As some already know or perhaps guessed I'm interested in Jung's ideas on the psyche, have been since a teenager and then the JWs got me at and closed my mind. After leaving mental "The Truth" in my forties, my intrest renewed very quickly, a post Leolia made to me on some subject unknowingly gave me my first prod, thanks Leo.
Well I was exploring my mind soon as I left the JW with some lengthy excursions into being a semi hermit in order to give myself over to much inner time, it even feels a bit selfish to do now so I gave it up,, for how long? Still probing but at a reduced rate.
Jung studied all the religions, and all the ancient text he could get his hands on, and his knowedge of Mythology was extensive.So he also is very understanding of what is enlightenment, as he said the experiences he had with the unconscious nearly tore him apart but he manged to survive it without loosing his sanity, Jung also said that he was surprised at how much of the unconscious the Buddha had made conscious without going insane. So to me these are two enlightened being The Buddha used the Yoga practises common of his time and location, and Jung used the practice of Active Imagination.
To me it seems reasonable that Jung could see a pattern in the Psyche which he called "Archetypes" that are autonomous from the ego consciousness, and it sounds like something that could also explain "Possesion" forces that push us to do things against our will kinda like the Flip Wilson line: "The Devil made me do it".
Blind spots in our conscious awarenes abound, we often hum along quite nicely chewing gum, walking, singing, or punching the key board with so much of it being done unconsciously with some sporatic consciousness mixed in, and we feel like the ego consciousness is the big player but it is not it is just another achetype, ruling and being over ruled by something much bigger the "Self" it is the central organizing archetype.
Wholeness is there in the psyche originally when we are born or perhaps somewhere before that but as we interact with our new world the ego starts to form as do thought and interpetation paterns. Birth trama, unsettled/unsettling psychic issue between our parents,Society, religion, Governments, external enviroment all have effect on our psyche developement and formation of relationships between our other archetypes with all kinds of projections mostly unknown to the ego. Durring this process the ego becomes more and more differentiated and different achetype work against one other and in the latter part of life a natural process of Jung coined "Individuation" starts happening some more other less it all depends.
More latter I got to go.