Religious Experience and Personality Change..an Experience from the Unconscious

by frankiespeakin 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  frankiespeakin

  I have been at the university library the past few month reading books about Carl Jung. I think he has some interesting things about the unconscious,,as well consciousness.

  I been reading that the unconsciousness has the ability to form this new personality and then hatch it on the ego consciousness by means of an Religious Experience,, or perhaps we can say Mystical Experience , but the problem is that if the original ego consciousness was very one sided there is a tendency is for the new personality to be too one sided in the opposite way.

  One of the chief problems for the human species as I see it is that the evolution of the human consciousness has cause a very drastic change in in our life style in such a short period of time just look at the last 2 or 3 hundred years and this accelerated change this has cause the majority of us to deviate the from the "way of the blood",, or from the way our genetic code would work the best for us both mentally and physically,, this deviation is the reason for a neuroses,, or even worse a psychosis.

  But Jung and others who think like him say that a neuroses is actually a very good thing as it is natural process that works to restore balance in the psyche. Sometimes in healing his patients from a neuroses he would only go as far as the personal unconscious find the problem with the patient and they were cured other times he had to go deeper and into the collective unconscious to get at the problem.

  Many patient came to even after they had been cure and wanted to go deeper to find whatever.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Well I figure I would start off with a link to wiki about religious experience:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_experience

  Jung studied sanskrit the anceint holy languege that the Vedas are written in. and was able to read these at a very young age,, so naturally he has a very deep knowledge of these things.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  One thing I like about books about Jung is that Jung's books are hard to understand because he doesn't take a lot of time explaining everything because much of the stuff he wrote was not for the general public but for serious students in his methods.

  What caused the big break between Freud and Jung was Jung's revision of his libido theory and interest in the occult. Both were pioneers in their study of the unconscious.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  The Numinous quality of a religious experience no doubt a shaking up effect on ego consciousness make some big changes in ones personality often times for the better.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous

  Numinous (pronounced /'nju?m?n?s/ , from the Classical Latinnumen) is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity. The word was popularised in the early twentieth century by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential book Das Heilige (1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923). According to Otto the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a Holy other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent.
• 

  Satanus

  'Jung studied sanskrit'

  In the sanskrit are all the terms for spiritual practice, for which we do not even have words, in english. Some of those guys went where people today are still trying to follow.

  S
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Satanus,

  Would you believe I have a Hindi girlfriend that chants in Sanskrit all her children no some of the sanskrit chants of the Veda's.

  Talk about synchronicity,, Yeah he was real young he also spent lot of time with ancient writing of alchemy of china and other places and discovered it to be a amazing source of information about the psyche and projections that were referred to as "Philosopher Stone" (Isaac Newton also was a alchemist)

  http://thezodiac.com/alchemy.htm

  "My studies of alchemy may seem obscure and baffle many people, but taken symbolically - the symbolic gold of great worth, or the transforming philosopher's stone 'lapis philosophorum' hunted for centuries by the alchemists - is to be found in man." C.G. Jung

  Jung and Alchemy

  In its infancy, alchemy in the Western world was primarily an experimental scientific process dedicated to transforming physical, material lead into physical, material gold.Ancient Greek alchemists were counted among the scientists (i.e. chemists) of their day.

  In much later years of alchemy's development and reemergence (during the European Renaissance), the primary goal for many alchemists had evolved and been transformed into something of a very different nature. For many of these alchemists, the alchemical process had become that of bringing about a mysterious corresponding inner transformation process within the human psyche.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Satan,

  One of the books i really liked from the university library in San Jose, was about "Jung and Eastern Thought" By Harold Coward.

  http://www.sunypress.edu/p-456-jung-and-eastern-thought.aspx

  Jung and Eastern Thought is an assessment of the impact of the East on Jung's life and teaching. Along with the strong and continuing interest in the psychology of Carl Jung is a growing awareness of the extent to which Eastern thought, especially Indian ideas, influenced his thinking. This book identifies those influences that he found useful and those he rejected.
  
  In Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist cultures, yoga is a central conception and practice. Jung was at once fascinated and critical of yoga. Part I of the book examines Jung's encounter with yoga and his strong warning against the uncritical adoption of yoga by the modern West. In Part II Jung's love/hate relationship with Eastern thought is examined in light of his attitude toward karma and rebirth, Kundalini yoga, mysticism, and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.
  
  Coward's observations are rounded out by contributions from J. Borelli and J. Jordens. Dr. Borelli's Annotated Bibliography is an invaluable contribution to bibliographic material on Jung, yoga, and Eastern religion. A special feature is the Introduction by Joseph Henderson, Jung's most senior North American student and one of the few Jungians to have recognized the important influence of the East on Jung's thinking.
  
  Harold Coward is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  By the way I just went to the library last nite and got,

  The "roots of consciousness" not sure how much of that I ll read.

  Harold Cowards book,, CG Jungs book "Psychology and the East"

  http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-East-Vols-Collected-Bollingen/dp/0691018065#reader_0691018065
• 

  Satanus

  Thanks for the info. Interesting stuff. I didn't know that jung was into eastern stuff. It makes sense though, since i see things somewhat like he did and i also see some of the core hindu beliefs.

  S
• 

  frankiespeakin

  He really knows what he's talking about,,he against a westerner just adopting the eastener's religious practices and feel that there will be many pitfalls becuase of the different personalities the cultures produce. But he did try and use at times some of thier methods if he found them useful. I think he used a technique(Active Imagination) from the msytic Ignatius Loyola

  http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Exercises-Ignatius-Anthony-Mottola/dp/0385024363/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1#reader_0385024363