The art of psychology

Carl Jung has spirit guides, one of who was named Philemon. Could that name be linked to the Phi Ratio

of Sacred Geometry

Jung observed that Philemon and other figures of his fantasies gave him crucial insights. To this end he

referred to things in the psyche, which he could produce, but which could produce themselves, as having

their own life. Philemon represented a force that was other than himself, much like a channeler or

medium in today's world gets information from allegedly a source from the other side. he greatly enjoyed

these conversations as a learning tool.

Psychologically, Philemon represents superior insight to Jung. To those who do not study metaphysics,

Philemon might be perceived as a figment of Jung's imagination, or a reflection of a mental illness. Jung

did not consider himself insane. He believed that Philemon was a source of legitimate information,

whose validity could be tested in fact. This opened the door to his theory of a collective

unconsciousness, a type of library, if you will, containing everything ever known and recorded, replete

with archetypes and active principles that interacted between that source and human consciousness.

Jung had a life long fascination with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), but he distanced himself from

Nietzsche for fear he would would suffer the same fate, mental illness in his old age.

Jung's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also Sprach Zarathustra) chronicles the wanderings and teachings

of Zarathustra, Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism.

Zarathustra

Also Sprach Zarathustra is also the title of a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and

inspired by the book. It is best known for its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey,

which is postulated to have been inspired by the book, at least in part. The opening section is used three

times, most famously in the opening title sequence of the film.

Philemon was not the only entity Jung channeled. Among the others was a cultivated elderly Indian who

told Jung that his experience was identical to many mystics. In this case his spirit guide, teacher or guru,

said that he had been a commentator on the Vedas, centuries before. Jung felt that he had become as one

with the ancient teachers and priests, and others thought to have experienced the divine.

In 1916 Jung made a connection with Basilides. Basilides (early 2nd century), was an early Christian

religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt. Basilides apparently wrote twenty-four books on the Gospel and

promoted a dualism influenced by Zoroastrianism. His followers formed a Gnostic sect, the Basilideans.

Historians know of Basilides and his teachings only through the writings of his detractors, Agrippa

Castor, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Hippolytus. It is impossible to determine how reliable these

hostile accounts are. Jung transcribed Septem Sermones ad Mortuos as dictated to him by Basilides of

Alexandria.

Channeling Basilides was in some ways considered a possession to Jung. He felt that his house may be

haunted, especially when his eldest daughter saw a white ethereal figure passing through the room. His

second daughter, independent of the eldest daughter's observation, related that twice the same night her

blanket has been thrown to the floor. Jung's nine year old son, experienced an anxiety dream that night

waking up terrified.

Around five o'clock that afternoon, the front doorbell continued to ring without stopping. It was a bright

summer day. the two maids were in the kitchen, from which the open they could view the door.

Everyone looked to see who was ringing the bell, but there was no one in sight as the bell could be seen

moving in and out. An explanation was never found.

Jung became frightened. He shouted out, "For God's sake, what madness is this?" Voices cried out in

chorus, "We have come back from Jerusalem where we found not what we sought."

Over the next three evenings, Jung quickly finished the book. As soon as he began to write, the ghostly

assemblage, the hauntings, stopped.

Jung's channelings of Basilides has been labeled a core text of depth psychology. The text is intriguing

for several reasons. For one, he uses the name Abraxas to describe the Supreme Being that had originally

generated mind, nous, consciousness and then other powers of consciousness into thought.

Jung did not teach the return of human essence to the Gnostic pleroma wherein individuality was lost.

Instead he adhered to individualism, which maintained the fullness of human individuality.

In metaphysics we often read that both possibilities can be encountered, and found in some religions.

The soul at its final stage can become one with source (pleroma) or maintain its separate identity inside

the One (individuation).

The easiest parallel is with the hologram, in which each 'replica' is unique, yet also the whole. If any

replica was aware, and would at one point have to ask what it wanted, some would ask to surrender into

the greater hologram, whereas other replicas would ask to retain their individual memories, though part

of the whole.

It is clear that this experience created the framework in which the concept of the collective

unconsciousness would later evolve, information transfered from a collective mind to groups or

individuals.

On the matter of his automatic writing, he later wrote, "These conversations with the dead formed a kind

of prelude to what I had to communicate to the world about the unconsciousness. All my works, all my

creative activity, have come from those initial 'connections', fantasies and dreams which began in 1912,

almost 50 years ago. Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although

at first only in the form of emotions and images."

As early as August 1912, Jung had intimated a letter to Freud that he had an intuition that the essentially

feminine-tones archaic wisdom of the Gnostics, symbolically called Sophia, was destined to re-enter

modern Western culture by way of depth psychology. This takes us to the Gnostic text the Pistis Sophia.

Pistis Sophia is an important Gnostic text. The five remaining copies, which scholars date c. 250300

AD, relate the Gnostic teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples (including

his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Martha), when the risen Christ had accomplished eleven

years speaking with his disciples. In it the complex structures and hierarchies of heaven familiar in

Gnostic teachings are revealed.

The female divinity of gnosticism is Sophia, a being with many aspects and names. She is

sometimes identified with the Holy Ghost itself but, according to her various capacities, is also the

Universal Mother, the Mother of the Living or Resplendent Mother, the Power on High, She-ofthe-

left-hand (as opposed to Christ, understood as her husband and he of the Right Hand), as the

Luxurious One, the Womb, the Virgin, the Wife of the Male, the Revealer of Perfect Mysteries, the

Saint Columba of the Spirit, the Heavenly Mother, the Wandering One, or Elena (that is, Selene,

the Moon). She was envisaged as the Psyche of the world and the female aspect of Logos.

The title Pistis Sophia is obscure, and is sometimes translated Faith wisdom or Wisdom in faith or

Faith in wisdom. A more accurate translation taking into account its gnostic context, is the faith of

Sophia, as Sophia to the gnostics was a divine syzygy of Christ, rather than simply a word

meaning wisdom. In an earlier, simpler version of a Sophia, in the Berlin Codex and also found in

a papyrus at Nag Hammadi, the transfigured Christ explains Pistis in a rather obscure manner:

Again, his disciples said: Tell us clearly how they came down from the invisibilities, from the

immortal to the world that dies? The perfect Saviour said, "Son of Man consented with Sophia, his

consort, and revealed a great androgynous light. Its male name is designated 'Saviour, begetter of

all things'. Its female name is designated 'All-begettress Sophia'. Some call her 'Pistis'."

The best-known of the five manuscripts of Pistis Sophia is bound with another Gnostic text titled

on the binding "Piste Sophiea Cotice". This "Askew Codex" was purchased by the British Museum

in 1795 from a Dr. Anthony Askew. Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, the

Askew Codex was one of three codices that contained almost all of the gnostic writings that had

survived the suppression of such literature both in East and West, the other two codices being the

Bruce Codex and the Berlin Codex. Aside from these sources, everything written about Gnosticism

before World War II is based on quotes, references and inferences in the Patristic writings of the

enemies of Gnosticism, a less-than-neutral source, where Gnostic beliefs were selected to present

their absurdities, bizarre and unethical behavior, and heresy from the orthodox Pauline Christian

standpoint.

The text proclaims that Jesus remained on earth after the resurrection for 11 years, and was able in

this time to teach his disciples up to the first (i.e. beginner) level of the mystery. It starts with an

allegory paralleling the death and resurrection of Jesus, and describing the descent and ascent of

the soul. After that it proceeds to describe important figures within the gnostic cosmology, and

then finally lists 32 carnal desires to overcome before salvation is possible, overcoming all 32

constituting salvation.

Pistis Sophia includes quotes from five of the Odes of Solomon, found in chapters between 58 and

71. Pistis Sophia was the only known source for the actual wording of any of the Odes until the

discovery of a nearly-complete Syriac text of the Odes in 1909. Because the first part of this text is

missing, Pistis Sophia is still the only source for Ode 1.

It is clear that Jung was seeing and defining what we call the Return of (to) the Feminine Energies or

higher frequency of thought consciousness. Jung also channeled feminine archetypes including Salome.

In 1926 Jung had a remarkable dream. He was back in the 17th century where he saw himself as an

alchemist doing important work. Jung believe that alchemy was the connection between the ancient

world of the gnostics and the modern era, which would seethe return of Sophia (mother goddess

energies).

For Jung, alchemy was not the search for a way to transform lead into gold, but the transformation of the

soul on its path to perfection. Jung's dreams in 1926 and on frequently found him in ancient places

surrounded by alchemical codices of great beauty and mystery. Jung amassed a library on the great art

which represents one of the finest private collections in this field.

In 1944 Jung published Psychology and Alchemy in which he argues for a reevaluation of the

symbolism of Alchemy as being intimately related to the psychoanalytical process. Using a cycle of

dreams of one of his patients he shows how the symbols used by the Alchemists occur in the psyche as

part of the reservoir of mythological images drawn upon by the individual in their dream states. Jung

draws an analogy between the Great Work of the Alchemists and the process of reintegration and

individuation of the psyche in the modern psychiatric patient.

Jung believed that the cosmos contained the divine light or life, but this essence was enmeshed in a

mathematical trap, presided over by a demiurge, Lucifer, the Bringer of Light. Lucifer contained the

light inside this reality, until a time when it would be set free. The first operation of alchemy therefore

addressed itself to the dismemberment of this confining structure, reducing it to the condition of creative

chaos. From this, in the process of transformation, the true, creative binaries emerge and begin their

interaction designed to bring the alchemical union. In this ultimate union, says Jung, the previously

confined light is redeemed and brought to the point of its ultimate and redemptive fulfillment.

Jung made it clear that his theory was not new. It is similar to the Catharism and he stated that he was

restating the Hermetic Gnosis and explaining the misunderstood central quest of alchemy.

Jung believed that alchemy stood in a compensatory relationship to mainstream Christianity, rather like a

dream does to the conscious attitudes of the dreamer. It has been has been hidden underground, part of a

secret tradition that ran throughout Christianity, but always subconsciousness - visible by its shadows

and the traces it leaves.

He also felt that this process allowed for better understanding of male-female relationships, and the

concept of love. In the Psychology of Transference Jung stated that in love, as in psychological growth,

the key to success is the ability to endure the tension of opposites without abandoning the process, even

if its results appear to have been brought to naught. In essence, it is the stress that allows one to grow

and transform.

The union of opposites, the focus of the alchemist, was for Jung also the focus of Gnostics, whom he felt

had been incorrectly labeled as radical dualists, i.e. believing in the battle between good and evil without

any apparent union possible between the two.

For Jung, dualism and monism were not mutually contradictory and exclusive, but complimentary

aspects of reality. As such, there was no right and wrong, no order or chaos, just two opposites, duality,

polarities, that created a means to reconciliation and balance into enlightenment.

In a maner of speaking one could call Carl Jung the Father if the New Age of Consciousness, giving a

theoretical framework for channeling and other New Age practices that allow consciousness to expand

outside the box of antiquated thinking.

In the end, Carl Jung stated that such opposites must be integrated. Zoroaster calls this Zero Point.

Jung believed in an Illuminated Psyche, which goes to the Illuminati, enlightenment through the Eye

Symbology, All Seeing Eye and other major archetypes of the Masonic Program through which we

experience and learn.

Spirituality as a cure for alcoholism

Jung's influence can sometimes be found in more unexpected quarters. For example, Jung once treated

an American patient (Rowland H.) suffering from chronic alcoholism. After working with the patient for

some time, and achieving no significant progress, Jung told the man that his alcoholic condition was near

to hopeless, save only the possibility of a spiritual experience. Jung noted that occasionally such

experiences had been known to reform alcoholics where all else had failed.

Rowland took Jung's advice seriously and set about seeking a personal spiritual experience. He returned

home to the United States and joined a Christian evangelical church. He also told other alcoholics what

Jung had told him about the importance of a spiritual experience. One of the alcoholics he told was Ebby

Thatcher, a long-time friend and drinking buddy of Bill Wilson, later co-founder of Alcoholics

Anonymous (AA) Thatcher told Wilson about Jung's ideas. Wilson, who was finding it impossible to

maintain sobriety, was impressed and sought out his own spiritual experience. The influence of Jung thus

indirectly found its way into the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step program, and

from there into the whole 12-step recovery movement, although AA as a whole is not Jungian and Jung

had no role in the formation of that approach or the 12 steps.

The above claims are documented in the letters of Carl Jung and Bill W., excerpts of which can be

found in Pass It On, published by Alcoholics Anonymous. The detail of this story is disputed by some

historians.

Jung and Nazism

Though the field of psychoanalysis was dominated at the time by Jewish practitioners, and Jung had
many friends and respected colleagues who were Jewish, a shadow hung over Jung's career due to
allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer. Jung was editor of the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie, a
publication that eventually endorsed Mein Kampf as required reading for all psychoanalysts. Jung
claimed this was done to save psychoanalysis and preserve it during the war, believing that
psychoanalysis would not otherwise survive because the Nazis considered it to be a "Jewish science". He
also claimed he did it with the help and support of his Jewish friends and colleagues. This after-the-fact
explanation, however, has been strongly challenged on the basis of available documents. The question
remains unresolved.
Jung also served as president of the Nazi-dominated International General Medical Society for
Psychotherapy. One of his first acts as president was to modify the constitution so that German Jewish
doctors could maintain their membership as individual members even though they were excluded from
all German medical societies. Also, in 1934 when he presented his paper "A Review Of The Complex
Theory", in his presidential address he did not discount the importance of Freud and credited him with as
much influence as he could possibly give to an old mentor. Later in the war, Jung resigned. In addition,
in 1943 he aided the Office of Strategic Services by analyzing Nazi leaders for the United States.
However, it is still a topic of interest whether Jung's later explanations of his actions to save
psychoanalysis from the Nazi Regime meant that he did not actually believe in Nazism himself.

Jungian Interpretation of Religion

The Jungian interpretation of religion views all religious experience as a psychological phenomenon, and
regards the personal experience of God as indistinguishable, for scientific purposes, as a communication
with one's own unconscious mind.

Carl Jung established a school of psychology called depth psychology, which emphasizes understanding
the psyche through dream analysis. Other workers in depth psychology have used other methods with
some success, but dream analysis remains the core of depth psychology. Works of art and mythology are
interpreted similarly to dreams: a myth is "a dream being experienced by a whole culture."
Inevitably archetypal figures appear in personal dreams which closely resemble mythic figures, which
leads to a natural interest in experience of religion as a psychological phenomenon.
Jung emphasized the importance of balance in a healthy mind. He wrote that modern humans rely too
heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the
unconscious. Jungian psychology is typically missing from the curriculum of most major universities'
psychology departments. Jung's ideas are occasionally explored in humanities departments, particularly
in the study of mythography.
Jung's parents were fervent Christian missionaries, and part of Jung's early life was occupied with
resolving his personal conflict between his stern upbringing and his his own feelings about religion. This
settled in on the "scientific" interpretation of religion, which treats religion as a psychological
phenomenon only, and neither affirms nor denies a greater reality.
Although Carl Jung was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, he searched through other
subjects, attempting to find a pre-existing myth or mythic system which aptly illustrated his ideas about
the human psychology of religion. He began with Gnosticism, but abandoned it early on. Later he studied
astrology and then speculative alchemy as a symbolic system. It is not clear from his writings if he ever
settled on any one of these systems of symbols.
Carl Jung and his associate G.R.S. Mead worked on trying to understand and explain the Gnostic faith
from a psychological standpoint. Jung's analytical psychology in many ways schematically mirrors
ancient Gnostic mythology, particularly those of Valentinus and the 'classic' Gnostic doctrine described
in most detail in the Apocryphon of John (see gnostic schools).
Jung understands the emergence of the Demiurge out of the original, unified monadic source of the
spiritual universe by gradual stages to be analogous to (and a symbolic depiction of) the emergence of
the ego from the unconscious.
However, it is uncertain as to whether the similarities between Jung's psychological teachings and those
of the gnostics are due to their sharing a "perennial philosophy", or whether Jung was unwittingly
influenced by the Gnostics in the formation of his theories.
Jung's own 'gnostic hymn', the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (Latin: "The Seven Sermons to the Dead"),
would tend to imply the latter, but after circulating the manuscript, Jung declined to publish it during his
lifetime. Since it is not clear whether Jung was ultimately displeased with the book or whether he merely
suppressed it as too controversial, the issue remains contested.
Uncertain too are Jung's belief that the gnostics were aware of and intended psychological meaning or
significance within their myths.
On the other hand, it is clear from a comparison of Jung's writings and that of ancient Gnostics, that Jung
disagreed with them on the ultimate goal of the individual. Gnostics in ancient times clearly sought a
return to a supreme, other-worldly Godhead. In a study of Jung, Robert Segal claimed that the eminent
psychologist would have found the psychological interpretation of the goal of ancient Gnosticism (that is,
re-unification with the Pleroma, or the unknown God) to be psychically 'dangerous', as being a total
identification with the unconscious.

To contend that there is at least some disagreement between Jung and Gnosticism is at least supportable:
the Jungian process of individuation involves the addition of unconscious psychic tropes to
consciousness in order to achieve a trans-conscious centre to the personality. Jung did not intend thi saddition to take the form of a complete identification of the Self with the Unconscious.

Jung and Freud

Jung was thirty when he sent his work Studies in Word Association to Sigmund Freud in Vienna. It is
notable that the first conversation between Jung and Freud lasted over 13 hours. Half a year later, the
then 50 year old Freud reciprocated by sending a collection of his latest published essays to Jung in
Zürich, which marked the beginning of an intense correspondence and collaboration that lasted more
than six years and ended shortly before World War I in May 1914, when Jung resigned as the chairman
of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

proponents of these empires like to stress, downplaying the influence these men had on each other in the
formative years of their lives. But in 1906 psychoanalysis as an institution was still in its early
developmental stages. Jung, who had become interested in psychiatry as a student by reading
Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Krafft-Ebing, professor in Vienna, now worked as a doctor under the
psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in the Burghölzli and became familiar with Freud's idea of the unconscious
through Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and was a proponent of the new "psycho-analysis".
At the time, Freud needed collaborators and pupils to validate and spread his ideas. The Burghölzli was a
renowned psychiatric clinic in Zürich at which Jung was an up-and-coming young doctor.
In 1908, Jung became editor of the newly founded Yearbook for Psychoanalytical and
Psychopathological Research. The following year, Jung traveled with Freud and Sandor Ferenczi to the
U.S. to spread the news of psychoanalysis and in 1910, Jung became chairman for life of the
International Psychoanalytical Association. While Jung worked on his Wandlungen und Symbole der
Libido (Symbols of Transformation), tensions grew between Freud and himself, due in a large part to
their disagreements over the nature of libido and religion.

In 1912 these tensions came to a peak because Jung felt severely slighted after Freud visited his
colleague Ludwig Binswanger in Kreuzlingen without paying him a visit in nearby Zürich, an incident
Jung referred to as the Kreuzlingen gesture. Shortly thereafter, Jung again traveled to the U.S.A. and
gave the Fordham lectures, which were published as The Theory of Psychoanalysis, and while they
contain some remarks on Jung's dissenting view on the nature of libido, they represent largely a
"psychoanalytical Jung" and not the theory Jung became famous for in the following decades.
In November 1912, Jung and Freud met in Munich for a meeting among prominent colleagues to discuss
psychoanalytical journals. At a talk about a new psychoanalytic essay on Amenhotep IV, Jung expressed
his views on how it related to actual conflicts in the psychoanalytic movement. While Jung spoke, Freud
suddenly fainted and Jung carried him to a couch.

Jung and Freud personally met for the last time in September 1913 for the Fourth International
Psychoanalytical Congress, also in Munich. Jung gave a talk on psychological types, the introverted and
the extroverted type, in analytical psychology. This constituted the introduction of some of the key
concepts which came to distinguish Jung's work from Freud's in the next half century.
In the following years Jung experienced considerable isolation in his professional life, exacerbated
through World War I. His Seven Sermons to the Dead (1917) reprinted in his autobiography Memories,
Dreams, Reflections can also be read as expression of the psychological conflicts which beset Jung
around the age of forty after the break with Freud.

Jung's primary disagreement with Freud stemmed from their differing concepts of the unconscious. Jung
saw Freud's theory of the unconscious as incomplete and unnecessarily negative. According to Jung
(though not according to Freud), Freud conceived the unconscious solely as a repository of repressed
emotions and desires. Jung believed that the unconscious also had a creative capacity, that the collective
unconscious of archetypes and images which made up the human psyche was processed and renewed
within the unconscious (one might find similarity with the ideas of French philosopher Felix Guattari, who wrote several books with Gilles Deleuze and once stated 'The unconscious is a factory, not a
theatre.')

Carl Jung, biography second, Later Life.

Later Life
Following World War I, Jung became a worldwide traveler, facilitated by his wife's inherited fortune as
well as the funds he realized through psychiatric fees, book sales, and honoraria. He visited Northern
Africa shortly after, and New Mexico and Kenya in the mid-1920s.
In 1938, he delivered the Terry Lectures, Psychology and Religion, at Yale University. It was at about
this stage in his life that Jung visited India. His experience in India led him to become fascinated and
deeply involved with Eastern philosophies and religions, helping him come up with key concepts of his
ideology, including integrating spirituality into everyday life and appreciation of the unconscious.
Jung's marriage with Emma produced five children and lasted until Emma's death in 1955, but she
certainly experienced emotional trauma, brought about by Jung's relationships with other women. The
most well-known women with whom Jung is believed to have had extramarital affairs are patient and
friend Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff. Jung continued to publish books until the end of his life,
including a work showing his late interest in flying saucers. He also enjoyed a friendship with an English
Catholic priest, Father Victor White, who corresponded with Jung after he had published his
controversial Answer to Job.
Jung's work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material
goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfill our deep-innate potential, much as the acorn
contains the potential to become the oak, or the caterpillar to become the butterfly. Based on his study of
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung perceived that this
journey of transformation is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at
the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Sigmund Freud, Jung thought spiritual experience was essential
to our well-being. When asked during a 1959 BBC interview if he believed in the existence of God,
Jung replied, "I don't believe-I know".

Carl Jung, July 26, 1875 - June 6, 1961July 26, biography first part.

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of a neopsychoanalytic school of psychology, which he
named Analytical Psychology.
Jung's unique and broadly influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche
through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was
a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician for most of his life, much of his life's work was spent
exploring other realms, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as
well as literature and the arts.
His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype, his theory of
synchronicity and the collective unconscious - also known as "a reservoir of the experiences of our
species."
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too
heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the
unconscious realm. Jungian ideas are not typically included in curriculum of most major universities'
psychology departments, but are occasionally explored in humanities departments.
Early Life
Jung was the son of a philologist and paster. His childhood was lonely, though enriched by a vivid
imagination. From an early age he observed the behavior of his parents and teachers, which he tired to
understand and resolve. Especially concerned with his father's failing belief in religion, he tried to
communicate to him his own experience of God. Though the elder Jung was in many ways a kind and
tolerant man, neither he nor his son succeeded in understanding each other.
A very solitary and introverted child, Jung was convinced from childhood that he had two personalities, a
modern Swiss citizen, and a personality more at home in the eighteenth century. "Personality No. 1," as
he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time, while No. 2 was a dignified,
authoritative, and influential man from the past. Although Jung was close to both parents, he was rather
disappointed in his father's academic approach to faith.
A number of childhood memories inspired many of his later theories. As a boy he carved a tiny
mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pupil's pencil case and placed it inside the case. He
then added a stone which he had painted into upper and lower halves of, and hid the case in the attic.
Periodically he would come back to the manikin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages
inscribed on them in his own secret language. This ceremonial act, he later reflected, brought him a
feeling of inner peace and security. In later years, he discovered that similarities existed in this memory
and the totems of native peoples like the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim, or the tjurungas of
Australia. This, he concluded, was an unconscious ritual that he did not question or understand at the
time, but was practiced in a strikingly similar way in faraway locations that he as a young boy had no
way of consciously knowing about. His theories of psychological archetypes and the collective
unconscious were inspired in part by this experience.
Shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, at age 12, he was
pushed unexpectedly by another boy, which knocked him to the ground so hard that he was for a
moment unconscious. The thought then came to him that "now you won't have to go to school any
more.". From then on, whenever he started off to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at
home for the next six months until he overheard his father speaking worriedly to a visitor of his future
ability to support himself, as they suspected he had epilepsy. With little money in the family, this
brought the boy to reality and he realized the need for academic excellence. He immediately went into
his father's study and began poring over Latin grammar. He fainted three times, but eventually he
overcame the urge and did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, "was when I learned what a
neurosis is.

Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Jung wanted to study archaeology at university, but his family was not wealthy enough to send him
further afield than Basel, where they did not teach this subject, so instead Jung studied medicine at the
University of Basel from 1894 to 1900. The formerly introverted student became much more lively here.
In 1903, Jung married Emma Rauschenbach, from one of the richest families in Switzerland.
Towards the end of studies, his reading of Krafft-Ebing persuaded him to specialize in psychiatric
medicine. He later worked in the Burghölzli, a psychiatric hospital in Zürich. In 1906, he published
Studies in Word Association, and later sent a copy of this book to famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud,
after which a close friendship between these two men followed for some 6 years.
In 1913 Jung published Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (known in English as The Psychology of
the Unconscious) resulting in a theoretical divergence between Jung and Freud and result in a break in
their friendship, both stating that the other was unable to admit he could possibly be wrong. After this
falling-out, Jung went through a pivotal and difficult psychological transformation, which was
exacerbated by news of the First World War. Henri Ellenberger called Jung's experience a "creative
illness" and compared it to Freud's period of what he called neurasthenia and hysteria.

Carl Jung's Archetypes

To further help you in uncovering the meaning of your dreams, Jung noted certain dream symbols that possess the same universal meaning for all men and women. He terms this phenomenon the "collective unconscious". While dreams are personal, your personal experiences often touch on universal themes and symbols. These symbols are believed to occur in every culture throughout

history. Jung identifies seven such symbols in what is referred to as the major archetypal characters:

1. The Persona is the image you present to the world in your waking life. It is your public mask. In the dream world, the persona is represented by the Self.  The Self may or may not resemble you physically or may or may not behave as your would. For example, the persona can appear as a scarecrow or a beggar in your dream. However, you still know that this "person" in your dream is you.

2. The Shadow is the rejected and repressed aspects of yourself. It is the part of yourself that you do not want the world to see because it is ugly or unappealing. It symbolizes weakness, fear, or anger. In dreams, this figure is represented by a stalker, murderer, a bully, or pursuer. It can be a frightening figure or even a close friend or relative.  Their appearance often makes you angry or leaves you scared. They force you to confront things that you don't want to see or hear. You must learn to accept the shadow aspect of yourself for its messages are often for your own good, even though it may not be immediately apparent.

3. The Anima / Animus is the female and male aspects of yourself. Everyone possess both feminine and masculine qualities. In dreams, the anima appears as a highly feminized figure, while the animus appears as a hyper masculine form. Or you may dream that you are dressed in women's clothing, if you are male or that you grow a beard, if you are female. These dream imageries appear depending on how well you are able to integrate the feminine and masculine qualities within yourself. They serve as a reminder that you must learn to acknowledge or express your masculine (be more assertive) or feminine side (be more emotional).

4. The Divine Child is your true self in its purest form. It not only symbolizes your innocence, your sense of vulnerability, and your helplessness, but it represents your aspirations and full potential. You are open to all possibilities. In the dreamscape, this figure is represented by a baby or young child.

5. The Wise Old Man /Woman is the helper in your dreams. Represented by a teacher, father, doctor, priest or some other unknown authority figure, they serve to offer guidance and words of wisdom. They appear in your dream to steer and guide you into the right direction.

6. The Great Mother is the nurturer. The Great Mother appears in your dreams as your own mother, grandmother, or other nurturing figure. She provides you with positive reassurance. Negatively, they may be depicted as a witch or old bag lady in which case they can be associated with seduction, dominance and death. This juxtaposition is rooted in the belief by some experts that the real mother who is the giver of life is also at the same time jealous of our growth away from her.

7. The Trickster, as the name implies, plays jokes to keep you from taking yourself too seriously. The trickster may appear in your dream when you have overreach or misjudge a situation. Or he could find himself in your dream when you are uncertain about a decision or about where you want to go in life.  The trickster often makes you feel uncomfortable or embarrassed, sometimes mocking you or exposing  you to your vulnerabilities. He may take on subtle forms, sometimes even changing its shape.

Archetypal dreams, also refer to as "mythic dreams", "great dreams" or "grand dreams", usually occur at significant times or transitional periods in your life. They often leave you with a sense of awe or that you have learned something important about yourself. Such dreams have a cosmic quality or an element of impossibility if occurred in reality. They are often extremely vivid and stay in your mind long after you had the dream.

   

Introduction to Carl G. Jung's Principle of Synchronicity

by Remo F. Roth, PhD, CH-8810 Horgen-Zuerich, Switzerland  Thanks to Phyllis Luthi (jobshop@pacbell.net) for the help with the translation

In today's world we reduce all events to the Principle of Cause and Effect (causality) and ask, which cause belongs to which effect. Carl G. Jung, toward the end of his life, realized that there is another type of events. Such events are directed toward a goal, that is, they lead into an event which has no cause. Therefore, they correspond to a new creation. In religious language such "effects" without "cause" were considered as miracles. The Catholic Church calls the underlying principle the providence of God.

When one observes one's dreams over a longer period of time, one becomes aware that often outward events occur that are very similar to the content of one's dreams. It would seem that the inner world and the outer world coincide. Carl G. Jung had suggested that one should - instead of looking for a magical relationship, as they did in medieval times - try to find the common meaning of such relatively simultaneous inner and outer events. The principle that underlies this nexus he called synchronicity.

Jung cites in his letters [vol. 1, 1973, p. 395] an occurrence that is an impressive example of synchronicity: "For instance, I walk with a woman patient in a wood. She tells me about the first dream in her life that had made an everlasting impression upon her. She had seen a spectral fox coming down the stairs in her parental home. At this moment a real fox comes out of the trees not 40 yards away and walks quietly on the path ahead of us for several minutes. The animal behaves as if it were a partner in the human situation."

According to Jung it would be wrong and extremely dangerous, to see a causal relationship between the two occurrences and to say that one event was the cause of the other. That would be nothing other than a relapse to the magical-causal thinking of the middle ages. Instead of this we must accept that the two occurrences are not causally connected, but rather by a common meaning. This means that we have to extract the meaning of the symbol "fox" for the interpretation of this synchronicity. This would somehow purport, that the dreamer herself - symbolically speaking - should be lead much more by her "inner fox", meaning that she must recover the instinctive cleverness she had lost with her intellectual point of view.

When one has experienced a number of such synchroncitities (see also Carl G. Jung’s Scarab Synchronicity), one gains over time the impression that there is a wisdom within them, far beyond that of our conscious knowledge. Furthermore, they would indicate that the inner world, for example dreams out of the so-called unconscious, know something about the outward, but also that the outer, the animate or even the inanimate material world knows something about the inner. Carl G. Jung had therefore put forth the postulate that there has to be a world in which inner and outer world, psyche and matter are connected in an undifferentiated unity. This world was called the unus mundus in the Middle Ages [see also the UNUS MUNDUS forum]. Carl G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli looked for this world and called it the unified psychophysical reality ("die psychophysische Einheitswirklichkeit") beyond the split in matter and psyche. One must consider this a potential world out of which causeless new creations can occur. Synchronistic events show the moment that this potential world will incarnate into the concrete.

In the above example it was in the moment of that the fox emerged in the forest that this moment came in which the stricken woman came out of her intellectualism and was able to recover her instinctive cleverness. Jung would probably have said something like the following to her: "You see, now the fox is also outside. Invite the symbol of instinctive cleverness into your world and you will be lead by it in your later life. Forget all of your ifs or buts, conquer all your intellectual blocks in this way and begin to trust your instinctive wisdom which will show you the right way." Through the experience and the interpretation of this synchronicity would the consciousness of the client abruptly transform and this impressive occurrence would lead to a new meaning to her future life.

Physically seen the principle of cause and effect leads finally into so-called Entropy, in other words the so called "heat death" of the universe. The differences in energy between various parts decrease until there is no more difference, energy no longer can flow, and life is extinguished.

Similar events one can observe in the psychic realm. People who have been bound too long to the causal paradigma begin to die in this life. Unconsciously they will become "living deads". Thus the Sufis, the mystics of Islam - say these words of wisdom: "Die before you die!" By this they mean that in such people a new conscious orientation should take place which effects so that the consciousness then would much more be connected to the principle of synchronicity instead to causality. This letting go of old tried and true, this giving up of the power principle, of "Where there's a will there's a way!" works like an elixier vitae. Such people begin a second life which falls under the principle of synchronicity. I call it Synchronicity Quest, which means that they begin to let theirselves be lead by coincidences and to take assistance from their dreams in order to learn to understand wherein the way of life further leads. In greatly critical moments synchronicities come to pass which show the real goal of life, which can not be found by will and causalistic thinking.

Experience shows that such synchronicities work negentropically, meaning that they build new psychic energy fields out of which further new life possibilities emerge. People grow in this manner and those who take their dreams and synchronicities seriously have a chance to lead a life filled with a new and deeper meaning. Thereby they have simultaneously overcome the paradigma of causality while entering into a new age of synchronicity which appears on the horizon of the new millennium.

Biography of Eugen Bleuler

Eugen Bleuler, one of the most influential psychologists of his time, made difficulties for himself by being attracted to both the theories of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Wilhelm Max Wundt (1832-1920), striving to unify somehow the teachings of the two, despite the fact that the differences were much greater than what united them. Bleuler is best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia – in 1908 - to describe the disorder previously known as dementia praecox, from the Latin meaning prematurely out of one's mind, a name given by Emil Kraepelin; and for his study of schizophrenics.

He tended to oppose the view that schizophrenia is caused by an irreversible brain damage, but did not believe in the possibility of a healing. Bleuler emphasised the associative disturbances, not the demens. His work for this group of diseases went so far that he even learned to understand and interpret these patients way of expressing themselves.

Bleuler attended the universities of Zürich, Bern, and Munich, becoming a licensed physician in 1881. He was conferred doctor of medicine in 1883, and from 1881 to 1883 was assistant physician in Waldau near Bern. In 1884 he travelled to France and England, in the winter term of 1884/1885 worked in the laboratory with Johann Bernhard Aloys von Gudden (1824-1886) in Munich. In 1885 he became assistant physician in Burghölzli near Zürich, and subsequently, from 1886 to 1898 was director of the nursing home – Pflegeanstalt – Rheinau near Zürich.

In 1898 Bleuler was appointed professor psychiatry at the University of Zürich and director of the University Psychiatric Hospital, the Burghölzli Asylum, where he served from 1898 to 1927. He first advanced the term schizophrenia in 1908 in a paper based on a study of 647 Burghölzli patients and then expanded on his work in Dementia Praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien; 1911. (Dementia Praecox; or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1950). Characterized by Zilboorg (1941) as "the classic work of twentieth century psychiatry.”

Bleuler explains the title of his famous monograph in the following manner:

The older form [dementia praecox] is a product of a time when not only the very concept of dementia, but, also that of precocity, was applicable to all cases at hand. But it hardly fits our contemporary ideas of the scope of this disease-entity. Today we include patients whom we would neither call "demented" nor exclusively victims of deterioration early in life. (1911, p 7).

I call dementia praecox "schizophrenia" because (as I hope to demonstrate) the "splitting" of the different psychic functions is one of its most important characteristics. For the sake of convenience, I use the word in the singular although it is apparent that the group includes several diseases. (1911, p 8).

Bleuler concluded that the disease was not one of dementia, a condition involving organic deterioration of the brain, but one that consisted of a disharmonious state of mind in which contradictory tendencies exist together. He showed that Kraepelin’s dementia praecox should include all the schizophrenic disorders. He argued that schizophrenia was not invariably incurable, and did not always progress to full dementia - all conclusions at odds with the accepted wisdom of his time.

Bleuler is credited with the introduction of two concepts fundamental to the analysis of schizophrenia: autism, denoting the loss of contact with reality, frequently through indulgence in bizarre fantasy, and ambivalence, denoting the coexistence of mutually exclusive contradictions within the psyche.

Bleuler was one of the first psychiatrists to apply psychoanalytical methods in his research. He was an early proponent of the theories of Sigmund Freud, and he attempted to show how the various mechanisms Freud had found in neurotic patients could also be recognised in psychotic patients. Bleuler challenged the prevailing belief that psychosis was the result of organic brain damage, insisting instead that it could have psychological causes.

Bleuler's works also concern studies of hypnotism, subcortical aphasia, osteomalacy, moral idiocy (based on a study of the national assemblies of the major European powers 1897-1923), the physiology of ventricology, etc in various journals. He was the publisher of Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forschung.

Bleuler’s textbook, Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, published in 1916, went through countless new editions and has, like the Bleuler Psycho-syndrome, prevented his name from falling into oblivion.

During the early 1900s Bleuler's assistant was Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), and the two were early members with Freud in the Vienna Psycho-Analytical Society.

His son, Manfred Bleuler, continued his work with respect to familial (hereditary) aspects, early intra-familial environment and personalities, long term outcome, and therapeutic interventions.

«Senility often becomes a disease only as a result of the sudden cessation of the ordinary attractions of life.»

Anima and Animus

When animus and anima meet, the animus draws his sword of power and the anima ejects her poison of illusion and seduction. The outcome need not always be negative, since the two are equally likely to fall in love (a special instance of love at first sight).Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.338.30 

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

A provocative and enlightening look at spiritual unease and its contribution to the void in modern civilization   Considered by many to be one of the most important books in the field of psychology, Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology, including dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion. Additionally, Jung looks at the differences between his theories and those of Sigmund Freud, providing a valuable basis for anyone interested in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis.

What is Synchronicity?

The term synchronicity is coined by Jung to express a concept that belongs to him. It is about acausal connection of two or more psycho-physic phenomena. This concept was inspired to him by a patient's case that was in situation of impasse in treatment. Her exaggerate rationalism (animus inflation) was holding her back from assimilating unconscious materials. One night, the patient dreamt a golden scarab - cetonia aurata. The next day, during the psychotherapy session, a real insect this time, hit against the Jung's cabinet window. Jung caught it and discovered surprisingly that it was a golden scarab; a very rare presence for that climate. Cetonia Aurata or the Colden Scarab So, the idea is all about coincidence: in this case, between the scarab dreamt by the patient and its appearance in reality, in the psychotherapy cabinet. But this coincidence is not senseless, a simple coincidence. By using the amplification method, Jung associates in connection with the scarab and comes to the concept of death and rebirth from the esoteric philosophy of antiquity, a process that, in a symbolic way, the patient should experience for a renewal and vitalization of her unilateral personality, the cause of the neurosis she was suffering from. Thus, a significant coincidence of physical and psychological phenomena that are acausal connected. Jung's book on synchronicity Behind all these phenomena Jung places the archetype or the constellation of an archetype, which, in his view, is a process that engages equally objective manifestations, in the physical world, and subjective ones, in the psychological universe. Jung writes a book on synchronicity together with Nobel laureate W. Pauli, a book we invite you to read (learn more). Synchronicity, as an explicative theory, applies to phenomena from the area of parapsychology, prevision and premonition, to I Ching (specific method of consulting the Oracle of Changes), to astrology and many other borderline fields. It is also present in psychotherapy, as we have already shown. Several psychoanalysts noted certain strange coincidences in which their patients received information about them by extra-sensorial ways, information that was not accessible to the general public.