Carl Jung

[Mariah]

I began this thread under religion/philosophy and got no meaningful response: does anyone here have an opinion about the teachings of Carl Jung. I now think he was a pretty fuzzy thinker.

[IllegalArgument]

Well, the Skeptics Dictionary has a page or two on Jung.

http://www.skepdic.com/jung.html

IMHO, he needed a lesson in confirmation bias.

[Gayle]

The teachings of Carl Jung are best used as a metaphorical guide to symbolic understanding of mythology and human behavior. His teachings are also an important part of the history of psychoanalysis and psychology.

If you read his work literally or try to view it as science or medicine, you'll be sadly disappointed and confused.

If you're interested in Jung's work, I suggest his last book, Man and His Symbols. It's especially useful when combined with the teachings of the mythologist Joseph Campbell. Campbell drew much inspiration from Jung.

Man and His Symbols and Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces make a great combination.

As almost everyone knows by now, George Lucas attributed much of his Star Wars inspiration to The Hero...

It goes like this ...

Jung --> Campbell --> Skywalker

When viewed in that way, it's easier to accept the metaphorical nature of Jung's life, teachings and writings.

Gayle

[Mariah]

Thanks for all the good feedback. I appreciate your thoughts. --Mariah.

[JMA]

Well, it's not easy because first of all there is the all issue of psychoanalysis.

Most of the skeptics thinks psychoanalysis is a pseudo-science...

And then in the field of psychoanalysis there is C. G. Jung, who is strange, even for a psychoanalist :D

Well, there is some interresting idea in Jung, but also a lot of speculation without any proofs, and also a lot of stupid thing ;)

[Mariah]

I think a lot psychoanalysis is pseudo-science. A friend of mine just went through temporary psychosis and I know a psychoanalyist who, if given the opportunity to talk to my friend, would help her believe she may have been in contact with ultimate reality, when I know differently. I've also met supposed UFO abductees who have been led to that conclusion by the psychoanalysts.

[billydkid]

Originally posted by Mariah
I began this thread under religion/philosophy and got no meaningful response: does anyone here have an opinion about the teachings of Carl Jung. I now think he was a pretty fuzzy thinker.

Carl Jung was where I was at in my 20's. Life felt like it had a Jungian, magical quality to it to my thinking. This was in the 70's and there was sort of conjunction formed between what I was reading, my age and the I'm ok, You're ok mentality that was prevalent at the time. To be honest, I wish it was then again and life was filled with endless posibilities and the promise "self actualization" and every time I turned around there would be a sense of Deja Vue and a "gestalt" experience and life seemed charged with significance. Ahh well. Now I am old and tired and would sell my left nugget to be 23 again.

[Mariah]

What happened to change your mind, BillydKid? What happened that you don't have all that deja vu anymore, ie, what made you the skeptic that I assume you now are?

Actually, I know how you feel, but with age came the knowledge that there are all those moons up there, all those extra universes....

[DavoMan]

Jung believed in astrology, spiritualism, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance and ESP.
Well that does it for me.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by billydkid
Carl Jung was where I was at in my 20's. Life felt like it had a Jungian, magical quality to it to my thinking. This was in the 70's and there was sort of conjunction formed between what I was reading, my age and the I'm ok, You're ok mentality that was prevalent at the time. To be honest, I wish it was then again and life was filled with endless posibilities and the promise "self actualization" and every time I turned around there would be a sense of Deja Vue and a "gestalt" experience and life seemed charged with significance. Ahh well. Now I am old and tired and would sell my left nugget to be 23 again.

Exactly my experience, except ten years later. What really screwed up my thinking was that I began looking for Jungian symbolism everywhere -- not just in dreams but in waking life, too. I gradually learned that it's much more pragmatic to accept reality as it is rather than try to shoe-horn it into Jungian thought.

[Mariah]

You really encourage me, folks. You really, really do. My impression is that most of you are younger than me. There's hope for the future, after all.

[billydkid]

Originally posted by Mariah
What happened to change your mind, BillydKid? What happened that you don't have all that deja vu anymore, ie, what made you the skeptic that I assume you now are?

Actually, I know how you feel, but with age came the knowledge that there are all those moons up there, all those extra universes....

Well, reality has a way of persistantly knocking down your sand castles. Most of we dreamer types - in the absence of some sort of unlikely miracle of good fortune and great success - eventually lose our appetite for disappointment and stop trying to hitch our wagons to stars we can never reach. The raw, driving longing for "more" becomes a dull ache and only occasionally do we get a whiff of who we once were like the sweet scent of apple blossom on the breeze - and then its gone.

[Mariah]

Oh my gosh, Billydkid! Read my signature, below.
I still believe, as Charles Darwin says, "there is a grandeur."

[omegablue]

Originally posted by aggle-rithm
Exactly my experience, except ten years later. What really screwed up my thinking was that I began looking for Jungian symbolism everywhere -- not just in dreams but in waking life, too. I gradually learned that it's much more pragmatic to accept reality as it is rather than try to shoe-horn it into Jungian thought.

Shoe-horning everything on your life into Jungian thought would not be a little extreme? It is not a challenge but just a question. So, later on realised that was much more pragmatic accepting reality "as it is". In other words, you embraced the materialistic and mechanicist view of world wasnt it? I often wonder if it is not like switching between extremes. What do you think about this? I hope do you not get is as a personal offense.

[Gayle]

Jospeh Campbell had "Ten Commandments for Reading Myths" (which can be found all over the internet, if you're interested.) Number ten is:

Read between the lines! Literalism kills; Imagination quickens.

It helps to read Jung in that way, as if it is science fiction that tells you something between the lines about the human condition.

For example, if you view Jung's idea of synchronicity literally, you're a crazy person who is ignorantly attempting to reverse the laws of causaulity. On the other hand, you can view synchonicity as symbolic of the human need to find meaning in coincidence and other every day events.

You can even use synchonicity to teach children that coincidences do happen and they have no meaning except in our imagination. It's a fun way to teach kids to be skeptical. Send them out looking for meaningful coincidences, bring them back, pile them all up in one place and pretty soon it becomes obvious that coincidence is a normal, every day life event with no special meaning. It's fun to enjoy the shiver of excitement created by coincidence, but it's not necessary to give it meaning. Kids love it.

Literalism kills; Imagination quickens. Cynicism dulls; skepticim sharpens. Especially when reading Jung.


Gayle
P.S. Probably older than Mariah

edited for egregious typos

[Mariah]

Excellent perspective and well-said, Gayle.

Mariah was born in 1955.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by Gayle
Jospeh Campbell had "Ten Commandments for Reading Myths" (which can be found all over the internet, if you're interested.) Number ten is:

Read between the lines! Literalism kills; Imagination quickens.

It helps to read Jung in that way, as if it is science fiction that tells you something between the lines about the human condition.

For example, if you view Jung's idea of synchronicity literally, you're a crazy person who is ignorantly attempting to reverse the laws of causuality. On the other hand, you can view synchonicity as symbolic of the human need to find meaning in coincidence and other every day events.

You can even use synchonicity to teach children that coincidences do happen and they have no meaning except in our imagination. It's a fun way to teach kids to be skeptical. Send them out looking for meaningful coincidences, bring them back, pile them all up in one place and pretty soon it becomes obvious that coincidence is a normal, every day life event with no special meaning. It's fun to enjoy the shiver of excitement created by coincidence, but it's not necessary to give it meaning. Kids love it.

Literalism kills; Imagination quickens. Cynicism dulls; skepticm sharpens. Especially when reading Jung.


Gayle
P.S. Probably older than Mariah

I would define synchronicity as "the perception of deep meaning in an observed coincidence". Nothing inherently meaningful in the coincidence itself, the meaning is assigned by the observer.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by omegablue
Shoe-horning everything on your life into Jungian thought would not be a little extreme? It is not a challenge but just a question. So, later on realised that was much more pragmatic accepting reality "as it is". In other words, you embraced the materialistic and mechanicist view of world wasnt it? I often wonder if it is not like switching between extremes. What do you think about this? I hope do you not get is as a personal offense.

If you believe that Jung has all the answers, then this is perfectly reasonable, especially since his theories implied that all people (through the collective unconscious) and all events (through synchronicity) were linked at some cosmic level.

I did not immediately leap to another extreme. My abandonment of Jungian thought was a long, drawn-out process. Whenever I came across a system of thought that I found more reasonable than Jung's, I simply modified my previous beliefs to fit the new paradigm. So, I kept what I thought was valid, and chucked the rest. Eventually, virtually all the Jungian ideas had been rejected in favor of more modern and accurate (verifiable) ideas.

I wouldn't say that I'm a materialist, but my world view is definitely more materialistic and mechanistic than it once was. The difference between shoe-horning reality into a Jungian framework and shoe-horning into a materialist/mechanistic one is that the latter tries to fit reality into a model that looks just like what it is modelling -- one in which everything is exactly as it appears to be.

[omegablue]

Originally posted by aggle-rithm
If you believe that Jung has all the answers, then this is perfectly reasonable, especially since his theories implied that all people (through the collective unconscious) and all events (through synchronicity) were linked at some cosmic level.

I did not immediately leap to another extreme. My abandonment of Jungian thought was a long, drawn-out process. Whenever I came across a system of thought that I found more reasonable than Jung's, I simply modified my previous beliefs to fit the new paradigm. So, I kept what I thought was valid, and chucked the rest. Eventually, virtually all the Jungian ideas had been rejected in favor of more modern and accurate (verifiable) ideas.

I wouldn't say that I'm a materialist, but my world view is definitely more materialistic and mechanistic than it once was. The difference between shoe-horning reality into a Jungian framework and shoe-horning into a materialist/mechanistic one is that the latter tries to fit reality into a model that looks just like what it is modelling -- one in which everything is exactly as it appears to be.

Thanks for the answer. All of your points are understandable. But just one things bothers me. Perhaps you should ellucidate this to me.

Let us consider the budhist model of observing and experiencing the world. It is a model that is greatly associated with Jung´s ideas. To a budhist, this model evidences exactly what it is supposed to. It exaclty demonstrates empirically, through personal transcendental experiences, what the ancient knowledge of the bardos and reality was meant to describe. Now the real point of my questioning. Why do you think this model is less likely to successful describe reality than the materialictic approach? One model , the budhist takes into account both materialistic and idealistic approaches where the western materialistic philosophy only takes into account the material and mechanical part of it.

[Gayle]

Excuse me, I have to jump in here before we derail into the trainwreck of cosmic connections.

Jung's collective unconscious is not cosmic or external. He clearly called it biological. See "Man and His Symbols," pages 55, 67, and 107.

It represents the structure of the human brain as we have inherited it over the eons of evolution.

It's collective because all human beings are one species. Homo Sapians share the same psyche because we share the same inherited brain structure.

Not a collective brain that is connected in some cosmic way. But 6 billion individual brains that follow the same construction plan, and therefore dream up the same sorts of symbols and myths.

According to Jung, we all have a personal unconscious that is based on our individula biography.

And we share a collective unconscious -- a common psychological inheritance - that is based on biology.


Gayle

[omegablue]

Gayle,

What about Jung´s ideas on astrology and sinchonicity and its direct correlations with the collective unconsciousness?

I know that he thinks about a biological approach to colective unconsciousness but is not the interconectiveness between our mind and stars and the entire cosmos and universe a fact?

Forgive me if i´m wrong.

[Mariah]

Gayle, it is true what you say Jung says about the collective unconscious being biological in origin, but much of what he says puts him clearly in the paranormal camp, it seems to me. Omegablue just mentioned his views on astrology. I can't find where he thinks of astrological symbols as only symbolic, but I may have missed it.

Further, on page 55 of MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS, Jung says: "If often seems that even inanimate objects cooperate with the unconscious in the arrangement of symbolic patterns. There are numerous well-authenticated stories of clocks stopping at the moment of their owner's death...other common examples are those of a mirror that breaks, or a picture that falls when a death occurs, or minor but unexplained breakages in a house where someone is passing through an emotional crisis. ****Even if skeptics refuse to credit such reports, stories of this kind are always cropping up, and this alone should serve as ample proof of their psychological importance."

In the above last sentence I see where Jung is saying these phenomena have at least psychological importance, but it seems clear to me that Jung himself most definitely "credits" these reports, ie. that he was rather quick to jump to believe things we call on the Forum "woo woo." Correct me if you're wrong. I value your opinion.

[Mariah]

I meant to say "excuse me if I'M wrong" not "excuse me if you're wrong!" Sorry!

[Gayle]

In my opinion, Carl Jung was clearly a loon. No doubt about it. But he was a brilliant loon. That's why I suggest reading his material metaphorically or as if it was science fiction that tells you something about the human condition if you read between the lines.

I studied Jung to help me better understand mythology, a subject I've enjoyed since childhood.

I view the collective unconscious as a metaphor for the biology of the human psyche, not as the science of the biology of the human psyche. A metaphor, not a scientific fact.

For me, some of Jung's metaphors are better than others. I never bothered to read anything he wrote about astrology or UFOs or such things. I can't comment on it, except to say that it's probably a lucky thing for me that I started out with the idea that Jung was loony.

I don't have any trouble reconciling all of Jung's nuttiness with my skepticism because dreams and mythology are not about science.

So, yes, I agree completely. Jung was in the paranormal camp and he was a raving loon half the time. Which, to me, is not necessarily a hindrance in understanding mythology.


Gayle

[Mariah]

Well said, Gayle. Thank you.

I have always been fascinated with ghosts for the same reason, but people who read about them want to believe in them literally. I found too few and far between those who could see and appreciate their metaphorical signficance, so I pretty much gave up the ghost. :)

[Gayle]

Mariah, you and I probably have many topics we can happily discuss. I love ghost stories, too.

Jung is a good place to start. This is probably the proper forum for it, too. If people can stand me being something of a paradoxical curmudgeon who rejects literalism while reading with the eyes of wonder, I'd enjoy continuing the discussion.

Omegablue asked: but is not the interconectiveness between our mind and stars and the entire cosmos and universe a fact?

My answer to that is, yes, the interconnectedness between our minds and stars and the entire cosmos is a fact, just as Carl Sagan told us. We are starstuff.

That is a darn good metaphor. The problem with metaphors is that we may understand them differently. Way differently. And there lies the confusion.


Gayle

[Mariah]

I reject literalism while reading with eyes of wonder, too, Gayle. I wish more people did, but my book tour taught me that most people are hopelessly polarized. The need to believe.
If you haven't, take a look at my website, www.sherryaustin.com. My book of (fictional!) ghost stories might be in your library. Mariah is the ghost of a slave girl on an endless quest, as we all are. She walks and walks and walks down that long, lonesome road, searching, searching, searching...She is my take on the vanishing hitchhiker legend. I love the symbolism of ghosts. THE GHOST STORIES OF EDITH WHARTON is my favorite collection.

[Gayle]

Mariah, congratulations on your books and speaking engagements. I see one of your topics is "The Literary Ghost." The book of that title, edited by Larry Dark, is my favorite book of ghost stories.

Strange we should meet at a site devoted to skepticism. And the one book you'd like everyone to read at least once is Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World, and I just quoted Carl Sagan in my last post and ... and... I'm a writer, too, and ... and... shades of Carl Jung, I think that qualifies as synchronicity.


Gayle

[BPScooter]

One of my favorite quotes, that I actually wrote down and put into various documents, comes from one of Jung's essays, called "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man." This had far less to do with his conjectures about archetypes and way more to do with his common sense, he wrote it in like 1936 or something. He totally nailed it, IMHO, by basically describing to a T how any personal ideology or obsession can become a mass problem, and why these things can become fair game for comment. If anyone's interested, I could dig it up.

Now that I'm thinking, Jung and Nietzsche both get really bad reputations when if you go back and take them on, given the grace of advancing years, they make a lot of sense, really hit home a great deal of the time. And when they don't you can see the tounge-in-cheek quality, in Nietzsche, and the clearly speculative "what if?" in Jung.

Problem with me is I don't read that kind of German. I want to learn it just so I can groove with Goethe, shimmy with Schiller, etc. Translations still don't get me as close as I want to be to the real words.

[DavoMan]

Ya know I did a first-level philosophy class and we studied Jung. It was back in the day when I lacked any research tools for looking up wacky quicky ideas.

I kinda feel ripped off now that my teacher didn't approach Jung with skeptism.

[Mariah]

Excellent points, Scooter! I'd be interested in the Jung material you are talking about.

Thanks, Gayle! Tell me about your writing.

[omegablue]

Originally posted by Gayle


Omegablue asked:

My answer to that is, yes, the interconnectedness between our minds and stars and the entire cosmos is a fact, just as Carl Sagan told us. We are starstuff.

That is a darn good metaphor. The problem with metaphors is that we may understand them differently. Way differently. And there lies the confusion.


Gayle

Thanks Gayle, this is exactly the point which I´m still kind of unsure about his ideas on astrology. I was trying to ask if this kind of associations would have to be taken "literally" or not. In other words, if his approach on astrology would not be meant to be taken as a fact. As far as i know, Sagan reffer to that kind of thought just as a metaphor, but i´m affraid Jung did not.

Here is an article that deals with this subject:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research33.html

One excerpt that i think is related to this debate is:



Jung did an analysis of astrology to determine its place in synchronicity. He studied 483 married couples and noted the astrological connections between the birth dates of married couples. These findings concluded that long lasting relationships had a certain astrological pattern which were found to be three times higher than the rate of coincidence. Also astounding was the fact that the couples whom astrologers would interpret as being the most conducive to marriage were the couples whose astrological pattern occurred most frequently. The pattern that astrologers interpret as least conducive to marriage occurred least often among the couples. Jung calculated the odds of the this result occurring randomly is 1 in 62,500,000. Jung believed incidents like these are the result of synchronicity.

This is just one of the many references in astrology on his studies. I also do think that we should not take everything on his works too literally because he deals with intuition on and on , and whenever you reffer to intuition , ordinary language is never too effective to communicate it. Sorry for my poor english.


see you

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by omegablue
Thanks for the answer. All of your points are understandable. But just one things bothers me. Perhaps you should ellucidate this to me.

Let us consider the budhist model of observing and experiencing the world. It is a model that is greatly associated with Jung´s ideas. To a budhist, this model evidences exactly what it is supposed to. It exaclty demonstrates empirically, through personal transcendental experiences, what the ancient knowledge of the bardos and reality was meant to describe. Now the real point of my questioning. Why do you think this model is less likely to successful describe reality than the materialictic approach? One model , the budhist takes into account both materialistic and idealistic approaches where the western materialistic philosophy only takes into account the material and mechanical part of it.

I actually try to look at issues from both a teleological and a mechanistic viewpoint, to get a better "feel" for it. For instance, you can say that we dream in order to "excercise" our motor neurons during sleep, or you can say our motor neurons are "excercised" during sleep because we happen to dream. The distinction is subtle, but important. The first one implies some sort of purpose or design for which there is no evidence; however, I find it helpful to view it that way because it's natural to think in those terms.

This doesn't mean I believe in any overarching purpose or design. Purpose is relative, and whatever God is clearly doesn't "design" in the way we understand it. Whenever I get confused about an issue, I always fall back to the mechanistic viewpoint, simply because it's more reliable. However, once I get a handle on it, the teleological viewpoint can be helpful, too.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by omegablue

One excerpt that i think is related to this debate is:



Jung did an analysis of astrology to determine its place in synchronicity. He studied 483 married couples and noted the astrological connections between the birth dates of married couples. These findings concluded that long lasting relationships had a certain astrological pattern which were found to be three times higher than the rate of coincidence. Also astounding was the fact that the couples whom astrologers would interpret as being the most conducive to marriage were the couples whose astrological pattern occurred most frequently. The pattern that astrologers interpret as least conducive to marriage occurred least often among the couples. Jung calculated the odds of the this result occurring randomly is 1 in 62,500,000. Jung believed incidents like these are the result of synchronicity.




I've read through Jung's paper on synchronicity very carefully. It's difficult reading. However, it's clear that there is nothing astounding about the results of Jung's experiment. First of all, he made the mistake of doing the statistical analysis himself, and he was no statistician. Second, after conferring with a real statistician and finding that his conclusions were unwarranted, he tried different meta-analysis approaches until he came across a result he liked. Not very convincing at all, but you have to applaud Jung's honesty for admitting to the weaknesses in his analysis.

[omegablue]

Originally posted by aggle-rithm
I've read through Jung's paper on synchronicity very carefully. It's difficult reading. However, it's clear that there is nothing astounding about the results of Jung's experiment. First of all, he made the mistake of doing the statistical analysis himself, and he was no statistician. Second, after conferring with a real statistician and finding that his conclusions were unwarranted, he tried different meta-analysis approaches until he came across a result he liked. Not very convincing at all, but you have to applaud Jung's honesty for admitting to the weaknesses in his analysis.

I was not trying to say that this text was validating the existance of astrology. I was just pinpointing a reference to astrology that would make us think that Jung took it literally not metaphorically.

But now that you mentioned it, could you provide me this info about Jung being wrong in his calculations and diggin deeply for getting the desired rersults? This is something that i think is interesting.

[Mariah]

"....after conferring with a real statistician and finding that his conclusions were unwarranted, he tried different meta-analysis approaches until he came across a result he liked. "

An important point, I think.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by IllegalArgument
Well, the Skeptics Dictionary has a page or two on Jung.

http://www.skepdic.com/jung.html

IMHO, he needed a lesson in confirmation bias.

The skeptics dictionary constitutes the most appalling ill-informed complete nonsense I have literally ever encountered in my entire life. Every single entry I have read (about 15) completely misrepresents the subject in question and places it in a disparaging light.

It is most definitely not something which should be looked at for anyone seeking information on a subject.

[Mariah]

Ian wrote:

The skeptics dictionary constitutes the most appalling ill-informed complete nonsense I have literally ever encountered in my entire life. Every single entry I have read (about 15) completely misrepresents the subject in question and places it in a disparaging light.

Mariah writes: I couldn't agree more. The kind of snideness we find in those "reference" works don't do a thing for the skeptical cause.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Gayle


You can even use synchonicity to teach children that coincidences do happen and they have no meaning except in our imagination. It's a fun way to teach kids to be skeptical. Send them out looking for meaningful coincidences, bring them back, pile them all up in one place and pretty soon it becomes obvious that coincidence is a normal, every day life event with no special meaning.

Obvious to people who have an extremely poor idea of the probability of events. So I suppose it is obvious to most of the human race.

It is not obvious to me -- on the contrary, it is obvious that more than "coincidence" is involved on occasions.

Please don't "brainwash" children into an unthinking acceptance of skepticism/materialism. I object to people trying to teach children to be stupid.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Mariah
Ian wrote:

The skeptics dictionary constitutes the most appalling ill-informed complete nonsense I have literally ever encountered in my entire life. Every single entry I have read (about 15) completely misrepresents the subject in question and places it in a disparaging light.

Mariah writes: I couldn't agree more. The kind of snideness we find in those "reference" works don't do a thing for the skeptical cause.

Hmmmm . .I suppose so. I should welcome its existence then! :eek:

[omegablue]

I do agree also,

The skeptic Dictionary is definetly an intelectual insult to the inquiring mind. Still i can find like 0,1% of interesting things that happen to be referenced over there.

[Mariah]

Interesting Ian, I suspect you have some interesting things to say from the other side of the issues usually discussed here. I'd like to read them, but I think another thread is appropriate. Look for it under "Critiques of Skepticism" in the general paranormal spot. I look forward to your views.

I can't thank you all enough, those of you who have shared your insights about Carl Jung with me.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Obvious to people who have an extremely poor idea of the probability of events. So I suppose it is obvious to most of the human race.

It is not obvious to me -- on the contrary, it is obvious that more than "coincidence" is involved on occasions.

Please don't "brainwash" children into an unthinking acceptance of skepticism/materialism. I object to people trying to teach children to be stupid.

How do you distinguish a coincidence from something that is "more than" coincidence?

Keep in mind that it's also obvious that the sun is the same size as the moon. It's not, though.

[BPScooter]

Hi all, a little off the subject but close, I think-- I admire Jung I suppose mainly for his originality of thought and willingness to go his own way. He brought a lot of clinical insight to psychoanalysis when the main school of Freud was developing theories that seemed to contradict his experiences, as I understand. So he and Freud basically parted ways. (I recall that Jung wired Freud after some US lectures "Psychoanalysis a success here" and Freud wired back "What did you leave out?"--this was pre-break, I imagine).

Forgive the long quote, but this was the passage that I referred to earlier. From the essay "The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man" written 1928 (earlier than I thought) from the Viking Portable Jung, p. 461.

"Whenever you hear anyone talking about a cultural or even a human problem, you should never forget to inquire who the speaker really is. The more general the problem, the more he will smuggle in his own, most personal psychology into the account he gives of it. This can, without a doubt, lead to intolerable distortions and false conclusions which may have very serious consequences. On the other hand, the very fact that a general problem has gripped and assimilated the whole of a person is a guarantee that the speaker has really experienced it, and perhaps gained something from his sufferings. He will then reflect the problem for us in his personal life and thereby show us a truth. but if he projects his own psychology into the problem, he falsifies it by his personal bias, and on the pretense of presenting it objectively so distorts it that no truth emerges but merely a deceptive fiction."

I suppose one could argue various aspects of this, but I liked the caveat and share this from time to time with my students. Makes you think a bit, at least.

[omegablue]

How do you distinguish a coincidence from something that is "more than" coincidence?

Chances are that things that are "more than" coincidence are at least in theory, "very unlikely to occur".

But i agree that this is something way too difficult to be studied statistically.

Check this guy´s account for example:

1) http://www.near-death.com/visions.html

2) http://www.near-death.com/experiences/visions07.html

Link 2 is the most related to this discussion.

Needless to say that i´m not saying that this is scientifically satisfatory. But check out how many coincidences did occur after his mother died.

What do you think about it? I would like to read some criticisms about this. Perhaps we should suggest Kevin Willians to send his data to a statistician in order to confirm his calculations. Is it possible that he would accept that? :)

[Gayle]

I really like The Skeptics Dictionary, even when I don't always agree with the entries. Confirmation bias has already been mentioned in this thread in relation to Jung. That was a good point. Here's the definition from The Skeptic's Dictionary:

Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs.

Kevin Williams, the fellow in the link provided by Omegablue, was recently bereaved when his mother was killed in a car accident. He got up one morning after his mother's memorial service, turned on the TV, the movie "Breakfast at Tiffanies" was on, and he heard the song "Moon River" play.

"Moon River" was a song that his sister remembered from growing up, it was sung at mom's memorial service, and then the family began to experience repeated synchonistic "Moon River" happenings.

To Williams, this is a miracle that proves his mother was communicating with the family from beyond the grave. He worked out the odds of turning on the TV and hearing that song. He claims it's literal synchronicity and proof of after-death communication.

Or it could have been a case of confirmation bias.

Let's see ... do I want to tell my own confirmation bias ghost story? Hmmmm .... no, not really. Well ... maybe a little.

I experienced the same exact thing as Kevin Williams. Exactly the same, except the song was Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the movie was the Wizzard of Oz, and as the song played at the memorial service for my loved one, the sun suddenly broke through the black clouds and a gorgous double rainbow lit up the sky as Judy Garland's voice filled the room.

And I've seen more rainbows in the last three months than I remember seeing in the last five years.

My sister-in-law and I laugh and cry together when we see a rainbow now. We say it's our loved one looking out for us.

For me, the rainbow is a powerful metaphor for the continuity of family love. The person is gone, but the love is still with me, uplifting me, confirming me, giving me the strength to go on.

I'm grateful for confirmation bias and for all the beautiful rainbows. The metaphor sustains me.

And, no, Omegablue, I don't think Kevin Williams would accept a statistician who turned his mother into a metaphor. No, don't think so. Poor guy.


Gayle

[omegablue]

Gayle,

I could not possibly agree more with you in your oppinions and analisys.

Though i have some points to consider, not against what you said, but things that i like to know what the readers think about:

I´ve emailed Kevin two times. He seemed to be very aware of Jung´s implications, metaphorical ideas and symbolism. He seemed to know that perhaps spirits do not exist in the traditional way, i.e., being a detached entity. He seemed to know that his mother is not there sitting on a celestial chair, counting the seconds to meet him again in afterlife. I´ve been convinced that he knows a lot about archetypes and global mindness in order to consider dismissing the detached spirit idea. This was precisely what we debated. I may be wrong , but that was my impression, and I admit this is not so important to this debate.

I agree that you should be sustained by the metaphors and coincidences that proceeded after your loved one´s passing. And i bet Jung would be also, and again, i might be wrong. And I assume I don´t know why people tend to take it all too literally. I mean, why try to take it literally enough in order to consider trying to measure it, and make it part of the hard sciences, or even trying to build a model defined by our limited verbal communication languages, when it comes to deal with intuitive and subjective things.

That is to me, nonsensical. You cannot think materialistically of something that is personal and intuitional. I totally share your oppinion that we should be happy with the metaphorical way of facing this kind of thing. That is precisely the beautiful and enlightening power that mythology plays in our lives. We have two strong and opposite sides, everyone of us:

-The inquiring and materialistic side, by which we feel good with the mechanical answers for our problems. It is the side that deals to objectivity, mechanicism and behaviourism.

-And the intuitional side, by which we are always in need to transced our mundane knowledge and look inside for our answers rather than outside. It is the side that deals with art and mythology.

I believe, but i might be completely wrong, that everyone of us do have these both complementary and opposing sides, taoists may call it "yin" and "yang". But depending on our personal impulses, geographical and cultural influences, and as well as the current timeline of our lives and experiences with this world, we simply choose which side will be more "reliable" at a given point of our lives. There is no unquestionable way to absolutely measure which side is the most reliable, both are naturally ours. So if nature gives us both, why not enjoy both! It is a matter of subjective choice only. ;)

It is understandable trying to separate objective science from myths and metaphors, but we should hardly state one as false and stupid and other as true and worth of wasting our time. I´m not saying that you do consider the intuitive side stupid, but many skeptics and materialists do. In fact i think, based on your postings, that you do consider the intuitive side valid.

Perhaps you will never ever meet your loved one again, in person, as a detached being from yourself. But chances are there will be a time, specially if you still think of your loved one a lot, that you will experience this love again, and chances are that you will be experiencing it with some visual features also, like when you are close to death. So, the essence of this kind of experiences is the real and joyfull emotional effects that it causes on us. Hardly fake or delusional. And that is what people, specially materialistic skeptics do not understand. They, in gerenal, dont value these emotions even if it is to be considered a personal fact.

It seems to be just a matter of choice. One chooses to believe in what he can predict using intelectual and objective inquiring if it sustains his/her curiosity limits. Others choses to believe what seems to fulfil his/her interior and introspective nature, dealing with love and compassion, as well as internal peace seeking. And there are those who deals with this paradox with no problem or questioning, like budhists do, in order to transcend the standard experience of the world by knowing that there is no unilateral answer to the paradox other than transcending it by contemplating its complementary and mysterious nature.

[Gayle]

Omegablue, when I read your post I was reminded of the Humanist Manifesto III. It reads in part ...


Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.

...snip...

Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death.

http://www.americanhumanist.org/3/HumandItsAspirations.htm


Jung dealt with human nature, intuition, the inner experience, art and mythology. Approaching Jung with skepticism -- including the wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence -- has given me valuable tools for understanding subjects that can at best be decribed as irrational.

Unfortunately, Jung is often taught in the literal sense. One of my psychology professors claimed the collective unconscious was a form of telepathy that all people had access to if they could access their unconscious mind. Somehow we could beam thoughts to anyone in any part of the world by using the C.U. That's why nothing was a coincidence.

If that's what is taught in reputable classrooms, is it any wonder people have trouble thinking skeptically?

Gayle

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
The skeptics dictionary constitutes the most appalling ill-informed complete nonsense I have literally ever encountered in my entire life. Every single entry I have read (about 15) completely misrepresents the subject in question and places it in a disparaging light.

It is most definitely not something which should be looked at for anyone seeking information on a subject.
Another ringing endorsement for Skepdic. I'll include it on my list of recommended websitesfor the Critical Thinking course next Fall. Any other suggestions?

[omegablue]

Gayle,

I pretty much like this humanistic view that you linked to. But the problem with the literal way people do teach Jung when it comes to collective unconsciousness, is that he actually meant it to be literal. In other words, Jung claimed that in fact this interconectiveness between all minds do exist.

The things that still would fall into the category of myths are the "disguises" which archetypes do assume when "appearing" to people during experiences. Jesus, spirits, deceased parents, angels, god, alah, and whatever else the archetypes would appear to be, are just to be taken as symbolic representations without any literal implications.

The claim about collective unconsciousness is real. There are still a few experiments that catch my attention on the subject. One of them is this one:

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

and here is a a more neutral view on this:

http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=126649


And here is another one about interconectedness:

http://twm.co.nz/subconn_laszlo.html


I would like to see what is wrong with these approaches, if in fact there is something wrong. :con2:

[Mariah]

Omegablue wrote: But the problem with the literal way people do teach Jung when it comes to collective unconsciousness, is that he actually meant it to be literal. In other words, Jung claimed that in fact this interconectiveness between all minds do exist.

Mariah writes: That's what I thought.

[DavoMan]

I don't understand why the loonie ideas of one man can be so popular among intellectuals. There are lots of loonie guys out there on the streets. Surley one of those guys deserves to be listened to & had heaps of time wasted on him too?

[Gayle]

Omegablue, I will read your links when I have some time, perhaps later this evening.

All I can say is that we studied in different ways. The interconnectedness of human minds is a metaphor for the millions of years of evolution that formed the human psyche -- which is made up of the brain, nervous system, endocrine system, and all the other systems of the human body that impact perception, thinking and emotion.

We are connected, one to the other, through the commonality of our brain structure and humanness. But we can't send brain signals through the ether, one to the other. We are connected by a common psyche, but not psychically.

I love Jungian symbolism and its relationship to mythology. But I can only talk about it as a metaphor for the beautiful unfolding of life from cradle to grave.

To me, anything else is anti-scientific bunk. There are certainly a lot of anti-scientific interpretations of Jung, not to mention the fact that he did a pretty good job of muddying the waters with many of his own statements.

Jung uses the term "psychic" many times in his writing. Some people take that as proof he was speaking of the paranormal world. Yet, it seems perfectly clear he was using the term in reference to the commonly used word of the day that encompasses the human mind/brain and its thought/feeling processes -- the psyche.

This is a conversation that I've had several times in several forums and I'm sorry to say it always leads to an uproar between the literalists, the advocates of metaphor, and the scoffers. I'm strongly in the metaphor camp.

Jung created some beautiful metaphors for the problems connected to the stages of human development.

There were times when Jung, as an individual, suffered from deep psychological unease. Some say he suffered a complete mental breakdown. It's difficult to separate fiction from fact when discussing Jung, the person.

If Jung did believe literally in his metaphors, well...I would call him a crazy man or a cracked genius or ... I don't know. But I would not believe literally myself. Whatever I believe, I still will not know what Jung believed.

There lies the problem with Jung. To quote from "The Portable Jung," edited by Joseph Campbell (a metaphorist of the first order,) there are "answers that are always open to doubt."

Gayle

[Gayle]

Omegablue, I glanced at your links and I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you.

When I run across references to random number generators, subtle connections of conciousness, reading the future, the quantum vacuum and Russel Targ, I stop reading.

I don't know enough to speak cogently and I'm not interested enough to engage in the study that would allow me to speak cogently. I know just enough to convince myself that it would not be a good use of my time to study these subjects.

Perhaps other posters can help answer your questions.

I commend you for saying this:

I would like to see what is wrong with these approaches, if in fact there is something wrong.

You are questioning and asking for help in understanding whether or not something is wrong with a paradoxical subject -- it looks distinctly paranormal and yet the articles claim respected scientists are connected with the projects.

It makes one wonder.

However, there were clues that made me not want to spend a lot of time looking at it -- Russell Targ, thoroughly discredited with his remote viewing exercises. University of Edinburgh, home of a paranormal program. Trying to give a project respectability by saying that one of the researchers was associated with Princeton, just like Albert Einstein. What does he have to do with it. Nothing. You can't give the project respectability by association with someone who has no association with it. Those are red flags that jump right off the page at me.

Your question shows that you have the proper attitude of wanting a good explanation. I'm sorry that I'm not equipped to offer one that goes more deeply into the subject.

I hope others who know more than I do will help explain what is good or bad about the information in the links you provided.

Warm Regards,
Gayle

[Mariah]

Gayle, Omegablue, Scooter, and all,

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your intelligent posts to the thread I began on Jung. I'm afraid I haven't contributed very much, but I really wanted to hear what you and others had to say.

It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that I was not far off when I expressed my doubts about Jung. Sure, there's much to mine in what he said if you take it metaphorically--just as there is in, say, the beautiful prose poem that is the first chapter of Genesis. And he might have meant some of it metaphorically. But, whether they misperceive what he said or not, it seems to me that most people who identify with him identify with his paranormal claims. Now, maybe this is just my experience. A psychotherapist at the Unitarian Church I attend, and where I've found woo woo lapping hard at the edges of the rational mainland, is one example. She still believes the Hundredth Monkey thing. But as one poster on this thread said, Jung didn't care for Jungians!

But to Jung himself. Just a couple of examples and not the best ones. In MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS he says that God speaks to us in dreams. You can take this metaphorically if you choose to, and by God we can mean anything. We can expand the notion to the outer edges of the universe and use it to mean Nature or the Great Mystery. God, in the sense Jung is using it, can be the sum of our hopes and fears. It can be anything.

But more people than we like to think are literalists or nearly so. If you believe God speaks to you in dreams, and Jung insists that we take that idea seriously, you interpret a dream, say, to mean you are a son of God and God is ordering you to make war on the infidels, well... on page 88 of my copy of MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS, Jung says: "There is a strong empirical reason why we should cultivate thoughts that can never be proved. It is that they are known to be useful. Man...can stand the most incredible hardships when he is convinced that they make sense; he is crushed when, on top of all his misfortunes, he has to admit that he is taking part in a "tale told by an idiot."

I think we would all agree with that, and in taking that point of view we can take the whole of mythology and religious belief and see the astounding beauty and power and usefulness of the contruct.

However, Jung goes on to say "The Pueblo Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun and this belief endows their life with a perspective that goes far beyond their limited existence. Their plight is infinitely more statisfactory than that of a man in our civilization who knows that he is and will remain nothing more than an underdog with no inner meaning to his life....Had St. Paul been convinced that he was nothing more than a wandering tent-maker he certainly would not have been the man he was. His real and meaningful life lay IN THE INNER CERTAINTY THAT HE WAS THE MESSENGER OF THE LORD. One many accuse him of suffering from megalomania, but this opinion pales before the testimony of history and the judgement of subsequent generations."

I have a problem with that. Number one, I've got a problem with Paul as a hero, but I'll let that pass and get on to the more important point which is that Paul's "certainty" came from being blinded by a light on the road to Tarsus in what we now have good reason to believe was an epileptic seizure.

Much mischief is rooted in such mystical experience, to put it mildly. Whole religions are founded on such. A lot of good is done, no doubt, but masses are murdered based on an individual's absolute certainty that he's been in direct contact with the Divine and has been given direction toward a particular end.

I have a friend who just went through an episode of temporary psychosis. She experienced blinding apolcalyptic visions, was bathed in brilliant beyond brilliant cones of light, was lifted out of her body, was fused with the Divine in a multi-dimensional experience that she was three hundred percent certain was realer than realer than real. She believed with absolute certainty that she was THE special messenger of God and that everything that had happened to her over her life was for that reason. She was a daughter of destiny! Her story was intricate, rich beyond what I can take the time to describe now.

How do we know she was not right? Only because a few days on a low dose of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal slowly unwound her delusion. She had experienced a surge of Dopamine (in theory, at least) and if you read up just a little on what a surge of Dopamine does in the brain, you'll see that her experience was a classic case. She made incredible connections between unrelated events (as I've found people do when they think they've seen ghosts.) She had delusions of grandeur. She wove an incredible story with herself as the center of a great move of God. Sound like anyone(s) we know from history?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, it was not a delusion, and that the Risperdal simply blunted her very real experience of the Divine. Well then, what part of her elaborate experience was true and what wasn't? Is she, in fact, the one true and last messenger of God? She was thoroughly convinced, I tell you. I was there with her.

I was also "there" in her delusion. Was I on CNN and on the Food Channel cooking with Rachel Ray, of which she was also absolutely certain?

She now sees that if she had been born in another time, pre-Risperdal, let's say, she would continue to believe such. So convinced was she that she had met the Divine that she (a shy person) would have garnered all her forces to tell the world and lead them on the path to God. If she were lucky enough to arrive on the scene at the right time, charistmatic enough, and organized enough to get apostles (such as Tom Cruise, let's say) on her side, who knows what a few decades or centuries would have told?

What would Jung say to this? Obviously it's of extreme interest from a mythological point of view. What tales we weave to make meaning, he would say. On this, I'm in whole-hearted agreement. I base all my own work on my endless fascination with this adaptive mechanism of our species.

But he says she is to take it seriously. What part of it, pray tell? Obviously, she should take seriously the fact that her over-taxed mind needed a vacation. The delusion clearly had its roots in trauma and stress. In this delusional state, everything that had every happened in her often troubled life was for a reason. Oh what wonderful news this was to her!

But was this GOD communicating to her? If so, what kind of God? She also thought that I, her second in command in this story, was hovering at her ear barking commands to her, warning her not to reveal too much before the real truth--that she was destined to lead the poor and the underdogs to their rightful dominion--was unveiled. Should I take that seriously? Was God, in fact, telling me something, too?


I attend a grassroots meeting that is held all over the world called the United Religions Initiatve. It is meant to encourage dialogue between religions in the hope of one day eliminating religiously motivated violence. I go because there is much to learn. At the meeting the other night, I heard testimonies from an esteemed Episcopal bishop, two B'ahais, a Christian Scientist, a Mormon, and several others. All had rooted their lives in an experience where they knew that they knew that they knew that God was on their side or the side of their particular prophet. I nearly cried--I'm serious here--when I heard many of them say that that experience--realer than real--had upheld them through their entire lives.

Pillars and cones of light, feelings of being lifted out of their bodies. Certainty of their specialness as the apples of God's eye, grand missions revealed. Voices commanding them (Joan of Arc?) All during or immediately after periods of extreme stress. What if all the experiences of prophets and visionaries throughout the ages had their roots in a surge of Dopamine? Oh, but I digress...
--- Sherry Austin (Mariah)

[Gayle]

Sherry,

I wish your friend rational treatment and a recovery to full health and a functional life.

All I can say is that any therapist who believes in the 100th Monkey story would be best avoided, regardless of what discipline he or she practices.

If that has been your experience with Jungian therapists, you have, indeed, met a doozy. You are correct to question such nonsense. Very correct. Damn right!

I remain cognitively/behaviorally yours,
Gayle

[EdipisReks]

i was lucky enough to be taught Jung's (and Freud's) works as literature, in a comparative literature class, by a great, skeptical professor. the professor had a technique where he would teach the stuff literally, the students (including me) would attempt to tear it apart (i remember saying "organic causes, come on man, organic causes" a lot during the Freud part) while the professor moderated, coninuing to be literal until he thought we had rung everything out, and then we would combine the literal and skeptical portions until we found value in the works, once again in moderated discussion. i loved that class. i got A's, too :)

[Wudang]

Originally posted by omegablue

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

....snip....
I would like to see what is wrong with these approaches, if in fact there is something wrong. :con2:

See here (http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/radin2002.htm) for a start. It's been discussed a few times on the board. You might prefer to bump one of the existing threads.

On the Jung front, I used to exchange long emails with a friend of mine who'd studied semiotics and uni and read Jung from the viewpoint. I studied psychology. It took me a while to realise that he was looking at Jung's writings as almost a poetic analogy for the human mind looking to reach past the boundaries of the skull and out to a nebulous greater "something".
There was an article on the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4676751.stm) about a talk by Richard Dawkins about how we live in a "middle world". Science is a way of analysing what's outside the middle world but perhaps for some, Jung et al are a way of coming to terms on a more emotional level with it?
I can't resist one of my favourite quotes from the Proclaimers
"and I confess that all I've learned has been learned a million times by every heart that felt a song come home"

[omegablue]

Hey Gayle,

I appreciate your feedbacks, you got a nice viewpoint of Jung´s theories, and it is good how you can appreciate Jung´s thoughts even being skeptical on the metaphysical implications of some of his theories.

Originally posted by Gayle
We are connected, one to the other, through the commonality of our brain structure and humanness. But we can't send brain signals through the ether, one to the other. We are connected by a common psyche, but not psychically.


Yes, i really like this approach, but like i said, i am a little inclined not to refute every metaphysical claim of his theories given that there are things that happen to me, and to close friends, and things i read on and on, which skepticism and materialistic claims like "wishful thinking",
"pure chance", and etc, seems not convince me as i reflect about it on and on. But well , that´s my oppinion. And in the end, i could be totally wrong. That´s why i keep searching for answers about it. I would have no problem in stepping back to my previous view of world, i.e. materialistic skepticism.

Originally posted by Gayle

Jung uses the term "psychic" many times in his writing. Some people take that as proof he was speaking of the paranormal world. Yet, it seems perfectly clear he was using the term in reference to the commonly used word of the day that encompasses the human mind/brain and its thought/feeling processes -- the psyche.


Yes, that is what i think also. But Psyche , for Jung, seems to embrace metaphysical concepts that eastern mysticism like budhism , taoism and hinduism would welcome, but hardly is accepted by western materialistic scientifical stablishment. In the end, i tend to think that there could be things that we have as psychical today, and perhaps tomorrow will be had as psychological. Nothing magical, but natural, and perhaps things that are walking side by side with us since we understand and experience our own existance. I thought about being all delusion, mind tricks, epiphenomenalism of matter...but...hmmm no , perhaps there is more. That is only my oppinion about it, and i may well be wrong in the end.

Originally posted by Gayle

Jung created some beautiful metaphors for the problems connected to the stages of human development.


Yes, metaphors are one of the pillars of Jung´s ideas. Myths, metaphors, art...these things are, at least from what i know, the way we can experience archetypical "entities" of the universe. I risk (my own risk) based on my interpretation of what i read, that he kind of suggested that the world as we see it, is a metaphorical way of experience what the universe is, archetypically speaking. I´m still reading many things of him and about him, and these oppinions of mine are likely to change.

Originally posted by Gayle

If Jung did believe literally in his metaphors, well...I would call him a crazy man or a cracked genius or ... I don't know. But I would not believe literally myself. Whatever I believe, I still will not know what Jung believed.


Jung believed literally in his metaphors, as far as i know. But he did not think that everything is appliable to the material world, and as i may note, he seemed not to claim that those things would be scientifically demonstrable. He seemed to know how poor is our limited communication and conceptualization skills when facing the hard and perhaps impossible task to explain, quantify, conceptualize and demonstrate things like transpersonal experiences through altered states of mind.

He thought that the material world is only one of the possible realities for our conscious mind to experience. According to what i read from him, he believes that the possibility of transcending this life is a fact. He also agree whith what people says when back from one NDE , claiming that the reality in NDE state was far more real than this one. This claim, that almost EVERYONE back from an NDE is so sure and convinced about, is what interest and puzzles me most.

See this article, i find it very interesting:

http://www.near-death.com/jung.html

Enjoy the powerful metaphorical content of his NDE, as well as his delightful way of describing it. ;)

[omegablue]

Originally posted by Mariah
Gayle, Omegablue, Scooter, and all,

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your intelligent posts to the thread I began on Jung. I'm afraid I haven't contributed very much, but I really wanted to hear what you and others had to say.


And i can´t thank you enough for starting this thread over here on JREF! :)

Originally posted by Mariah
It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that I was not far off when I expressed my doubts about Jung.


Definetely not.


Originally posted by Mariah
But, whether they misperceive what he said or not, it seems to me that most people who identify with him identify with his paranormal claims.


That is true. Jung can be and as i can see, actually IS, an open door to general quackery.


Originally posted by Mariah
However, Jung goes on to say "The Pueblo Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun and this belief endows their life with a perspective that goes far beyond their limited existence. Their plight is infinitely more statisfactory than that of a man in our civilization who knows that he is and will remain nothing more than an underdog with no inner meaning to his life....Had St. Paul been convinced that he was nothing more than a wandering tent-maker he certainly would not have been the man he was. His real and meaningful life lay IN THE INNER CERTAINTY THAT HE WAS THE MESSENGER OF THE LORD. One many accuse him of suffering from megalomania, but this opinion pales before the testimony of history and the judgement of subsequent generations."


Nice point Mariah! I´m kinda sure that these "messiahs" were more than charlatans and megalomaniacs. They seem to have been normal people, speaking of mental sanitiy in a general way, who were deeply influenced and hence, why not, deluded to some extent, by powerful transpersonal experiences. But well, hundreds of thousands people claim to have received messages from god in this way, but none was such natural born leaders as some "saints" and prophets were. So , they, in advance found themselves spreading out the "truth" and the message of god, and other people could verify it by having these religious experiences. With the help of the powerful persuasive and suggestive skills of the messianic leaders, they were easily convinced that the experiences they had , was indeed, what their messiah was talking about. We all know about how a mind can be easily suggested while under contemplative and trancended states, where suchness can easily be collapsed in a convincing way, to what the "guide" is suggesting from outside.

There is another point regarding this. By having faith on something, you help yourself in the creation of such things, mentally speaking. In other words, if you are a kid, being taught cristianity all your life, unquestionably embracing the ideas of jesus, angels, saints, heaven, hell, purgatory and etc etc, you will be likely to experience these mythological figures while on altered states of consciousness, be it dreams, lucid dreams, meditative states with the help of praying, drug induced states, or NDE´s.. among others.

Problem is, in my humble oppinion, that is a complete open door to charlatanism and mass manipulation. And i dare to say that this is the history of religion as an institution. Would anyone here agree with me in this account? I think as i could read from your post, Mariah, that you would agree with me at least partially... am i wrong? :D

As i am being continuosly interrupted as i write these posts, i´ll end it here right now, against my will. And i´ll continue later on! I suggest waiting for my other points before answering these. But, the choice is yours. ;)

see ya later

[BPScooter]

OK, and hey hey hey now to the brothers and sisters,

I agree that the later Jung is basic crap, or if nobody said it yet, Scooter says It's Crap.

Read the early stuff...see what Jung wrote in the 1900s-30s...this man had his handle on Nietzsche, Goethe, etc. German stuff.

It appears to me that we Internet people are in need of a good old-fashioned read. Myself of course included.