Enantiodromia

Carl Jung (Photo credit: o admirador secreto)

Enantiodromia is a process outlined by the depth psychologist C. G. Jung in which one psychological modality is said to naturally flow into its apparent opposite or polar complementary.

Jung believed that nature, and by implication mankind, is self-directed toward a union of opposites. So he forwarded what could be regarded as a Jungian doctrine (some might say dogma) of psychological integration, balance and wholeness.

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Empath

The Empath (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An empath is a person who apparently recognizes, understands and possibly feels the emotions of another person or possibly living beings and organisms, such as animals and plants. Different schools of thought variously try to explain the phenomenon of empathy.

Psychologists say that the empath physiologically copies another person’s emotions based on observable cues. Religious perspectives believe the empath feels another’s emotions due to a mystical connection among all people (some mystical schools would extend this to all living beings, organisms and even inorganic material like rocks, gems, and stones).

In contrast to the psychological explanation for empathy, some mystics claim to know another’s thoughts and/or feel their emotions – called the reading of hearts in Catholicism – near or at a distance with no observable cues.

Reading of Hearts. The knowledge of the secret thoughts of others or of their internal state without communication is known as reading of hearts. The certain knowledge of the secret thoughts of others is truly super-natural, since the devil has no access to the spiritual faculties of men and no human being can know the mind of another unless it is in some way communicated. But knowledge of the secrets of another’s heart may be conjectured by the devil and transmitted to a person, or they may be surmised by a deluded individual who takes his conjectures to be supernatural illuminations.¹

Estimating the prevalence of the gift of empathy is difficult for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that many people wouldn’t want to talk about their empathetic abilities for fear of ridicule. Not surprising then that the psychiatrist Carl Jung said that most individuals are unwilling to talk about their experience of the paranormal because of potential repercussions.

Empaths are differentiated from psychopaths. Apparently psychopaths often can sense another person’s feelings but try to use that ability to manipulate and exploit. Empaths, on the other hand, try to use their perceptions for the common good.

The idea of empathy has been thoroughly explored in science fiction and fantasy. At top right of this entry we see a scene from the 1968 Star Trek episode called The Empath.²

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¹ AUMANN, J. “Mystical Phenomena.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 105-109. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.

² Fair dealing / fair use rationale of this low-res copyright image.

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Mircea Eliade

Stamp of Moldova; Mircea Eliade (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) was a Romanian scholar, fluent in eight languages, who authored seminal works on the history of world religions and mythology. He is perhaps best known for his studies on shamanism, yoga, and alchemy. Eliade also edited the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Religion. And The Eliade Guide to World Religions (1991) offers a concise summary of his scholarly publications.

While some critics of Eliade’s work say it’s overly selective, it’s difficult to find a researcher who isn’t selective. Critics also say that Eliade superimposes grand theory on his research data. This seems a more reasonable charge, but the inevitability of subjectivity arguably lessens the impact of this criticism.

Eliade also wrote works of fiction, saying that he had no choice when the artistic muse struck him. He simply had to follow, alternating between the international scholar and budding author. With this kind of outlook it’s not surprising that Eliade was on good terms with C. G. Jung, Joseph Campbell and others of like mind.

Eliade’s scholarly views, however, sometimes differed from those of Jung and Campbell, a fact that he handled quite diplomatically, always politely disagreeing and never alienating them from the scholarly circle that met annually at the Switzerland Eranos conferences.

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Ego

Image credit - UggBoy♥UggGirl via Flickr

In Sigmund Freud‘s psychoanalysis, the ego is the conscious, structured and reasoned aspect of the id. The ego is not present at birth but emerges from the id, acting as mediator between the often conflicted demands of the id and the superego.

In Carl Jung‘s analytical psychology, the ego is a highly continuous “complex of ideas which constitutes the centre of [one's] field of consciousness.” As the psyche’s “point of reference,” the ego’s partly biological component is offset by cultural influences. Its function is to balance the forces of the collective unconscious, the personal unconscious, external society as well as ethically good and destructive influences from both internal and external stimuli.

Jung borrows from Aristotle‘s idea of ‘effects from a First Cause’ by saying that the ego stands in relation to the self as “moved to the mover.” The ego is said to arise from and, in some cases, is at risk of being overtaken by the collective unconscious (as in inflation). Jung claims that many people mistakenly regard their egos as the total self. To compensate for this limited perspective, the collective unconscious tends to assert itself. Because of the almost limitless power of the collective unconscious, this can be a tricky time for the ego, which must represent the forces of the unconscious through language, symbols or art to maintain its autonomy.

In comparing industrialized mankind to so-called primitives, Jung sees the Western ego as a high achievement of humanity (recall that Jung is writing during the modern period). He says that the egos of modern individuals are better differentiated and less luminous than those of their, as he sometimes implies, cruder ancestors. Although no longer wholly identified with the numinous, modern egos are surrounded by a “multitude of little luminosities”–-that is, the unconscious affords different ‘lights’ to ego consciousness without overtaking it entirely. And different individuals exhibit different lights from the unconscious.

Although offering an important alternative to the psychoanalytic wisdom of the day, Jung tends to make sweeping generalizations about the ‘normal’ Western ego, revealing that he too, at least in part, is a product of his times. And his archetypal theory tends to downplay the idea of wholly spiritual influences from above, or at least, constrain these influences into his somewhat limiting theory.

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Fatalism

choose determinism by alyceobvious via Flickr

Fatalism (also called determinism) is the philosophical and religious belief that life (and by implication history) is strictly predetermined or unalterable, governed by the laws of necessity. There’s no room for free will here. All apparent choices are perceived as resulting from past influences.

Some who believe in the illusion of free will argue that fatalism and the belief in free will are the same. The argument goes as follows:

Most theologians will tell you that you are free to choose but God knows in advance how you are going to choose. That means that you may believe you’re choosing but your’re really not. Why? Well, because God created you in the first place, knowing, all along, how you’d make your choices in life.

So where’s the free will? critics of the belief in free will will ask.

Defenders of the belief in free will usually reply as follows, appealing to ethics:

God made human beings free, otherwise they would be of no value. The presence of evil in the world enables us to learn why it’s good to choose the Good and shun the bad. If we didn’t have free will, we’d be no better than mindless machines.¹ And God, being Good, made us better than machines. That is, God made us free.

I might add to this debate that the fatalist critique about God creating us in the first place is an argument bound up in the human idea of linear time. The Swiss psychiatrist and thinker Carl Jung falls into this trap when talking about God in his Answer to Job. Jung is not strictly a fatalist but his many comments about God complicate his outlook. Sometimes he seems like an innovative Christian. Other times he comes off like a New Age pantheist. And when talking about being inconsistent, he simply asks, “who isn’t inconsistent?”

I mention Jung’s approach because it highlights the difference between those who have it all figured out by an official church teaching vs. those who want to figure things out for themselves. That is, Jung illustrates the difference between the passive acceptance of dogma² vs. individual investigation. Interestingly enough, each camp tends to demonize the other.

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¹ This argument is now complicated by the fact that some software can appear to learn and “choose” new routines. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning

² This in contrast to those who say they accept dogma after much thought and experience, all of which, they say, supports the dogma. An example here would be someone who believes they receive a revelation about the Christian Trinity. Also, some say that the belief in a dogma is a “divine gift” (without the need for a great revelation), so this debate can get complicated.

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Guiley, Rosemary Ellen

Example of a subject in a Ganzfeld experiment via Wikipedia

Rosemary Ellen Guiley (19?? – ) is an American researcher, author and broadcaster on paranormal phenomena. Dr. Guiley promotes awareness of the paranormal. At her website she writes that her “driving purpose is to help further our understanding of our place and role in the cosmic scheme” (visionaryliving.com). She also addresses issues like communicating with the dead and dealing with malevolent spirits.

This is all very interesting stuff. Unfortunately, it’s still difficult for most people to understand because of the inherent difficulties in the public verification of paranormal reports. In addition, some materialist or (ironically enough) religious reactionaries tend to cast aspersions on anyone interested in trying to understand the paranormal—even though the very same people will often delight at movies like The Exorcist.¹

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¹ The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, of course, would say that the horror movie watcher is momentarily fascinated by the archetype of the shadow. For Jung this is not unhealthy. But in some destructive instances, if left unconscious the shadow archetype apparently can erupt and compel non-integrated individuals to behave in a manner harmful to self or others.

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Great Mother

A silver female statuette, possibly representing mother goddess, from tombs in Alacahöyük, an archaeological site in Turkey via Noumenon at Wikipedia

The Great Mother is an umbrella concept referring to the idea of “The Goddess” and different major goddesses around the world, usually but not necessarily related to vegetation, and by implication, fertility.

The celebrated archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) argued that behind all representations of prehistoric goddesses lies a single, Great Goddess.

Gimbutas identified diverse Paleolithic and Neolithic female representations that she believed depicted a single universal Great Goddess. She also recognized that these complex representations stood for a range of female deities (e.g. snake goddess, bee goddess, bird goddess, mountain goddess, Mistress of the Animals) that were not necessarily ubiquitous throughout Europe.¹

In a tape entitled “The Age of the Great Goddess,” Gimbutas discusses the various manifestations of the Goddess which occur, and stresses the ultimate unity behind them all of the Earth as feminine.¹

A mother goddess statuette from Canhasan, which is an archaeological site in Turkey. This figurine, along with other mother goddess figurines found in Canhasan, is thought to be an evidence of a continual matriarchal society in central Anatolia during the Chalcolithic age - via Noumenon at Wikipedia

Gimbutas also believed that excavations from Neolithics sites in Europe and Lithuania suggest a society were women were dominant, in both the worldly and spiritual sense. Her views, although still debated among scholars, gave great impetus to aspects of the feminist movement, mostly among woman scholars, academics and intellectuals who shared her point of view.

Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother adopts Carl Jung‘s view that the Great Mother is an archetype expressing the anima.

The term was also used in the ancient world to refer to nurturing, life-affirming female deities worshipped in public places.

While in prison awaiting his execution, Boethius (circa 480-525) wrote Consolation of Philosophy, in which he’s visited by a female apparition called Philosophy. Boethius’ “eternal feminine” comforter and guide conforms to Jung’s idea of the anima, as does James Lovelock‘s choice of the name Gaia (Greek Mother Goddess) to depict his view that the earth behaves as if it were a self-contained living organism.

La Gran'mère du Chimquière, the Grandmother of Chimquiere, the statue menhir at the gate of Saint Martin's church is an important prehistoric site in the parish via Wikipedia

In the contemporary and ancient sense, the Great Mother has a terrible side, wreaking vengeance and punishment on the sinful. In India, the bloodthirsty goddesses Kali and the bellicose Durga are regarded by many as manifestations of the Great Mother.

The Virgin Mary is often wrongly placed in this category, described by non-Catholics as a goddess. But representations of Kali and Mary, for instance, reveal clear differences. Kali, mouth dripping with blood, wears a garland of human heads which she has decapitated, whereas Mary stands serenely on top of creation (and the serpent), disseminating God’s graces from her hands. And there are still regular animal sacrifices at the Kali temple in Kolkata (where the distasteful odor of animal blood certainly did not elevate this author’s mind and soul to high places).

Other differences between Mary and non-Christian goddesses are more subtle. Mary and the goddess Isis, for instance, are both represented suckling their sons, and the Chinese bodhisattva, Kwan-Yin, also holds an infant. But, despite their representational similarities, the religious beliefs and metaphysical implications behind these female deities differ significantly.

In the simplest terms, Mary is a venerated saint who intercedes for God, while The Goddess is the source of all creation—that is, God or a manifestation of God.

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¹ The first citation is a paraphrase of a passage at Wikipedia that could have been written more clearly. The second, a direct quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marija_Gimbutas

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Geertz, Clifford James

Clifford Geertz 1926-2006 by xeeliz via Flickr

Clifford James Geertz (1926-2006) was an influential American anthropologist. He’s best known for his The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), which outlines the importance of symbolic thought and communication in the generation and reproduction of cultures.

Geertz argues for a so-called ‘thick interpretation’ of symbols instead of a ‘thin’ one. By this he means that anthropologists should interpret symbolic meanings within the context of a given culture. So instead of postulating the idea of inherited universals, as Carl Jung did with his theory of archetypes, Geertz wants to see how language and symbolic thought reflect and inform everyday life.

While Geertz is to be applauded for his desire to understand people within the context of their cultures, just how this is done without subjective bias remains an important question for anthropologists.

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Shakti Gawain

Abstract - by Matthew Burpee via Flickr

Shakti Gawain is a contemporary American spiritualist and author who lives in California. Her books have sold over 10 million copies.¹ The most popular of her publications are Creative Visualization and Living in the Light, although she has penned several others. ²

Gawain writes about how she spent time working as a cleaning lady before she became a popular spiritual teacher. She believes that positive attitude and expectation create a positive reality. She also advocates an eclectic approach to living in relation to the Divine, an approach which includes prayer, chant, meditation, and the “creative visualization” of desired outcomes.

Just how effective creative visualization really is remains a matter of debate. Many visualizers’ visualizations seem to fall flat—that is, they just don’t happen. Some common explanations for the failure of a visualization to come about are “the time wasn’t right” or “I didn’t focus well enough” and so on.³

But for Gawain, it seems that her visualizations for prosperity did come about.

Sympathetic to Carl Jung’s idea of synchronicity, Gawain rejects the Eastern belief in reincarnation on the grounds that it’s a limiting man-made theory. Along the lines of the (some would say pioneering) channeler Jane Roberts, Gawain stresses the importance of living in the present while recognizing past influences.

Most recently, her website stresses the importance of balancing work and play, along with responsibilities to self and others.

I am finding a balance in my life of work and play, of my responsibilities to others and to myself.⁴

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¹ http://www.shaktigawain.com/about

² See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti_Gawain

³ Another explanation could be that the personal desire wasn’t in line with God’s will. But we don’t hear that one too much from creative visualizers because they usually (and almost dogmatically) claim that we create our own reality.

⁴ http://www.shaktigawain.com

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Holy Grail

"How at the Castle of Corbin a maiden bare in the Sangreal and foretold the achievements of Galahad via Wikipedia

The Holy Grail is the chalice that, according to legend, Christ and his disciplines drank from at the Last Supper. Joseph of Arimathea is said to have placed drops of Christ’s blood in the Grail before taking it to Glastonbury.

In Arthurian legend the cup is named Sangreal and was pursued by the Knights of the Round Table after it miraculously appeared at Pentecost, just above King Arthur’s famous Round Table.

Some scholars believe that the archetypal “Holy Cup” may have appeared in pre-Christian Celtic myth but by the 12^th century the Grail was well established in medieval romantic literature. The most popular of these is Chrétien de Troyes and Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie. But the idea first emerged in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes.

The Grail is first featured in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes, who claims he was working from a source book given to him by his patron, Count Philip of Flanders. In this incomplete poem, dated sometime between 1180 and 1191, the object has not yet acquired the implications of holiness it would have in later works. While dining in the magical abode of the Fisher King, Perceval witnesses a wondrous procession in which youths carry magnificent objects from one chamber to another, passing before him at each course of the meal. First comes a young man carrying a bleeding lance, then two boys carrying candelabras. Finally, a beautiful young girl emerges bearing an elaborately decorated graal, or “grail.”¹

The depth psychiatrist Carl Jung saw the Grail as a symbol of the eternal self, and other Jungians have gone into an elaborate archetypal analysis of the Grail story, conforming their interpretations to Jung’s theories.

More recently some treat the Holy Grail as historical fact instead of fiction or psychological fact. And new legends have arisen from that. But to most, complicated metaphysical Holy Grail theories, old and new, are at best legends intended to inspire. The more recent of these could also be calculated attempts to sell books to gullible consumers always on the watch for some ephemeral fascination.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Grail#Beginnings_in_literature

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Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes

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