Surveillance Capitalism And Its Implications For Psychic Freedom

As the real potential for civil war and the collapse of global civilization lurches ever closer, few are raising the alarm about the larger danger of online technology products that are entirely swallowing our collective human consciousness. Because while humans across the world tear themselves (and each other) apart chasing answers to legitimate questions of unbearable inequity, a fast-rising machine intelligence is rapidly colonizing the human psyche on a global scale and directing its movements like a sinister puppet-master.

As with other technological advancements of modern times, artificial intelligence is weaponized and placed in the service of profit-making, single-mindedly attuned to an “economic orientation,” as Max Weber calls it, which disregards the psychological well-being of the population it relies upon for its success. Shoshana Zuboff, in her new book The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism (2019), explains how this modern process of digital colonization unfolds. Funded by royal coffers, ships filled with white men believing in their God-given superiority sail across the world, landing on virgin territories they would then cruelly exploit regardless of what the local inhabitants had to say about it. In fact, the astonished indigenous folk was usually slaughtered. Today, Zuboff explains, it is we humans and our futures that represent virgin territory being harvested and exploited against our will and without our knowledge. Social media and online tech giants (ships filled with white men funded by royal coffers) such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter, to name only a few, employ a business model which aims to keep us online and religiously focused on their digital products for as long as possible. Nonstop rings, bells, emails, and tags, together with a variety of ego-enticements such as likes, hearts, and redundant vacuous smiley-face emojis are rained down upon us all day long, pushed on us by the many algorithms whose job it is to keep us engaged in a never-ending mutually infectious cycle like rats in a maze. This is why we are called “users,” because we are addicts in need of this fix, i.e., the instant gratification of our every infantile whim which is gleefully supplied by the “free” digital products in whose destructive clutches we are ensnared.

While psychologically enshrouded in this zombie-like love affair with digital death, our attention—what Zuboff calls the “raw material” of psychic life that we freely surrender to these neo-colonialists—is collected, stored, analyzed, and molded into predictive models that can determine precisely what we will think, feel, say, or do from moment to moment on any given day, week, or month. Everything we do online is gathered and stored in a personal profile which is measured by a system called the O.C.E.A.N. Model: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticisms. For each of these categories, a percentage is calculated and a precise model of our personality is generated that can predict how we will behave in the future. This predictability of behavior based upon unfathomable oceans of data allows advertisers to pinpoint and target their ads for maximum effectiveness. This data about us, our future behaviors, and the market value of our engaged attention measured in impressions per second is sold at auction, to the highest advertising bidder, twenty-four hours a day.

Thus, by gently nudging us with notifications and prompts, the algorithms slowly and imperceptibly alter the natural course of our decision-making processes so that we are moving in specifically targeted directions of consumption without ever becoming aware that we are doing so. Indeed, Zuboff heavily emphasizes this fact—that we are completely clueless about the degree to which we are being influenced to behave in certain specific ways. We can therefore begin to see how precise behavioral prediction models can start to function in our lives as a fait accompli so that machines already know what we will do tomorrow, next week, or next month. Consider that this information about us is sold to advertisers who use it to manipulate our behavior even further. The devastating implications for personal autonomy and free will seem clear—we have none.

As it happens, the fragile human psyche already has enough on its plate without being viciously exploited and manipulated by powerful digital machines. As C. G. Jung (1989) has explained, the immature psyche is teeming with clusters of feeling-toned images that dominate and control the ego with impunity. For growth and a sense of fulfillment to dawn upon us, these unruly complexes must be identified, recognized, and eventually reintegrated into the total psychic economy. In this individuation process, the ego needs to grow strong over time by repeatedly enduring the tension produced when conscious and unconscious imperatives inevitably clash. These tests of endurance lead to real wisdom which helps the ego find its true home orbiting the numinous sphere of the archetype of the Self. Until this deeper organization of consciousness is achieved, an individual is besieged by a barrage of attacks and demands from the as-yet uncivilized shadow complexes. And this is precisely the unstable psychological territory that social media and other digital systems colonize and exploit.

The online world offers an alternative to the complex reality of the psyche, functioning as a digital psychic pacifier that effectively kills the individuation process by helping us escape our shadow emotions. Indeed, this digital landscape appears to behave as a second collective unconscious, but one that is devoid of any benefits and quite insidious, infectious, predatory, and more directly involved in generating immediate action in its host consciousness than anyone is aware. I have often observed people staring at their cell phones captured by the dark spell of the “infinite scroll” and imagined a sort of immaterial predator effectively violating the individual’s consciousness through their third eye. It is almost as if the ever-expanding human shadow has undergone a metamorphosis into computer code which then seeps back into us while we stare at our screens.

Just as regular corporations abuse and pillage the planet, digital corporations abuse and pillage the human psyche. Corporate advertisements have been brutally exploiting our insecurities for decades but with the advent of surveillance capitalism, they now have the power to shape behavior on a mass scale, globally. Their algorithms are eating us alive which is why, for me, any genuine resistance movement must begin with a psychic rescue mission—an addiction intervention—on an individual level. It does not seem viable to believe that we can be truly free, out there, in the world, while inwardly we are unconsciously infected with these “flesh-eating” machine viruses, no matter how many protests or rallies we attend. I would therefore argue that against this economically motivated digital assault on psychic freedom, an economy-based technology of liberation must be mobilized. This is probably why activists say that the deletion of our social media accounts is a good place to start the rebellion. But to do that one must be strong enough to overcome an addiction. For that is what social media usage is—an addiction, and calling it what it actually is is another good place to begin a revolt against this insidious and unjust war on human freedom.

Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Zuboff, S. (2019). The rise of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group.

The Complex As Psychic Generator

It seems clear that, as humans, we all feel the reality of the psyche every day of our lives. We feel it in our inexplicable protean moods, we feel it in our frightening moments of uncontrollable rage, we feel it when we start to get tense in the solar plexus and begin trying to control or dominate the situation with our words and actions, we feel it at times of numinous ecstasy when we encounter real love, real beauty, or real kindness. We face the reality of the psyche every night in our dreams whether we “believe” in dreams or not. We are surrounded on all sides by products of the psyche in writing, poetry, dance, art, films, science, astrology, sports, music. All of us, regardless of race, class, or gender experience the vicissitudes of oceanic emotions, sparks of genius, flashes of insight, and sudden intuitive knowledge. In his deep explorations into these universally experienced phenomena, C. G. Jung explained that the psyche is composed of a multitude of separate parts that are not necessarily connected to one another nor to the ego but which are entirely independent structures. He called these independent psychic entities “autonomous complexes.” 

The complex is generally viewed as something negative (a bad father complex, for example, or an inferiority complex) but it would appear that all the wonderful and creative products of the psyche mentioned above actually emanate from the depths of these psychic entities known as complexes. One need only look at the immense creativity of one’s dreams to see the level of activity and power contained in the complex. Like the archetypes who ultimately parent them, complexes have multiple faces and cannot be considered only negative. In fact, Jung believed that complexes are holders and carriers of psychic energy in the same way that red blood cells are the carriers of oxygen. With regard to personal complexes, he wrote that “the personal unconscious . . . contains complexes that belong to the individual and form an intrinsic part of his psychic life” (Jung, 1948/1969, p. 231, [CW8] para. 590). Intrinsic means to belong naturally or be essential to something so the complex is crucially important to psychic life and not something to be got rid of which is usually the ego’s first response to anything discomfiting. 

This is not to say that complexes are never problematic because they are, particularly when personal complexes grow, evolve, and are passed down from generation to generation in the form of familial, and even cultural complexes. The trouble with the complex is that it exists independently from the ego and is therefore totally unconscious. Its status as an unconscious content does not strip it of any of its power, however. The complex continues to wield enormous power over the ego and when it is passed down into a family and further on, into a community, it can operate as an intractable belief system (all Muslims are terrorists), a tradition (Christians are infidels), or a firmly held bias (whites are superior to non-whites). Once again, the complex possesses a high degree of autonomy for it is “the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally,” it has “a powerful inner coherence” and “its own wholeness” (Jung, 1948/1969, p.79, [CW8] para. 201). In other words, it has its own psychic power and operates independently of our will. Because of its emotional charge and its ability to completely usurp the awareness and control of the conscious ego, the complex, especially when constellated on a broader cultural level, can be a very dangerous impetus for collective ignorance and mass violence, a reality that is painfully clear in the many atrocities humanity has wreaked upon itself in the name of some higher cause. 

My vocation is to one day become a learned depth psychologist and sometimes mystic who ultimately seeks to know the truth of reality. The study of complexes is therefore highly significant for my professional and personal development since first, it is what Jung intended to call his entire psychology which means it is very important to the entire Jungian project, and second, since I and the entire species struggle with the reality and autonomous power of complexes every day. Depth psychology is ultimately the study of the soul and how it works. To my mind, this knowledge is what brings one closer to being on the road to genuine self-discovery and to dutifully and humbly following the very serious edict of the oracle of Delphi which encourages us all to “know thyself.” Only this level of self-knowledge can alter the power of unconscious complexes and channel it toward the greater good. 

Jung, C. G. (1969). A review of the complex theory (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1948) 

Jung, C. G. (1969). The psychological foundations of belief in spirits (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1948) 

The Religious Psyche

By entering the imagination we cross into numinous precincts. And from within this territory all events in the soul require religious reflection. 

James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology, p. 226

     Archetypal Psychology is ultimately a religious project since its primary concern is for the soul and its relationship with the Gods. Hillman’s (1975) conception locates soul in a nonhuman realm where it is more of a perceptive quality rather than an object or substance. Furthermore, this perceptive quality of soul is self-reflective—it differentiates, mediates, communicates; it imaginates, congregates, and “deepens events into experiences” (p. xvi). As a perceptive functionality, soul is inseparable from image. It is a visionary and myth-making activity that experiences itself “through dream, image, and fantasy—that mode which recognizes all realties as primarily symbolic or metaphorical” (p. xvi). Jung also placed high value on images and their function in the psyche. Indeed, Jung said that “image is psyche” (Jung, 1929/1967, p. 54, CW13 para. 75) and Hillman follows Jung by confirming the monumental purpose of images in human psychology. Both men argue that images are the primary data of psychic life where soul is image and image is soul. Therefore understanding the nature of image would lead to a deeper understanding of not just the nature of soul, but also its needs and requirements. 

     Turning to the word “archetypal” which qualifies Hillman’s psychology is already a move toward images since archetypes themselves are inherently inscrutable and intrinsically unknowable so that there can be no conception or experience of an archetype without an image. Images are the language of the archetypes and if “image is psyche” then archetypes are psyche, too. An archetype brings a particular style of perception or a pattern into which experience can flow and grow into an intelligible psychological metaphor. So an archetypal perspective is a soulful and imaginative perspective. 

     Through overpowering numinous images, archetypes seize the soul and induce psychic action which then sensuously unwinds itself into a longwinded drama with countless actors and as many acts. These archetypal events are metaphor, myth, and story that take place in what Corbin (1972) has called the mundus imaginalis—a world of “celestial spheres” and “mystical cities” located between “the empirical world and the world of abstract intellect” (p. 7). Because of their residence in this celestial yet ontologically real nonhuman sphere, archetypes are imagined by Hillman as veritable Gods, and since they are innumerable, Hillman conceives of psyche as essentially polytheistic. Gods and the archetypal images they inhabit are perceived and experienced through imaginal stories and metaphors of the psyche, thus they allow the soul to make and experience itself. This process of soul-making is the primary concern of archetypal psychology. 

     For Hillman, the human being is inside the psyche, not the other way around. Therefore the most urgent work of life is to awaken to the inherent divinity of our souls—to internalize external reality and transmute it into metaphorical, imaginal, and symbolical reality which is the only reality the soul can recognize. The literal events of everyday life must be taken inward to the soul’s realm where they are transformed into the myths and dramas and stories of our polytheistic souls and their archetypal patterns. Archetypes are the root metaphors of the psyche and give it its flow and direction, they are the ideas of the soul, tools with which it weaves itself into illustrious or tragic patterns. Without this procedure we are left with nothing but the literal world of “history, society, clinical psychopathology, or metaphysical truths” (Hillman, 1975, p. 128) and these literalized aspects of external life are alien to the soul and naturally cause alienation and harm. Archetypal psychology therefore encourages us to “recollect the Gods in all psychological activity” (p. 226). Through the imaginative function we can realize that we are made of the nonhuman stuff of the soul and that this nonhuman stuff is essentially divine. This is the work of soul-making. 

Corbin, H. (1972). Mundus imaginalis or the imaginary and the imaginal. Spring: An annual journal on Archetypal Psychology and Jungian thought. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications. 

Hillman, J. (1975). Re-visioning psychology. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers. 

The Function of Images

An area of interest that has captured my attention this term has to do with the autonomy of the unconscious and the power it wields over us through its images. I had not considered before what the function of images might be, I had just accepted that images are spontaneously produced by the unconscious and that they are its language. But this term, I have learned about the function of images which, to me, seems an important point that deserves emphasis. 

As we know, in depth psychology images are emanations that spontaneously irrupt from the deep psyche. They take a variety of forms including text, creative expression, or even emotions and intuitions. They come at us in our dreams, they come at us in thought formations and fantasies, and they come at us through art, literature, poetry, and dance. The question is, why? Why do these images come at us at all and what are we to do with them? Jung says that the images hold a measure of libido or psychic energy and that they use this energy for their own specific purposes. Furthermore, since autonomous, the images prioritize their own needs above the needs of the ego complex. Our task is to, first of all, allow the images to exist and then to experience and interact with them on their own level—the imaginal level (Jung, 1928/1966, para. 346). The images wield tremendous power over consciousness. They hold this power down in the unconscious and we must interact with the images in order to gain access to that power. In other words, images are libido—they are psychic energy. Which means that our lives as we know them rely upon images for their existence since without energy there can only be psychic entropy—a catatonic state of total inertia. This explains the sometimes overbearing urgency of images and why they often harass us until we meet them on their own terms. They know something we don’t. 

Another interesting feature of images is that they hold a specific message or quality having to do with the situation of the individual who is encountering them. Jung explained that the unconscious is the feminine side of consciousness and that it insists upon a feeling function to restore psychic balance since the ego’s rational and intellectual perspective is usually too one-sided (Jung, 1928/1966, para. 216). The images are thus emissaries of this mission to restore psychological balance and they, therefore, wear outward forms which are most relevant to the individual’s specific issues. Furthermore, psychic balance is not always just a matter of correcting pathological or unwanted psychological manifestations. It is also a matter of individuation, which is to say, a matter of bringing the two spheres of consciousness into proper alignment so that the individual ends up living a life that feels richly endowed with meaning and purpose. The images thus have secret knowledge to impart and play a serious role in the psyche.

Jung further explained that we cannot simply stand back and passively watch the images and hope to understand, much less effect, their meanings, for the images are autonomous, they have a level of unconcern we must contend with. If we hope to access the knowledge they contain we must interact with them actively on the imaginal level, which is to say, inside the image itself, inside the fantasy, inside the dream (Jung, 1928/1966, para. 350). Jung said that by actively participating with the images we “gain possession of them by allowing them to possess” (Jung, 1928/1966, para. 368) us. This method, which Jung called active imagination, makes it possible for an individual to not only experience but also to interact, in a waking state, with the unconscious—to merge with it. In so doing, access is gained to the hidden and secret knowledge of the images and the deeper predilections breeding in the psychological volcanoes of our souls. Without access to this restorative imaginal knowledge, we remain divided, stunted, and incomplete, making titanic blunders as we continue to live a one-sided, egocentric life.  

Jung, C. G. (1966). The relations between the ego and the unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 7, 2nd ed., pp.  121–241). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928)

Imaginal Foundations of Life Itself

I was writing yesterday about images, those spontaneous irruptions from the deep psyche, and what I feel I have learned about them thus far. I was concentrating on their linguistic attributes and how they convey meaning. Then, I thought about how they are symbolic—they relay hidden messages by functioning as portals between conscious and unconscious spheres. Just as I was considering this, an image from a sort of Red Book of my own that I made back in 1998 popped into my head (see attached). And that instantly caused me to write that images “know something we don’t” which is why they insist, urge, and demand. Jung explained that psychological experience cannot be separated from images. In his own words, “everything of which we are conscious is an image. Image is psyche” (Jung, 1929/1967, p. 54, CW13 para. 75). Images are thus vehicles for conscious action, as the example above demonstrates. They come on to us like flirtatious lovers or else haunt and bedevil us until we take notice. Even when we don’t take notice, they still lead the way. 

I am learning how this imaginal realm works in writing and research. I can now see that a multitude of energetic and powerful creative forces are working alongside me to produce mundane things like sentence structure and prophetic and cosmic and transcendental things like archetypal order and the union of opposites. I am starting to recognize that depth psychological inquiry involves an exquisite network of ideas, thoughts, and emotions (images) that fuse together in a collaborative dance of creation, and that this is how new knowledge is formed and birthed into the world. This sort of research and writing is creative and soulful, it honors the depths and the inevitable paradoxes and ambiguities. An imaginal approach to inquiry, research, and knowledge is, therefore, more yielding and less authoritatively reasonable or logical for the images cannot abide in logic. They are inherently erotic. It is up to the researcher to translate them into a language which brings cohesive fusion to eros and logos dynamics in writing. 

Jung believed in a teleological psyche—a soul with a goal—the goal of individuation. He called individuation an “indispensable” ideal and wrote that “the idea at the bottom of this ideal is that right action comes from right thinking, and that there is no cure and no improving of the world that does not begin with the individual himself” (Jung, 1928/1966, p. 226, CW7 para. 373). The road to individuation goes through the imaginal realm where images morph into lived experience, what Wilhelm Dilthey called Erlebnis, an experience that “is not so much a matter of content as an act of consciousness” (Palmer, quoted in Coppin, 2017, p. 70). Here, again, is the notion that the image is the enactor of consciousness itself so that lived experience is necessarily a psychological phenomenon. For me, this idea is of paramount importance because my interest lies in uncovering the truth of reality. Since there can be no felt or lived experience without images, then things outside of me have no reality, not unless I live and experience them through my images first. We can only experience life—lived experience—by imagining ourselves into it. In this way, life, research, knowledge, love, hate—all of it is mythical, it is all a story told by the imaginative, myth-making psyche. I think a tragedy is this mythical (imaginal) life lived literally, without any consciousness of the power and autonomy of the images, their role in the creation of consciousness, and our dependence upon them for meaning and comprehension. 

Writing and research are thus deeply rooted in the imaginal dimension of lived experience. I think that comprehension of research methodologies, APA formatting, sentence structure, and dissertation writing all depend upon a healthy recognition of this fact. All aspects of scholarship are enhanced by a researcher’s strong existential foundation in the imaginal realm. 

Jung, C. G. (1967). Commentary on The secret of the golden flower (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 13). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com(Original work published 1929) 

Jung, C. G. (1966). The relations between the ego and the unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 7, 2nd ed., pp. 121–241). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928) 

Nelson, E. & Coppin, J. (2017). The art of inquiry. A depth psychological perspective. Thompson, CT: Spring Publications. 

Forgive My French

It was pointed out in the lecture how Jung was deeply conflicted within himself about studying the extents of the psyche as if Jung’s own psyche were stretched outward and inward simultaneously. This reminded me of Grof’s description of the dual tendencies of Cosmic Consciousness. “The overall scheme of the cosmic drama involves a dynamic interplay of two fundamental forces, one of which is centrifugal (hylotropic, or matter oriented) and the other centripetal (holotropic, or aiming for wholeness) in relation to the creative principle” (Grof, 2000, p. 289). Perhaps Jung’s inability to square this circle within himself indicates the interplay of these two contrary yet fundamental cosmic principles at work. 

To my mind, Grof’s work illustrates perfectly the various parameters and capabilities of psychospiritual growth while also providing spiritual validity for the existence of material reality. His overview of the humor-filled co-creative love affair between existence and nonexistence, form and formlessness, psyche and matter is the most cogent definition of spirituality I have ever read. It encapsulates and validates the essence of many complimentary spiritual traditions and rings immediately true—like a great cosmic gong—on the “inner” level. I am particularly impressed that his findings are based on decades of experiential research. 

As a longtime seeker and practitioner of spiritual self-exploration, I intuitively resonate with the many ways in which Grof validates the ontological truth of so-called “magical” experiences. I am also convinced by his elucidation of archetypal realms and cosmic propensities as inherently intimate and personal impulses which open the doors to ultimate reality and “Absolute Consciousness.” It all makes perfect sense to those parts of me unhindered by the “skin-bound ego” tragedy. 

I can think of nothing more exciting and potentially liberating than the truth of a transpersonal objective psyche. Fuck the ego and its ignoble pettiness. 

The Source Of Power

It is such a fascinating time to be answering this question since I have been wrestling with the intersecting contours of power, wisdom, and magic for some time. My life has been marked by a level of power and innate capability that has almost scared me sometimes. I surfed 20-foot waves and studied Kung Fu and built giant canvasses and lugged heavy stuff around, all so I would have an outlet for my power. It isn’t just that I am physically stronger than most girls, it’s that I also seem to have been born with a higher tolerance for pain. 

Since earliest childhood, I’ve had an ability to see things in people’s faces and body language that they aren’t aware of conveying—a sudden rush of anger behind the eyes, a secret fear in the hunched shoulders. I embody a magician, a wise but stern goddess, and a fun-loving puella. Over time, my terrifying complexes and my shadow grew more and more powerful and took over so that all that power got misused. For a time, I became cruel and dark and seriously negative. 

When I discovered mythology and depth psychology, I found a psychospiritual roadway complete with signposts and maps which helped me to make sense of my inner world and to connect with the magical source of power that had been my constant companion. This road led through creepy towns like Hatred and Fear and Evil, yet the map pointed also to where Freedom and Liberation were located. My dreams showed me the way, too—they gave me little gold stars every time I got something right. 

Now I know that the powerful magician within me likes it when I use her magic to make beauty and love. She also knows that I bow before her each day, awestruck. 

Self Portrait With Doom

A sense of being doomed, or at least surrounded by an essence of doom, has been my constant psychospiritual companion, even since very early childhood. This doom was something I learned to abide in without really knowing why or what it was about. Now, as I reexamine myself through the lens of depth psychology, I understand what the fairy tale story about a princess locked away in a tower by an evil sorceress is all about. 

The sorceress is my own shadow grown immensely powerful and autonomous. She doesn’t care that her existence came about against my will. She doesn’t care that Mother and Father and Culture are to blame. Until I own up to her, she won’t let me out of the tower. 

Last night, She came to me two-faced. One nice girl and one hateful girl—the three of us discussing the ocean on Maui. The hateful girl had her arms crossed tightly. It took all her might to be nice to me (through gritted teeth). The other told me I already had the magic beaded necklace, I didn’t need her to give me hers. 

I think of my father—a coward who can’t speak the truth. A coward who is jealous of his own daughter, a father would rather tear me to shreds than become aware of his own weaknesses. 

“You’re a despicable evil lying thief!” I cry out. 

“Yes, I am those things,” I reply to myself. 

I own it. 

This is no longer about Him or Her or Them. It is about Me and Us, in here—deep in the darkness with my ghouls and demons and utter creeps, snuggled together, sleeping peacefully as the doors and windows of the tower open up wide to let in the moonlight. 

Come Doom, and welcome. 

Starry Heavens Above Me, The Moral Law Within

Phantoms are limited in terms of essential access to Platonic Forms which explains why they are so pale and ephemeral. There seems to be a line or a graph of sorts. On one end stands phenomenal reality, manifest in all its material glory, and on the other, ideational mistiness (not even substantial enough to be called ghostlike) that is abstract, mathematical, and intuited in the mind-realm only. Ironically, the former depends upon the latter for its existence: the immaterial is the form-giver while the form itself is empty of any real substance. Yet the two ends of the graph are inexorably intertwined, like the infinity symbol. For example, what is the difference between a tree in a dream and a tree in the garden? Answer: there is no difference, both arise from the creative force of the phantom Form. 

Manifested physical glory regards itself as primary and absolute. It becomes personally invested in itself, forgetting that it is not only a mere representation of something else but also that its very existence depends upon this forgotten other. Symbolically, material existence is the father who yet lives. Forgetting the source necessitates remembering and sets up the need for realization and “the development of a more objective, transcendent view” (Tarnas, 1991, p. 161). After all, without delusion, there would be no need for realization. 

Plato, Kant, and Jung all say the same thing: there is a preexisting order upon which the validity of all perception depends. Furthermore, it is not just perception (real or imagined) but the very existence of objects and even ideas about those objects (whether the object is the subject or vice versa) which have their ultimate source in this phantom realm of ideational mistiness. Without the fire of the source, not even phantoms can claim existence. 

Divine Intervention

The psyche is the world’s pivot: not only is it the one great condition for the existence of the world at all, it is also an intervention in the existing natural order, and no one can say with certainty where this intervention will finally end. CW8, para. 423

Our course, C. G. Jung in Context begins with this evocative and far-reaching quote from the man himself. Here, Jung is saying that without the psyche existence would be moot and that manifestations of movement, change, evolution, would likewise be absent. The psyche is the pivot, the axis, and the driving force which generates the ongoing project of life. Accordingly, the psyche and its numinous inhabitants—the archetypes—draw consciousness into being making life itself a reality. However, it is the “intervention” of the psyche into “the existing natural order" of life that fascinates me the most about this quote. It reminds me of Jung’s definition of God from an interview he gave to Good Housekeeping Magazine in December 1961, just before his death:

To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse. (n.p.)

Here and in his other writings, Jung essentially equates the psyche (conscious and unconscious, personal and collective) with God—God, the creator, and God, the destroyer. Jung warns that God is not our stooge to be used by us for wish fulfillment, revenge, or derivation of power. Rather, it is a word representing an awesome, autonomous, and not always friendly power under whose ambivalent, unknowable influence we find ourselves, again and again. This knowledge is significant for me personally since I am living the life of a spiritual seeker. Looking for, and ultimately finding God is my job, my vocation. What is unique in Jung’s view is the admission that God is not necessarily our friend. God is not here to save us or rescue us or satisfy our wishes or make us shine. God has a dark side, a vengeful side. Furthermore, this God is none other than our own psychospiritual level of existence. We contain, no, we—are—God.

This course also taught me an important lesson about the dangers of hero worship. By examining the psychic effects of a constellated child archetype in relation with the puella aeternis, and by studying the various attributes of Jung’s personal life and times, I was able to see how I was worshipping him a bit, in the way a young girl might blindly worship her father. During this course, I was able to significantly shift my inner perceptions about the father archetype which led to a graduation from the grips of the wounded inner child, who is, after all, the shadow side of the hero archetype, my unconscious default position.

Jung has said that archetypes evolve, myths evolve, and, through the long step by step process of individuation, ideally, the whole person also evolves. There is an image of growth one can hold onto along the way. This course taught us to examine the idea of a personal myth and self-presentation, not just in how Jung presents himself in his writings, but also how we present ourselves in the many areas of life (including the dreamworld) in which we gambol about. The boundaries between self and other, personal and collective, dream and reality, are much more permeable than we’ve been led to believe. Permeability thus connects personal with archetypal using threads of psychic intelligence—they inform one another and grow together. One’s life and one’s myth are archetypal images which grow and evolve, just as ideas about Jung as a womanizing antisemitic racist permeate and grow with ideas of him as a genius explorer of parts unknown. Learning to put Jung in context helps bring a sense of objectivity to one’s own life as well. The psyche is a divine intervention, and this lessens the potential for boredom in objectivity. After all, what can be more exciting than watching God at work?

Us And Them

In his essay, “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man,” Jung called being “unhistorical” the ultimate “Promethean sin.” (Jung, 1931/1970, p. 69 CW 10 para. 153). In other words, a great deal of hubris lurks in the fateful untethering of individual, culture, and psyche from the grounding fecundity of history and tradition.

There are similarities between this idea and the one-sided promotion of individuality which unfolded in the social structures of the last few centuries. The division between self and other found literally in the separation of rich from poor, black from white, male from female; spiritually, in the extreme segregation between man and nature; and psychologically, in the way the “mentally able” were privileged over sensitive dissenters, is in direct proportion to the power of the state to control and manipulate. After all, united we stand, divided we fall.

Abandoning a holistic, multifaceted approach in favor of strict individualism destroyed many possibilities for social equality across all frontiers. This loss of wholeness clearly gave rise to the dominant neurotic features of today’s individual psyche, neuroses which are now “. . . accepted as fact and product of modern existence . . . ” (Jansz, 2004, p. 121). The collective psyche is now chained to the rocks where each day its liver is eaten out by a rabid bird—even, perhaps, by “the Aryan bird of prey” (Jung, 1931/1970, p. 80 CW 10 para. 190), reincarnated and embodied today in Global Corporate Consumer Capitalism. We are unconsciously paying for the hubris of self-obsessive individualization—devoured alive each day by our fears and anxieties.

Unfortunately, "psychology firmly fixed widespread beliefs about the fundamental inequality of races” (Jansz, 2004, p. 180), and appears to have been weaponized for furthering destructive attitudes, adding fuel to the fire of “Us versus Them,” and helping to justify policies of imperialism.

Thank goodness for depth psychology!

Jansz, J. & van Drunen, P. (2004). A social history of psychology. Blackwell Publishing. Malden: MA.

Jung, C. G. (1970). The spiritual problem of modern man (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 10, 2nd ed., pp. 74-94). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1931)

Unfolding A Life In Work

DJA700, “Introduction to Depth Psychology,” provided me with a historic foundation upon which to build my future academic work in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology. While I did not find all of the material equally inspiring, I was nevertheless deeply engaged. The first two modules gave me a look at the ancient shamanic roots of depth psychology and the origin of the word mesmerize. I also learned how the scientific and industrial revolutions led to a preponderance of psychological disorders which gave birth to depth psychology.

We moved on to study the three great founders of depth psychology—Freud, Adler, and Jung. We learned about Freud’s insistence that sexual energy lies at the center of all psychic activity and that it alone is responsible for the creation of the unconscious, since that is where the psyche must deposit all its sexually charged shame and other repressed materials. Adler taught that the well being of the human psyche is tied to a holistic approach to an individual as situated within society and within social equity. Adler felt that inferiority/superiority complexes were instrumental in causing psychic malaise. Then, of course, there is Jung. He is my hero and no matter how often people go on about his romantic misadventures, I still find his work to be supremely illuminating and of extreme relevance to our current world troubles. Jung espoused a vision of the psyche that includes the personal unconscious, the broader collective unconscious, and a number of inhabitants, features, and psychic proclivities which populate and animate psychic existence, all of which exert a formative influence upon our daily lives.

Later, we learned about the social implications of rapidly spreading psychological practices and saw some of the corrosive, diabolical methods for inequitable social engineering that psychology was used for, especially in the post modern world. In the last two weeks we studied Ken Wilbur and his Integral Psychology, which, for me at least, requires a great deal more than one week of study to be understood. Finally, we did our best to decipher Susan Rowland’s views on Jungian psychology by studying Jung’s prose with its invisible peaks and valleys—the expressions of the unconscious embedded in his words and sentences. “Jung believed and wrote as though he believed that the thinking and discriminating mind—conventionally used to produce non-fictional argument—was situated within a sea of unconscious creativity” (Rowland, 2005, p. 1). In other words, the unconscious was also doing the writing, and Jung let it do so.

My favorite part of the class happened when I discovered Gustav Fechner’s The Little Book of Life After Death, in which, among many other moments of beauty, he postulates the development of human consciousness and its evolution into an angelic eventuality. This further cemented my personal attachment to the Romantic ground of depth and archetypal psychology, with Keats’s profound notion of life as “the vale of soul-making.”

My work is still amorphous and unknowable, like the archetypes. I am in the middle of a creative journey and cannot know yet what the outcome will be. The history of depth psychology and its many permutations is a snapshot of academic work as creative work. I’m able to see the knowledge which developed out of the discovery of the unconscious, and I’m able to take inspiration from its serpentine progression. All our forebears in this work, people like Jung, Freud, Fechner, Adler, Whitmont, von Franz, Mesmer, Edinger, Hillman, Rowland, Mayes and countless others have each expressed a life in work, exhibiting the way a vocation unfolds into a realized vision. For me, this means that I must simply continue putting one academic foot in front of the other, paying careful attention to every step, and taking special notice of the numinous moments along the way when a certain idea takes hold of me and doesn’t let go. In this way, I hope to unfold a life in work as a writer, an artist, and a scholar.

Hubris, Sacrifice, and Living the Religious Life

The never-ending school shootings are the unconscious sacrifice and American Exceptionalism as embodied in the Second Amendment, the so-called infallibility of the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution—is the hubris.

I’m more excited about the second part of the lecture--that subtler level of sacrifice and its practical application in everyday life. This is where we can develop “. . . that stability which human existence acquires when the claims of the spirit become as imperative as the necessities of social life” (Jung, CW 10, para. 190) [Italics mine].

The correct relationship of hubris to sacrifice is exactly that of the ego to the Self. There is a healthy way and a destructive way, and the healthy way unequivocally requires sacrificing the ego to the Self, again, and again, and again.

Strange moods, dark forebodings, irrational sorrows, sudden, unmistakeable intuitions, creative outpourings, the immensity of our dreams—these are the “significant” parts of “psychic life” that “always” lie “below the horizon of consciousness,” for “when we speak of the spiritual problem of modern man, we are speaking of things that are barely visible—of the most intimate and fragile things, of flowers that open only in the night” (Jung, CW 10, para. 194).

Sacralizing average moments in the day by surrendering egoic inclinations in favor of nurturing “the restorative possibilities in embracing the dark, underworld of shadow and dream” (Slater, nd, p. 114)—this is what it means to live a religious life.

Each morning, I write down my dreams. Each day, I honor the shadow (sad songs, angry, passionate drawings), 10, 20, 30 times a day I check in with myself: Where is my attention going? Who is in charge right now?

I finally know what Krishnamurti meant when he said you must die to your Self.

Divine Progression

The essence of psychic conflict seems to reside within the confrontation between two warring factions. On one side sits the hardened one-sidedness of ego consciousness with its abysmal feeling of inadequacy, on the other a numinous intuition, an image of wholeness and freedom emanating from the unconscious. This confrontation between pairs of opposites yields an intolerable tension which creates a third thing. The transcendent function, as it is called, is a new and elegant solution “. . . which manifests itself as a quality of conjoined opposites” (Jung, 1969, p. 90).

Why is this psychic tension necessary for the individuation process? It seems that without it, there would be no forward movement. Coppin and Nelson (2017) write that the psyche is dialectical, invoking Hegel and his view that “all human thought and nature itself is composed of paradox and contradiction . . . the source of the natural and necessary movements towards the ‘Absolute’. . . ”(Nelson, 2017, p. 157). Accordingly, the psyche is inherently teleological, and the transcendent function is a kind of engine that feeds on tension, driving the conscious ego into the arms of the Self. “Conflict, to paradox, to revelation;” says Robert Johnson, “that is divine progression” (Johnson, 1971, p. 91). We must suffer--allow and bear--the tension, so we may “. . . earn the right to unity” (Johnson, 1971, p. 88).

Allowing and bearing the tension can sometimes become unendurable. After weeks of weathering an emotional cacophony, I was finally led to reading about the shadow. I discovered why things have been so painful—I have not been honoring mine. I have brutally rejected my artist self. I began drawing images that symbolize and express different parts of my shadows. I enacted a ritual of acknowledgment. I did active imagination.

While this process is urgent and ongoing, relief has been instantaneous.

Jung, C. G. (1969). The transcendent function (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8, 2nd ed., pp. 67-91). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1958)

Coppin, J & Nelson, E. (2017). The art of inquiry. A depth-psychological perspective. Spring Publications. Thompson: Conn.

Jonson, R. (1971). Owning your own shadow. Understanding the dark side of the psyche. Harper One. New York: NY.

Blood Bond

The immediate value of dreams doesn’t come from explaining them, analyzing them, or following their overt or covert suggestions. It lies in re-entering them, living inside them, tasting and chewing them, until they become incorporated into the fabric of our waking hours (Lipsky, 2008, p. 14). 

When our course first began, this quote from our reading seemed abstract to me. It contained a promise that had yet to unveil itself, like a gift. I thought dreams were to be understood and utilized for personal gain and advancement of growth. Dreams were the powerful work animal and I was to harness them with my goals so that together, we’d super-quest and super-charge the individuation journey. But as I began the sincere work of keeping a new dream journal for class, I started to apply the coursework to my day-to-day dream interactions with exciting and disconcerting and dichotomous, paradoxical results. At every turn, I found alterations and mood swings and simultaneous explosions of exaltation and emotional destitution. The more I worked with my dreams, the more they resisted my ego’s greedy, acquisitive approach until I finally let go of the harness. At last, an organic, untethered way of the dream emerged of its own accord. Significant and astonishing was how letting go of the acquisitive approach permeated my entire consciousness. A corresponding psychological outlook spread across the horizon of my soul the way a few drops of blood beautifully flow and dissolve in water, fusing completely with its molecular structure. I think this is what is meant by re-entering a dream, living inside a dream, tasting and chewing a dream. 

In our course, we learned the craft and methods for dream work and of course, these are very useful. Associations, amplifications, and animation of dream figures, active imagination work, writing and speaking and dreaming in waking hours, developing a profound receptivity to the exceedingly subtle vibrations and messages of the unconscious—all these are powerful tools and important knowledge that I’ve come away with after taking this course. 

I have personally experienced the way dreams work together night after night, month after month, forming a series of linked narratives. What this tells me is that I am living my life in the unconscious in the same way that I am living my life in waking hours. In my dreams, I am growing and changing and evolving. In my dreams I am facing challenges, overcoming obstacles, questing and seeking, trying and giving up. In my dreams, I meet the darkness that cannot be named and also meet the strength and resilience I need to face it. Joseph Campbell says that when the truth is shoved down our throats, we choke on it—as do all people who meet true doctrine. Our course has taught me that my dreams are the true doctrine and sometimes I will choke on this truth. Even so, as it starts to go down, as it begins to be digested and assimilated, the truth of the dream spreads and becomes a powerful life force. It does so of its own accord, this work is not created by “me,” it is not manufactured by “me.” Dreams are real. I emanate outward from my dreams, not they from me. Indeed, this awareness has grown so pronounced that I feel in perfect kinship with Leonard Cohen who says:

Hold on, hold on my brother,
my sister, hold on tight. 
I finally got my orders: 
I’ll be marching through the morning,
marching through the night, 
moving cross the borders
of my secret life. 

For this is how it feels when dreamworld and waking world are fused in a bond of blood. A new, secret life emerges, powered by the prerogatives of the soul, where dreams have been “incorporated into the fabric of our waking hours.” This is where our course and the craft of dreamwork has led me—to a value in dreams that is no longer abstract, but immanent. 

I have crossed the border into a new land. There is no need to look back.

Lipsky, J. (2008). Dreaming together. Larson publications. Burdett:NY.