of the mid-twentieth century as a public relations stunt. Their ruthless zeal forced the conflict into the forefront long before the Supreme Court ruled that the matter of hand grips was to be decided by the market but it never was, and the commercial bag industry remains polarized. Some customers provide their own personal hand-totes in an attempt to avoid the conflict but, he added, I strongly advise against it. The average private tote has more bacteria than a construction site Port-a-Potty. I quickly ruled out the private tote option; however, the question of paper or plastic? persisted.He went on to explain how the division rose naturally out of the business itself: These values run deep in the veins of the individual merchant they always have and the split between the two camps has only intensified over time. My head was spinning. It seemed the more I searched for answers, the more complex became the questions. But, what about paper vs. plastic ? I groped, What does the data say? He looked pensive. Our own independent study, Eco-system Toxicity and Bio-degradation has confirmed what many scientists have long suspected: the pollutants and contaminants inherent in generating and maintaining our current consumption-system require a baseline toxicity level for every product generated by that system; each has a similar effect on the environment regardless of composition, biodegradability, production quality, or end-use. The study revealed an apparent bio-degradation which was neither less nor more impactful on the environment than so-called open bio-degradation. I was stunned. So you mean it doesn t matter which bag I use; its net effect on the environment is the same? I couldn t believe it. That s correct. he said. The law of quantitative equivalence demands it; the old qualitative analyses only served to obfuscate it He went on, but I could no longer hear him. I was already overwhelmed by more information than I could process. Far outweighing my confusion, however, was the profound sense of relief that humanity s future rests securely in the hands of science merged in partnership with business and technology to serve the needs of the global community. The issue of paper or plastic? suddenly seemed small in comparison.Is the world too complicated? Where is the perspective in  our modern values? By the year 2050, it had begun to dawn on humanity that its working knowledge of outer space exceeded that of its own inner nature. The uncertainties attending the shift in perspective produced strange effects within a generation. A crippling stasis overcame cultures planet-wide. Medication therapies no longer allayed symptoms which had steadily ballooned over a century.Weird obsessions, compulsions and phobias of the most irrational varieties were pandemic, threatening the very fabric of society. Even the sovereign sanctuaries of home and hearth transformed into violent hot-boxes of emotional projection seemingly overnight. Ongoing armed conflicts dotted the world map.Disaffected loners, incited by social media, along with accumulations of like-minded tribal personalities, choked law enforcement, fueling a guarded paranoia and increasing militarization. Entire governments were insolubly locked in petty dispute. Divorce statistics soared with birth rates, even as traditional marriages plummeted and same-sex partnerships splurged. The burdens of civilized man called psychiatry to task. The year: 2070. We join Capt. Abnorm Drowze aboard the Starship Innerguise, deep in inner-galactic space. The crew s mission: to locate the most elusive and mysterious form of matter ever conceived. Psychiatry wouldn t survive without it; indeed, life as mankind had hitherto known it now appeared so irrational that half its world was estimated as unassimilable by reason.Physics called it the God factor, and it would furnish the first truly objective reference point for human nature. The neurosciences knew it involved chemical interactions in the brain; they could see them light up on their digital scans. But, psychiatry needed something more tangible than an electronic game-show to confirm it. It would go in search of the mysterious substance and justify brain psychology once and for all  The elusive God-tissue in the fabric of matter had been a promising theory for physical science in the early 21st  century, and psychiatry joined the quest. Later studies, however, attributed its short-lived success in the behavioral sciences to rational credulity and a resistance to self-examination. Its apparent objectivity, they avowed, only contributed to a global epidemic of pathological symptoms such as humanity had never witnessed except in the general relations which constituted its entire history. The old gene-structure no longer immunized against these new chemical mutations/rationalizations. Could psychiatry redeem itself?This latest incursion into the genesis of psychic disorders by the APA-backed interest-group, Diagnostics and Statistical Micro-cognition, was heralded by an incredible virtual reality trip through the brain in which the team of explorers lived its inner workings first-hand with the aid of computer game programs. Microscopic technology was now able to shrink thought to minute proportions to experience brain-biology in its most elemental form.  Shrinks Shrink Thought! the Washington Compost headlined. The new virtual program was given the moniker, Starship Innerguise, and Dr. Abnorm Drowze was the first choice to helm the ambitious project. Once we identify it, we ll know a lot more. he assured at the press conference amid great fan-fare.The Dream Team sailed comfortably through the cortex and frontal lobe but experienced turbulence in the parietal lobe. The ship was tossed rhythmically, frightening the crew. Once into the cerebellum, they came under direct attack by androgynes . Capt. Drowze ordered deployment of the ship s deflective shield. The eerie figures changed shape at will and flew at us without let. he relayed once they d re-established communications with the cortex. It was crazy! The deflective shield bounced the team back into the frontal lobe just in time to dodge the disintegrating effects of the intense emotional images. Hostile neurons fired into the craft like missiles. The control room had meantime piled up with print-out data-sheets, and the crew had difficulty maneuvering around the great heaps of information. Rational assessment became a liability. Capt. Drowze later adjudged. The world waited expectorantly as the team dared the limits of human experience.Tech-Dr. Norm L. Persons was manning the deflective shield when the team lost its way. I couldn t describe it. The data-sheets showed equilibrium, but the ship was in complete chaos. Some suffered schizophrenic reactions before the shield was activated. Even a few minutes under such pressurized conditions can shatter the ego, leaving it porous and vulnerable to psychotic influences.The official investigation concluded that the team was not sufficiently prepared emotionally, and the dangerous images quickly subverted their aims when they strayed into the cerebellum. It was like it was just waiting for us. said one crew-member. Even Capt. Drowze s emergency self-medication kits wouldn t make it go away. When the team was deluged by the unsavory wraiths, it took the decisive reality function of Capt. Drowze to bring it back to focus. Dammit, man! Activate the shield! We re looking for a real thing!  He later described the tense moment: Look, all I knew was, we were looking for a real, concrete object and those androgynes were determined to stop us. We needed to get out of there and fast! The direct experience of psychotic processes does things to one. If not treated immediately with a stringent regimen of medication therapy buttressed by concrete concepts, it can have mind-altering consequences. The rest of the team remains quarantined in the laboratory, undergoing the de-sensitization process which had become a practical reality-gauge for science in recent decades. Capt. Drowze remains unshaken by the daunting experience, though he did admit that it had a somewhat harrowing effect vis-a-vis current psychiatric theory. Once out of quarantine, the team is expected to resume normal activities, though members will be closely monitored and tested every six months to make sure whatever that thing was in there doesn t metastasize. Radiation therapy has been proposed should behavioral complications arise.While a thorough projection of the data is still years away, preliminary signals are that much has already been learned. A digital photon enhancer translated electro-chemical reactions in the cerebellum into photographs which were then collated to simulate the images experienced by the crew during their ordeal in that distant netherworld. The team was so traumatized that no one, not even Dr. Drowze, was able to retrieve memories of the event. Was it a dream? They relied on the pictures to reveal what had gone on in there. We saw something in those pictures Dr. Drowze considered, something we d never seen before. It appeared real to all of us, though we can t be sure at this point. He seemed doubtful that even Eye Rotation Therapy would abet them under such conditions. This is not co-morbid with anything we ve seen in the cerebro-spinal system.  He looked deeply pensive. Someone has suggested that perhaps we saw God. He admitted laughing at the hubris of it at first but has since reconsidered. Whatever it was in those pictures definitely appeared to be carbon based. Whether or not it was God, only the data can tell us. He admitted he felt safe back in his office as he fondled the pictures beamed back from the cerebellum. You know he mused, gazing at the worn photos, the brain is a fascinating thing. He chuckled, It does strange things to a man. Step outside the science for a real journey into the unconscious. The new fall line-up is here. How and why certain shows are selected over others is a very complicated process involving everything from random questionnaires to very precisely targeted focus-groups even the latest psychiatric techniques (with the possible exceptions of medication and electric shock) for guiding those who may have fantasies of over-indulging their individuality only to flee back to the safety of the norm.The effectiveness of this winnowing process isn t precisely quantified as yet, for it in turn rests upon a considerably more complicated process: the dark interplay between the unconscious complexes of network executives and the uncertain emotional projections of the collectorate they pander to.Because you and I, as the unknown quantum variable in every decision made for our collective viewing pleasure, have such limited personal options in what we see and don t see, here are some new pilots that sailed over network heads:What s My Dysfunction?This amusing re-take on the sixties game show, What s My Line?, puts the fun back in dysfunction. Charismatic host Burf Burford mediates and mocks a panel of distinguished celebrities who compete through a series of questions to guess the peculiar mental afflictions of each week’s special guest. The pilot narrowly edged out two close contenders: I m With Stupid: candid reality-conversations between carefully selected married couples vying for emotional one-upmanship and, Bottom-Feeders, a behind-the-scenes look at political campaigning.Response was tepid. The majority felt that, while it was slightly amusing, it made a sport of mental illness and evoked discomfort, mostly about family members, colleagues and neighbors. In the end, the sensitivity of the subject hit too close to home for most viewers. In segregated interviews, however, men described it as tedious and even excruciating when compared to reality competition shows like, Naked Bachelorette, and Nude Bridal Wars, and lacked spontaneity. Execs nixed it in favor of Bared And Scared, and its stark portrayal of the bonds and boundaries defined in real-life marital relations.Dr. Do-LittleHe talks to animals but not the kind you re thinking of. This farcical re-mix of the old My Three Sons motif features a modern-day psychiatrist/dad struggling to raise three offspring in the wake of a divorce. In the pilot, Dr. Abnorm Drowse is faced with the sole custody of marital fruits which have suddenly morphed into rotten teen-age couch-potatoes.To top it off, they re all precocious girls with very different notions than the traditional patriarchal values their father was raised with. All his psychiatric training and experience go hilariously awry as he tries helplessly to confront feminine puberty from the male perspective in the modern computer age. These predictably spell his demise as both parent and professional, and Dr. Dad soon discovers that the only prescription for self-esteem  is self-medication!Christ On A Crimson CrutchThis irreverent spoof of conventional religion follows the antics of self-anointed sojourner and bhuddistic metaphor, Howie Greeve, as he wanders aimlessly across the country in search of a long-lost spiritual ideal. His quirky mixture of introverted/extraverted tendencies leads not to spiritual salvation, however, but to a comical series of gaffes and guffaws in the drive-through relationships he encounters on his way.Clumsy attempts to appeal to wider viewing audiences through the marriage of the adolescent road trip theme with the more mature search for the soul were not enough, however, to warrant a thumbs-up from either focus group. Most outside New Jersey felt that it was not a true picture of travel Americana but a circus-like caricature of commercialism and the fast-food communities that dominate rural life around interstate exits.Madam PresidentThis edgy new sit-com troubled network execs from the start. Studio audience response was split fifty-fifty; that is, until the last scene which introduces the surprise theme of this social experiment. The new POTUS is not just any female politician; there s much more behind her interest in the LGBTQ community than liberal progressiveness and minority voter appeal. In fact, she fulfills all the categories  in LGBTQ, and not only did no one know not even her husband the crazy fall-out sends her PR agency scrambling to re-define sexual equality in a new post-gender age!While the revealing final scene dipped approval ratings slightly, this in itself was not enough for execs to cancel it. Most women found it delightful; however, it was noted in tape reviews that many of the men who expressed distaste had laughed a little too hard during the screening for it to be canned altogether. Though considered too controversial to be aired this fall, it was put on the back burner as a possible replacement for clunkers which bottom out before spring re-runs.Einstein s GhostNerdy social outcast and computer whiz, Ned Bungler, has a secret weapon when it comes to the over-bearing emotional compensations of school bullies. His personal spirit-guide is not just any old imaginary friend but the world-famous physicist who proved that space and time are relative. He communicates to Ned through his My-Phone, and you ve never seen death, science, and the space-time continuum through such a foggy, fun-filled lens. It s the new counter-intuitive, dual reality of psychic inter-facing in the digital age: asocial networking!Watch for this one to air sooner than later. The youngsters’ enthusiasm clearly suggested an untapped market, though some targets complained at the lack of zombies and vampires. These could easily be worked into the scripts according to network evaluations. Oldsters’ desires to keep up with fashionable trends (at least among the less cynical) unpredictably criss-crossed the generational divide; the only hitch is working the zombie/vampire gambit into a senior format.Read here for a serious account of mid-life with the aid of Jung s psychology. We may take consciousness for granted today, but historically speaking, it s a relatively new phenomenon. The old biblical Word links its history to modern psychology, philology and philosophy, along with evolutionary studies which  describe the conflicting functions of natural development on the one hand and highly advanced conscious defense-mechanisms against it on the other.Before nature s most recent experimentation in self-recognition, primates were primarily outfitted for eating, excreting and competing, mainly for the broader purposes of coitus. This may explain Congress, but what of the deeper spiritual concerns of  so-called normal human beings? Evolutionary psychology provides clues to this mystery:In Homo Antithesus, around three million years ago, an evolving capacity to associate past experiences formed a psychic complex known as consciousness, or in academia, as the ‘God Complex’. Its dwarf state enabled our ancestors to think backward along a chain of preceding events to an assumed cause . The added capacity for memory carried with it a function for weighing possibilities, too, and the forward flow was primitively conceptualized as time or money , as it s known today.Thoughts originally appeared as hallucinations in the dawn mind. A relatively weak ego was unable to differentiate its mental activities from its surroundings at first, and objects were easily contaminated with sense perceptions of their images. These mysteries of its own ideation were perceived as spirit or magic. No one knew where they came from. Early hominids venerated what they needed most, and plants and animals were the first objects of worship.Even as crude prototypes, thought-obsessions and compulsive object-worship proved more effective for survival than blind beastly instinct. How else would the new species maintain the delicate balance of nature but through the ability to recognize the reality that self-awareness promised (with the possible exception of the unforeseeable consequences of its every action)? Though now classified as symptoms of mental derangement, these functional dissociations were actually the indispensable building-blocks of culture and remain so today.As in a mirror, unconscious images were reflected back in real-time. So vivid were they through the medium of sense perception, the world appeared only as Concrete Reality. Of course, it was real in one sense yet not in another, for the new complex was unaware of the subtleties of psychic representations: image merged with need, desire and object as in a dream.About a half a million years ago, the intra-psychic effects of sense-images began to produce cognitive identifications of a different complexity beyond Concrete Reality: on the psychological level of hallucination called spirit-possession . An unstable ego s resistance to change bid it cling to the self-flattering aspects of the new function, and these gradually assumed fantastic proportion in correlation to its fear of development. This was unavoidable:Nature combined intuition and an inflated sense of self to support and protect the new complex; for, without the dual functions of protection and opposition required for its purposes, the nascent individual identity so vital to its evolution would never gain the strength to confront the reality it saw in every natural thing but denied in itself.In compensation for the future-dread inherent in the gift of foresight, ego came to sense its spirit-possession as divinely ordained. In its identity with the upward symbols of a higher reality above the crotch and belly of instinct, it quickly ballooned far beyond earthly limitations and flew directly into the stratosphere. Modern technology has since made this image of psychic inflation a concrete reality.As a cultural instrument, The Word gained complexity through social exchange; though its subjective nature worked also as a tool for aggression, rationalization and delusions of magical flight from the instinct-compulsions it refuted. Its backward thought translated its fears into upside-down collective ideas which only further veiled the subversive effects of the inflated perspective.Indistinguishable from the causal reasoning demanded by its deluded wish for knowledge and certainty, the stunted forward design of the unconscious mind re-surfaced as crude self-interest: compensation for the backward group identity that had long held to the certainty of tradition for its survival. The puffed-up complex mirrored in its religious ideals soon metastasized into unconscious self-adulation.The nascent ego s fear of its half-conceived tasks of development pronounced them as having already been accomplished, and it was obstinate to any change beyond the abetment of sensual pleasure. The instinct for personal reflection was negated by a collective spiritual indolence consumed primarily with reducing physical effort; mental focus remained tied to the senses. Energies specific to individual development over-accumulated in proportion to their fears of them and came to be seen as bad things to be avoided.The repressed urge for development gradually formed into mass projections called Ideologies. Legions fought over such subjective perceptions for centuries, unaware that the psychic realities of subject and object were bound up in the contagion of collective hallucination divided by as many heads as were swept away by them. This very grudgingly allowed the random awareness of a few until their more curious hit on observation and experiment to test assumption. This partially lifted the curtain of perception but only in the external world.Fueled by its fascination with objectivity and the wish for certainty and control, the new science inspected everything but the self-awe which had so long hindered its spiritual adaptation to Nature. Those who funded it quickly saw the worth in exploiting it and set about the mass manufacture of commercial fascination with objects. This dissolved the old holographic sky-deities and was seen as further proof of the fantastic self-images they d historically convinced themselves of: the only aspects of nature left unexamined. The new form of self-aggrandizement was perceived as a great advancement, though it described as much regress as progress.The regressions only reinforced the original biological orientation, and the new science could no more reconcile unconscious purpose to conscious objective than its ancestors. This backward response to ancient, upside-down religious views only served to maintain the old form of stunted inner cognition, and it remained inside-out.Hypnotized by the new subjective objectivity, the instinctual symbols directing it remained as undifferentiated as the fantastic sky-deities only re-emerged in a new form of  object-worship as symbols of its own self-creation.Read a poetic story of how these ideas may manifest in modern dreams. Media-driven thing-obsession and near compulsive consumption divert vital energies. Ever more advanced technologies draw us further outside ourselves and into devices. Instant access and constant exposure to the subliminal effects of marketing and advertising cultivate unconscious emotions so paradoxical that what is meant to emancipate and connect also finds us dependent and alienated our most personal and intimate needs indistinguishable from carefully instilled, pre-packed desires. A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The UnconsciousLet s take a look into the exciting future brain psychology has to offer: Sleep can have a striking effect on consciousness.  Ernt A. DeGreeThis profound insight is only one among a litany of startling new discoveries by Ernt A. DeGree, recently appointed fixer at Genes-R-Us, the latest of the new-rological advertising agencies to attract corporate attention. His studies confirm it and more, and the world of commercial group-think is taking notice: Today’s marketing paradigm is yesterday s news. Many experts agree that our studies will have sweeping effects on the global consumer-system. While to the casual eye, it might appear that consumers don t buy much when they re asleep, he chafed, no one has ever bothered to investigate how the soothing dream-world of somnambulism could be re-purposed to induce them to buy more than they could possibly need or even want. The principle is a logical extension of the crude commercial advertising of the last century which, too randomly dependent on and ignorant of the irrational factors of individual quirk, was blindly limited to more or less specific target-groups. This hit-or-miss approach, while still highly profitable, was far less than ideal. he explained. Modern neuro-technology will soon serve the unique needs of each individual customer in the intimacy of the home sleep-setting without the cumbersome need for conscious attention. Patents are already in the works to serve today s omni-consumer whom the old shot-in-the-dark market psychology left confused and adrift amid the chaos of conscious choice. Our advanced neurological approach would release the energy of pent-up existential anxieties for more creative pursuits than the tedious and mundane survival activities once required for life s maintenance that s where we come in. The latest data in neuro-psychology tells us that the human body s primary function is sensual gratification; market-wise, any strictly utilitarian value has fallen by the wayside. He described the mind-numbing schemata of modern neuro-psych s bold new applications: Recent advancements in the electrode now allow us to track the subconscious wishes of consumers via non-invasive skin implants decorative, personalized ecto-versions will also be available and coordinate them with a grid of compatible products. A personalized marketing inventory would then be specifically tailored to the individual s need. Upon waking, a printout of the end user s deepest desires would be instantly available in material form. If certain retailers or brand-names are confirmed in advance, the consumer-mark can simply press the call-in button on his/her Night Register and the products would arrive by door-step drone on the following business day. If a more hands-on need gratification is preferred, starred, prioritized outlines would conveniently provide directions to the nearest fulfillment center for the catering of his/her most profound material needs. It will revolutionize the way the market has approached advertising in the past. A Super Saver Plan would be assigned to each subscriber, identifiable by Social Security number and a customized Buyer Status profile. Consumer Options would deliver up-to-the-minute notices of important sales events and other such cost-compliant considerations. Depending on economic circumstances, lower-end alternatives would appear according to that individual s available credit-line. It s a whole new concept based on the expanding spirit of the ultra-individual in today s culture. he crowed. The very sphincter of our society is gripped by this ultra-spirit, and the credit service industry must be intimately partnered with theoretical science and applied technology if it is to continue to serve the changing demands of human evolution in the twenty-first century. Its impact on the quality of family life will exceed that of the personal computer – or even the cell-phone. he blarified. The notion that we could actually experience what we buy, as things in themselves far beyond the old utilitarian vantage-point, and share those experiences with our families was inconceivable outside the context of today s insights. Modern psychological investigations suggest that we are what we buy. What more personal way to connect with our families and friends than through the shared identification with the material world we so treasure? Credit reports or Consumer Indices would no longer be the sole province of anonymous powers but openly shared as consumer and retailer work hand in hand to maintain the credit he/she has worked a lifetime to enjoy. If you‘re just starting out as a credit-service variable, he assured, consumer counselors will work for you to establish immediate credit with an eye toward creating options for the future. Each step in the construction of the consumer s market ontology would be uniquely fitted to life-style differentials , as his/her Personal Concierge blinks real-time appraisals of market conditions and the availability of products from the nightstand. A convenient off-sensor will deactivate the system when the consumer s energy level is low and reactivate it according to the psycho-galvanic ennervations of his or her own custom, statistically-derived wake-sleep cycle.  Commercial psychology has labored under a quite negative persona in the past, largely the product of subjective bias; but, thanks to a new empiricism, it s no longer shameful to admit that we re subject to brain processes outside conscious control. Shoppers can now have the objective evaluations needed for informed decision-making; to take control of their own consumption.  The future is now. If we don t take advantage of the opportunities this new knowledge offers, life s most gratifying experiences will only continue to be squandered by our children and grandchildren. For today s culture to accept the foul end of this evolutionary stick now would only be setting it up for failure. If you re searching for a way out of the modern maze, you ll need a map. Jung furnished one. Read one small example of where it may lead. A changing consciousness begins to sense the gravity of its own historical foundations, causing a profound collision between the two perspectives. The conflict of opposites now moves into the foreground as ego intuits the deeper pull of functions which exceed choice and free will. In terms of Jung s energic theory, this is one of the vital steps toward a conscious recognition of the inner gradient the narrow gate referred to in the Bible. The reactions that follow reflect the fear of being taken over by the “alien will” of the unconscious and its steady aim toward wholeness. As it continues to seize hold, dreams flow along this gradient to establish bridges which would further connect an isolated modern perspective to the still-living history of the instinctual psyche. A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The UnconsciousThe focus of this post is, Carl Jung s On Psychic Energy, the first chapter in his eighth volume, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. In it, he examines the bases of the two general concepts by which the psyche interprets the world: the causal, mechanistic view and the energic, or final, viewpoint.The causal view, Jung wrote, “ conceives an event as the effect of a cause, in the sense that unchanging substances change their relations to one another according to fixed laws.”From the energic standpoint, “the event is traced back from effect to cause on the assumption that some kind of energy underlies the changes in phenomena… The flow of energy has a definite direction (goal) in that it follows the gradient of potential in a way that cannot be reversed… The concept, therefore, is founded not on the substances themselves but on their relations, whereas the moving substance itself is the basis of the mechanistic view.”He explained the two concepts as the logical reversal of one another. One points backward in time to a cause, and the other points forward to a goal or purpose without positing a cause: the difference between our conscious perceptions of moving bodies in space and psychic images and intuitions of their relations and how they may serve unconscious purposes.Though, conceptually, the viewpoints are mutually exclusive, a compromise has resulted in which an event is conceived “as partly causal, partly final – a compromise which gives rise to all sorts of theoretical hybrids but which yields, it cannot be denied, a relatively faithful picture of reality. We must always bear in mind that despite the most beautiful agreement between the facts and our ideas, explanatory principles are only points of view, that is, manifestations of the psychological attitude and of the a priori conditions under which all thinking takes place.”This distinction was extrapolated by Jung from Freud s reductive analysis which followed from philosophical concepts which assumed the causal sequence as the defining one. The idea of unconscious energy flowing toward a gradient of potential had always indirectly inserted itself into the causal concept, but more so with the increasing sophistication of physical science and its acknowledgment of the subjective factor. Most philosophers aren t scientists (and vice versa), and the hybrid of the two concepts Jung referred to was the result of a less precise psychology yet to elaborate a psychic equivalent of the physical processes.The fusion of concrete perceptions with unconscious images accentuated the personal equation. The “beautiful agreement between facts and ideas” happens when we interpret a set of facts based on a subjective viewpoint which confuses contradictory ideas of cause and purpose without distinguishing intellectually where and how they may differ owing to unknown variables. It turned out that the dual nature of the psyche required both interpretations to arrive at a more objective description of our behavior. The final concept yields a different set of facts bound to an equally objective reality beneath the causal assumption: it follows the flow of psychic energy toward an undefinable purpose. In this way, Darwin arrived at his theory of evolution and the idea of natural development.We understand that physical and mental processes may be mutually influential – who has not awakened from a dream with heart pounding, shaken and perspiring? Yet, current knowledge cannot explain how it occurs. The mysterious process by which neurological impulses or chemical reactions become psychic images to a perceiving consciousness is beyond our ken. That being said, it is impossible to assign primacy to one or the other. Psychologically, however, we can refine our observations based on the precision of the concepts we use to distinguish the movement of objects and their relations.So far as Nature is concerned this is a dynamic process only artificially dissected for purposes of inspection by a subjective observer. These classifications don t exist in Nature but are projections of the qualities of consciousness: to dissect, discriminate, and organize thought. Since recent biology assures us that all life is purposive, the energic viewpoint has likewise emerged as a valuable explanatory principle.Aside from the fact that the physical laws of energy do not account for the phenomena of life or how the living organism transforms energy, the body’s impulses must also contain a psychic aspect; otherwise it would be impossible for an image to be produced by them. To assign primacy to one or the other then becomes a value judgment – the projection of a subjective bias by the observer.Yet most of natural science conceives physical processes to be primary – unjustly, for it cannot be substantiated…” as Jung wrote. This fact is consistent with how opposites work and the uncertainty of evaluating intuitions as they apply to subjective emotions.Read the preface to my account of how I followed Jung s ideas and experienced the emotional changes they can produce. Despite our individual differences, we’re also driven by collective instincts to be accepted; to be normal . The social instinct to conform is as inherent as its opposite, and both are present from birth. It s just a hint that you may (or not), suffer strange psychic disturbances at mid-life, when your individuality begins to emerge (if it does).If it does, don t panic; this split in the personality is natural. But, because it s so little acknowledged or understood, we must go far back in time to discover the reasons why. The younger generation may be astonished that this search for the historical roots of our behavior leads into the ancient world of the nineteen-fifties.The brutality characteristic of that time was recorded on crude black and white media transmissions through a boob tube. Brief but startling interruptions in the fantasy-based programming allowed viewers to tune into real-time events at the end of each day for a half-hour.Euphemistically referred to as news , these horrifying glimpses into reality were gradually numbed by unconscious associations with the pleasant dream-world surrounding them. Uncritical ego-tendencies fostered an eager audience quick to embrace the new, subliminal means of repression.To redirect any thought or reflection on the actual state of affairs, sit-coms depicting outlandish exaggerations of human behavior, accompanied by dubbed laughter at prescribed intervals, subtly informed a smooth flow into the newly scripted norm.Fiercely competitive game shows stressed object-acquisition and fantasies of entitlement to spur industry following a devastating world war and to avert attention from the threat of unconscious destructive tendencies designed to compensate a fantastic view of natural law. Owing to the anxiety of the time, all desperately seized upon the new medium without compunction. This is not to be wondered at:Contrasting with today s cutting-edge medical specialist, a general practitioner slapped the newborn s bottom in that distant age to jump-start its breathing. Judging from available records, since most infants lungs were then located in the chest cavity, we can only theorize that it was to accustom it at the outset to being hit by parents and strangers alike. The para-sexual practice was so prevalent, we assume it to have been a primitive birth rite associated with the reigning cult of violence.No general instruction or education was provided for the care of the wee thing, and upon initiation it was thenceforth dispatched to the homes of inexperienced novices whose worst traits were only magnified by the confusion of having brought a primitive self-replicant into their private, inside-out social bubbles. The ignorance and arrogance required to tackle such a task without knowledge or preparation were happily endorsed by all, along with a host of other irrational behaviors typical of that age.The powerful symbolic significance of the child-image was unrecognized by the rude psychology of that era; its more comprehensive evolutionary function remained as unconscious as in the Anthropithecus Abnormalis of prehistoric times. We now understand the child-image to be a profound psychic function: each generation s highest hopes doubled back against a conscious fear of change for the purpose of self-examination and reflection with the aim toward higher development.Relentless coaching served to repress this natural, albeit unconscious function, and contradictions intended to reveal nature s forward aims via thoughtful reflection borne from a desire to understand one s nature were subliminally absorbed as is by the infant, as through a looking glass, to be channeled into the hostile and defensive reactions required to participate in the norm.The pointless and frustrated squandering of vital life energies dedicated to re-interpreting such natural functions into embarrassing and inadmissible private necessities afforded effective early training for the grander cultural illusions awaiting the tiny initiate.As determined as the efforts were, they failed to fully repress the instinctive drive to self-awareness lurking behind the dissociated intellect of that day. Devious commercial marketing of all manner of useless gadgetry merged with a vast entertainment industry to siphon off the psyche s persistent demand for personal and social consciousness. This only plunged the culture deeper into regression.The natural, ape-like instinct for imitation was artificially managed to retard the much-needed reflection, and the child was alternately cajoled, hit and screamed at to ensure conformity to the mass madness. So advanced was emotional retardation in the boys, they yearned to hit others far beyond the attainment of physical maturity.Many habitually struck their spouses, not just in retribution for the chimp-like traditions forced upon them, but to hone the competitive ruthlessness which drove the obsessive commercial machinery. Most were routinely whipped into submission from an early age to abet the general conspiracy of self-neglect required for an exclusive focus on objects far exceeding practicality. Darwin s theory of natural selection suggested a dark psychic paradox.The primitive desire to hit and be hit was integral to the compensatory objectives of educators and parents and fitted so neatly into the collective program, none inspected the deep personal insecurities beneath the violent cycle of reaction and response.Due to guilt-ridden projections, the imitative function bidding the youngsters to practice the lessons they learned on each other was paradoxically punished. Authorities had also to rationalize the humiliations inflicted upon their own youth: unconscious retaliation for the still-living brute in them and the buried shame of ignominies required to mold its natural reality into a credulous and exploitable machine of artificial design.No reliable records exist of the girls reactions to such conditions. They were segregated into a far-off emotional world beyond psychic reach of the boys who later became the men who furnished the only reports available. Today s more objective assessments must discard them as too subjective self-inflated male caricatures of an early stage of development.The crude psychic split between the sexes was so deeply rooted, males often persisted in chiding one another long into adulthood for crossing the artificial sexual barrier when mating for purposes outside coitus.Consonant with the lack of reflection and the blind acceptance of rote gender roles, moribund religious rituals deeply entrenched in a rigid patriarchy held any reconciliation of the sexual divide in strict abeyance.As psychic images were then viewed as concrete things (the by-product of a too-rational attitude), the repressed urge to reconcile contradictory impulses and the consequent one-sidedness contributed significantly to a fragmented gender-identification and a confusing mix of sexual proclivities which naturally attracted all, whether positively or negatively. Appearance dictated that sexual identity existed only in the body, and causation was ascribed to simplistic notions of hereditary weakness and/or childhood trauma as suited the psychological bias of the investigator.Unconscious fealty to patriarchal ideals, along with with weak compensating feminine images, was so tightly woven into the fabric of society that the effete religious views were shrouded in superstition and forbidden any elaboration. It remained to be discovered that the goals of psychology were inseparable from spiritual development, and their separate inquiries remained at cross-purposes.Hidden beneath the religious cult was a morbid fear of nature which persisted despite the irrefutable evidence of its destructive effect on the only reality which supported it. The compulsions of instinct were only a small step beyond being perceived as external demons of unknown origin just as they had been for eons.The rote science of that era was so fixed on material substance, symbols were declared meaningless across the psychic board. Any emotional advancement was thus stopped in its tracks. Because of the stoppage created by a too-rational,  extraverted viewpoint, the innate balancing function of spiritual values needed to guide the employment of dissociated technologies eventually metastasized into a compulsive greed for personal wealth and power.For a more serious inquiry into collective ideals, visit Amazon. For those not appreciative of the subtler forms of satire, I thought hard about re-doing this post in a more serious tone however, I failed utterly. Because I think it s an accurate description of Jung s psychology of mid-life, and because satire can be a meaningful way of approaching unfamiliar ideas, I let it stand with one caveat: my projections onto the conventional perception of Jung s ideas are my own small biases against the extraverted interpretation of the psychological facts he established through his work.Jung arrived at his concept of individuation by comparing his own inner experiences to historical ideas; their connections to themes in myth and literature, and similar ideas in his patients: a scientific attempt to provide a broad compendium of associations to the central images forming the structure of the unconscious mind. The process of coming to terms with the unconscious meant discerning one s unique personality from the cultural demands dominating the first half of life. That may appeal to those with a morbid susceptibility to inner compulsion, but let s consider this idea from a more realistic social standpoint.His speculations of a psychological change accompanying menopause startled me. The changes in physiology initiated by hormonal diminution were actually seen by Jung as also effecting an emotional development designed to accentuate contrasexual spiritual functions. How physical processes and spirituality are linked to homosexual fantasies, I couldn t discern.Far-fetched though it seems, this idea revolved around a bizarre model in which mind and body appeared as reciprocal factors designed for purposes beyond physical need, social adjustment, or even consciousness. Though today we know the conscious mind is relatively self-sustaining and merely endures the body as the crude vehicle of an out-grown animal heritage (viz., eating, having sex and going to the bathroom), Jung yet conceived it as the basis of deeper aims which couldn t be seen or touched (!).He believed that natural processes don t necessarily adhere to rational scientific ideas. Stages of development appeared to him as fluid and relative, interpenetrating to such a complex degree that nothing could really be certain (where s the science in that?). Beyond the instinctual maintenance of the body, Jung theorized  subjective psychic processes which could be inferred (fantasized?) through personal emotional experience. Unconscious drives were discernible through indirect reflections in behavior and were thought to develop according to natural laws. FYI: an interesting, though equally irrational, supplement to Jung s model was the idea of  centroversion introduced by Erich Neumann, a long-time member of his cult. It was intended as a complement to Jung s concepts of introversion and extraversion, the psychic mechanisms adapting us to inner and outer worlds . These spontaneous movements of psychic energy were seen as alternating of their own accord (what?!) as demands change with development and the effects of the environment. Bear with me.It was Neumann s further contention that centroversion is the organizing and directing function which coordinates the other two mechanisms in the gradual unfolding of consciousness, much like Jung s outlier concept of the Self. Though it smacks of a philosophical chimera in an atheistic age, it was meant as a description of an innate force behind the evolution of the individual as well as the species (what happened to God?)!Anyway, it doesn t begin to emerge until conscious development reaches a certain stage of separation from the unconscious . Many begin to feel disoriented, with vague and unidentifiable yearnings (?) and a sense that something is missing in their lives. Such disturbances may correspond to the isolated experiences of a few rejected members of society, but it can t in any way be indicative of healthy participation in the social norm.Though Jung postulated this stage as reaching its peak at mid-life, he speculated that transitional periods could be so relative to personal experience, even early dreams and memories could portend it; that symbols actually referred to functions which guide the unfolding of our natures even preceding the menopausal stage. He saw them as compensatory attempts by an inner self to maintain connection to it during critical stages in its shifts toward individual differentiation. What this might mean for society wasn t elaborated.Despite the fact that logic dictates our modern collective direction, Jung presumed this to be an illusion; that we re driven by an over-valued intellect fueled by egotistical hubris. Though we know that science is our only defense against an inferior and hostile Nature, he suggested they were actually self-aggrandized aversions to an unconscious history fashioned largely by an innate animal-like earthly reality (never mind cause and effect). He and Neumann even suggested an inherent spiritual function in it centered around inner awareness and not just biological and social needs!For a reflecting consciousness, they maintained, instincts appear as religious symbols intended to compensate our primitive natures and not just crude misinterpretations of cause and effect. How such  irrational fantasies could possibly signify objective processes is untenable in the light of modern science.Since we re largely unaware of this transition, we don t know what s happening when it insinuates itself; it s too opposed to consciousness (I wonder why!). Jung insisted that we project inner events onto the screen of outer circumstances. The changes in our personalities are reflected back to us through relationships: divorce, career change, new love-interests, a profound sense of inferiority, or the sudden onset of depression and/or compulsive behavior. The marvels of modern medications were yet unknown in Jung s day.The real purpose of these conflicts is to re-focus an exterior orientation to the internal authority which precipitates the changes. What is this superstitious, quasi-religious obsession with some thing greater than ourselves? Neumann further added that the effects of centroversion were always the motive force behind development, the reason the symbols seemed to conform from stage to stage. Focus on the outer world in the first half of life prompts us to see their effects as originating in the environment.That this is only partially so, slowly dawns on the mind that can discern its own psychic activity within . They perceived this as a sort of religious/philosophical fantasy, though because we re unconscious of its symbols as the organizers of psychic life, it s traditionally projected onto dogmatic figures references to the occult mindset of centuries ago. Put on your waders, they went further:If, with psychological knowledge, the conscious mind confronts its own background and is able to withdraw its projections from these invisible figures through conscious re-interpretation and emotional experience, it may discover the hidden language of analogy in them thus magically entering into a new stage of awareness! The inward attention is supposed gradually to connect us with a psychic reality behind the changes. It begins to appear as a dual process in which outer and inner events reflect parallel paths of development. What this actually refers to, I couldn t determine. How many realities do you see?That opposing forces merge energies toward a purposeful end is not a new idea. The positive and negative poles which combine to produce electricity are familiar to everyone. But, Jung conceived this material truth (fasten your seat-belts) to apply to the mind as well! He implied that the analogy could acquaint us with the contrasts and contradictions between different ways of viewing life in the transition from an external orientation to an internal one. The collision of the two perspectives intended to inform the new direction creates the mental confusion designed to push us into it! Who s confused?Though many have observed that the individual relives the biological stages of humanity which precede its modern state; and though history portrays the intellect as gradually emerging from a rude emotional matrix, Jung actually saw this process as being driven by religious imperatives deeply embedded in the psyche and not by social and cultural exchange. The absurdity of this premise is apparent today. Some argue that one of the evolutionary purposes of consciousness is to create order from the chaos of an unconscious nature. Conversely, we also know that nature contains a different (though often opposed) and more diffuse order which modern psychology has been attempting to describe since at least the advent of chemically-based anti-perspirants. That there might possibly be some confusion or conflict between the two, like perhaps an implicit order in the disorder, may depend on your viewpoint. With that in mind, let s take a critical look at some of the less publicized disorders of contemporary man:1. Object-Worship Syndrome.This insidious atrophy of the religious function is characterized by the irrational and compulsive desire for objects far exceeding need or practicality. Once known euphemistically as shopaholism , it has recently burgeoned into a form of self-rejection so prevalent, some fear it may now be a general condition.Symptoms include manic glee over the acquisition of the most banal material possessions, lesser forms of hoarding such as too many doilies, over-full storage areas etc., the planning of holiday dinners around sales events, the continual re-purchase of utilitarian tools you know you already have three or four of but can t find, and the bull in the china shop effect in which a thing is knocked over amid the frustrated search for misplaced or forgotten items. In advanced cases, this leads to the domino effect of each of an array of carefully-placed knick-knacks toppling the next as the hapless victim looks on.Some suggest the new criteria are far too nebulous; that, under its guidelines, the psychiatric community would itself qualify for treatment if its fixation on the assumed material causation of the unconscious emotional conflicts called life were understood as actual psychic phenomena which compensate the conscious viewpoint.2. Intuitional Inhibition Disorder.Otherwise known as the live-each-day-as-if-it-were-your-last complex, this debilitating condition, left untreated, soon progresses into a complete incapacity to foresee the painful consequences of repetitive past behaviors.Symptoms include an obsession with novelty and progress as a compensation for reflection, in turn leading to the gradual retardation of inner valuation and the contrived fabrication of crises as psychological responses to the stagnation of natural processes and the piling-up of unused unconscious energy, facilitating the misapplication of fantasy-content vis-a-vis reality .Critics cite the behavior of Congress as clear evidence of normalcy, in addition to the precedents established by our entire civilized history from Nebuchadnezzar to Napoleon to behaviorism to the habitual over-consumption of fried foods and the steady sales of one-ply toilet paper.3. Oughtism.This psychosomatic form of derangement describes the reflexive responses of the autonomic nervous system to the unconscious emotional effects of commercial advertising. The FDA acquiescence to pharmaceutical lobbies in the form of televised ads aimed at the general public for prescription drugs which yet require medical diagnosis and dispensation has been seen by some as the uber-reach of an unregulated free market and its zeal to mass-manipulate a paranoid mistrust of the body as an exploitable hangover of historical religious conditioning for the purposes of increased sales.Medical practitioners, however, have seen such a dramatic rise in office visits owing to public demands to cure them of the perceived burden of their bodies, they offered no objection to treating them for the contrived conditions instilled in them through the manufactured fears of being sick and the placebo effects of medical attention.Even the open admission of documented side-effects of the drugs themselves, which are often more dangerous than the conditions they are designed to treat, failed to dissuade the average consumer when said side-effects were recited by a pleasant but authoritative voice as an incidental aside at the end of the ads.To the targeted consumer, they appeared as smart alternatives to the irrational dread of the possibility of the probability of disease which had been subliminally inculcated via repressed religious ideas symbolic of an inherited disgust by the human head of its animal body except when eating, having sex, and in some cases going to the bathroom.4. Bipolar Sit-Com Syndrome.Here, we plunge into the very bases of the split personality. Trivial as they may appear on the surface, television sit-coms reflect a human condition which is indiscernible to all but the most disciplined, professional eye.The enhancing effects of laugh-tracks, regardless of program quality, have long been substantiated. Recent studies, however, reveal an extraordinary insight into the infectious nature of base collective behavior. When sit-coms were viewed by subjects without laugh-tracks, no signs of amusement were registered. When responses to  dry  sit-coms were compared with those viewing popular horror films, many were practically identical. Gesticulations of disgust and expressions of repugnance occurred with the same frequency in both groups. But there s more:When laugh-tracks were added to horror films, subjects reacted with outbursts of hilarity at the same rate as sit-com viewers, though tachycardial measurements recorded fear-responses comparable with witnessing a gruesome car accident. The more pronounced the laugh-track, the more vociferous the subjects fits of levity, despite the grisly blood-letting in the scenes they watched.Sometimes known as laughing out the other side of your face , the paradoxical production of elevated dopamine levels significant enough to induce euphoria when viewing sadistic acts of brutality have led some to theorize a connection between aggression and religious zeal, though others contend that history does not bear the conjecture out.5. Depression Du Jour:This ambiguous, catch-all condition denotes the displacement of happy feelings by sad ones. Often accompanied by a process of disillusionment similar to that experienced in childhood upon the discovery of Santa s mythical nature, research has tied it to the dissolution of projections and the sudden influx of psychological downers significant of reality-recognition.What were once considered evolutionary stages of consciousness are now seen as crippling impediments to socialization, as the uneven development of individuals heightens feelings of alienation in increasingly anonymous aggregates of ever more diverse populations over-spilling crowded city centers into cramped and congested urban sprawls and their mixed-use zoning of multi-purpose dwellings stuck incongruously amid a dizzying maze of parking lots and strip malls.Psychologists cite this trend as a major factor in the meteoric rise in popularity of such anonymous and blatantly self-advertising social sites as Faceblurb, Metime, and Instablab Or depending on how much bullshit you ve ingested maybe you d prefer to cut through the double-talk and read a more serious assessment of our modern predicament. So, do be good, show you can set the fashion./ Let fantasy be heard with all her chorus:/ Sense, Reason, Sentiment, and Passion;/ Yet mark you well! bring folly too before us! Goethe.A new round of proposals before Congress to change the taxonomic designation of Homo Sapiens to Homo Contradictus has resulted in a fierce firestorm of controversy, once again finding our lawmakers deadlocked in indecision. The current review by the Super Committee tasked with resolving the issue has likewise reached a stalemate.The next step in the process will be the selection of a Really Super Committee which will review the procedures reviewed by the Super Committee to ascertain the reasons for its failure to reach a decision. It will comprise eight members each from the respective parties as opposed to the six respective appointees comprising the Super Committee.The proposal was first introduced by Democratic senator, Sheeza Throbak, and was originally intended as a response to legislation penned by her sister and Republican counterpart, I. Emma Throbak, which sought to change the erstwhile designation to Homo Digitalis. While the latter raised some eyebrows in their home state, most of the electorate assumed it referred to the new digital media age. When informed that Digitalis referred to the opposable digit, or thumb, as the main distinguishing characteristic separating humans from animals, it was tabled amid the confusion.The former, however, soon went viral and swelled into a national call for action. A blistering barrage of on-line petitions sparked by such internet advocates as, Constant and Unremitting Causes and Please Don’t Delete This Urgent Message, prompted its consideration by the nation s decision-makers, though it has since bogged down in partisan jousting.I asked Stooges For Democracy spokesperson, Ella Fyno, of the effort to upgrade the scientific classification to be more reflective of real-life human behavior. I m undecided. she stated flatly. It seems a bit ambiguous, though I will say that I half considered signing the petition by the time I d received the seventeenth e-mail. She scratched her head. It must be a cheap, generic shampoo she is using, I thought, as I watched the unsightly flakes of deceased epidermis fall onto the shoulders of her Italian wool, custom-tailored black sweater. It looked as if her hair had died as well. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the general implications of her response and determined to comb her mind for a more precise amplification of her widely spaced views. Our political system has gone awry. she observed solemnly, The ideologies of the two parties have grown so disparate that each seems engaged only in gainsaying the other. What was designed to give dissent and argument a proper hearing in the spirit of compromise for the exercise of our constitutional freedom in the service of democracy seems to have been forfeited for bald partisanry. She considered further and then declared with certainty, I don t know whether we can maintain any sure direction in the face of such extremes. I pictured a human head with two faces, and I knew intuitively what she was referring to. Where do you see our new cultural consciousness taking us? I asked, trying desperately to make sense of the questions swirling in my mind. It seems to be going in two directions at once she stated unequivocally, almost as if there were two sides of every individual each invested solely in trying to thwart the other s intentions. I was even more determined to seek a solution to this baffling conundrum, as Ms. Fyno emptied out the last of the wisdom from her tightly crowded intellect, Half of me thinks it knows, but, honestly, the other half has no idea whatever. Her candor was refreshing but of little avail.Doubly driven to add another piece to the human puzzle, I felt bidden to a higher authority. I researched the top ten psychology blogs and contacted the office of Dr. Abnorm Drowze, the eminent and respected psychiatrist, Magna-Cum-Loud from Whichisit State, hoping desperately for insight on the confusion and uncertainty of our modern predicament. What I learned startled me. Can I help you? was the first response I received from his secretary, Candy. There are channels, I knew that. Buoyed by enthusiasm, however, I informed her that I was seeking clarification on a few of the basic existential questions which burdened humanity, and I felt sure Dr. Drowse could shed urgently needed light on them. You ll have to schedule an appointment. she stated curtly. I told her with some confidence that I was not on the line for a consultation, but that I needed Dr. Drowze s informed, scientific opinion on the state of our culture today. Dr. Drowze is a very busy man! she popped off. Do you think he can just drop everything this instant for your paltry concerns, even as he is fleecing a poor, confused neurotic out of his life savings just so said neurotic can find the strength to somehow keep living long enough to support him and his profession, in spite of the fact that neither offers even the slightest pretense of warranty or return for its alleged services and also to maintain his lavish lifestyle? She had a point. I tried to be reasonable, sensing that she was overworked and under great stress from her duties holding the acclaimed doctor s office together amid the constant, clamorous queries for his expertise. When do you think he might be available? I asked politely, trying not to rattle her cage, though I felt a little hot from her dismissive manner. Who s your insurance provider? she asked briskly. I felt belittled and powerless. I ve got your insurance provider right here! I blurted out, despite any consciousness of my sudden reaction. Fortunately, she was unable to witness my acting-out of the physical accompaniment to that statement. What do you mean by that? she snapped, as if trying to pick a fight with me. I tried to pull myself together, What? I asked innocently. What you just said! she shot back angrily, obviously on the point of losing her manifestly tenuous composure. I searched for a more reasonable approach to her unprovoked ire. I didn t say anything. Her tone was that of a teacher reprimanding a child, Sir, she said coolly, I m going to have to ask that you not call here again. Well, la-de-da, I thought. I half-considered a clever retort designed to turn her rudeness back upon her and make her understand that I was not to be trifled with. So what?! I replied alternately, Then don t call me again, either! The office phones must have had caller I.D., because I called again and again after Candy hung up, seething to give Dr. Drowze a piece of my mind. After several days with no resolution (and a ‘Cease and Desist Order’ from the sheriff’s department), I quit calling out of sheer frustration but not before I d given a quite convincing account of my argument to the doctor s voicemail service.(For a serious look at Jungian psychology and the mid-life transition, check out my book here.)Psychology And Personality Development From A Jungian Perspective “Hemmed in by God on all sides like Job he struggles;And his pursuit means other things pursue him too.Relentlessly the feeling-world his thinking jugglesBrings him closer to the conflict of his conscious view.The torment thrust upon him from this dark abyssIs Nature's dispatch to a partial consciousness:She strives now to inform him of her wants and needsAnd give him strength to follow on the path she leads.How a man must carry on when he is forced to seeThat the life he once conceived is not Reality!He may feel his little world is being torn apartBut in fact it's being put together quite unseen;And he's further than he knows from the inside of his heartOr his notions of insanity and what they mean. "A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious Recent Posts Jung s Mysticism The Unconscious Spirit Psychological Types in the Grocery Bag Industry DSM VI: The Final Frontier The Funniest New TV Sit-Coms You ll Never See A Brief History of Consciousness New Study Links Sleep to Delayed Gratification Jung s Energic Theory An Historical View of Normalcy A 21st Century Look at Jung s Concept of Individuation Is There Order in Disorder? The Modern Plight of Homo Contradictus Image, Symbol, and Psychic Reality A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious Preface A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious Illustrations Ego in Fast-Forward Consciousness in Transition Continued Consciousness in Transition Intersecting Realities Of Science and Analogy The Law of Opposites II Basic Questions for Both Sides Mediology: The Social Science of Tomorrow Religious Images and Psychic Reality Objective Science and Psychic Reality Archives BlogrollDepth Psychology AllianceFrom Reason to ConsciousnessJung 2.0Painting JungPtero9scoop.itThe Depth Psych Alliance Daily paperThe HanksterScience, Philosophy, and Religion From an Inner Perspective Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS WordPress.orgFigures Of Earth James Branch Cabell "Yes, but," asked Manuel, slowly, "what is success?""... Horvendile looked grave, and yet whimsical, too. "Why, I have heard somewhere," says he, "that at its uttermost this success is but the strivings of an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing, who yet feels himself to be a symbol and the frail representative of Omnipotence in a place that is not home."Manuel: "How does the successful ape employ himself in these not quite friendly places?""He strives blunderingly from mystery to mystery, with pathetic makeshifts, not understanding anything, greedy in all desires, and honeycombed with poltroonery, and yet ready to give all, and to die fighting for that undemonstrable idea, about his being Heaven's vicar and heir." outlawpsych Psychology and Personality Development From A Jungian Perspective

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