Rona

Moody Moon: Road Fun

In Oceanic myth Rona is a fierce female cannibal who eats her beautiful daughter’s lover.

In another Oceanic myth Rona is a god who fights the moon to rescue his abducted wife.

According to this story, as the moon tires from the battle, it wanes. When the moon begins to regain its strength, it waxes.

This is an excellent example of what we might call alternative logic. The depth psychologist C. G. Jung noted that archaic myths are just as logical and meaningful to primitives as scientific explanations are to moderns.

Jung says he treated so called primitive peoples with respect and, when interviewing local elders and tribesmen, didn’t challenge their beliefs or try to convert them to a modern scientific perspective.

This probably was a wise move on Jung’s part. Imagine if advanced extraterrestrials came to Earth who could see beyond our commonly held understanding of directional time and the apparent solidity of physical matter, these beliefs so important to the psychological security and workings of 21st century mankind. If the ETs showed us too much too fast they’d likely “blow our minds” (or at least most of our minds), as David Bowie put it in the song “Starman.”

And Jung would have likely disrupted archaic people’s psychological wellness had he tried to convince them that, for instance, the sun’s rising wasn’t dependent upon contemplation and sacrifice¹ but, rather, a natural process due to the Earth’s rotation.

This whole issue raises important questions concerning the assumptions we tend to have about our current cosmologies and their relation to the idea of progress.

—

¹ Jung actually interviewed an elder who held these beliefs.

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Syntonic Counter-Transference

Watch Over me: stonethestone

Syntonic Counter-Transference

In depth psychology this is a type of transference suggested by Michael Fordham in 1957 where the analyst enters into a kind of “primitive identidy” with the patient.

Apparently the analyst senses the patient’s unconscious feelings, usually at the same time as the patient but sometimes before the patient becomes conscious of them.

Clearly a mysterious and extremely difficult hypthothesis to verify, SC-T nonetheless raises questions that figures like Stanislav Grof and C. G. Jung have examined within their respective schools of transpersonal psychiatry and analytical psychology.

Another problem with the theory is that in some instances it might assume a sort of grandiose expertise on the part of the analyst, as if he or she comes to the correct realization about the supposed truth of the dynamic before the client does.

The potential for psychological abuse relating to a dysfunctional relationship and misplaced trust in the analyst and his or her ideas is arguably no small matter here.

To counteract this problem, responsible therapists speak of a “therapeutic relationship” where both doctor and client learn something from one another while maintaining emotional objectivity.

This is the ideal, of course. It’s a well known fact that Jung himself had an affair with Sabina Spielrein, one of his clients.

On the Web:

• Some thoughts on  Transference: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/mstaples/thoughts_on_transference.html

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Symbol

THE POWER OF LOVE: Material Boy / Aart van Bezooyen

Symbol

M. H. Abrams says that at the most fundamental level a symbol is anything that signifies something else.

Abrams also notes that a distinction is often made between the public and private symbol. The public symbol, such as the cross, is apparently understood by everyone in a given culture whereas the private symbol, such as an obscure poetic allusion, isn’t.

This distinction, however, seems open to debate: Surely not everyone in a given culture interprets the cross in the same way.

In literature a symbol is

a word or phrase that signifies an object or event which in turn signifies something, or suggests a range of reference, beyond itself (A Glossary of Literary Terms, 2005, p. 320).

In depth psychology, Carl Jung says the symbol is a meaningful image that mediates healing or destructive forces from the collective unconscious to ego consciousness–for example, the symbol of the Cross or Serpent.

Jung says symbols arise from the unknowable archetypes but are recognized as archetypal images. Archetypes interpenetrate among themselves; likewise, archetypal images are discrete but exhibit similarities. For Jung the flow of psychic energy between the collective unconscious and the symbol is a two-way process.

Jungian Erich Neumann says that the symbol acts as both as an “energy transformer” and as a “moulder of consciousness.” As an energy transformer the symbol facilitates the ego’s experience of the numinous, arising from the collective unconscious. As a moulder of consciousness, the symbol operates on the level of collective consciousness by contributing to the ideology of a given culture.

Jung says the interconnected conscious and unconscious aspects of humanity cannot be severed. He’s widely quoted as saying in The Undiscovered Self (1958): 

You can take away a man’s gods, but only to give him others in return.

Likewise, political leaders of the mass state cannot avoid being glorified or demonized. This occurs through brute force, clever calculation and also through public fascination and projection.

Jung believes, for example, that a mass-produced placard image of Joseph Stalin expresses an archetypal force articulated on the conscious level that both sways and oppresses individuals.

Skyscrapers: swisscan / Reto Fetz

A more contemporary example would be the disempowering psychological effect that massive bank towers (symbolizing ‘Big Business’) have on the poor and disenfranchised. And in ancient cultures such as Greece, Rome and Egypt, impressive architecture apparently had a similar effect on slaves, the exploited, the underprivileged and on less powerful visitors from foreign cultures.

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Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf - Born to Be Wild: Mark Sardella

(1) A Canadian rock band popular in the 1960s to early 1970s, credited with being the very first heavy metal band because the single, “Born to be Wild,” included in its lyrics the phrase “heavy metal thunder.”

Other hits include “Magic Carpet Ride,” which describes a sort of psychedelic mysticism, and a slow moving song called “The Pusher” that seems to condone marijuana use but condemns heavier addictive drugs, such as heroine. In this song addicts are said to be “walkin round with tombstones in their eyes.”

The band still tours and has sold some 25 million records worldwide. Steppenwolf’s music has been used in approximately 50 motion pictures.

Steppenwolf: @BB

(2) Steppenwolf is also an introspective novel by Hermann Hesse that explores the Jungian idea of the shadow, and to which the rock band most likely owes its name.

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Spock

Can Art 14 (Spock): Matthew Niemi

Spock

In the TV Star Trek: The Original Series Mr. Spock is a Vulcan science officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, played by actor Leonard Nimoy.

As Captain Kirk’s right hand man, he plays an important role as the only non-human crew member.

Spock’s father was Vulcan and his mother human. As such he has an internal conflict between suppressing his emotions, which Vulcans are known for, and permitting their expression, as human do.

While this was a clever idea back in the 1960s, the notion that any species would try to live purely on logic, as Vulcans claim to do, seems impractical. Along these lines, the Swiss depth psychiatrist C. G. Jung advocated the integration of thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition (albeit for human beings).

When Star Trek first appeared in 1966, Spock’s skin was reddish in color, he looked more devilish and his speech was somewhat rough. He originally conformed to the “red Martian” stereotype of the 1950s and 60s. But Trek producers quickly became interested in developing a more complex character and Spock’s appearance softened.

His looks became more elfin than devilish and he began to harbor intense emotions under the fragile veneer of Vulcan rationality. The changes paid off. At times Spock’s popularity rivaled Kirk’s. The Vulcan psychological, cultural and even political tension between logic and emotion is also brought out in Star Trek: Enterprise through the female character, T’Pol.

In 2009 the hit movie, Star Trek, directed by J. J. Abrams brought Spock back into the spotlight. This time he’s both an old (played by an elderly Leonard Nimoy) and a young man (played by Zachary Quinto). The fact that Leonard Nimoy is showcased in this blockbuster film while William Shatner (who played the original Captain Kirk) isn’t is perhaps telling as to Spock’s ongoing popularity and cultural significance in the 21st century.

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Serpent

Serpent to Rain by roctopus

Serpent

The serpent is a symbol found in most mythological and religious traditions around the world.

Similarities in meaning exist as do important differences.

In Jewish and Christian accounts of Eden, the serpent is the “most subtle” of all creatures that tempts Eve into disobeying God’s command to not eat of the tree of knowledge. Eve then seduces Adam into eating and mankind is expelled from the Garden of Eden and cursed to forever suffer and work.

The Biblical Leviathan was a great sea serpent, “the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1).

In India, the kundalini (Skt: coiled like a snake) represents serpent power that is awakened by carefully opening a series of chakras (body/psyche points of power).

India also has a naga cult with widespread devotees who worship a demi-god cobra with a human face.

The snake is also regarded as a healer in some Native American traditions.

Serpent devouring a man (Detail from Aztec calendar)

In Mexican mythological art, a giant serpent is often depicted as swallowing a human being, usually head-first.

Australian aboriginal myths also talk of the serpent “swallowing up people and animals” (Mythology: An Illustrated Encyclopedia ed. Richard Cavendish, 2003, Time Warner Books, p. 211).

This might bear a symbolic relation to the Biblical notion that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). That is, the inferior aspects of the human personality must be purged, symbolically devoured or sent to hell so the superior may further develop.

The logo for contemporary western medicine is a snake coiled around a pole, a symbol derived from ancient Greece, as evident in engravings of Aesculapius, c. 100 BCE, where a serpent is coiled around his staff. This symbol is often mistakenly linked to the Greek Caduceus, displayed in myth as a two serpents wound around a staff, sometimes with wings.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung was interested in the Ouroboric serpent, a symbol derived from Gnosticism in which the snake forms a circle by biting its own tail. For Jung this is a mandala, symbolizing his understanding of self wholeness.

The above examples only scratch the surface of serpent symbolism, a topic too diverse to treat adequately here. Nevertheless, J. E. Cirlot suggests that one commonality present among numerous serpent symbols is the representation of psychic energy. And Philip Gardiner argues that snake symbolism as a whole is dualistic, containing elements of salvation and destruction.

» Apollo, Kundalini, Persephone, Shakti

• Articles and Reviews about “serpent” at earthpages.org » http://epages.wordpress.com/?s=serpent

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Numinous

Numinous

The term numinous is often said to have been coined by the German Lutheran scholar Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) to describe a personal experience of spiritual power.

But in 1647 Nathaniel Ward wrote in The simple cobler of Aggawam in America:

The Will of a King is very numinous; it hath a kinde of vast universality in it.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

The term is derived from the Latin numen, usually translated as “the presence of a god or goddess” or the “will, manifestation or power of a deity.”

The most ancient example is in a text of Accius cited by Varro: “Alia hic sanctitudo est aliud nomen et numen Iouis” (“Here, the holiness of Jupiter is one thing, the name and power of Jupiter another.”

Schilling, Robert. “Numen.” Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 10. 2^nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 6753-6754. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale.

For Otto, numinosity originates from outside the self but is perceived within. A higher process than the magical, the numinous takes many forms. It has primitive, daemonic and dark as well as elevated, noble and pure aspects.

Otto calls the absolute and purest experience of the numen “the Holy.” This high aspect of the numinous involves an experience marked by a feeling of “Awefulness,” “Overpoweringness,” “Energy” or “Urgency.”

Sometimes Otto implies that the numinous is identical among all religions. Other times he reveals a Christian bias, suggesting that the numinosity experienced through the Bible and by various Christian mystics is absolute and pure.

From today’s standards, Otto’s definition of numinosity might seem a bit vague and unsystematic. But his work is regarded as a milestone and continues to have a profound influence in depth psychology and comparative religion.

The term numinous is also used by C. G. Jung to depict a spiritual experience involving some kind of alteration of ego-based consciousness (i.e. “altered states”).

For Jung, the experience of numinosity arises when an archetype of the collective unconscious is activated. Depending on combined factors such as the condition of the psyche, the stability of the ego and the archetypal source, numinosity may be either psychologically healing or destructive.

Joseph Campbell says that numen has parallel terms in the “Melanesian mana, Dakotan wakon, Ironquoian orenda and Algonquian manitu.”

But it would be unwarranted to suppose that these terms necessarily point to identical spiritual forces and related experiences.

Along these lines, the Romanian scholar, Mircea Eliade says that numinosity exhibits a diversity of intensities, qualities and effects. And Deidre Sklar adds from the perspective of dance:

While the experience alternately called presence, or unity, or numinosity may be the same across spiritual traditions, “ways of doing” are different. Presence comes in a multitude of flavors. “The virgin,” is different than “Buddha” or “God the Father.” Kneeling in prayer before the virgin is a different bodily experience than sitting cross-legged in meditation. Both the natures of the divinities and the ritual practices performed in their names are elaborated in distinct communities to do different work upon soma.

Deidre Sklar, “Reprise: On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 Summer, 2000: 70-77, p. 72.

Sigmund Freud saw the numinous in terms of a person recalling the unified “oceanic bliss” that everyone apparently felt within the mother’s womb. Perhaps Freud’s greatest shortcoming was his inability – or perhaps unwillingness – to study religion on its own terms, at its own level of experience.

Before Otto, Jung, Campbell, Eliade and Freud, the philosopher Immanuel Kant spoke to a realm of the noumena. Kant said we cannot know the character of the noumena but may ascertain its existence by virtue of the “intelligible order of things” in the empirical world of phenomena.

Kant’s noumena may point to a source of numinous experience but it is not the numinous itself.

Mystics from various traditions write about different numinous experiences. And even within a single tradition descriptions of the numinous vary dramatically in terms of both quality and intensity.

Consider, for example, the ordinary churchgoer who claims to feel an invisible presence of peace on entering a Church as compared to the full-fledged saint who speaks of various all-absorbing states of numinous rapture.

In Paradise Lost John Milton depicts Satan’s dismay when he sees the gloom of hell that he’s traded for the light of heaven.

“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,” Said then the lost archangel, “this the seat That we must change for Heaven, this mournful gloom For that celestial light?”

At Earthpages.org:

• An Outline of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy
• C. G. Jung and Numinosity
• Celibacy, Sex and Spirituality

» Archetypal Image, Aurobindo (Sri), Ego, Holy, Inflation, Jackson, (Michael), Joachim of Fiore, Mysticism, Numen, “Numinosity,” Paranoia, Participation Mystique, Power, Psychosis, Ramakrishna (Sri), Religion, Sargon, Symbol, Teresa of Avila (St.) Kowalska (Faustina Helen, St). Vampires, Vulcan

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Shadow

The Black Sun by Matias Loyola

Shadow

In the psychology of C. G. Jung, the shadow is the unconscious, evil side of human nature.

The shadow is said to be one of the first aspects of the unconscious psyche encountered in Jungian analysis.

Apparently its positive side is expressed through creativity and humor. According to this view, representation of the shadow’s dark tendencies in non-violent, socially acceptable channels (e.g. art, music or controlled ‘acting out’) facilitates mastering them.

Otherwise, Jung says the shadow could conceivably control the ego.

If merely repressed, Jung further says the shadow might find a way through the cracks of the psyche and momentarily express itself in a disturbing manner.

This might account for the cruel actions toward children by Sister Francesca at the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa.

Another version of the shadow comes as a comic strip, pop culture figure, “Only the shadow knows…” And more recently, the Canadian science fiction TV program, Lexx, features ‘His Divine Shadow’ as the archdeacon of darkness.

At Earthpages.org:

• Throwing Light on the Shadow: C. G. Jung’s Answer to Evil

» Archetype, Darth Vader, Demons, Dracula, Hesse (Hermann), Kafka (Franz), Self, Steppenwolf, Trickster, Vampires, Witch, Yoni

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Self

sTURM UND dRANG (Self Portrait) by Artwerk / Yanko

Self

The human self, being the basis of personal identity, has been variously understood.

Some say the self is the agency that says “I.” This is the conceptual, reflective part of ourselves that apparently remains unchanged from the first time to as long as one can think of the idea of “I.”

In psychological terms this is the ego, not to be confused with egotism or egoism. Theorists subscribing to this view often reject any kind of transcendental, unchanging core to selfhood.

Others suggest that individuals possess multiple selves. Here the self is viewed as “the personality or organization of traits” (J. P. Chaplin, Dictionary of Psychology, Bantam 1985, p. 414), another view that rejects an eternal, unchanging aspect of the self.

From a Western philosophical standpoint the question of self belongs to ontology (the study of being) and phenomenology (the study of experience). Ontology and phenomenology, however, are arguably influenced by cosmology (theories about the character of the universe) and ethics (questions about right and wrong).

The psychologist Freud’s theory about the self is limited to two main factors–nature (instinctual drives of sex, aggression, love and death) and society (parents, significant others and social institutions). This is because Freud viewed God and any notions of an afterlife as illusions created to satisfy unconscious psychological desires and wishes, and his restricted worldview had a significant effect on his outlook.

Meanwhile Freud’s star pupil, Jung, took psychoanalytic theory a step further by suggesting the possibility of archetypal aspects of the self (i.e. eternal aspects existing beyond yet connected to the everyday world). For Jung, the self, itself, is an archetype of wholeness.

In Biblical Christianity, the true, essential self is not of this world but created to enjoy otherworldly, everlasting heaven:

If any one would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Matthew 16:24-25).

Hindus in agreement with Sankara tend understand the true self (atman) as identical with an invisible, underlying aspect of creation (brahman). Once liberated, the self loses all sense of individuality.

Ramanuja’s school of Visistadvaita presents another Hindu perspective where the true self is said to ultimately retain some sense of individuality as it rests in the godhead.

A branch of New Age believers say we have many slightly different selves coexisting in parallel or multiple universes, all unified by an oversoul existing above, beyond and yet within those multiple realities. A good example of this point of view can be found in the Seth Books by Jane Roberts.

In a witty and regal vein, King William III (William of Orange) was among those who’ve pondered the nature of the self:

As I walk’d by my self
And talk’d to my self,
My self said unto me,
Look to thy self,
Take care of thy self,
For nobody cares for Thee.
I answered my self,
And said to my self,
In the self-same Repartee,
Look to thy self
Or not look to thy self,
The self-same thing will be.

» Alchemy, Anatman, Archetype, Archetypal Image, Atman, Blake (William), Brahman, Buddhism, Collective Unconscious, Conscience, Defense Mechanism, Dennet (Daniel), Ego, Fromm (Erich), Hero, Hinduism, Individuation Process, Karma Transfer, Leibniz (Gottfried, Wilhelm), Maslow (Abraham), Mead (George Herbert), Numinous, Persona, Pollution, Postmodernism

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Swedenborg, Emanuel

Emanuel Swedenborg at the age of 75, holding the manuscript of Apocalypsis Revelata (1766)

Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772)

Swedish scientist who, after recovering from a psychological crisis, became a mystic claiming to speak on a regular basis with angelic, alien and demonic beings.

Although interesting and presented in an orderly fashion, some of Swedenborg’s writings seem questionable.

He writes, for instance, that spirits told him people lived in wooden buildings and tents on the planet Jupiter:

Their dwellings were also shown me. They are lowly dwellings constructed of wood; but within they are lined with bark or cork of a pale blue colour, and the walls and ceiling are spotted as with stars, to represent the heaven; for they are fond of picturing the visible heaven with its constellations in the interiors of their houses, the reason being that they believe the constellations to be the abodes of the angels. They have tents also, which are rounded off above and extended in length, spotted likewise within with stars on a blue ground. They retire into these in the day-time, to prevent their faces suffering from the heat of the sun. They bestow much care on the fashioning of these tents of theirs, and on keeping them clean. In them they also take their repasts.†

Similarly, Swedenborg said that a spirit from the moon said that the voices of that satellite’s inhabitants “made a loud thundering sound.”

With no atmosphere on the moon’s surface, necessary for sound waves and hearing, one wonders how this could be possible.

It’s easy to assume that Swedenborg’s accounts merely reflect the popular imagination of his day, suggesting that he was a quack or charlatan. But one could argue that some of the problems with his far-fetched claims arise from translation and interpretation, along with his human limitations from living in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Swedenborgians could argue, for instance, that the beings on the moon weren’t physical but were composed of energy or spirit—likewise with regard to the apparent ‘sound’ they made.

Swedenborg's Flying Machine (via Thomas Roche)

Whatever the truth may be, the psychiatrist Carl Jung notes that Swedenborg did have an accurate precognition of a great fire in Stockholm.

Concerning Christianity, Swedenborg’s work presents a novel interpretation of that religion.

He suggests that everything occurring in this life corresponds to a cosmic body, which he calls “The Universal Human.” And the different races of mankind apparently correspond to different regions of The Universal Human.

Likewise, Swedenborg says individual merits during Earthly life correspond to favorable afterlife regions in the cosmic body, such as the brain or the eye. But those who lead evil lives end up in undesirable, filth-ridden regions, such as the liver or intestines.

Swedenborg wrote copiously about demonic beings whose sole intent is to draw the energy from the living, causing severe pain and distress.

With regard to the idea of the Trinity, Rev. Glenn “Mac” at GlennFrazier.com adds:

Since you mention Swedenborg, it might be worth pointing out that he explicitly spoke up against the idea of a trinity of persons. According to his theology (in, e.g., his book, True Christian Religion), Jehovah the Father and Jesus the Son were not only one God, but also the one and only one person of God. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is the activity of that person, and not a seperate person in its own right. This is somewhat similar to Michael Servetus’ ideas expressed a good deal earlier in his “Errors of the Trinity”. Swedenborg’s idea of a trinity of essentials, rather than of persons, should not be confused with modalism—the idea of there being one God that at various times takes on different functions or modes in sequence. To Swedenborg, the Father was literally God’s soul, the Son his body, and the Spirit his influence/activity, not by analogy, but actually. » See in context

Swedenborg was not only interested in the inner life. Like other past innovators, he tried to devise technological contraptions that would eventually appear in some other form, such as a flying machine (pictured above).

Swedenborg’s work has been compiled, edited and commented on by the Swedenborg Foundation.

A student of Swedenborg’s works, Judah, adds:

A final thought: while I enjoy pondering the existence of life on other planets, I find it more enjoyable – and meaningful – to explore the ideas in Swedenborg’s writings that have to do with wisely loving my fellow human beings and our creator – the Divine Human. » See in context

» Aliens, Angels, Demons, Vampires

On the Web:

• http://thegodguy.wordpress.com (an intelligent, pro-Swedenborg blog)
• “Part 1 of 8: This week on Science and the Outer Streams, Andy Nesky, President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Theosophical Society, welcomes the Rev. Dr. Jonathan S. Rose. Dr. Rose discusses the life, legacy and works of Swedish philosopher, scientist, and theologian Emmanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg has been called one of the greatest thinkers Sweden has ever produced, and his theology sparked a Christian religious movement known as The New Jerusalem Church. Dr. Rose is the series editor and the translator for the “New Century Edition,” a series of annotated English translations of Swedenborg’s theological writings. He has been the Curator of the Swedenborgia Library and is now a chaplain and assistant professor of Religion and Sacred Languages at Bryn Athyn College of the New Church”

• Rock and roll song dealing with Swedenborg’s ideas:

—

† Earths in our Solar System which are called Planets and Earths in the Starry Heaven: Their Inhabitants, and the Spirits and Angels there from things Heard and Seen from the Latin of Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedenborg Society, London: 1962, par 59.

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