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Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious,,Myths and Archetypes.
by frankiespeakin 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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peacefulpete
I meant no offence to anyone. Sirona, the occult as I'm using the term is anything that postulates or insists upon supernatural influence or contact out side traditional religious creed. Just like anything else, if a person is deeply curious or facinated with the occult (or aliens or conspiracy theory or theism) they will naturally be quick to interpret personal experiences or anecdotal evidence in a way consistant with their current mind set. I am not concerned about spirits of any kind, I am concerned about the emotional and social costs of believing in them.
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DanTheMan
Back when I was 18 or 19, a good friend of mine was shot. He was not with me when it happened. I was at my house. As the night went on I began to pace nervously around, and I couldn't shake the thought that something bad had happened to my friend. At one point I even said it to myself out loud - "Something has happened to Mike". Well, the phone rings a little later and it's my friend's sister telling me what had happened. He wasn't killed or anything, but it was pretty scary.
I've never had a premonition like that before or since, though I've had dreams of something happening (usually a conversation), then have it happen exactly as it did in the dream to the point where I'm laughing & shaking my head to myself in disbelief. It's been a while since any of that has occurred, so I'm wondering if I've lost touch with something.
So yeah I can't prove it or anything but put me among those who believe that there are things going on that can't be measured or detected.
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TheOldHippie
To Leolaia and Sirona - thanks for your kind comments. And to Rem - I assure you this happened. I can still remember that odd sensation, feeling (it is some 25 years ago now), chaos inside of me, being in a Northern town of that great European country and suddenly having this huge wave hitting me that "Man, you've got to run - she'll be there!", and not being able just to push the feeling aside and tell myself that I was making things up, that I hadn't been in that country since the relationship broke up, that it was just hearing the langauge again etc. that made my mind take a long walk outside the main roads. I shivered, was very upset and just "knew" I had to run - fast!
To her, it was Kafka - like, as in both of the books "The Castle" and "The Process", that once the "I" ("Mr. K.") person is very close to really getting to KNOW something, sort something out - he is halted, something crosses his path, a woman or something, and when that "event" is over, then he has lost his path, something extremely important to solve his case has gone missing because of his deviation. She felt the same thing, that "here I am, talking to this guy and losing my life's chance, when what I ought to do was to change to the new tram and get myself going - now!"
So there is also the syncronoity (oh, forget the spelling, I haven't got the time to check it up!) of this other guy's turning up at exactly the correct instant to prevent her from meeting me. Now, was he "sent" by some "good fortune" or "good spirit" to prevent my marriage from breaking up, to spare my wife - or all of us, in fact?
Again, I am not making this up, it happened to us - I got the letter upon returning, and the event has been put to rest in a remote corner of my brain, where it rests quietly, but at rare occasions is brought forth for me to wonder.
My wife has got premonitions, she at times can hear people coming some 10-15 minutes before they are actually there, and at some few instances it has been contageous, so I have been able to hear it as well. In our neighbouring country we once spent holidays together with another couple, and took turn preparing dinner. It was our turn, and when we were half-way finished, we heard the sound of their car on the gravel road outside, parking outside. I looked out, there was nothing to be seen, and this was a cabin on a beach area, hundreds of metres from the next one. "Oh" says she, "it means they'll be here in 15 minutes or so, just when we'll have it all arranged." - Some 15 minutes later, the same sound, and in they come.
How does the saying go - "I used to be in doubt - but now I am not so sure anymore .........."
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Mac
I was so afreud of everything when I was jung...and conflicted as you can clearly observe!
mac
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frankiespeakin
When I was about 14yrsold I was at a freinds house,,we were finished lifting wieghts,,and looking for something to do. He suggested playing with the ouija board,,I never had,,but was excited to try it.
I asked it how many hands of poker I would win out of 5,,we played cards and it happened just like the board said.
I asked it who I would marry and how old I would be when I got married,,the board spelled out M then A and I was getting excited because I had a crush on this girl named Mary and the next letter was R,,oh good I thought I'm going to marry Mary,,but the next letter was "I" not Y,,this kind of diappointed me the next 2 letters were O, and N.
My freind Eddy started making fun of me because Marion is a boys name. We got in our usual wrestling match fights over the fact he was saying I was going to marry a guy. I quickly forgot about the whole thing.
About 30 yrs latter,,I remember the Ouija board thing, This make me worried because it came true,,my wife name is Marion,,her mother didn't know it was a boys name and we got married when I was 23 years old. We never new each other,,she lived in NYC and I in CT. At that time of recall I still beleive the WT,,This was very puzzleing to me because I thought the Ouija baord is the Demunzz. I never told my wife about this untill today.
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Oroborus21
Hi gang,
Jung is certainly a pioneer in psychology. HIs major contribution to the field and most well known (other than the extrovert and introvert terminology) is the archetypes and theory of the collective unconscious.
Others such as Joseph Campbell have given their own spin to the basic idea.
I just wanted to point out that all of your cute little stories are NOT examples of SYNCHRONICITY and you are using the term and concept incorrectly.
Jung used the term synchronicity in conjunction with his research on parapsychology to account for paranormal and other puzzling phenomena such as omens and prophesies. According to Jung, there is no causal connection between, for example, two identical thoughts occurring to two individuals in different places at the same time or between a premonitory dream and the event which is seen to correspond with it (make it come true). Nor are such events (he postulated) due to pure chance. But there is MEANINGFUL coincidence, or synchronicity, between two such more or less simultaneous occurrences in that they represent a manifestation of knowledge ASSOCIATED WITH ARCHETYPAL PROCESSES IN THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS!
Most of the stories contained in this thread are actually the product of mere coincidence, that is normal chance, and not a few are the product of what is called ILLUSORY CORRELATION, whereby a person attaches especial significance or finds a correlation in a "positive-response" event or situation while ignoring all the contrary data. The most typical example of this is the person who after you call says, "hey I was just thinking of you" (so you must have called for tha reason) obviously ignoring all of the many more numerous times when they thought of you and you did not call (forgetting those negative correlations because they were meaningless).
Even the story in this thread about the two persons visiting the train station, while a remarkable coincidental event, is not true synchronicity as there is no indication that archetypal processes were involved in the decision making.
Personally, I find Jung's theories about the collective unconscious and universal archetypes to be interesting and of some merit and usefulness at a macroscopic level, however, I am more interested in a pragmatic operating theorem useful to individuals. At this more realistic and practical level, the idea of a universal unconscious, archetypes, etc. is akin to the weak electromagnetic force between atoms, or to go the other way, dark matter in the Universe. It may be there but there are "bigger," and more concrete things to consider.
Incidently speaking of the physical world, you may wish to study futher about Bell's Theorem. Bell hypothesized that an unknown force, of which space, time, and motion are all aspects, continues to link separate parts of the universe that were once united, and that this force travels faster than the speed of light. (Theorys about Superstrings are somewhat similar.) What is remakable is that in the early 1980s, a French team tested Bell's criteria and a connection between widely separated particles was detected. Bell's Theorem is a discovery of "non-locality," the implications of which are still a matter of debate. In the laboratory, the product of Bell's Theorem is a very spooky effect, specifically the measurements made on one particle affect the measurements on a second, far removed particle. In theory, the second particle could be on the other side of the galaxy, with absolutely no (detectible) physical connection between the two. (Naturally physicists rightfully object to using Bell's Theorem to "prove" such things as psychokinesis or ESP.)
But the implications are quite interesting to think about. Jung was among the first to discuss the theoretical link between science and the human psyche. He asserts that it is the biological similarity of humans that gives rise to the connectivity and creation of the collective unconscious. He finds that the memory of the collective unconscious is rooted in the genetic inheritance passed down from generation to generation. More recent research into "genetic memory" demonstrates impressively that indeed with respect to very basic biological processes at least such memory is present. Of course this is a far cry from the world of archetypes and dream influence.
Oh and by the way to the person who wrote the terrible poem or lyric or whatever that was it is not pronounced like "Young" it is pronounced like "Yoon."
-Eduardo
Think about it.
Jung was
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myauntfanny
Jung had a great story. He had a client who was super-rationalist-materialist-etc and getting nowhere with the problems she had started therapy with him to solve, and things were getting tense. Then she came in one morning with a dream she had had of a golden scarab, but was resisting all interpretation. All of a sudden something thumped on the window. When he went to open it a golden beetle flew in the window. Apparently that shocked the woman enough to change the course of her therapy.
I love these kinds of stories and I don't see the necessity of trying to explain the magic away using statistics or whatever. Why shouldn't people be allowed to have a little mystery and magic in their lives?
For those of you are interested in the topic Rupert Sheldrake, a British biologist, has done some research on things like knowing when you're being looked at, and knowing who's about to call you. The book I read is called "The sense of being stared at" and it's a little dry but still interesting. Jung also has a book called Synchronicity, which I personally didn't find that interesting but you can read what he believed first hand.
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Navigator
Mystics have long held that we are all ONE MIND. I like to think of it as a work station on the mainframe that God Is.
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Sirona
I agree that sometimes we can ignore the evidence to the contrary (i.e. forgetting when we thought of them and they didn't phone.) however I've been doing a little experiment with myself recently and writing it down when I think someone is going to visit or phone etc. My results are about 90% accurate. One in ten, I think of the person and nothing happens.
I'm particularly talking about times when I'm not actually expecting someone to be there at that time. I freaked my b/f out with it because its often strongest with him. He can be somewhere and I don't have a clue what time he'll be home, but always 10 mins before he arrives home I am aware that he is on his way.
A friend of mine who I lost touch with was having a baby. I knew this, but had no idea when the baby was due. One morning, I felt the urgent need to contact her because I knew she was having the baby soon and I must let her know I'm thinking of her. So I texted her at 8.15 am (I think that was the time) which is uncharacteristic of me because since she doesn't work she could have still been in bed or whatever. Later that day I was told that the baby had been born at that exact time, and my friend had later checked her phone and was pretty amazed.
Similarly when I was on holiday in Canada my nephew was born. I didn't know my sis in law was in labour, but all of a sudden I stopped in my tracks and said "hey its a boy". We found out the boy had been delivered that day.
Sirona