wonder of the day

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

Pessimists( of voluntary prophets of doom) will do anything to remain that

way. The pre-war Germans had a choice as we all do.They made theirs, and

each of us must be brave enough to make ours.

If you think I am in denial, you know nothing about me and my history. I am

very very aware of what harm human beings can do to each other.We are all

capable of the greatest evil as well as the greatest good.And we cannot know

how we would act in other circumstances. In fact I would probably have been

no better.

Knowing the stink in the manure pile, isn't it better to use it when we

must, yet keep our noses close to the flowers?

In my personal estimation, and I am sure no one else's, it seems like

negative inflation, . How awful the world is and how aware of it I

am. (Let me exhort others: The end of the world is coming! or we will

destroy our planet.)

I well remember my years of taking the evil of the world on my shoulders and

feeling guilt about starvation, cruelty, pain, etc. That was, I was

reminded, negative inflation. O woe is me, I am responsible for all this

evil In fact I was just not that powerful or important. The ego can be just

as happy being the worst as the best...just so it shines, and everyone else

is aware if it.

The idea of human life is not hell. We make it so. We suffer as we must to

make ourselves who we should be. Nature I am sure has the same end...to show

the glory of the Creator.

Denial is a far cry from loving life and being grateful for it. My eyes are

as wide open as yours, but I see no reason to make myself and others

miserable by proclaiming doom. WE do what we can, in a positive way to leave

this world a little better than when we came into it. We are not powerful

enough to take the fate of the human species into our own hands.

Acceptance, not denial is what motivates people like me. Reality IS.So let

us love our fate and just trudge onward on the path, doing what good we can

along the way..

The archetype of the old prophets in Scripture proclaiming doom to the

Israelites expressed what G-d spoke to them. It was to change their

individual ways and stop whoring after foreign idols. It is a dangerous

archetype,and it can possess us, as I know from experience, because it

inevitably leads to a mana personality.

Trust and faith and most certainly love can make a man appreciate what good

there is and not concentrate on evil also present.We cannot banish evil from

this world. We just are not powerful enough.

Toni

wonder of the day

> >>I ought to call you " gloomy gus "

> Have you been outside to see the wonder of the

> day, of the flowers?<<

>

> --Yes, but I'm not in denial about how bad things are,

> either. I'd LIKE to be, but it's hard. Imagine telling

> pre-war Germans to " notice the flowers more. "

>

> michael

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

Have you ever read Tuchman? The " A Distant Mirror " subtitled " the

Calamitous Century " especially ? if you have you will find the 14th Century

about to collapse in on itself. Ferocious fighting (the Crusades)spiritual

agony, nature rampaging,the works.

It might give a more recent insight that the Old Testament or ancient

history into what

happened at one particular time. Calamity on top of calamity, cruelty on top

of cruelty...treachery, political assassinations, droughts, famine etc.

If one reads enough history, one can see the ebb and flow of human behavior

on this earth, and then hold out hope that this century will not be the

worst. We are dealing with the same human nature all through history. Our

problem, I think, is that we have the hubris to think we have outgrown that

behavior, that somehow with rationalism, and science, we are now above that

awful aggression toward others.

Our big mistake was to think we were " fighting the war to end all wars " in

1918, " Making the world safe for democracy " in 1941... and with the

beginning of the United nations, we fantasized wars will cease. Pure

unadulterated hubris.

Mankind did not become angels overnight. men will never stop hungering for

the glories of victory, the holding that hate engendered by the ignominy of

defeat.

In 1951 I read a great book about the future and it said our next real

battle will be what was then called Mohammedism. It was already visible

then.

When we think this is the worst ever, we really did it for good., we ruined

all...that is

hubris. We are not so much worse, and yes we have WMD, but gunpowder also

caused this uneasiness when it was first used, and so did mustard gas. Every

nation realizes that what it tries to do to the enemy can come back at it.

We are the same people with the same fears, the same ambitions, the same

good and the same evil...maybe some of us are more conscious, but not many.

Things looked a lot more grime in my lifetime in the beginning of WW2...but

no one went on and on about the end of the world. They stayed the course and

did what had to be done.Men were gone overseas for years, not months as our

poor army must now do.

We need to take a deep breath and remember that this world has been in

trouble many times before, then go out to do what we can...but preaching

doom is not helpful, nor is trying to scare people to death. It has never

worked.

Yes we can understand MAD and so we don't let loose the worst we can, on all

sides....but

let's keep life in this world in proportion.

My kids knew they were going to be killed by an A bomb, then a H bomb,they

learned how to get under their desks when the attack came. People

built underground shelters and stocked weapons, memorized non realistic

escape routes, and try to face the notion of the nuclear winter...yet here

they are, 60 years later having children

of their own and the world is still here, despite great evil, raging wars

and superb weapons.

I am no escapist.My head is not in the sand I know what we human beings can

do to fellow human beings. I have sat

home and waited through quite a few wars including the cold one when my

husband sat on alert on the end of the runway with a plane loaded with

nuclear bombs and not enough fuel to get home. So don't tell me, I don't

face facts, or that I live in a dream world.

so you say:

" Great things could happen in the world, but it might

require that we take seriously the worst that could

happen as well. To hold the tension between best and

worst case scenarios is realism. I would agree with

you that seeing ONLY the worst case isn't always

helpful, but I don't think it's wrong to once in a

while seriously discuss dangers that could be averted

with a little focused attention "

(I am not the only optimist here if you actually think " focused attention "

will stop wars, inhumanity and evil.)

We will always have to fight for what we believe to be right, and so will

our enemies. Anytime one side feels threatened and afraid, the killing

starts.We cannot take every threat so seriously that we do not live and go

about our daily lives in the meantime.

So let us " keep our powder dry " and still enjoy our world. It is fear that

blocks the sunshine, and yes, the German's should also have watched the

flowers while they contemplated and realized the evil surrounding them The "

big lie " is alive and well right here in the US, if it repeated often enough

even good people will fall prey to it.

We live no differently inherently that the cave men. They couldn't control

much of their world either, and always had to leave safety to fight dragons

and huge animals to have enough to eat, while keeping their kin safe from

marauding tribes.( And think of Dan's peasants in their hovels starving

during the Middle Ages)

" The more things change the more they are the same. " Life is not meant to be

easy here on our planet, but we must not lose heart and expect the end of

life on this planet either.That is letting fear in, and that is to be what

all this pessimism,doomsdayism is all about.

We will change humanity one person at a time by our becoming conscious...not

better thinkers,rationalists, but people better able to understand

themselves.

I am not in denial if I refuse to be frightened to death, nor am I in denial

if I still find this earth to be a wonderful place where I can love and

learn and work.

Toni

( the more we meditate fear , see on evil the more it will influence

us.)Oh, and Hitler loved flowers, so did the German people before, during

and after.

wonder of the day

> >>I ought to call you " gloomy gus "

> Have you been outside to see the wonder of the

> day, of the flowers?<<

>

> --Yes, but I'm not in denial about how bad things are,

> either. I'd LIKE to be, but it's hard. Imagine telling

> pre-war Germans to " notice the flowers more. "

>

> michael

>

[Guest guest]

Dear Toni,

omagramps wrote:

> ( And think of Dan's peasants in their hovels starving

> during the Middle Ages)

>

Yes, let's think of them - beloved by a personal God, secure in the very center

of the cosmos, and with a glorious eternity awaiting them after a very

short period of suffering:

" Man in the middle ages lived in a meaningful world. He knew that God had made

the world for a definite purpose; had made *him* for a definite purpose

- to get to heaven, or to get to hell. It made sense. Today the world in which

all of us live is a madhouse. This is what many people are feeling.

Some of those people come to tell me so....

That medieval man we have talked of had a beautiful relationship with God. He

lived in a safe world, or one that he believed to be safe. God looked

out for everyone; he rewarded the good and punished the bad. There was the

church where the man could always get forgiveness and grace. He had only to

walk there to receive it. His prayers were heard. He was spiritually taken care

of.

But what is modern man told? Science has told him that there is no one taking

care of him. And so he is full of fear. "

CGJ, _CG Jung Speaking_, pp. 69-73.

Regards,

Dan

[Guest guest]

Dear Dan,

One can live beautifully in a dream....as long as one does not transgress and

finds himself on his way to a hell made obvious my religious paintings. Imagine

a lot of those happy people knew they were headed for hell.Loved by G-d? Only if

they obeyed the authorities.

This may come as a shock to you, although I've been trying to tell you this for

ages: It is possible to live in this same way. One can have a beautiful

relationship with G-d...straight on, not by having to go though priests rituals

and duress. Hell, many find as meaningful today except they discover it here on

earth and don't have to wait until they die.Don';t have to wait for G-d's love

either. It is here and now if you know how to look.

Some of us do not live in a madhouse, but because we know more about the world

we live in it may seem that way sometimes. Many of the stories I have read and

the history do not show me " everybody " with a beautiful relationship to G-d.

That is nonsense. And many still , most were very fundamentalist in their small,

scary understanding of religion.

Most people were very little aware of who they were or had any insight into

themselves...they worked too much to think much except about daily life...which

was cheap as they were at the mercy of a feudal system that had to be obeyed.

I don't imagine any more of his prayers to the Sky G-d were heard then as are

now. What silliness. They expected suffering and they got it in spades . Life

was short, hard, there was little time to become very conscious.

Those barbarians, highwaymen, robbers, nasty knights who killed for no good

reason, did nor spread happiness and lightheartedness to the peasant. And G-d

did not protect them...at least their earthly lives.

I don't think kindergarten is all that much fun when it is time to move on. Best

to start thinking for oneself at some point, and how about that gossiping, in

that small collective? They lived so close together in their hovels they could

see everything and nothing remained private or free.

Science was never meant to take over for the Other, the All. It can't do what

people expect it to do, give meaning to life. It just has taken modern man a

while to realize that his reason cannot help him be master of all he surveys.

Many people on this earth in 2004 still have beliefs which give them comfort,

but now they have the possibility to escape the collective if they wish. Life is

easier for those who live in western society anyway and many of the 3rd world

also.

Man has always been full of fear. He will always remain full of fear as long as

he thinks he should be master of it all. Once he relinquishes his overweening

hubris and allows that there are unforseen events, events he cannot control, he

may finally come to the wisdom that he will never be more than a creature and

there always will be things that come at him from out of the blue.

It is his choice to be fearful. There are ways not to be, but that too requires

faith in the goodness of the universe, no differently than in the M.A. Our

world in reality is much safer than the peasants had it. And more pleasant.

Today men just have to take more responsibility for their own meaning because

there is no longer just one voice.

The grass is always greener elsewhere isn't it, Dan?. WE actually do make our

own reality. We actually must exhert some will and work to find our place, but

then we are not children anymore.

Perhaps man does not need a nanny anymore???? He can become a whole person, an

adult with responsibility for his own life.That is the meaning of freedom

anyway.

If people have trouble with that, they need to find someone who can show them

the way. There is no reason for fear to rule anyone. It is we who are

responsible for our attitude towards life.WE decide on our own stance.

Poor Dan, you would so love to go back for a day or two...then you would

hightail it back to the 21st century...no electricity, no warmth. No medicine,

awful food many times and not enough. No privacy, no bathtubs or showers and

worst of all no books.

Your fairytale won't hold up unless it is for children. Adults don't want to go

back to kindergarten.

Jung didn't mean to paint such a rosy picture since individuation would be so

much harder in those days of collectives on top of collectives.

Dream away. But don't crouch in that cave too long. Its fine outside in the

sunlight. We just have to understand once in for all that there is no such thing

as security..we can't build a wall or sit with a weapon ready to fire. Fear will

rob us faster than anything....we just cannot control life.No more today than in

past centuries.

Try reading Tuchman, that might take the scales from your eyes.

What has always bothered me about your fairytale is that it is OK, you think,

for those who need it the less well put-together-, but not you, You would not go

back. Neither would Jung.

Toni

Re: wonder of the day

Dear Toni,

omagramps wrote:

> ( And think of Dan's peasants in their hovels starving

> during the Middle Ages)

>

Yes, let's think of them - beloved by a personal God, secure in the very

center of the cosmos, and with a glorious eternity awaiting them after a very

short period of suffering:

" Man in the middle ages lived in a meaningful world. He knew that God had made

the world for a definite purpose; had made *him* for a definite purpose

- to get to heaven, or to get to hell. It made sense. Today the world in which

all of us live is a madhouse. This is what many people are feeling.

Some of those people come to tell me so....

That medieval man we have talked of had a beautiful relationship with God. He

lived in a safe world, or one that he believed to be safe. God looked

out for everyone; he rewarded the good and punished the bad. There was the

church where the man could always get forgiveness and grace. He had only to

walk there to receive it. His prayers were heard. He was spiritually taken

care of.

But what is modern man told? Science has told him that there is no one taking

care of him. And so he is full of fear. "

CGJ, _CG Jung Speaking_, pp. 69-73.

Regards,

Dan

[Guest guest]

Dan, all,

Here we go again.

> " Man in the middle ages lived in a meaningful world. He knew that

>God had made the world for a definite purpose; had made *him* for a

>definite purpose

>- to get to heaven, or to get to hell. It made sense. Today the

>world in which all of us live is a madhouse. This is what many

>people are feeling.

>Some of those people come to tell me so....

>

>That medieval man we have talked of had a beautiful relationship

>with God. He lived in a safe world, or one that he believed to be

>safe. God looked

>out for everyone; he rewarded the good and punished the bad. There

>was the church where the man could always get forgiveness and grace.

>He had only to

>walk there to receive it. His prayers were heard. He was spiritually

>taken care of.

Jung gave no data to support his projection here, and neither do you.

regards,

[Guest guest]

Dear Toni,

You wrote:

> Dear Dan,

>

> One can live beautifully in a dream....as long as one does not transgress and

finds himself on his way to a hell made obvious my religious paintings. Imagine

a lot of those happy people knew they were headed for hell.

Why? If you're in a state of mortal sin, go to confession. Need grace? Right

down the road at the church, as Jung said.

> Loved by G-d? Only if they obeyed the authorities.

You say that as though it were a bad thing.

>

>

> This may come as a shock to you, although I've been trying to tell you this

for ages: It is possible to live in this same way. One can have a beautiful

relationship with G-d...straight on, not by having to go though priests rituals

and duress.

This tells me that you don't get what Jung is on about, or else that you think

he is wrong. Yes, one can have a personal relationship with God now - but that's

the thing, it's now personal (Jung's gripe about protestantism). The entire

culture does not support a single teaching (or a single teaching with perhaps a

few minor variations), as in the medieval world that Jung describes. Religion is

no longer collective and political - it is now

personal and individual. If Jung is right, that move represents a great loss.

Meanwhile, the institutions move in other directions - everybody now " knows "

(that is, they hold the correct opinion) that the earth is not the center of the

solar system. Much of the " supporting data " that supported medieval religious

opinion and made it a sort of seamless teaching have been changed. The medieval

world appeared numinous, Jung says - now the gods

have moved back within. Or am I mistaken that Jung says that? Much is said

about, much is made, about the need to " achieve wholeness " on this list and the

other Jung list, but the medieval public teaching was an accessible one that

actually *reflected* that wholeness. " Plato for the people " - just so.

> Hell, many find as meaningful today except they discover it here on earth and

don't have to wait until they die.Don';t have to wait for G-d's love either. It

is here and now if you know how to look.

>

> Some of us do not live in a madhouse, but because we know more about the world

we live in it may seem that way sometimes. Many of the stories I have read and

the history do not show me " everybody " with a beautiful relationship to G-d.

That is nonsense. And many still , most were very fundamentalist in their small,

scary understanding of religion.

Because the church taught men what to think and to espouse - and punished

heretics - there was a " built in " guard against the kind of individualistic

fundamentalism that one sees now.

>

>

> Most people were very little aware of who they were or had any insight into

themselves...they worked too much to think much except about daily life...which

was cheap as they were at the mercy of a feudal system that had to be obeyed.

>

> I don't imagine any more of his prayers to the Sky G-d were heard then as are

now. What silliness.

Note that Jung does not require that common medieval opinion as he describes it

be literally true. In fact, it is true symbolically, even when (especially when)

taken literally by the people.

> They expected suffering and they got it in spades . Life was short, hard,

there was little time to become very conscious.

>

> Those barbarians, highwaymen, robbers, nasty knights who killed for no good

reason, did nor spread happiness and lightheartedness to the peasant. And G-d

did not protect them...at least their earthly lives.

You are repeating that material conditions were harder then - that's true, but

not to Jung's point. Jung's point is that spiritual conditions were less hard,

and much better, and that that was compensation and more for the material

hardships.

>

>

> I don't think kindergarten is all that much fun when it is time to move on.

Best to start thinking for oneself at some point, and how about that gossiping,

in that small collective? They lived so close together in their hovels they

could see everything and nothing remained private or free.

>

> Science was never meant to take over for the Other, the All. It can't do what

people expect it to do, give meaning to life.

What science has done is take the meaning away, at least for the many. Science

is hubristic (why is this only controversial when I say it? Because I neglect

the apparently obligatory knock against SUV's or something?)

> It just has taken modern man a while to realize that his reason cannot help

him be master of all he surveys.

>

> Many people on this earth in 2004 still have beliefs which give them comfort,

but now they have the possibility to escape the collective if they wish. Life is

easier for those who live in western society anyway and many of the 3rd world

also.

It is easier in the material sense (is that what matters most?). Jung appears to

deny that it is easier in other ways. This is the " age of anxiety. "

>

>

> Man has always been full of fear.

Jung denies that man has always been full of the sort of existential fear of

which I am speaking, and of which he speaks in the quote I cited.

> He will always remain full of fear as long as he thinks he should be master

of it all. Once he relinquishes his overweening hubris and allows that there are

unforseen events, events he cannot control, he may finally come to the wisdom

that he will never be more than a creature and there always will be things that

come at him from out of the blue.

>

> It is his choice to be fearful. There are ways not to be, but that too

requires faith in the goodness of the universe, no differently than in the M.A.

Our world in reality is much safer than the peasants had it. And more pleasant.

Today men just have to take more responsibility for their own meaning because

there is no longer just one voice.

>

> The grass is always greener elsewhere isn't it, Dan?. WE actually do make our

own reality.

I just put this extraordinary claim to a brief test. Unfortunately, I am neither

taller nor younger, and the billion dollars has not yet appeared in my account.

We do not make our own reality. We are constrained by natural limits on all

sides. To think otherwise is precisely scientific hubris.

> We actually must exhert some will and work to find our place, but then we are

not children anymore.

>

> Perhaps man does not need a nanny anymore???? He can become a whole person, an

adult with responsibility for his own life.That is the meaning of freedom

anyway.

>

> If people have trouble with that, they need to find someone who can show them

the way. There is no reason for fear to rule anyone. It is we who are

responsible for our attitude towards life.WE decide on our own stance.

>

> Poor Dan, you would so love to go back for a day or two...then you would

hightail it back to the 21st century...no electricity, no warmth.

Very possibly, but all that would prove is my own weakness. In a sense, it would

be further evidence of what I claim - that modern men, of which I am an example,

have been rendered decadent.

> No medicine, awful food many times and not enough. No privacy, no bathtubs or

showers and worst of all no books.

>

> Your fairytale won't hold up unless it is for children. Adults don't want to

go back to kindergarten.

>

> Jung didn't mean to paint such a rosy picture since individuation would be so

much harder in those days of collectives on top of collectives.

For not meaning to, he certainly did say it often enough. Was Jung just a

blunderer who spoke first and thought later, if at all? Does that really seem

plausible?

>

>

> Dream away. But don't crouch in that cave too long. Its fine outside in the

sunlight. We just have to understand once in for all that there is no such thing

as security..we can't build a wall or sit with a weapon ready to fire. Fear will

rob us faster than anything....we just cannot control life.No more today than in

past centuries.

>

> Try reading Tuchman, that might take the scales from your eyes.

>

> What has always bothered me about your fairytale is that it is OK, you think,

for those who need it the less well put-together-, but not you, You would not go

back. Neither would Jung.

I agree that Jung would not. But Jung was not talking (in the quote I posted and

in similar writings) about what is good for the philosopher. He was talking

about the good for the many. The two are not necessarily entirely consistent.

I am perplexed that you consistently decry scientific " rationalism, " yet appear

to love its works. You can't love the printing press, or powerful motors, or

modern medicine, without accepting atomic bombs and overpopulation and climate

change. They are of a piece.

Regards,

Dan

" How different did the world appear to medieval man! For him the earth was

eternally fixed and at rest in the center of the universe, circled by a sun that

solicitously bestowed its warmth. Men were all children of God under the loving

care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and all knew

exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order to

rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible

and joyous existence. Such a life no longer seems real to us, even in our

dreams. Science has long ago torn this lovely veil to shreds. "

CGJ, CW 10, 162

>

>

[Guest guest]

Dear

SC wrote:

> Dan, all,

>

> Here we go again.

Don't summon me if you don't want me to appear :-). I know it wasn't you, but

still.

>

>

>

> Jung gave no data to support his projection here, and neither do you.

Since Jung was Jung and you are - with all due respect - well, not, perhaps it

is incumbent upon you to demonstrate that he was wrong. The truth of

his view looks pretty self-evident to me.

Regards,

Dan

>

>

[Guest guest]

I see you've read Alan Pert!

[Guest guest]

Dear Ms. Grundy,

" Ms. Grundy " wrote:

> I see you've read Alan Pert!

>

Don't know if this is directed at me, but in any event never heard of him before

today.

Quite a character. I agree with some of what he says. Given his opinions, I can

certainly see what he would reject CGJ.

Regards,

Dan

[Guest guest]

Dan, all,

Well the projection on medieval commoners is self-evident.

What one needs is documentation about daily life and daily drives in

olden times. None is given by Jung.

There isn't a lot of documentation. But, there are an elaborate

inferred historical available. This, obviously, is in the field of

anthropology. No anthropological data is given by Jung. And, by none,

I mean none whatsoever.

Jung psychologizes the religious sentiment of olden commoners

according to a system of psychology he developed some five hundred

years later. As I've have suggested to you before, as an orientation

of modern generalizations it is neither uninteresting or completely

untrue.

However, the point you always seem to forget, is that, even in its

modest validity, and in its being a modern and retrospective

psychologizing, what Jung noted was that the religious sense of such

persons had achieved a temporary homeostasis that, *inevitably,*

would come under the pressure of the *historical* development of the

collective psyche.

In other words, in this psychological view, the religious sensibility

adhered, (not inhered,) to the concretized personification of the

archetypes in their outer, exoteric form. It was an equilibrium of

sorts but it became tempted precisely because it was homeostatic,

thus one-sided.

Even more to the point was that the symptom of the eventual

psychological problem was ensouled in the secret work of the

alchemists, a concretization on its surface, and a soul-bearing

psychological process at its inherent and inward level.

This would also play out in the 'animation' of later renaissance

neoplatonic philosophy, especially in Vico, and also in the hermetic

ensoulment found inwardly in the wave of the first scientific

enlightenment, f/e the Bacons, etc.

***

Now I think you argue for the masses to become more superstitious and

less 'psychological' in our time. In doing so, they might objectify

the " Self " mythologem via religious ritual and order, and, in the

superficial sense of eros, (eros not at all entangled with the

individual psyche,) this would result in a satisfying and

*concretized* eros relationship. It might tend to equilibrium and

homeostasis. Also, inasmuch as religion of this type might come to be

co-opted by political orders, or vice versa, you might arrive at a

very orderly society in which the common person knows their place

with respect to the order of persons.

Well, we have places like this. Saudi Arabia, f/e.

***

You seem, as I see it, to forget that you cannot put the dynamic

psyche back in the bottle from where it came!

Jung's psychology is a psychology of the individual maturated to

challenge the collective order in the light of the animating force of

a psyche sourced in the illimitable and creative all-in-all. You

would like the individual to be assimilated back into the collective

for the sake of order. Jung offers no final support of this view,

even if he recognizes that historically, this may have happened, and,

that in certain circumstances, it is " good " that it happened.

But, we live in an age where the great archetypal manifestations are

not entirely collectively ordered. Our alchemistry is out in the

open, is accessible, is neither secret or aristocratic.

You have half a view of Jung. Yes, his elitist philosophy is

covenient to your agenda. But, his psychology makes the obligation of

knowing one's self not a matter of knowing Jung, but a matter of the

experience of the encounter with one's own consciousness and

unconsciousness.

This will not be " going away " .

Order needs ignorance and devotion. Enlightenment needs *light* and daring.

regards,

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

SC wrote:

> Dan, all,

>

> Well the projection on medieval commoners is self-evident.

>

> What one needs is documentation about daily life and daily drives in

> olden times. None is given by Jung.

>

> There isn't a lot of documentation. But, there are an elaborate

> inferred historical available. This, obviously, is in the field of

> anthropology. No anthropological data is given by Jung. And, by none,

> I mean none whatsoever.

I don't know. Do you deny that the exoteric Aristotelian geocentric cosmology

held sway at the time? Do you deny that the RC Church taught the dogmas

that Jung attributes to it at the time. Heck, I learned the very same things in

the early 1960's in Catholic school. They were still teaching it. I

didn't know that these things were controversial.

Why is history in the field of anthropology?

>

>

> However, the point you always seem to forget, is that, even in its

> modest validity, and in its being a modern and retrospective

> psychologizing, what Jung noted was that the religious sense of such

> persons had achieved a temporary homeostasis that, *inevitably,*

> would come under the pressure of the *historical* development of the

> collective psyche.

What evidence is there for an inevitable historical development of the

collective psyche? Jung (who appears to subscribe to the " great man "

understanding of history) does not describe it thus, to my knowledge. One gets

the impression from Jung that it could have gone otherwise.

>

>

> In other words, in this psychological view, the religious sensibility

> adhered, (not inhered,) to the concretized personification of the

> archetypes in their outer, exoteric form. It was an equilibrium of

> sorts but it became tempted precisely because it was homeostatic,

> thus one-sided.

It was balanced *and* one sided? Huh?

>

>

> Even more to the point was that the symptom of the eventual

> psychological problem was ensouled in the secret work of the

> alchemists, a concretization on its surface, and a soul-bearing

> psychological process at its inherent and inward level.

That's a point. But I wonder if the alchemists couldn't have continued the work

indefinitely.

>

>

> This would also play out in the 'animation' of later renaissance

> neoplatonic philosophy, especially in Vico, and also in the hermetic

> ensoulment found inwardly in the wave of the first scientific

> enlightenment, f/e the Bacons, etc.

>

> ***

>

> Now I think you argue for the masses to become more superstitious and

> less 'psychological' in our time.

I don't use the term " masses " in this sense. I don't think that the people are

any less superstitious than in previous centuries. The content of what

" everybody knows " (e.g., " everybody knows " that the species evolved by accident,

as per Darwin) has changed, but the actual level of ignorance does

not appear to have changed. People were largely ignorant, people remain largely

ignorant. What matters, imo, is the quality of popular beliefs, not

the truth of popular beliefs. Man as man does not love truth above all other

things, or even very much at all, for that matter- hence the philosopher

(the exceptional man who does love truth above other things) appears to the

public as a god or a monster, or at best as a joke.

> In doing so, they might objectify

> the " Self " mythologem via religious ritual and order, and, in the

> superficial sense of eros, (eros not at all entangled with the

> individual psyche,) this would result in a satisfying and

> *concretized* eros relationship. It might tend to equilibrium and

> homeostasis. Also, inasmuch as religion of this type might come to be

> co-opted by political orders, or vice versa, you might arrive at a

> very orderly society in which the common person knows their place

> with respect to the order of persons.

>

> Well, we have places like this. Saudi Arabia, f/e.

As you know, I don't object to Saudi Arabia's being Saudi Arabia, as long as it

is not a threat to my own. I have no reason to believe that the

average Saudi is any less happy than the average North American or European.

And, now that I think about it, S.A. is possibly instructive because it

is here and now, whereas the medieval world (as you like to point out) is not.

>

>

> ***

>

> You seem, as I see it, to forget that you cannot put the dynamic

> psyche back in the bottle from where it came!

I wonder if you don't reify the psyche here. It's not an actual ghost that has

escaped. Things known can be forgotten sometimes.

>

>

> Jung's psychology is a psychology of the individual maturated to

> challenge the collective order in the light of the animating force of

> a psyche sourced in the illimitable and creative all-in-all. You

> would like the individual to be assimilated back into the collective

> for the sake of order. Jung offers no final support of this view,

I think that that is true. He appears more inclined to make his peace with the

collective, which is not the same thing. I think that he understands

the limits of the political. There will be no perfectly just regime (although

there can certainly be any number of hellish regimes), and we must do

the best we can. Hence, I think, his qualified support for liberal democracy

(the European rather than the American flavor, though) at present.

>

> even if he recognizes that historically, this may have happened, and,

> that in certain circumstances, it is " good " that it happened.

>

> But, we live in an age where the great archetypal manifestations are

> not entirely collectively ordered. Our alchemistry is out in the

> open, is accessible, is neither secret or aristocratic.

>

> You have half a view of Jung.

If I do, it is because of my primary interest in politics. The political half of

Jung is what is most of interest to me. There is, to my knowledge, in

Jung no " obligation to know one's self, " though. This is to ask that all men be

philosophers, which is imo far too much to ask. You might just as well

speak of an obligation to understand quantum physics, and then some.

> Yes, his elitist philosophy is

> covenient to your agenda.

But this is not to the point. The relevant question is, does his political

philosophy not reflect his understanding of the nature of man simply,

garnered in part no doubt by his encounter with his own consciousness and

unconsciousness?

> But, his psychology makes the obligation of

> knowing one's self not a matter of knowing Jung, but a matter of the

> experience of the encounter with one's own consciousness and

> unconsciousness.

>

> This will not be " going away " .

>

> Order needs ignorance and devotion. Enlightenment needs *light* and daring.

What do they need to live together? Because, while the former might kill the

latter, the latter will never kill the former.

Regards,

Dan

>

>

> regards,

>

>

>

>

> " Our highest duty as human beings is to search out a means whereby beings may

be freed from all kinds of unsatisfactory experience and suffering. "

>

> H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th. Dalai Lama

>

>

[Guest guest]

Dan, all,

Correction. " It was an equilibrium of sorts but it became tempted

precisely because it was HYPOSTATIC, thus one-sided. "

Fixed in place, in other words. Not capable of dynamic or creative or

imaginal relations; thus, the myth has a fixed meaning, is

monomythic, flat, reflected in the psyche similarly. No real heat,

but also fervent, satisfying.

Too satisfying in our terms, because dissatisfaction + temenos is a

modern psychological problem, not a medieval one - in the collective

sense. imo

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

SC wrote:

>

>Too satisfying in our terms, because dissatisfaction + temenos is a

>modern psychological problem, not a medieval one - in the collective

>sense. imo

>

>Good point. I expect you're right.

>

Regards,

Dan

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/27/2004 1:11:31 PM Central Daylight Time,

dwatkins5@... writes:

>

>> Dear Dan,

>>

>> Sometimes i think you are playing at being obtuse.Jung was not, it >seems

,anything but nostalgic for some of the simplicity of earlier ages. He did not

>suggest that we today should go back 500 years.

>

>H would not suggest the impossible, no. He might suggest that we have

>something to learn from the past, however.

How not to repeat it, perhaps?

Namasté

Sam in Texas §(ô¿ô)§

Vision without action is a daydream.

Action without vision is a nightmare.

[Guest guest]

Dear Dan,

Sometimes i think you are playing at being obtuse.Jung was not, it seems

,anything but nostalgic for some of the simplicity of earlier ages. He did not

suggest that we today should go back 500 years. Life was simpler then because

the individual was simpler then.

In a book I picked up to reread from the shelf yesterday called " Solitude " by

Anyhony Storr, he talks about when humanity finally began to have a concept of

the individual as a separate entity. He thought that didn't happen in pre

industrialized societies. The growth of individualism came along about the time

of Luther, and I quote:

" It was not until 1674 that the word " self " took on its modern meaning of a

permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness. "

At roughly this time the following words also entered the language; "

Self sufficient,(1598) self knowledge (1613,) " self seeker " (1632,) self

examination (1647)selfhood, (1649), self knowing (1667), self determination

(1683), self-conscious (1687) "

Now this somewhat hampers the discussion of the medieval mind, I would say.:

" The gradual inversion of meaning for the word 'individual' moving from the

indivisible and collective to the divisible and distinctive, carries quietly

within itself the historical development of self consciousness,testifies to that

complex dynamic of change in the structure of change which separates the person

from his world making him self conscious and self aware,that changed in the

structure of feeling during the renaissance shifted from a sense of unconscious

fusion with the world toward a state of conscious individuation. "

( Abbs (1986), quoted in " Solitude " , pg 80)

Durkheim is also included in this discussion here.

And Burckhardt claims that " consciousness of individuality first

developed in Italy " ( in Europe that is):

" In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness-that which turns within as

well as that which turned without-lay dreaming or half awake beneath a. a common

veil That veil was woven of faith,illusion,and childish prepossession through

which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man himself was

conscious of himself only as a member of a race,people,party,family or

corporation....only through some general category... "

(op. cit, pg 77)

Yeh, I do get what Jung is all about. More next post, but N.B. that the person

of the Middle Ages is not the person of 2000. Before we compare we have to be

sure we are comparing like to like. We cannot shed our consciousness now, those

of us who claim it. Jung would not have us retreat to unconsciousness now, his

whole work shows that.

love,

Toni

Enough to chew on, Dan?

Re: wonder of the day

Dear Toni,

You wrote:

> Dear Dan,

>

> One can live beautifully in a dream....as long as one does not transgress

and finds himself on his way to a hell made obvious my religious paintings.

Imagine a lot of those happy people knew they were headed for hell.

Why? If you're in a state of mortal sin, go to confession. Need grace? Right

down the road at the church, as Jung said.

> Loved by G-d? Only if they obeyed the authorities.

You say that as though it were a bad thing.

>

>

> This may come as a shock to you, although I've been trying to tell you this

for ages: It is possible to live in this same way. One can have a beautiful

relationship with G-d...straight on, not by having to go though priests rituals

and duress.

This tells me that you don't get what Jung is on about, or else that you think

he is wrong. Yes, one can have a personal relationship with God now - but that's

the thing, it's now personal (Jung's gripe about protestantism). The entire

culture does not support a single teaching (or a single teaching with perhaps a

few minor variations), as in the medieval world that Jung describes. Religion is

no longer collective and political - it is now

personal and individual. If Jung is right, that move represents a great loss.

Meanwhile, the institutions move in other directions - everybody now " knows "

(that is, they hold the correct opinion) that the earth is not the center of the

solar system. Much of the " supporting data " that supported medieval religious

opinion and made it a sort of seamless teaching have been changed. The medieval

world appeared numinous, Jung says - now the gods

have moved back within. Or am I mistaken that Jung says that? Much is said

about, much is made, about the need to " achieve wholeness " on this list and the

other Jung list, but the medieval public teaching was an accessible one that

actually *reflected* that wholeness. " Plato for the people " - just so.

> Hell, many find as meaningful today except they discover it here on earth

and don't have to wait until they die.Don';t have to wait for G-d's love either.

It is here and now if you know how to look.

>

> Some of us do not live in a madhouse, but because we know more about the

world we live in it may seem that way sometimes. Many of the stories I have read

and the history do not show me " everybody " with a beautiful relationship to G-d.

That is nonsense. And many still , most were very fundamentalist in their small,

scary understanding of religion.

Because the church taught men what to think and to espouse - and punished

heretics - there was a " built in " guard against the kind of individualistic

fundamentalism that one sees now.

>

>

> Most people were very little aware of who they were or had any insight into

themselves...they worked too much to think much except about daily life...which

was cheap as they were at the mercy of a feudal system that had to be obeyed.

>

> I don't imagine any more of his prayers to the Sky G-d were heard then as

are now. What silliness.

Note that Jung does not require that common medieval opinion as he describes

it be literally true. In fact, it is true symbolically, even when (especially

when) taken literally by the people.

> They expected suffering and they got it in spades . Life was short, hard,

there was little time to become very conscious.

>

> Those barbarians, highwaymen, robbers, nasty knights who killed for no good

reason, did nor spread happiness and lightheartedness to the peasant. And G-d

did not protect them...at least their earthly lives.

You are repeating that material conditions were harder then - that's true, but

not to Jung's point. Jung's point is that spiritual conditions were less hard,

and much better, and that that was compensation and more for the material

hardships.

>

>

> I don't think kindergarten is all that much fun when it is time to move on.

Best to start thinking for oneself at some point, and how about that gossiping,

in that small collective? They lived so close together in their hovels they

could see everything and nothing remained private or free.

>

> Science was never meant to take over for the Other, the All. It can't do

what people expect it to do, give meaning to life.

What science has done is take the meaning away, at least for the many. Science

is hubristic (why is this only controversial when I say it? Because I neglect

the apparently obligatory knock against SUV's or something?)

> It just has taken modern man a while to realize that his reason cannot help

him be master of all he surveys.

>

> Many people on this earth in 2004 still have beliefs which give them

comfort, but now they have the possibility to escape the collective if they

wish. Life is easier for those who live in western society anyway and many of

the 3rd world also.

It is easier in the material sense (is that what matters most?). Jung appears

to deny that it is easier in other ways. This is the " age of anxiety. "

>

>

> Man has always been full of fear.

Jung denies that man has always been full of the sort of existential fear of

which I am speaking, and of which he speaks in the quote I cited.

> He will always remain full of fear as long as he thinks he should be master

of it all. Once he relinquishes his overweening hubris and allows that there are

unforseen events, events he cannot control, he may finally come to the wisdom

that he will never be more than a creature and there always will be things that

come at him from out of the blue.

>

> It is his choice to be fearful. There are ways not to be, but that too

requires faith in the goodness of the universe, no differently than in the M.A.

Our world in reality is much safer than the peasants had it. And more pleasant.

Today men just have to take more responsibility for their own meaning because

there is no longer just one voice.

>

> The grass is always greener elsewhere isn't it, Dan?. WE actually do make

our own reality.

I just put this extraordinary claim to a brief test. Unfortunately, I am

neither taller nor younger, and the billion dollars has not yet appeared in my

account. We do not make our own reality. We are constrained by natural limits on

all sides. To think otherwise is precisely scientific hubris.

> We actually must exhert some will and work to find our place, but then we

are not children anymore.

>

> Perhaps man does not need a nanny anymore???? He can become a whole person,

an adult with responsibility for his own life.That is the meaning of freedom

anyway.

>

> If people have trouble with that, they need to find someone who can show

them the way. There is no reason for fear to rule anyone. It is we who are

responsible for our attitude towards life.WE decide on our own stance.

>

> Poor Dan, you would so love to go back for a day or two...then you would

hightail it back to the 21st century...no electricity, no warmth.

Very possibly, but all that would prove is my own weakness. In a sense, it

would be further evidence of what I claim - that modern men, of which I am an

example, have been rendered decadent.

> No medicine, awful food many times and not enough. No privacy, no bathtubs

or showers and worst of all no books.

>

> Your fairytale won't hold up unless it is for children. Adults don't want to

go back to kindergarten.

>

> Jung didn't mean to paint such a rosy picture since individuation would be

so much harder in those days of collectives on top of collectives.

For not meaning to, he certainly did say it often enough. Was Jung just a

blunderer who spoke first and thought later, if at all? Does that really seem

plausible?

>

>

> Dream away. But don't crouch in that cave too long. Its fine outside in the

sunlight. We just have to understand once in for all that there is no such thing

as security..we can't build a wall or sit with a weapon ready to fire. Fear will

rob us faster than anything....we just cannot control life.No more today than in

past centuries.

>

> Try reading Tuchman, that might take the scales from your eyes.

>

> What has always bothered me about your fairytale is that it is OK, you

think, for those who need it the less well put-together-, but not you, You would

not go back. Neither would Jung.

I agree that Jung would not. But Jung was not talking (in the quote I posted

and in similar writings) about what is good for the philosopher. He was talking

about the good for the many. The two are not necessarily entirely consistent.

I am perplexed that you consistently decry scientific " rationalism, " yet

appear to love its works. You can't love the printing press, or powerful motors,

or modern medicine, without accepting atomic bombs and overpopulation and

climate change. They are of a piece.

Regards,

Dan

" How different did the world appear to medieval man! For him the earth was

eternally fixed and at rest in the center of the universe, circled by a sun that

solicitously bestowed its warmth. Men were all children of God under the loving

care of the Most High, who prepared them for eternal blessedness; and all knew

exactly what they should do and how they should conduct themselves in order to

rise from a corruptible world to an incorruptible

and joyous existence. Such a life no longer seems real to us, even in our

dreams. Science has long ago torn this lovely veil to shreds. "

CGJ, CW 10, 162

[Guest guest]

Dear Toni,

omagramps wrote:

> Dear Dan,

>

> Sometimes i think you are playing at being obtuse.Jung was not, it seems

,anything but nostalgic for some of the simplicity of earlier ages. He did not

suggest that we today should go back 500 years.

H would not suggest the impossible, no. He might suggest that we have something

to learn from the past, however.

> Life was simpler then because the individual was simpler then.

>

> In a book I picked up to reread from the shelf yesterday called " Solitude " by

Anyhony Storr, he talks about when humanity finally began to have a concept of

the individual as a separate entity. He thought that didn't happen in pre

industrialized societies. The growth of individualism came along about the time

of Luther, and I quote:

>

> " It was not until 1674 that the word " self " took on its modern meaning of a

permanent subject of successive and varying states of consciousness. "

> At roughly this time the following words also entered the language; "

> Self sufficient,(1598) self knowledge (1613,) " self seeker " (1632,) self

examination (1647)selfhood, (1649), self knowing (1667), self determination

(1683), self-conscious (1687) "

>

> Now this somewhat hampers the discussion of the medieval mind, I would say.:

Assuming it's true - which I do not assume. Does Storr suggest that Socrates

(for example) lacked what we call " sense of self? " Plato has him speak of self

knowledge with his friends in several places, e.g. _Charmides_ 164- 173, where

Critias and Socrates discuss the connection between self- knowledge and

temperance. *Gnothi saoton*, " know thyself, " is inscribed on Apollo's temple at

Delphi. Of course they didn't use the word " self, " because they didn't speak

English or German, but they knew of the idea all right.

>

> " The gradual inversion of meaning for the word 'individual' moving from the

indivisible and collective to the divisible and distinctive, carries quietly

within itself the historical development of self consciousness,testifies to that

complex dynamic of change in the structure of change which separates the person

from his world making him self conscious and self aware,that changed in the

structure of feeling during the renaissance shifted from a sense of unconscious

fusion with the world toward a state of conscious individuation. "

> ( Abbs (1986), quoted in " Solitude " , pg 80)

>

> Durkheim is also included in this discussion here.

> And Burckhardt claims that " consciousness of individuality first

developed in Italy " ( in Europe that is):

> " In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness-that which turns within

as well as that which turned without-lay dreaming or half awake beneath a. a

common veil That veil was woven of faith,illusion,and childish prepossession

through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man himself

was conscious of himself only as a member of a race,people,party,family or

corporation....only through some general category... "

Everyone has read _Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_, I see. It is on my list of

top ten pernicious books, along with _Courage to Heal_, another damaging

editorial.

All of the above asks me to believe that Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, Cicero

and many, many others were these sort of semi-conscious, essentially

schizophrenic writers taking dictation from the gods. I can't take such a notion

seriously. The writers in question are too taut and organized, and I've met and

interacted with too many actual schizophrenics, for me to believe that. The

above would have me accept that the ancient writers were sort of like

Blake - brilliant, but crazy. The problem is, Blake is different from the

others- he actually *writes* brilliant but crazy, whereas the others write

brilliant and sober.

Now maybe you mean, with Jung, that *savages* lack much in the way of

differentiated self-consciousness or self knowledge. That may be true, but it is

not strictly a function of history. That is, there are presumably savages now,

lacking in self consciousness, while at the same time not all human beings in

Rome or Athens or Sparta were savages so lacking.

>

>

> (op. cit, pg 77)

>

> Yeh, I do get what Jung is all about. More next post, but N.B. that the person

of the Middle Ages is not the person of 2000. Before we compare we have to be

sure we are comparing like to like. We cannot shed our consciousness now, those

of us who claim it. Jung would not have us retreat to unconsciousness now, his

whole work shows that.

Yes, I agree, but with the caveat that much depends upon who " us " is meant to

be.

Regards,

Dan

>

>

> l

[Guest guest]

Dear , at 02:05 AM 28/05/04, you wrote:

>Everyone has read _Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_, I see. It is on my

>list of top ten pernicious books, along with _Courage to Heal_, another

>damaging editorial.

And I thought I was the only one able to see through this garbage. So how

about backing me up sometime big fella.

Bi-cameral mind... indeed.

.

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

I thought it was a fad, but it keeps coming back. And is taken seriously

by serious people sometimes. The latter is alarming, as it suggests the

presence of a dangerous, hubristic inflation ( " we moderns are just so,

so much smarter and wiser than the old ones. Why, they were hardly human

beings at all, Even the best hallucinating all the time, you know. Ain't

progress grand? Aren't we the darlings of evolution? " ). " Bicameral mind "

= mind split in two = schizophrenia.

Regards,

Dan

G Heyward wrote:

>Dear , at 02:05 AM 28/05/04, you wrote:

>

>

>

>

>>Everyone has read _Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_, I see. It is on my

>>list of top ten pernicious books, along with _Courage to Heal_, another

>>damaging editorial.

>>

>>

>

>And I thought I was the only one able to see through this garbage. So how

>about backing me up sometime big fella.

>Bi-cameral mind... indeed.

>

>.

>

>

>

>

> " Our highest duty as human beings is to search out a means whereby beings may

be freed from all kinds of unsatisfactory experience and suffering. "

>

>H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th. Dalai Lama

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Have either of you read the book? No. That's been demonstrated by

what you've said about it. Look up the time frame.

Also, the first chapter (and it's been ~25 years since I read it)

gives an overview of studies that demonstrates the unconscious

processing involved in all thinking; this is an important and

essential concept in any examination of the psyche.

The conscious mind is rather like pure thinking function: it

imagines itself the only, the all.

[Guest guest]

Dear Ms. Grundy,

" Ms. Grundy " wrote:

> Have either of you read the book? No. That's been demonstrated by

> what you've said about it. Look up the time frame.

Not only have I read it, but it is on my desk as I write. I pulled it out this

morning to have another look.

>

>

> Also, the first chapter (and it's been ~25 years since I read it)

> gives an overview of studies that demonstrates the unconscious

> processing involved in all thinking; this is an important and

> essential concept in any examination of the psyche.

True, but irrelevant to the point. If the thought shows up on the viewscreen a

nanosecond (or whatever) after the central processing unit processes it

(if I can use a computer metaphor), what of it? That is not germane, as far as I

can see.

" The Trojan War was directed by hallucinations.... "

" The picture (i.e., of the Iliad) is one of strangeness, heartlessness and

emptiness "

Jaynes, p. 75

A strange, heartless and empty view of the book, if I may say so.

Regards,

Dan Watkins

>

>

> The conscious mind is rather like pure thinking function: it

> imagines itself the only, the all.

>

>

> " Our highest duty as human beings is to search out a means whereby beings may

be freed from all kinds of unsatisfactory experience and suffering. "

>

> H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th. Dalai Lama

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hardly Plato's time.

[Guest guest]

>

> True, but irrelevant to the point. If the thought shows up on the

viewscreen a nanosecond (or whatever) after the central processing

unit processes it

> (if I can use a computer metaphor), what of it? That is not

germane, as far as I can see...>>

>

(re the philology: You read Greek?)

As this is a jung list, the point was germane to everything we speak

about here. I was saying you'd do well to read it; it would help you

understand Jung.

The book has value.