Plato's Myth of Er and the Goddesses of Fate

The archetype of fate is personified in the Greek mythological pantheon by three primordial goddesses—known as the Fates, or Moirai—said to be either the daughters of Ananke, the goddess of Necessity, or daughters of Night and Erebus. Sometimes they are even the daughters of Zeus. In fact, the question of their parentage, like that of many other gods and goddesses, remains inconclusive. This is because the psyche is inconclusive. It does not follow the same linear dualistic logic that human life follows. The psyche is infinite. It moves in all directions and is paradoxical—through its imaginal products it shows multiple faces and dimensions at one and the same time. As instinctual matter composed of psyche, the archetypes and their images are likewise intertwined with one another, often tightly conjoined, which results in an almost incestuous family line where everyone is related to everyone else. My area of focus will be on the Fates as they are portrayed in Plato’s myth of Er because, in my opinion, it gives us the most direct information possible about the mythical and religious expressions of the archetype of fate.

In the myth of Er, we are given the image of a huge shaft of light in the middle of the heavens. Inside this light, a massive woman, the goddess of Necessity sitting upon her throne, is holding a giant spindle from which is dangling eight nested whorls all rotating at different speeds and in different directions. The nested whorls create a flat surface upon which are found eight sirens, and, at equal distances along this same surface, the three Fates, each sitting upon a throne of her own. The sirens are all emitting a single note at perfect pitch and are furthermore moving in the direction and at the speed of their respective whorl. Together, they make one full octave, the famous music of the spheres. Using the thread from their mother’s spindle, the three goddesses weave the fate and destinies of reincarnating souls returning to life on earth. They are called Lachesis (lot or portion), Klotho (to twist and spin), and Atropos (un-turned, inflexible). The goddesses also sing as they work, Lachesis about the past, Klotho about the present, and Atropos about the future. The returning souls are given a lot by Lachesis, they then choose an image of a life (human or animal) and, under her supervision, also choose a daimon, or guardian angel, to accompany them for the duration. Next, they go to Klotho where the lot/image is twisted, knotted, ratified. Last, they meet Atropos who makes this choice irreversible by cutting the thread. The souls are then required to pass under the throne of Necessity and through the river of Lethe (forgetting) at which point their memories are wiped, whereas the daimon remembers (and carries) the soul image and so pushes the individual toward living out that pattern. This daimonic urging is what the Romantics named “the call of the heart.”

The thrones on which the goddesses sit suggest the idea of sovereignty. All four goddesses are considered to be Kore figures, unmarried, contained unto/within themselves, untouched, unassailable, located in a liminal sphere outside the space of mundane affairs. The etymology of the word Ananke connects her to ideas of angst, anxiety, and servitude to a higher power as in a yoke, a noose, or a neckband/collar of a slave. In all images, she is portrayed as stern, and immovable. The Fates, too, stand apart and, as triple moon goddesses, they suggest the passage of time through cycles of the moon and the three stages of a woman’s life—maiden, mother, crone. This may also symbolize the way the psyche itself lives life in stages of growth and decay. There is ultimately no doubt about the connection between time as an autonomous force and the fate encountered in life—it is wrapped on all sides by the temporal reality of death. The sirens are interesting. To my knowledge, nowhere else are sirens and the Fates shown working together so explicitly. Sirens are liminal threshold creatures whose song can either bewitch and destroy or elevate and exalt the soul, depending upon the character of the hearer. This adds a wonderful twist to the story, for James Hillman also explains that the way in which we imagine the events of our lives, those of childhood, for example, has a determining effect upon what we get. If we imagine a history of abuse we unwittingly enact and give rise to a victimized consciousness that is hampered by its own (limiting) imaginal thrust. I believe the sirens point to this subtlety of fate: how we see our fate directly influences the end result which can be psychological growth or rancid destruction. This is why the stoic philosophers encouraged the adoption of a practice called amor fati—the love of one’s fate. It would seem that fate is somewhat in our own hands, too, because, crucially, we are allowed to choose our daimon, which means we are allowed to choose how we imagine the life we are living. Our character, which is to say, our level of consciousness, is the deciding factor while our imagination is the key to freedom.

Considered psychologically, the goddesses point to the nature of the objective psyche, which is autonomous, ambivalent, mysterious, unknowable, a force unto itself. It has its own agenda, which is to keep the (cosmic) psychological action moving along. These forces are unmoved by outsiders just as complexes and archetypal forces are unmoved by egoic willpower. This is, in effect, C. G. Jung’s definition of god and points to why he believed that the unconscious together with its contents, the primordial archetypes, are essentially religious factors. Jung wrote that words such as “god” or “daimon” are synonyms for the unconscious (1989, p. 337) explaining further that “we cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are borderline concepts for transcendental contents” (Jung, 1952/1969, p. 330, [CW 11] para. 757). Indeed, it is precisely their evocative and overpowering compulsion that designates archetypal images as emissaries of a religious purpose that keeps life in motion, just as the goddesses of fate periodically reach down and rotate the whorls of the spindle of Necessity, keeping the cosmos (here, an imaginal expression of the objective psyche) in motion. In my view, this is the most significant aspect of fate—that, like the psyche, like god, it is an inescapable sovereign power. The etymology of the word, from the Latin, fata, suggests the idea of a word spoken—in the sense of a decree—by the gods. Thus, a decree of fate, the spoken word of the gods, cannot be avoided, re-turned, or undone. We are tied up in our fate, and this is often felt like a heavy burden since it brings with it inescapable limits and boundaries to which the heroic human ego is loath to submit.

Perhaps the most famous portrayal of the Fates in the arts comes to us through the immortal genius of Shakespeare (2014). The Weird Sisters in Macbeth are taken directly from mythical images of the Fates contained in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland published in 1577. Here, the Fates are portrayed as primeval liminal figures with the ability to prophesy. Holinshed likens them to fairies from a nonhuman netherworld which, in Scottish lore, are considered to be decidedly unwelcome harbingers of doom. Just as nonhuman archetypal forces (the gods) can act upon consciousness and compel it (through overpowering and numinous imaginal compulsions) to do its bidding, the Weird Sisters assail Macbeth with a series of images of personal power that set him upon a bloody path of murder leading to his ultimate demise. This is how the objective psyche works—through fantasy images—and Shakespeare’s portrayal of this psychological process is uncanny. First, he shows the immediate experience of anxiety Macbeth viscerally registers upon encountering the Weird Sisters and their prophecy. Banquo notices: “Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear/Things that do sound so fair?” (1.3.51-52). These archetypal figures appearing in a storm are clearly up to no good—Macbeth rightly responds with anxiety. Yet he cannot withstand their power and quickly goes from resistance to the idea of regicide planted in his mind: “that suggestion/whose horrid image doth unfix my hair” (1.3.134-135), to resignation and planning: “if it were done, when ’tis done, then t’were well/it were done quickly” (1.7.1). Here we see fate as an archetypal power depicted and experienced as an inexorable outer force working upon the human mind in unavoidable ways. The Weird Sisters thus symbolize the constraints imposed by an archetypal image when it is constellated in the psyche, i.e., the archetypal definition of fate.

It is noteworthy that Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most consistently performed play. It is obviously very much alive and relevant to contemporary culture. But in 1606 when it was first written, as now, the play’s enduring fascination lies squarely within the province of the Weird Sisters. They are the source of all fascination since they convey the inescapable archetypal reality every person secretly and intuitively grapples with: that my fate and I are intertwined in an irrevocable web of events and outcomes and that there is nothing for it but to embrace this truth and manifest destiny, whatever that may be. There is a sense of intensity and severity about the Weird Sisters and about fate in general which gives us pause. These images show the way the unconscious as “god” is an outside force that is not necessarily well-disposed toward us. We are put on notice that only through a combination of awareness about our own character (conscious versus unconscious status) and a humble sort of subservience to powers beyond our control can we come away somewhat unscathed. For the gods crucially grant us the power of imagination—our daimon, the carrier of our soul-image—and with those penetrating soul-eyes, we can imagine our way into a locus of humility where love and generosity become the highest ideals for a realized character.

References

Jung, C. G. (1969). Answer to Job (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11, 2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.proquest.com (Original work published 1952).

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

Shakespeare, W. (2014). Proudfoot, R & Thompson, A, & Kastan, D. S. (Eds.). The Arden Shakespeare complete works. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.

An Brief Introduction to Jungian Analytical Psychology

The Unconscious

Jungian psychology is based upon the premise that the psyche—the sum total of human consciousness—is real. The psyche is composed of two main areas: consciousness and the unconscious. Consciousness is a relatively small part of the psyche ruled by the ego. The unconscious, by contrast, is a much larger area of psychic reality characterized by its mysterious quality which always remains, on one level, entirely unknowable. C. G. Jung explained that the unconscious surrounds consciousness on all sides while Jolande Jacobi likened its depth and breadth to an inner cosmos which is as infinite as the outer one. The unconscious is, furthermore, intrinsically creative—it spontaneously generates images. Jung called this imaginal capacity of the psyche its myth-making function, for the unconscious is a creative storyteller, a transpersonal (nonhuman) realm teeming with potential life, as opposed to being only a repository for forgotten and repressed contents, as Freud believed. It is a living field of reality complete with its own autonomy typically manifested in symbolic and metaphorical primordial images that are inherent to its structure.

Structural and Psychodynamic Aspects of the Psyche

The potential for life contained in the unconscious is actualized through certain structural and psychodynamic realities such as complexes and archetypes. Jung defined complexes as clusters of feeling-toned images that congregate around a central (archetypal) nucleus such as “Mother.” A complex is formed when a traumatic event tears asunder two parts of ourselves creating a fringe or splinter identity with its own energetic reality, its own autonomy, and an uncanny ability to absorb the ego into itself causing a state of possession experienced as a temporary alteration of personality. Complexes are therefore typically distinguished by the disturbances and symptoms they cause in the normal functioning of conscious processes. Jacobi connects complexes to the teleological thrust of the psyche by pointing out that complexes must be raised up into consciousness and assimilated so that a redistribution of psychic energy (libido) takes place. In this way, complexes exert a generative influence upon the psyche, using an autonomous existence manifested (through personified form) in dreams to drum up a relational field between ego and the unconscious. Complexes are thus the building blocks of consciousness, carriers of psychic energy, holders of images and their symbolic content.

Fundamentally, complexes are emotional psychic creatures distinguished by their high affectivity, for their meaning is contained in the feeling function which remains opaque in the face of intellectual regard. It is important to mention, however, that for Jung, complexes were not only manifestations of pathological states (as they were for Freud) but also intrinsic to the psychology of healthy individuals. The nodal point of the complex, arising as it does from the realm beyond, is never pathological, but primordial and universal, for complexes arise out of the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes belong to the collective unconscious while complexes belong to the personal unconscious, which is where an archetype puts on the clothing of a personal content with specific significance for the individual encountering it.

Jung insisted that archetypes “as such”—which he saw as a priori psychological instincts that condition conscious apprehension—cannot be exactly defined for their nature is utterly mysterious and unknowable. This is because they abide in the collective unconscious which is a suprapersonal realm that lies beyond conscious rational understanding. They can only be known through their effects which manifest in metaphorical and symbolic images observed in dreams, fantasies, visions, mythology, and fairy tales. Archetypes possess a numinous power which, when translated into an imaginal experience in the conscious psyche, exerts a tremendous influence that, in effect, causes certain specific behaviors to arise. Archetypes are structural conditioning factors, autonomous, unalterable, and fundamental to the psyche. They are dynamic, alive, numinous, fascinating, powerful, mysterious, and, above all, as Jung insists, ambivalent. Archetypes take recognizable form only when they come into contact with the personal unconscious and its contents at which point they manifest in symbols. Classic Jungian complexes and archetypes defined as structural elements of the psyche are called Ego, Persona, Shadow, Anima/Animus, and the Self.

Phenomenal and Experiential Aspects of the Psyche

Jung has said that archetypes are akin to actionable psychic organizations which means that they have a role to play in the creation of consciousness. This has to do with what Jung has called the teleological aspect of the psyche—its inherent need to move toward a goal, which is the synthesis of conscious and unconscious realms into a state of equilibrium where the centering unit of consciousness, the ego, is grounded in and informed by the more profound centering unit of the total psyche—the archetype of the Self. To achieve this wholesome state of consciousness, which is what Jung called individuation, the objective psyche spontaneously generates symbolic images in order to communicate its intentions and needs to the conscious sphere. For life to be complete, external life must correspond with the imaginal and metaphorical version of it taking place on a symbolic level in the psyche. A sort of dialectic process therefore unfolds between conscious and unconscious spheres of psychic reality with symbols acting as the connecting bridge. Symbols shuttle the unknowns of the deep objective psyche into the realm of consciousness using images. Jungian images are not restricted to visual styles but encompass any spontaneous emanation from the deep psyche which can take the form of thoughts, ideas, emotions and affects, visions, sudden insights and inspirations, creative output of any kind, dreams, and rituals, to name a few. By interacting with these symbolic images through methods (reintroduced by Jung) such as active imagination, dreamwork, and ritual, the conscious ego is opened up to a broader level of consciousness as more and more unconscious knowledge comes up into the light of day, as it were, and becomes integrated into conscious awareness. This is what is meant by the idea of wholeness.

These dynamic psychological phenomena are experienced in personal life through the advent of our creative and emotional lives. It is as if we become aware of other persons, emotional beings, exerting an autonomous influence over us in the form of strange, inexplicable moods, sudden flashes of rage or sadness, melancholic ideas about the past or future, and creative abilities such as fluency with writing or painting or dance. But perhaps the most ubiquitous experience of the symbolic output of the psyche takes place each night when we enter the world of dreams. Dreams and their counterparts, myths, fairy tales, and poetry are essentially the symbolic language of the psyche writ large. It is through meaningful dialogue with this language and its speakers that we enlarge and expand the otherwise limited realm of consciousness. The images enrich our lives with meaning, endowing us with secret knowledge from beyond the limited human realm, which brings with it the numinous power of renewal, regeneration, and the fecundity inherent in transpersonal nature.

The Relationship Between Instinct and Spirit

In his investigations into the nature of archetypal phenomena, Jung needed to distinguish between instinctual behavioral patterns such as those we share with animals, and psychological patterns that appear to be only psychic. To this end he devised a model that put the total psyche, conscious and unconscious, on a scale with two opposite poles—on one end there is the purely physiological realm of instinct, on the other, the purely psychic, or spiritual, realm of archetypes. Consciousness can slide between these two extremes, taking on the qualities of one or the other. When consciousness has merged with the purely instinctual pole—the pole which Jung designates with the color infrared—an individual can be overcome by passions of the body such as overeating or pathological sexual drives. In the other extreme, when consciousness has merged with the purely spiritual (archetypal) pole—designated by the color ultraviolet—an individual may be persuaded that they are the lord savior or remain possessed by some other fanatical form of spiritual conviction. Jung believed that while spirit and instinct are polar opposites, they nevertheless exist together in a symbiotic and fruitful form of correspondence which, through tension producing dynamics in the psyche, generate the psychic energy needed for life, a dynamic Jung identified as the transcendent function. Spirit and instinct are thus contaminated with one another and are correlates that, in a sense, connect psyche with matter. Jacobi helpfully compares an archetype to the psychic aspect of brain structure and explains that instinct determines and regulates biological functioning while archetype determines and regulates psychological functioning. At either extreme end of the spectrum, there is the psychoid realm, which is a transpersonal dimension beyond the matter/psyche duality where archetypes as spiritual, nonorganic entities connect with physiological instincts and essentially become the same thing, thereby enacting the well-known alchemical image of an uroboros.

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.

Intimations of Alchemy

It seems fairly simple, really—as the mythical and symbolic presentation for the psychology of transformation, alchemy essentially draws a processional map that shows us how to stop remaining as brute beasts and start becoming awakened, compassionate, divine beings who are inherently wise and good. This transformation from beast to priest or priestess is the entire reason for human existence. To forego its achievement in the pursuit of power, wealth, fame, or other shallow frivolities is to forego one’s birthright which is a blissful, ecstatic, peaceful, and vibrant consciousness simultaneously unique, i.e., “thus come,” and in perfect oneness with the indivisible divine.

Alchemy is an allegory of the emergence of human freedom, which, according to Rollo May (1975), “involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our fate. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness” (p. 100). In other words, this transformation requires a high degree of personal responsibility (self-awareness) which manifests as anticipation, desire, effort, and focus. Each tussle with recurring anxiety, each unsettling dream, each uprising of emotional armies arrayed against us, each series of irrational impulses or obsessions, and each and every moment of unconscious projection functions as a day, a month, a year, a decade at work on creative divine emergence. It is precisely from within these psychological precincts of soul-pathology (nigredo) that a polished, refined, and purified product (lapis philosophorum) emerges, for our truest work is undertaken in myth and fantasy, in prayer, and in the realm of a mystically inclined molecular structure where elemental dances unfold like dragon-painted fans in the deft hands of a young maiko.

To achieve this transformation, ninth-century Zen master Yunmen advises to: “Make your whole body a mass of inquiry, and with your three hundred and sixty bones and joints and your eighty-four thousand hair follicles concentrate” (Aitken, 1991, p. 7) on your work of emergence, for the divine cannot live in impure (beastly) matter, the matter at hand must be altered. Or, as Rilke put it, “You must change your life.” Paracelsus and Dorn explain that “the denser, concretistic, daytime mind . . . reaches its limits; for . . . the ‘men of crasser temperament,’ . . . there is no way into the ‘untrodden, the untreadable regions’” (Jung, 1942/1967, p. 171, [CW 13] para. 210). Accordingly, for the ultimate mystery to materialize, material reality itself must become something else—less body, more soul and spirit. The former must be vanquished but without falling into the trap of concretistic literalism. Sri Aurobindo (1993) explains what happens when the process is complete, how delusions simply evaporate:

When the psychic being comes in front, there is an automatic perception of the true and the untrue, the divine and the undivine, the spiritual right and wrong of things, and the false vital and mental movements and attacks are immediately exposed and fall away and can do nothing; gradually the vital and physical as well as the mind get full of this psychic light and truth and sound feeling and purity . . . . (pp. 206-207)

A total revolution then, in body, mind, and spirit which transforms the very essence of the organism. It reminds me of Portia’s impassioned speech in The Merchant of Venice when she insists that “earthly power doth then show likest God’s, when mercy seasons justice” (4. 1. 194-195). We season ourselves with mercy, love, and truth so we become tender(ized) and calm. This is, I believe, what is meant by alchemical transformation.

Aitken, R. (1991). The gateless barrier: the Wu-men Kuan. New York, NY: North Point Press.
Aurobindo, S. (1993). The integral yoga. Sri Aurobindo’s teaching and method of practice. Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Light Publications.
Jung, C. G. (1967). Paracelsus as a spiritual phenomenon (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 13, pp. 109-189). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1942)
May, R. (1975). The courage to create. New York, NY: Northam.

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) 

One Ring To Rule Them All

Lord of the Rings (1954) presents a multivalent universe of characters, ideas, and myths—it is quintessentially polytheistic. But what about Sauron? He is a man with one plan, one vision (the single eye), one definition, one idea—one ring. The others have many rings and plans and lands and insignia and cultural bents. The others are all different, with different histories, different proclivities, different physiognomies, foods, customs, and traditions, a veritable archetypal panoply. But Sauron wants to rule over them, bring them all together and “in the darkness bind them.” Why? Because “the logic of monotheism attempts to override” particularities; it focusses on “a single and empty abstraction that can contain all things” (Hillman, 2013, p. 157). Sauron wants to obliterate the multiplicities and replace them with the one vision. This is the way of the ego, too, in each of our lives. 

The danger of literalizing transforms a mother complex vis a vis the son, enforcing a degeneration of puer consciousness into the overcoming/subservient hero/ego. The mother as Great Goddess when made literal becomes the monotheistic complex, the one drive (one ring to rule them all) that defines all subsequent behavior. Yet the son, the hero, the puer, and the mother each contain and point to multitudes of possibilities for “the archetypes do not so much rule realms of being as they, like the gods, rule all at once and together the same realm of being” (Hillman, 2013, p. 127). There can simply be no son, hero, puer, or mother existing independently from one another. They coexist simultaneously as do all the gods, all the complexes, all the afflictions. Attributing values to archetypes is a fantasy of the ego (p. 111) and serves to dislocate the vision of experience inside a relic consciousness now solidified because of being “condemned to a single view” (p. 127). 

Hillman, J. (2013). Archetypal psychology. Uniform edition of the writings of James Hillman vol. 1. Putnam, CT: Spring Publications. 

Hillman, J. (2013). Senex and puer. Uniform edition of the writings of James Hillman vol. 5. Putnam, 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. 

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.

A Shallow Reservoir of Faith

An essential connection between the loss of a symbolic perspective and the inevitable existential crisis which follows is the absence of a healthy bridge mediating between the two centers of consciousness in the human psyche, namely, the conscious and unconscious minds, which are centered by the Ego and the Self, respectively.

In our unexamined post-Enlightenment haste to adapt to a world ruled only by rational thought, we destroyed the ancient and elaborate tapestry of symbolic systems together with the ancestral threads connecting us to it, creating a dangerously unsustainable situation where we no longer comprehend the meaning nor the potential outcomes of events in our lives, personally or collectively. In Man and His Symbols (1964), Jung wrote:

Modern man does not understand how much his rationalism (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic “underworld.” He has freed himself from “superstition” (or so he believes), but in the process, he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in worldwide disorientation and dissociation. (p. 84)

As one current example, I offer the attached image, which I found in the New York Review of Books article also listed here. It’s about cyber and information warfare and mentions how the United States “is currently working with an extremely shallow reservoir of faith” as a way of explaining our vulnerability to the power of misinformation. That is, we have lost faith in the symbolism of Democracy which once buoyed us, and so—dangerously—can no longer tell the difference between truth and lies.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-beware-big-five/

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.