Carl Jung no more than a man

a reply to: filched


No our brains didnt develop some abstract thing to deal with, mother nature selective genetics for adaptation, you place in the words within the compound of the morals and dogma of society. Our technology? Steampower, light and radiowaves, we dont have a quantum computer, we never had and we never will have, its human imagination.

Everything else is what we do best, mimic.

Art is a humans' way of expressing the qualities of the soul. If this were not true then please give me the base explanation as to why people spend millions of dollars on paintings.

Subjective narrative, this is how you perceive it.

a reply to: tikbalang

The reason i never jumped down in Jungs world is because he was a man with a grand delusion who had a talent to write philosophy.

Personally speaking, Jung's philosophy—Jungian metaphysical world of perception—is more appreciated when it has been empirically weighed. Those who have an open mind, or share similar experiences that Jung has written about, will understand what he was getting at. Those who approach Jung's philosophy strictly from a intellectual philosophical angle tend to reflect the same attitude you have — which is still cool. To each their own.

What are your thoughts concerning "Active Imagination"?

a reply to: tikbalang
Maybe I just don't understand what your trying to say about Jung's work or maybe about him. I believe, like other people ahead of their time, had to speak in the vernacular of the time, just so they could get work, and tried not to sound crazy too early in the career to be dismissed; his early work is not him. He was an ALCHEMIST.

I don't believe Jung thought there was anything special about the unconscious per se. Part of what he was saying is that we have access through the 'unconscious' to something much greater, mysterious and magical at hand, and not to be afraid of it; and because of this fear and misunderstanding of the unconscious aspect/function, that's part of the reason we have so many problems in the internal and external world.

His work is very FEELING oriented, and he was rebelling against the watered down Freudian type approach that was dominating at the time. He identified with Gnostic thought and definitely wanted to show this Gnostic sentiment through his work; maybe this is part of a 'soft spot' in him you are sensing perhaps, or his complex aggression, which some men have a hard time understanding. But yes that can be somewhat oppressive to us if don't understand masculinity very well, along with many other things. Maybe this is your situation? Maybe your trying to have something over Jung because of this, and you don't understand what your really feeling.

I believe he was a shaman and I respect what he did greatly, but maybe it's something you just have to 'get'. We choose our Shamans, or maybe they choose us? His work has a very strong, emotional undercurrent. We can approach it philosophically, mystically or whatever, it has a tremendous amount of strength that can help someone in the directions they choose. And definitely stay away from quotations, that's never a way of understanding someone or their work. So yes I think you have a way to go with Jung. I'm not the most articulate but hope this is good feedback for you.
I don't want to come back to this thread so Cheers and Good Luck.

a reply to: Involutionist

My thoughts on it, hmmm..

I believe we share a duality in our mind, or more to it, we are raised in an image of what it means to be a human that is conflicting with who we truly are.
We have a great gift of mimicking what we can observe or imagine, and a strong sense of herd/pack instinct.

We are raised with love and fear and those are the only two feelings we really feel. I believe Jung wanted to teach that " Love " is a better tool,to encourage the right choices and not by dogmatic cultural standards " to punish the wrong choices ".

For me the " Jungian Active imagination " is maybe a way of telling someone how they really feel without the remorse or guilt that follows with the cultural norm in our modern western society. You have a choice but your thoughts are always there for guidance, but chose wisely.

a reply to: sophie87

I had to learn alchemy, it's a topic that is probably more philosophical to its nature than most people realize. Is it real? Well depends on how you perceive it. There are still elements to it that is subjective and parts that are universal, Jung could have made things easy by saying, " What we are taught gives a purpose, what we think offers a meaning ".

His persona was an introvert, an animal living, striving and adapting to society, and most societies doesn't accept wild animals inside their walls of make belief serenity.

He tried to use his words and books as a medium to explain as a adolescent teen " Society is wrong! " and lost children took his words to their hearts. Carl Jung was a gifted man who was probably more at war with his own mind than he was with anyone else.

His work was not groundbreaking, he just did like many others and saw another meaning with the Greek philosophy of the ancient age. A philosopher who ventured into his own subjective reality and got lost in the maze.