Carl Jung & The Psychology of Religion - Dr Kevin Lu

my name is Kevin I am the director of Graduate Studies and the director VM a young único spending Studies at the University of Essex originally from to watch the ones here do Canada yes so originated from Toronto came here come why sorry I completed my first degree a BA Honours BA the risk of Toronto and then came here for my MBA in psychology of religion Heathrow College University of London and then jumped ship to the University of Essex where I completed my PhD and lucky me I ended up working there I've been there for nearly eight years now now just to begin anyone interested in young theories anyone know who young is CTO okay fantastic I was actually going to play just a little you know word association game so if I asked you young what's the or say yo what's the first word that comes to your mind right usually right young is basically seen as this renegade disciple of Freud but obviously there's an argument that young is an independent thinker in his own right and a lot of that work actually has been boarded by some Lucien Dasani from UCL so part of the University of London but today our concern is young psychology of religion both east and west and there's a lot to cover here so really what I'm giving you today is just a snapshot the briefest of snapshots and hopefully I am actually going to get to the part on East thinking as well but what I want to do is access some of his main ideas on the psychology of religion through major text so this will include answer to Joe and again various texts that he wrote we're sorry you know very text in which he wrote about Eastern thoughts but I also want to take a demmick approach right so we're not here just to kind of glorify Jung's ideas we're here to critically assess you as well so I'll list these and perhaps we'll have more time to discuss this when we get to the question period so today we're looking at the importance of religion for young and analytical psychology analytical psychology being the name that is given to young psychology as distinct from psychoanalysis so just very quickly when I say depth psychology depth psychology is an umbrella term that refers to all the talking therapies this includes Freud Jung and Adler usually neglected when we say psychoanalysis we're referring specifically to Freud when we say analytical psychology we're referring specifically to young and when anyone says individual psychology which people really do these days they refer to Adler specifically right so let's begin here Young's family background and early child experiences so definitely don't want to reduce young psychology religion to his you know upbringing childhood is that right right that would be psycho biography but we can't deny the extent to which some of his thinking has been shaped by these worldly experiences so Young's father Paul Achilles Young was a pastor as were most males on his mother side and this included eight uncle's so to a certain extent it was in the air right you could say ran in the blood Emily price work Young's mother was also known to possess clairvoyant abilities which facilitates Jung's interest in the uncanny and his fascination with all aspects of that which may be considered spiritual and this certainly influences his PhD thesis right his PhD thesis was on the psychology and pathology of occult phenomena and he was looking at the theme of dissociation and a media mystic girl who happened to be his cousin right Helene Fry's work I don't think that would probably pass an ethics committee today but he was also inspired by the work of theater for an walk from India to find it more specifically and French dissociative dissociation isn't more generally Jung's father had lost his faith right this greatly effective and shaped Jung's impressions of his of him and the nature of organized religion and basically he felt his father as a hypocrite right so he knew that his father lost his faith and yet he proceeded and continued with his responsibilities now you might say that Jung's assessment of his father are harsh they weren't a rich family right his father had to provide for the family and it's usually the case the son's assessment of the father is quite critical and we can only hope those of us who are fathers that our sons aren't too harsh on us in the future now looking back into Young's childhood experiences there's this very interesting example in the vignette in memories dreams reflections has anyone around of memories dreams reflections okay fantastic you're going to help me then the vision of the turd what happens with the vision of the turd just yell it out somebody tell me the story what happens in this vision go ahead sir okay fantastic so basically Young's in Basel he's walking home one day and he feels this urge right this thought come into his mind and he immediately stops and said I cannot think this theory to us to its logical conclusion so he pulls this right for about three days or so and after about three days he realized that the thought actually needs to be expressed he has to kind of think it through to its logical conclusion and as our colleague has said what basically happens a large turd falls from the sky and smashes the roof of basel Cathedral right and after that he feels much much better I mean in terms of Freud you can see the size the income face to a certain extent but we have to to be a bit careful about what Jung is doing here in MDR I mean first and foremost memories dreams reflections is usually sold and you know percentage of the public as Jung's autobiography it is not his autobiography right it is actually Elia face biography she was the one taking the notes if you will on top of it there's just so much complexity that basically what's being presented was mediated by family members right ie people who didn't want the warts no story of young to actually be out there and the main people who written on this are obviously so nice tomassoni from UCL and I want to see balance I think it's Alan yeah Elwin see out but if you want come to me afterwards that can give you those references but you know so we're critical of how young is remembered in the event how hindsight is always 20/20 but his description of it certainly says something about his psychology of religion right and we can begin to to draw parallel or link with how young sees this vision and Paul Tillich's ideas encapsulate in his book the curse to be so the first idea is know of the God above God right so there's the God of the institution right but the true experience of God the true God actually lies beyond the God that we worship at this particular level right the second major theme that we can take away is that faith encompasses doubt right Jung's doubt is not heretical and comes closer to true faith when compared to the persona or facade that his father maintained so blind faith is not the route to an experience of the divine God actually wanted young to think the boss famous brought the blasphemous thought through to its logical conclusion right now going back to this notion of God above God what Jung is basically saying and what we see as a homework of the psychology of religion is that Western religion has lost its capacity to hold an experience of the numinous right what munna own terms the numinous and we'll get back to that in a little bit so these experiences sum up the ambivalence with which young regarded religion throughout his life at one end he realized his father's disenchantment was not unique religion can no longer hold the numinous for society so for young at the core of every major religion every tradition is an individual's experience with the numinous right so if you think of and you found that major religion at core what they've experienced is an experience of the divine institutional religion then how it grows in terms of the dogmas the rituals etc are there to contain our engagement with newness so we we aren't necessarily able to approach that divine however with rituals with dogma we may be contained and approach that divine fantastic but Jung is basically saying then that these these dogmas these rituals institutional religion now cannot tainless experience of the numinous right and he points to very questionable acts within the Western tradition that have been done in the name of religion so things like the Crusades indulgences etc he wanted to emphasize the possibility of an experience the numinous without the intervention of the middleman rights he was really advocating this one-to-one connection with that which we considered divine ie to restore a belief in the numerous other and to find a new container for this if need be one critique of young actually is that he wanted to replace religion with his own psychology are you rather than approaching the numinous through religion you can now approach it through Jungian therapy right so we'll discuss this critique a bit later as well but as we will see young faith and organized religion as a container for psychological transformation is restored in the latter parts of his life at least this is the argument I would be presenting for you I started to you very quickly the role of religion in Jung's break with Roy this is part of the many theoretical differences that contributed to the split in very general terms Boyd's on religion as a neurotic infantile and a wish-fulfilling illusion Jung saw religion as the task of the second half of life something that's potentially rewarding and the original container for personal development and self-knowledge he also posits this notion of the religious function of the psyche body that there is an inclination something intrinsic within us that wants to pay homage to to respect to acknowledge to experience that which is completely other than oneself all right so if it's not God it will become something else right so in many instances money can become our God from Freud specifically Jung would say that his theory of sexuality becomes as God as well as his adherence to positivistic you can look at something out something like alcoholism the drink right so drink you can amplify it's related to spirits right even drink spirits but for young this really kind of points to the fact that any movement towards the drink is actually a cry out for meaning and an association with that which we deem above oneself right so if we amplify this further which is a classic Jungian technique who is the God above the vine in Greek mythology Dionysus right so what happens to diagnose this his believers tear apart during one of these rituals and if young amplifies this further then we'll really we're talking about Christ as well right Christ is also the God of the body that who is actually DISA memory and that entity which is actually reborn but the interesting thing if we're looking for a more concrete connection one of the cofounders of a a Bill Wilson's is actually in dialogue with young it's not an extensive conversation but certainly some of Jung's ideas played a part in construction of the 12-step program now continuing on Jung's interesting comparative really religion and his friendship with scholars and practitioners of religion so father Victor wife a Dominican priest and theologian who wrote a very damning review of answered a job well touch on this despair briefly his friendship with Richard Wilhelm the German zoologist and translator of the chang-jung writes an intro to this and also an intuitive secret of the golden flower liliane James American scholar and psychologist perhaps most famous for his book two varieties of religious experience and definitely after the break before he reached out to James and James was quite crucial in containing that period for him and if you look to the ladder as a young is also in dog with many Jesuits as well there's a religious tone to divining a defining key concepts such as the collective unconscious the archetypes the archetypal self as being akin to the golf image his notion of individuation and synchronicity but in the interest of time was just focused on individuation as a concept because it is quite crucial what did Jung mean by individuation yes to a certain extent but also returning to the collective as well yes yes yes process of growth anything else what step sail again okay all right so basically Jung is saying that it's the process of becoming who were born to be right that the best version ourselves it's actually within us already and our goal in life is actually to realize that potential within and really there comes a crucial point where we were called to this journey all right the Sentra fication that we should be following this path however sometimes we don't want to follow that path because it's too difficult at least on the surface and basically when we deny this call right we deny this call to fulfill who truly are Jung said well shame on you right because not only have you robbed yourself of your own true potential you've also robbed your contribution to the world the biggest contribution that you can make to the world so with individuation it's important to note that yes there is a period of regression and withdrawal from society but it also is there to cultivate the more collective aspects for oneself but ultimately we have to work within the framework of society we have to return and contribute to the collective and this is not an easy task right there are going to be periods which are potentially very painful there's going to be suffering individuation is certainly not for the faint of heart and basically the link here is that as an example right as an act victori point young says the life of Christ is the quintessential example of the individuation process right to get back that little later on he also said that in the second half of life all the people were coming and coming to him for therapy there was not one person right not want their people that therapeutic instance when the concern was not something religious in nature are you reconnecting the individual to the divine right now let's really begin with the key concepts and answer to Joe any one had a chance to read answer to Joe or even the book of Job in the book of Job few people okay so maybe I'll go light on the story focus more on the concepts so Young's concept of the shadow right let's do this just start shouting out to me what you hating other people what do you just like most and other people too Steve fantastic what else arrogance what else hypocrisy greed ignorance narcissism anything else unkindness one more okay fantastic young would basically say take that all back right take that all back because what we've described here what we hate in other people actually lies in a seed form within ourselves it is something that we can ignore it within ourselves right so this is the key idea with shadow that we have a tendency to project it onto others we can't tolerate that negativity within ourselves so you know what it doesn't belong to me it belongs to that person over there right so this is a key concept that we act you have to keep in mind when we're looking to Young's assessment if you will of different god images in after the job and also in the New Testament so very briefly at the start and to the job you have the prologue in heaven right and basically there's a divine wager right so Satan or personification of Satan is actually there and he challenges God and he says I bet you any money I can corrupt your most faithful servant right and God says no you can yes I can but the main issue is that the seed of doubt has already been planted in God's mind and basically God gives in and he said fine there's Joe right the faithful go and do your worst all right so basically God is giving him full access you know full you know allowing if you will to play Joe right now take pause here for a second young starts to notice few interesting things first and foremost Satan is kind of not separated from the divine hierarchy right he's actually there conversing with God in dialogue it's not as if he's been banished we're not saying he it's not as if that energy it has been banished to some other place Soyoung amplifies this a bit more and says well if we look to the second creation story right ie in Genesis the circuit is there alright the circuit is part of that to bottom plant and part of that original paradise so if we go back to this notion of the shadow what actually happens in Christianity is that evil aspect that part that we can't own within ourselves is actually projected onto a scapegoat alright actually the devil and the devil bears the brunt of it that energy holds those projections of negativity that we can't see within ourselves and now basically said that's not unfair because if you think symbolically right and you look at the symbolism tied to the devil etc is actually something tensley transformative and positive right so what's another name for the devil how else do we refer to the devil Satan devil okay fantastic Lucifer now there's no one passage that encapsulates this is what happened with the fall of Lucifer you know there there are two main passages one from Isaiah one from Ezekiel but let's just go with it for a second you know this is the nature of young sticking a bit problematic Lucifer what does it actually translate into the bringer of light the Morningstar right so let's go with young then let's amplify this a bit more if we think of other parallels let's say in ethology who else brings a source of light who steals fire from the gods and brings it to the people prometheus so there's a psychological link if you will between these different characters and the potential psychological function they actually play so we cannot bear to witness the evil within us all right so that evil is projected onto another finger and figure sorry finger that's accordion slip and young sees this as a wider issue in the Western religious traditions we need to maintain a persona of purity and goodness right and we eject all the negative qualities from us onto someone else now this is very interesting than yet young basically hears about this priest right really thinks priests known for his piety so yah goes and visits him follows him around for about three days and thinking you know what I'm gonna find something about this guy right that's just a bit dark but after about three days he realizes man this guy is actually perfect and I actually have to go back and rethink my own morality my own tactics my own position that is until he speaks to his wife right and he realizes that all the darker aspects of his personality get projected onto her and their relationship so it's that strained relationship or all that shadow as hell she has to hold all the negative aspects of him so that he can maintain that perfect face persona to the other world so if we expand this event Christianity casts out the intrinsic evil within within itself or within the tradition on to the figure of the devil we need to be all good we need to avoid being bad if we are bad we are tempted by the devil and you can see here this idea of the ritual scapegoat yet dumb gonna argue the scapegoat was also the catalyst for transformation casting that scapegoat I wouldn't read tradition and in Jewish tradition as well meant renewal for the community and I just like to point out how interesting it is that in Christianity we both demonize and worship the scapegoat because arguably Christ is also a scapegoat for young the split between good and evil is a fantasy we need to withdraw those projections ie to not reject all the negativity on to others and to acknowledge the evil within ourselves to not project this onto another bigger a neighbor of race a country etc and many Jungian interventions into interpreting collective phenomena have used the concept of the shadow to frame if you will larger conflicts at the societal level sorry that only in this way can a more realistic and fulfilling relationship with the other be achieved and if you will the devil isn't what all bad it is that comparative which may seem to do evil but may actually end up doing good now I was cringe when I asked us to my undergraduates they're hanging but anyone read Faust part one okay not that so he makes a connection rocky amplifies again with the figure of Mephisto right mephistopheles in Faust and basically Faust is a scholar he's this introvert of introverted scholar who is only concerned with book learning right but that means he's actually quite excited because he doesn't necessarily know what it means to experience life Mephisto is that energy that catalyst that perhaps seems to be negative but actually pushes him out of his book Lee concerns if you will and actually into life itself right now obviously this way of thinking is not unproblematic Jung is basically positing the reality and existence of evil this is a source of conflict and ultimately the major stumbling block in his relationship and dialogue with all the victor white and this surrounds the concept if he will of debauch dear mommy the privation of good and basically this pauses that you know even evil itself has no existence right even the most evil thing in the world still has a semblance of good the light is never ever diminished if you will right so the good cannot be banished and maintains its existence even in the most difficult circumstances and Jung said well actually that's not true right there evil is exist we can kind of discuss a little bit more but basically people charge them with being Manichean the coolest and also the Gnostic now moving on nature go have I missed a few slides here here we go the nature of God Jung goes on to describe god of the old testament right as portrayed in answer to joke and the god of the old testament here is a jealous god right young would say he is an unreflecting God Satan throws out a challenge that he would be able to sway even gozman stalwart and faithful servant Jo God is persuaded to allow Satan to do worth visiting a condo affliction after affliction God cannot deal with the idea of betrayal again if you refer to his omniscience he would see that job is and will remain faithful however if God does not allow that what sort of God does not do that and allow Satan to put job to the test he kills his family takes away his land plagues him with diseases sores boils etc others come to counsel Joe by telling him that he must have done something wrong that God would not punish him otherwise and therefore he should repent and ask for God's forgiveness but job stands firm and maintains his innocence he demands an audience with God in the end he still boughs and admits to God's greatness and in the process the comforters part punished and Joe is rewarded he gets new songs even better ones than the last ones even more land enriches etc so it really works out for him now that's a very simplistic summary of the narrative itself but what does young make of this young stresses jokes morality and his symbolic significance as a representation of consciousness job a mere human is more conscious than God we're beginning to see some of the more blasphemous aspects of Jung's thinking here he shows God what God is lacking i.e the capacity for self-reflection in many ways job is holding up a mirror to God and showing God that God is lacking that God too is one-sided in essence Joe is exposing God's shadow side something that within young psychology must be acknowledged and integrated if psychological growth and maturity are to be achieved and this is what I would refer to as Jung's radical humanist stance that humanity are you represented by Joe isn't equal to God and plays a crucial role in God's individuation in many ways it is because of job's morality that he holds a higher position God because in terms of young psychology is only with consciousness and self-reflection that God can begin to see his shadow at work are you the wager of heaven and the extent to which God's shadow is projected on to Joe and again get to the escape rope here right Joe becomes the scapegoat for God's projections the mortal man is thus helping God along his own path and process of individuation the God of the Old Testament is in a wholly unconscious state and for young individuation details higher levels of consciousness are you bringing that which is unconscious into consciousness right so that the strong enough container or ego is actually built now thinking this through a little bit right so we have God that's holding unconscious in the Old Testament we have this crucial role of a representation of humanity ie choke what do you think is the next logical step for jung-bae how this God if we can put God in the cows but that's a bigger how does God continue this process of ending situation hmm I think I heard that someone say it again no anyone else by becoming human what's that receptive campus you can't get one pass of you guys to become human right to become reincarnated as Christ right so we look at the figure of Christ half divine half human right God needs to learn about self reflection and consciousness now God must become more conscious to experience what job has experienced God incarnated as Christ is the only way God can become morally on par with him we can see now why answer to Joe was on the banking list of banned books when his actually published alongside another vision of Christ that was you know pretty much along the same lines there's gonna know about this I know I didn't put that on here Nico's cousins office the Last Temptation which was then made into a movie by Martin Scorsese Harvey Keitel is Judas very interesting phone Jesus's life is the psychological drama of individuation Jesus's physical suffering is God suffering both literally and metaphorically so if we look to Jesus life what is it defined by sacrifice pain we talked about the notion of the scapegoat it encapsulates all that individuation entails jesus's death and resurrection are also God's death and resurrection Jesus humiliation is God's humiliation equally Jesus's triumph and redemption are also God's triumph and redemption what all this points to for young is a greater degree of consciousness young takes this one step further right the process is incomplete if God of the Old Testament is one sided by undifferentiated vengeful etc then God the New Testament is equally one-sided alright and how is the god of the New Testament I mean he's thinking particularly I think where it's being influenced by John why John for was a very positive view of Y of God basically and that is that there's this perfect image of God that he can actually do no wrong and consequently what we have then is this ideal right this ideal that personifies fashion rather coldness and for Jung the the real goal of the individual process is not perfection but wholeness and wholeness actually entails being in touch with our outside right knowing that we actually can't be perfect that there's always going to be in the darker aspect to ourselves that we need to integrate that we actually need to be in dialogue with right so let's see where we are here so god the New Testament Testament ie the personification as Christ does not fully realize this shadow side psychologically speaking this is very dangerous when we live in extremes not holding the tension of opposites so basically what Jung is seeing is this kind of huge oscillation between an image of God in the Old Testament and a New Testament and this relates to his idea of the self-regulating psyche basically Jung posits that our psyches right in essence want to be in balance because it's only within this middle position that creativity actually can can come forth and we can describe that a bit in more detail later on but when we tend to move to one side right when we tend to hold to one position we are actually in danger of flipping to the complete opposite so I can give you an example so let's say my facade to the world my persona is that of just the essence of machismo I'm just ready to go anyone look at me the wrong way let's go outside man right now what Jung is saying is that that one-sidedness right back for song about face we put to the world it's actually compensated in the unconscious by something perhaps very fragile right something that's been damaged right we present that one-sided persona to protect that fragile assets that we cannot allow to be be traumatized right so for young the real essence of integrating and becoming who we are is to sit in balance right to not sway to just simply I want to be this way I want to be that way because if we do that there is the danger of what he calls in an angiogram yet I would run the right point right this idea of a complete foot to its opposite so I'll give you an example that stems from my view it's probable but you remember the band Korn anyone remember the band Korn okay they do have a tank down the streets of Toronto I was there it's fantastic but one of the guitarists right I mean if anyone knows anything the corners spokesman rocker rock and roll right it is the essence of the rock-and-roll lifestyle fantastic okay but there was really an indulgence with the drugs with alcohol etc but one guitarist actually converts and finds God right just like that quits the band God and at least you know we can't speak to the psychology of this particular guitarist but at the same time the actual flip itself with no mediation from one extreme to the other means that some kind of transition it was almost too quick to a certain extent right that there there hasn't been some kind of processing of what rocks we trying to find by flipping to the complete opposite so if we move back to the life of Christ as personified in the New Testament what Jung is saying is that this flip has occurred in Christianity's conception of the Godhead right so in the New Testament Jesus temper is actually played down his own struggles his own fear and humanity which together arguably would provide a more realistic image to which we may direct our worship we are taught to worship and attain an unrealistic ideal and that has in part impacted on development of the Western psyche and basically what Dan is saying here is that you know anyone who is born within the Christian tradition we are asked to follow in the path of Christ to imitate Christ right but really what Dan was saying is that that's just an unattainable idea right our goal should not be to imitate grippe to say imitate Christ and to dream the myth onward and I'll say a bit more about that in a few seconds so if we go back to the life of Christ we do not see these other manifestations of his personality his denial of his family upon his return from Nazareth his turning over of the tables of the moneychangers in the temple and we know this happens right in this particular instance we see it in Josephus but any of you who study psychology from that academic point of view or theology this is in the same Gospels q which basically means that there's an agreement between matthew mark and luke john for all intents purposes is actually left out right so essentially Jesus Jesus is human aspects are denied we focus on the divine we fail to see the human his end was prayer he got cemani my father if it is possible let this cup pass me by so how do we proceed from here how do we address the one-sidedness of God in the New Testament I'm not gonna hit this like it anyone have any idea I think the Boston is thought through its logical conclusion us right it is now up to us it is now up to the rest of humanity to continue the work of greater consciousness and again for me this points to Jung's radical humanist position so y'all use the examples of Pentecost God descends on his disciples in the form of fiery Thomas it is up to us now to do the work to continue God's individuation why if we are made in the image of God and God incarnate within us that our fullest rely reap our fullest realization also leads to God's realization and individuation and this relates to Jung's idea of dreaming the myth onward all right so it's not imitation but fully living the values that Christ and body in our own unique ways imitation can take us so far we must carve out our own paths what the story of Christ evidences is one way of achieving that goal we need to find our own way to express this the limitation of organized religion is basically this it does not allow us to creatively live and experience the divine within if anything we develop what Ford would call a very harsh super-ego because we cannot obtain or I start attain that unrealizable ideal now let's take pause for a second here there's a very dangerous implication to Jung's thinking here by you conceiving of the god of the Old Testament as unconscious unreflective etc and the god of the new New Testament as perhaps more developed right again one side is well but definitely more developed from God of the Old Testament so what's the implication here you might have to weave into some of Jung's history that we know as well right God the Old Testament right Yahweh the god that is the object of worship for today's is less developed then the god of the New Testament ie Western Christendom now some of you might say well you know maybe it's just his developmental theories etc but as we pointed out if you look to the accusations against young right of anti-semitism during that period very robust actually arguments and and concerns then you can see this in a different light right there's a very slippery slope here in terms of how young is thinking here obviously that's another lecture ended up itself but if you want if you go to cue right at the archives of cue you will find a dossier that was collected or sorry that was compiled basically that young be tried for war crimes right now this obviously didn't come to fruition there's obviously multiple ways to approach this debate and to access this but certainly it's the shadow side of analytical psychology that we all have to acknowledge and deal with if we're going into this discipline now moving on Sophia wisdom so if you read the book of Job this is real interesting interlude right it almost seems like it comes out of nowhere that the narrative is going one way and then all of a sudden BAM Sophia right so Jung is trying to understand this very interesting pause if you will in the narrative itself Thomas Oh Sophia is the personification of wisdom how does Jung interpret this now we have to say this is definitely some questionable theology right Jung is basically providing symbolic interpretations that assume a certain continuity but doing this does not necessarily pay heed to the historical and contextual work that is required I'm not a theologian but I've worked with theologians and trust me they're really interested in the nitty-gritty so basically you know the psychological theorizing while very interesting perhaps and you know potentially seductive as well doesn't actually do justice to what other people are doing in other disciplines right and Jung is not necessarily understanding these texts integrally right so just keep that in the back of your mind but this is his interpretation wisdom is needed for self-reflection which God locks Jung determines that God has forgotten wisdom personified by the female figure of Sophia who was also present when all was created her memory role and importance need to be revived for young Western religion is missing the feminine aspects and what this feminine symbolizes if Western religion is to thrive to be able to contain once more the religious needs and experiences of Western civilization it needs to create this aspect does this happen for young there are certainly signs of hope and I put it there so I won't ask them anyways right he really is reinvigorated by the assumption of marriage so 1950 the assumption that Mary is a papal bull that declares married mother of God was brought up into heaven after her bodily death right so after her death body and soul she was lifted up to heaven this for young symbolizes for equivalence and godlike status in relation to the Trinity the Father Son and Holy Spirit for young the Trinity cannot express completion as it stands but as it stands oh sorry for young the Trinity cannot express completion and as it stands resonates an overly masculine energy and emphasis so you could argue that the Holy Spirit is energy anyways but if you look at you know father and son there's definitely something very masculine there what mary's assumption facilitates is an acknowledgment of the feminine and all this entails symbolically embodiment relationality etc etc and for young for two the number four not three resonates completion now why is that again this is problematic how young is working because you could say well I can look to mythology all the different cultures of the world and seven is actually really you know crucial number but going with this why is four important for young and not three what comes in fours the best things yes so if we won't give you some examples of what comes in for what's that fantastic that's your you're on the right track we're cardinal points right four seasons four elements four evangelists so on and so forth right so this is the type of thinking that the approach methodological approach that Jung is using so finding the fourth is finding completion we inch closer to a religious framework by mere tolerate maintain and hunting the journey towards wholeness but this in itself is not without limitations again we're only dealing with one aspect of the feminine ie Mary as Mother there are also other personifications of the feminine and to only emphasize one is to limit the range of ways in which femininity may be expressed so we have the dark Madonna we have Kali the vengeful Aphrodite the sexual and seductive nonetheless gonna be interpreted the assumption of Mary to be an occasion of significant psychological importance in evidence the possibility that organized religion in Western society may begin to hold more to reanalysis emphasis as a society that had become disenchanted with and because of religion in terms of the psychology it was the recognition of the archetypal anima I won't get too much into the anima but just the kind of crux of what I want to stay here I argue that this is a real turning point in Jung's and bubblin stance towards organized religion sorry doesn't picture the Assumption of Mary okay by 1957 in his text the undiscovered self Jung sees religion as one way in which individuals may defend against mass madness ie this notion of group psychology you know the mass doesn't think right the individual gets Boston the mass and in this sense he's not different from and Freud so with no religious framework that was sufficiently contain and experienced the numinous the godlike status is attributed to the state and the state serves as an outlet for the religious function of the psyche but in the state the individual loses his or her individuality the state is ruled by generalized generalities and averages which in turn facilitates mass madness so there's a blind following people are always caught in a frenzy without the power of self-reflection only the individuated for Jung can stand against this maps and he writes and basically the website now his collected works volume ten and that points to the paragraphs that's paragraph 540 resistance to the mass can be affected only by the man or woman who was both organized in his or her individuality as the mass itself the real shift is that for young this individuality may be facilitated within organized religion however my reading of this is debatable but I'd like you to point to the evidence in the text I believe you know it's showing young leaving more room for the expansion of the world of Christianity so for young religion opposes stately Authority with the authority of a higher power just as man as the social being cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community so the individual will never find the real justification for his existence and his own spiritual and moral autonomy anywhere except in an extra mundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors the individual who is not angry at God can offer resistance on his own resources to the physical and more blandishments of the world and continues his ie the individuals individual relation to God would be an effective shield against these pernicious influences and both arguably there is some tension and ambiguity here one could suggest that Jung is emphasizing a one-to-one experience with God I mean not the God of organized religion right that he's really talking about the God within but in light of his theorizing in answer to joke and his renewed faith and Christianity's psychological advancement what make argue that there is an openness in Jung that allows for a profound hope that organized religion can play the role of a potent faith standing against masked mindedness and for me this is the quintessential quotation that is not to say that Christianity is finished I am on the contrary convinced that it is not Christianity but our conception and interpretation of it that has become antiquated in face of the present world situation the Christian symbol is a living thing that carries itself that carries in itself the seeds of further development it can go on developing it depends only on us whether we can make up our minds to meditate again and more thoroughly on the Christian premises and both this faith in religion is only confined to Western religion particularly Christianity and the state of the Western psyche a westerner for example turning to the east where this framework will not find containment but the threat of contagion and being overwhelmed by the unconscious but we will get to that so very quickly let's just list some of the critiques you can again discuss these at the end if you want so critiques the gamesound psychology of religion devil basically treats God like an individual patient all right God is not a human being and can't be preferred proverbially put on the couch number two young supposes he has a hotline to God and this is not me there's a critique against that work basically said you know feels it's got my mind to God three young attempts to replace one religious framework with another by new therapy and this is really you know well argued although this book is problematic itself in Richard Knowles text the young occult was basically saying that young set up a cult in Switzerland I people had to come to him and it was the basis for a new religion and initiation the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber probably best known for his philosophy of dialogue really encapsulated the main concerns and critiques with Jung's approach to the psychology of religion first and foremost young psychologize is religion right this is a one-way conversation Jung is interpreting religion in light of his own concepts and not seeing the phenomena on its own terms right so in terms of ubers philosophy this is a monologue rather than true dialogue Jung also reduces the experience of God ie bi oh sorry reduces the experience of God and basically Boober had desire this notion of the I it versus the I'd our relationship does anyone know about at night now yes yeah fantastic so there there's a real you know India I'd our relationship which is the essence or the true expression of dialogue there it is kind of humility right and this kind of equal footing with which we approach that conversation what what we were is suggesting by saying young psychology is only working at the i8 level is that he's not he's not approaching religion on the equal footing right he's kind of he's got this conquistadora approach it's very colonizers model where he wants to only use religion to show the efficacy and the truth if he will of his psychological ideas so he's not meaning the other as other and basically there's a very interesting back and forth and Jung replies I mean it wasn't the remove the most robust and convincing reply from Young's part but he gets quite angry and he basically says to to goober how dare you tell me that I have no idea of the numinous right that I'm only working at the level of the eye it's rather than the eyebrow and he goes on to invite uber to come with him into a mental asylum right so perhaps um you know when Jung started his training he was working with schizophrenics I perhaps the most prestigious Hospital in the world at that time the results of a mental hospital and he basically allowed us invites uber to come to Ana mental asylum and say I will show you my patients right you come walk with me and then you tell me whether or not I have what numinous means right whether or not I'm truly talking about it or I doubt it is clear from Jung's interpretation of Christianity that he took an unorthodox approach to interpreting the stock called your religion one based arguably on finding parallels and evidence of his own psychological contentions this at times conquistador approach to applied psychoanalysis is equally apparent in his interpretation of the psychology of Eastern religions regardless of his potential good intentions and his attempt to build bridges with the East there are implications to the theoretical violence that may stem from the application of a psychology that is historically situated in the West one that may not see the East on its own terms one that promotes the monologue rather than a true dialogue and it is to Jung's engagement with the East that we now turn okay from the outset it is very important to note that Jung's views on the East are not really if anything it tells us something about the West and Western thinking it is in psychoanalytic terms Jung's fantasy of the East filtered through the lens of his psychology that is not to say that fruitful ideas do not stem from Jung's engagement they did but as with Young's interpretation of Christianity we need to be mindful of an approach that prioritizes the strengthening of a set of ideas one that was constantly searching for greater legitimacy and recognition in the Medical Sciences JJ Clark and Harold Howard two separate scholars both wrote books called young in strength ah British University one Canadian Canadian at Calgary and they both argue convincingly that Jung's concepts such as the self individuation archetypes the collective unconscious and active imagination were shaped by texts and ideas from the ancient traditions of China and India Jung uses the East as cultural evidence in conjunction with his method of application to formulate cultural psychology that transcended his clinical material for example central to young psychology are the concepts of a collective unconscious and the archetypes and these ideas certainly forward the perspective of collectivity and universality if we can find parallels in the materials of the East that point to the same themes as those covered in the West that Eastern forms of these themes crop up in the dreams and fantasies of Westerners we have provided at least according to Jung potentially compelling evidence and an argument that his conception of the psyche was correct that it can transcend cultural boundaries and we actively share more in common than we actually believe there are other similarities between Jung's way of working and Eastern thought the East's capacity for introspection and the grasp of the need for inner transformation and self-realization and seemed remarkably similar to Jung's own therapeutic endeavors in essence he is once again mining the cultural products of the world to find proof to validate a psychological approach and clinical map is he also wanted to highlight that the West had neglect neglected to explore and take seriously the inner life and cycle reality engaging Eastern thought acts as a corrective to this lock and I think here we can see Young's notion of compensation working turning to the East compensates and brings back into balance the left's neglect of the East it emphasizes the marginalization of Eastern thought in the West and brings into question perceived superiority of the West Jung's emphasis on learning evolved cultures other than his own is also a statement about how therapists need to move beyond the individual in order to help their patients so this is you know really reflective of why young actually went into mythology in the first instance right it's not just that he was fascinated by the ethology and we're really going back to his time of the reports through here and basically you know he's working with schizophrenic patients right he was actually living you know in the asylum itself and interacting with these patients on a day-to-day you know day to day basis several times a day in some instances and basically what he's realizing in these fantasies that they're telling him was a lot of mythological material right and what he determined which was revolutionary back then was that there was actually some logic here these not these people are not insane right we shouldn't just kind of banish them into one place lock the door and throw away the key so you know the reason why he started studying with ologist like okay these patients are bringing this mythological material I need to understand this the fault is not with them it's my fault right the onus now is on me to try to access the material to find the logic that other people cannot see right to walk in their shoes and basically he begins to compile and you know this really takes him away from his work with Freud it just goes away and just eats you know about mythology and his old premise is that if we find the legend right we begin to find or potentially access the logic of these schizophrenic patients right so in essence it was quite revolutionary at the time that he was really putting the emphasis back on on the patients and not seeing them as completely other ie the other side of society the shattered society we shouldn't be dealing with them etcetera etcetera right so in the same vein Eastern images etc this material props up in the fantasies and the dreams of Western patients right so in order for the therapist to help his or her patients they need to transcend these cultural boundaries it demands our understanding and to do so the therapist needs to consider the wider social and global context of thoughts and images Jung his interest in the East began as early as 1909 and lasted until the last month's of his life when he was studying Buddhism in greater detail arguably however this interest was sparked as early as his childhood when he recalls being captivated by Hindu myths we also know that Jung practice yoga and meditation during his own confrontation with the unconscious so relieve the the red book carrier if anyone is familiar with that excuse me there are also some brief references to oriental ideas and student lectures the Sylvania lectures the bindi Society was his fraternity and there are also indications of its engagement with Eastern ideas in his first quote-unquote yummy books ie what he's beginning to carve his own identity so the earlier forms if you will of what is now known as symbols of transformation as well as his book on psychological types and here he's emphasizing the ideas of duality the complementarity I started the complementary nature of opposites the need of finding a better path to mediate the opposites so again pointing to this notion of the self regulating psyche we're seeing how both Buddhist and Taoist ideas are finding their way young psychology now mandalas right devil uses a lot of mandalas he draws man in Los Angeles he actually begins drawing them and doesn't realize that he's drawn mandalas until he meets Richard well-known right who plants into these tacks and then he goes aha right it's a manual that I'm actually drawing actually usually with the macula you have this idea right at the circle and use the four cardinal points ie this number of forest completion or some variation of four within the larger circle and Young begins to notice them to rising not only in his own dreams but in the dreams as patients right and he really begins to you know to cultivate this as a part of their therapy to practice I mean he was encouraging his patients to go away to draw write to create these mandalas to create their own versions of the red book now what you know what is really interesting in Jung is that he begins to see that the mandala is a theme that kind of transcends all cultures and if the individual psyche has a soul the city a geographical space also has a soul and that mandala is really pointing to a similar thing on this notion of the self right this potential for wholeness and completion so if you look at many cities right especially the older cities you will find that the center right the soul of the city itself is usually constructed as a space for collectivity but also in many instances is constructed as a mandala there's also the concept of yin and yang are opposites but for him it's also a representation of his theory of conscious sexual opposites oddly the anima and animus respectively right getting into the crux of it Jung believed that an engagement with Eastern thought must begin from a Western perspective ie the importance of maintaining a strong enough ego or container as the East is according to Jung by nature closer to the young it's access to it is very different from the West's it is possible therefore that the Western psyche may become overwhelmed if engaging with the East from a simple set and system that is not of their own making one that is not entrenched in the traditions of a specific geographical space so for young the container essentially is not fit for purpose the West must engage the unconscious on its own terms and not adopting wholesale an approach that is opposed to its own there are obviously complications to this way of thinking and for me you know when I encountered this in Yahoo I think back to my days as a history student and it begs the question of whether the East can exist on its own terms ie can there be a history of the East without the West without Western encroachment is the East only noteworthy on a world stage once the West has entered has entered the picture so returning to Jung's position there is a wisdom to be gained from the East ie it is more aware of the inner life but equally the East reaches an awareness of the unconscious through potentially dangerous means and spiritual practices this is according to Jung if the West is one sided by extroverted and overtly rational the East is equally one-sided ie it lacks a firm grounding in the realities of the here-and-now it seeks to escape from reality rather than dealing with there the west through psychology and other disciplines such as science and history may reach a more related and meaningful contact with the unconscious one mediated by and firmly planted in an embodied existence that does not deny the physicality of life if we wish to heal the problems of the Western world to speak to its disenchanted state by Rhian chanting existence through an engagement with the unconscious and it's connection to the numinous then turning to the East does not death to the root of the problem in fact it could cause great a disequilibrium for instance and this is Young's interpretation yogas aim is to become one with the unconscious to obliterate consciousness altogether and to unite with the ultimate reality red psychologically it amounts to either over-identification or psychosis ie because the strong ego or container is lacking what is over identifying with the contents of the unconscious rather than being in relationship with them so essentially Jung had to maintain an firmly you know planted in his Western perspective he could not accept the loss of an ego if higher selfhood were attained we still need an ego or consciousness to process that such a state has been achieved no ego means no awareness of the state of being has been reached this seems peculiar right in light of the options of the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama once Nevada is achieved he chose not to become satva but decided to return to earthly existence so that he may teach others not only does this know a crucial stage in the hero's journey IV the theme over thrall and return it evidences a return to consciousness by an appreciation for the phenomenal world and an understanding that Nirvana can only be reached in our incarnation as humans Jung ultimately rejects any fully realized state of illumination for he state that individuation cannot be achieved in one's lifetime only in death can acceptance of individuation be achieved ultimately for young life is about tension right and dialectical opposition is all the intention that create that Sur is only intention that creativity and new possibilities are achieved and this relates to his idea of the transcendent function so basically what he's saying here is that you know when people are growing when they're developing there comes a point where crucial decisions need to be made right and again Yanni's the games rushing in to one one way of doing things right this is the way to do it boom he's actually advocating sitting in the middle right of not being tempted just jump from one position or the other because if you do that the danger is this potential flip this idea of a new natural Jerome yeah so the tension of opposites literally means being torn between the opposites right of not necessarily jumping to this without conclusion but allowing for a new possibility to arise and this new possibility could be entirely something entirely new ie not of this position or that or it could be a combination of those two positions as well so just give you you know very well hopefully a real-life example several job opportunities arise right for you right one entails staying here in the UK one entails going to California all right it's bright and sunny there right now what the other is saying is like right you have these two positions right you have these two options in front of you what you really want to do is not just to jump in and say no it's either this or that if you actually wait right and really sit with the tension that this clause is that not know where you're going something new might actually arise perhaps a third possibility right that is farther or not any one of these but you know again it could be any combination of the two maybe you'll be allowed to work in California for part of the time and still have reason in the UK who knows right but psychologically the real aim is again not to jump to a one-sided position now if we return to Jung's psychology of Western religions you can see why for him the cross is actually the quintessential this idea function because Christ being crucified on the proper on the cross is that image of suffering intention what it means to be pulled in different directions and in the case of prices being half human and half divine right and what actually gives birth is you know this possibility of being reborn as something different so going back to Jung's ideas on Eastern thought complete liberation from suffering can only mean death or psychosis so as it becomes clear Jung was against Westerners imitating eastern practices and as mentioned earlier he championed the individual authenticity when engaging archetypal imperatives and narratives to pervert to proverbially dream the myth onwards in this way though he's displaying a strong sense of the cultural and historical embeddedness of religious and philosophical beliefs mainly our contexts have shaped our egos in very particular ways and this emphasis finds expression in his distinction between an archetype and an archetypal image I won't jump into that now but we can certainly discuss that during the question period period this is the point engaging with the practices of another culture leads to superficial imitation we cannot fully integrate and understand in other culture we will always be alienated we will always be the outsiders but what Jung is arguing against is what we went called today a consumerist attitude to cultural products I be seeing culture as a commodity religious beliefs are now in capsulated in fads fashions jewelry etc but this doesn't necessarily speak to the true emotion and feeling at the heart of an experience of numinous we pick and choose like we're in a candy store right take a bit of that a bit of this rather than staying close to and working with the images that are on the culture has created and inherited it betrays an attitude not wanting to stick to things not wanting to work things through a throwaway culture defined by consumption so there's a hold of my trousers just the very smallest nichkhun you know in my jeans right here what I do albright having to go with you pair well you know back in the day actually do that you would mend it right but you know although there is something commendable in Young's ideas here and what he's sporting we have to appreciate or take into consideration that he's coming from the position of privilege so yes he grew up poor but he actually married into the second wealthiest family in Switzerland at the time right so he's not coming from a position of lack at all right he has the choice to make those decisions about you to mend his trousers or not so we cannot abandon our western heritage it is within the framework of Western religion that we must work we can further understand that the hope young felt with the assumption of Mary and the subsequent hope and he expressed in the undiscovered self ie the possibility that Western Christendom can begin to shift and to change once again to contain the development of the inner life of Westerners now critiques the games Young's approach to the East clearly it's potentially Eurocentric right announced offense we could argue that young is reflecting his own time in context but within our own context his approach seems restrictive he could not foresee the nature of our globalized world and I asked for communities and the benefits that these development developments may bring in that sense young could be exaggerating the extent to which we are rooted in her own culture especially in light of the fact that many today carry with them I've heard identities right that we're not just one thing we don't identify with being this way or that and in essence even if we're not from if we're not in tension between different cultures certainly our notions of identity are constantly shifting constantly being negotiated as well young in perceiving east and west in such strict dichotomous ways maybe perpetually popular stereotypes he uses phrases like the mysterious audience and the bathroom on of the east and this in turn reinforces prejudices and past Jung is guilty of website describes as Orientalism youngest interpretation constitutes yet another narrative that promotes the colonizers model of the world but also note the inherent dualism in Jung's thinking by setting up West and East bus versus other he's creating a binary that contradicts the essence and the implications of his notion of the collective unconscious ie fundamentally we are all interconnected and the same Jung is also working with corrupted sources he's not using the strongest translations and the secondary sources he uses we're clearly biased and reflect their own time by not being critical about these he inherits these limitations by evey they become central and core to his own psychological tanks we are left to ask was young truly engaging in a dialogue with the east or was it a one-sided conversation JJ Clarke is adamant that none was aiming to build a bridge of understanding with Eastern thought and really contributed to the growing appreciation of the East in the West in raising the profile of the East and the West Jung was fighting against rationalism and scientific positivism perspectives that may remain close to multiplicity of perspectives and essentially what you can't deny that Jung is providing a multiplicity he's basically saying that there are multiple thought images not just one and they're all equally valid he is thus destabilizing the belief that the West is best and that there is only the rest all God images are equally valid and express our experience of the divine but in his undeniable that his psychology remains his reference point constituting the foundation from which he is engaging the east this leads to a misinterpretation of Eastern texts beliefs and practices Clark rightly points out of that Jung fails to grasp Eastern metaphysics on its own terms for example in yoga what is sought is the possibility of a higher state of consciousness in which awareness is not obliterated but transformed into a condition where the concerns and limitations of the individual EVO cease to be of central concern or importance another example any karate practitioners here okay fantastic you know about cats right do you know sansheng yeah okay so basically the essence of sansheng is the merging if you will of mind body and spirit sanction literally translates as the three bottles right but when you're performing the kata and especially at the higher levels you were completely embody you're marrying the breath with the movement itself and at the higher levels you're integrating about spiritual aspect so I think it's definitely wrong for Jung to kind of go in and say that the East is only really leading to a disembodied experience and engagement with the unconscious Jung thus misunderstands the nature of things like yoga and meditation and fails to appreciate that there are many forms of yoga not just one he is ultimately basing his criticism on a Western account in one form of yoga so he is guilty of a failure to appreciate complexity and perhaps this is one major reason why Jung's place in the Academy is so fragile in essence his Universalist approach is not in line with the nature of special specialization that defines academia today perhaps Jung's complex and at times ambivalent relationship to Eastern thought may be summarized by the following vignette and with which I will end my talk while in India in 1938 Jung had the opportunity to meet with Sri Ramana Maharshi a Hindu sage who mainly believed were serving many believed to be an enlightened being Jung decides not to go so the meaning was actually one of Young's followers everything was you know good organized and then he stays on the boat right and his excuse is that he had found the key to his psychology ie his study of alchemy so he actually had some text shipped to him right to India so that he could start engaging with it so all this work that went into organized this meeting he just doesn't show up and JJ Clark provides an insightful interpretation in order to maintain his stance of Independence Jung felt it necessary to avoid a man who by repute may well have been able to penetrate his defenses for justice he had since his boyhood refused to bend his knee the Christian Way of faith so with regard to Eastern spirituality his attitude remained one of guarded objectivity he could not accept he could not quote accept from others what I cannot detain on my own or make any borrowings from the east but my life [Applause]

Channel: The Weekend University

Views: 11,725

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Keywords: the weekend university, psychology lectures, Carl jung, Individuation, Carl jung dreams, Carl jung religion, Jungian psychology, Jungian archetypes, Jungian psychotherapy, Jungian shadow, Jungian analysis, Jung shadow self, Jung unconscious

Id: _Ll4Feo1dGQ

Length: 80min 51sec (4851 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 18 2018