Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
Presented on: Thursday, August 6, 1987
Presented by: Roger Weir
The Alchemical Core of C. G. Jung's Work (1916-1956)
Presentation 6 of 13
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, August 6, 1987
Transcript:
The date is August 6 1987. This is a sixth lecture in a series of lectures by Roger Weir at The Philosophical Research Society on the alchemical core of Jung's work. Tonight's lecture is entitled modern man in search of a soul.
Make your own comfortable. Just one announcement that Mr. Hull will not speak this Sunday. He is still not feeling like he would like to venture out. A man of his age has to be concerned with falling. And he's healthy and he's in good spirits. Quite able to lecture. But there's a little bit of uneasiness about his balance and he doesn't wish to be talked into his seat. And so when he's ready to walk on he'll be back. So he's asked me to take his lecture this Sunday and I will. And the topic is Neoplatonism the journey to selflessness. But he rather had in mind of talking about contemporary applications. And so I'll do my best to present at least some of the basic points that he would have chosen to do himself. he's lectured on this off and on for 65 years. So there are quite a few aspects which he could bring out. And there are several specific ones that he had in mind. And I'll try to deliver those on Sunday.
Some of you are aware that the published series for this lecture series was deficient in that the first lecture was not listed. It was left off inadvertently. These courses are planned too far in advance. I've submitted courses for March of 1988 already. So you can see how difficult it is to have a firm control. But in that first lecture which I did deliver, over at the Whirling Rainbow I stressed the difficulty of this material.
Close that door please.
The difficulty is not so much in its intellectual broadness but in a psychological fact that we have resistances. One could go further and say that they're built-in resistances. But it's even deeper than that but they are necessary resistances. And that they come up all the time. That the resistances are a part of the process. They are also a part of the structure at every stage. And that the resistances to this kind of material are legion. And so when I saw that there were 35 or so people coming I could tell that the material was being looked at as an entertainment. As something popular. Or something which has a lot of sizzle. And this is an immature viewpoint and is not worth anything. It's not worth pursuing on anyone's part. But to grapple with this material all the time is to gain in consciousness. The very grappling with it. And the more that there is a development, a sense of a pattern which if you like progresses. Or as Jung would like to say individuates. That it's our grappling with this, with the resistances as well as they the appeals, that's valuable for us. It's nutritional. And so where we've reached the point now where we're just about right. The population looks just about right. The balance of men and women. The numbers. The, the situation. The spread in the room. All of these educational postures are intelligible to me. And so it seems appropriate that by this time we have discouraged those who are just here for the fireworks. And I assume that most of you are here because you're involved. As the phrase used to be.
All of the lectures up to and including tonight are predatory to the alchemical thrust of Jung's work. The basic quality of the alchemical thrust to his work dealt with transformation. But transformation is a very late stage. It's in fact a fourth stage in therapy. And transformation doesn't even become an issue until it is called forth by a certain development. By a certain level of development if we can say. and the level of development is the eternal stability of a triad or a triangle. Because with three likes to stand on, with three sides, one can form a shade which is able to sustain the overwhelming energies that come with transformation. And also the peculiar resistances that come with transformation. And it's as if nature in its broadest, most comprehensive way will not let us grow in a transformative way until we are really ready to receive that. There are of course willfulnesses in all ages. And ours in particular of trying to force transformation by drugs or experiences or so forth. And it always ends in a sham.
The first stage always deals with the catharsis. A confession if you like. To someone else, to an analyst, to someone else. This catharsis always has the aspect of coming clean. Of bringing out peculiarly and poignantly what one did not really wish to bring out. It's always that aspect which was better left alone. And that life is much more convenient without having this quality introduced. There's an oddity about this. And the built-in resistance here, in catharsis, is to, is to having it. Because the feeling, projections, the ideas the relation to it as always well I don't really need that. This is going to complicate my life. I'll do that later. When situations are more advantageous maybe I'll do this. As soon as the right condition comes up than I might, I might do this. All of these are the kinds of rationalizations that always happen. They go with the game. And the more cultivated and intelligent the person is the more difficult it is to come to that cathartic moment.
But the catharsis has such a potency that it carries with it the conviction that this is it. That one has finally emerged into the light. That one is mature one has gotten this off one's chest. the life is different. it's better. The sense of energy flow is better. There's a certainty. There's almost then the kind of willfulness which one has to always watch out for.
So that the second stage in therapy deals with this direct Lane. It's the stage that Jung many times gave the name to generally, explanation. One has to be told. Or one has to be presented with the material, the information, the, the experiences and so forth to understand what has been going on. To understand that this catharsis is not some revelation to you in a peculiar way. But that in fact this is a part of your life pattern. It's a part of your psychic energy. It belongs to you. It is appropriate that it has happened. It is not unusual. It is not strange at all. So that one begins to feel that other human beings are equally as miraculous as yourself.
And with explanation there is always the resistance that comes up which Jung call transference. In deference to Freud who was the first one to elucidate consciously this principle. Which because it had been understood in previous times most poignantly by the classical Greeks. He used terms which were viable in the days of Periclean Athens particularly in the drama's of Sophocles. The transference phenomenon is having inadvertent confidence in the doctor or the other person. Or sometimes if one is fortunate enough to do this by oneself, in the unconscious. It's like a state of love. They're miraculous. They have done this. And of course this transferences is always powerful in the sense that you're trying not to let yourself know that you could grow further. You've come this far and thank you very much. and thank you. And thanks to you I'm now here and arrived. And it's subtly a resistance to keep you from realizing or understanding that there's more. And not only is transference because of its peculiar nature, not only does it affect the person but there countertransference affects the, the analyst. Or someone who's trying to help. There's always this this kind of an aspect. It's like a magical stickiness and it seems like glorified insight. and one it's so glad to have it but it's like the Midas touch. And nothing is natural everything is charged with this. So everything is wonderful. One becomes a kind of a metaphysical Pollyanna. This is, this is very dangerous because you cannot recognize anything perilous. It's all for the good.
So that the explanation which is carried from the cathartic development leads directly shades very, very broadly into education. Into understanding that this is the way that it happens with human beings. That all of us share this kind of a process. That people from other times and so forth share this process. And the education is to broaden oneself out and understand not only that you now have yourself back with a sense of control and ability to relate to someone who has really helped you. But developing that, amplifying that the ability to relate to many other human beings. Throughout time, throughout space. So that the base of your life broadens out.
And in this education the resistance is always a kind of a provincialism that well it's our kind that do this. They don't do this. That kind of people don't do it our way. And there's this danger, this cliquishness that only our kind of people belong here. And so you get this this tendency and this resistance to become tribal or clannish or provincial in the worst possible ways.
But this stable triad, this development calls forth a further movement of the psyche. And that further movement, that fourth movement that is transformation. And the transformation goes into the deeper transpersonal elements. So that one sees not only is the provincialism wrong but the whole idea that this is in any way limited. That this process is only applicable to any kind of a knowing of groups or categories is inapplicable. That in fact there are transpersonal universal elements that one shares this kind of transformational energy with all life. All life. Plants and animals and other kinds of beings. And in life itself around the transformational level. Life itself becomes intelligible. And one sees that you're not just whole in yourself or whole with the person. Who's brought you through. Or whole in the kind of group of people who have done this. But that this is a part of the broadest spread of life. That life is intelligent. In just this way. but the resistance here in transformation is always to mistake it in some way. And we'll go into that.
What I presented it to you just now is the second chapter in the book. Which in English translation is Modern Man in Search of a Soul. And the chapters, Chapter Two Problems of Modern Psychotherapy. And if you wish to go through it yourself you can see that what I've presented is a general insight into the structure of this particular chapter. I choose the second chapter because the first chapter Dream Analysis was in fact not a part of the original book. In fact the book which we have, Modern Man in Search of a Soul which is published in English translated by Carl F Baynes and W.S. Dell, comes to us about 1933. The introduction, The Translators Preface March of 1933.
In fact this book is not the book which was epic making. This book in fact translates only seven of the fourteen chapters of the book in German. And the book in German had come out. Originally Jung wrote the preface for that in December 1930. So that towards the end of 1930 he had completed the volume which he was actually interested in writing. That book in German has a Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart. Now Seelen in this, Seele is soul in German. But with an N Seelen it tends to have the connotation of mind. Or if you wish intelligible soul. But in fact in the kind of German which Jung used. Very intellectual German. If he wished to talk about the mind he would probably use the term Geist which actually means spirit but with the connotation of mentality. Mental spirit. like the zeitgeist is the mental spirit of the time. So that this term Seelen is very peculiar. In fact when Jung uses the term Seele he doesn't really mean soul. He means specifically psyche, the psyche.
Put the article in there.
So that Seelen as mind is a very objective quality. It means the, not the soul and not the spirit and not the psyche. But it means almost technically the objective mind. That is to say the mind which one would be conscious of. That it would be objectively there for inspection. That is to say it would be an object for analysis. And the name for his psychology is called analytical psychology. It's not psychotherapy. It's not psychoanalysis. It's not individual psychology. But it's analytical psychology. And what is analytical about it is that this psyche is available for inspection through the Seelen. Through the objective mind. And so the first word in the title of the German book, Seelenprobleme, it's the, it's the problems of this mind. The objective mentality. the objective mind of the psychic. Of if one wishes to visualize it the psyche has an area the objective mind would be like a searchlight, a beacon, in the center. Which can illuminate all of it. So the Seelenprobleme. Der is just the. And Gengenwart. Gengen actually in a German English dictionary would just have the meaning towards. It's like a vector towards. And Wart means presence. Its presence. Again in a very precise way. With one wish to talk about the present as an actual occurrence. The present one would use the German term wartic. And if one wished to talk about a present time like the temporal aspect of nowness. Present time. One would use a special phrase je Zigeziet(sp?). But gengenwart for it means literally towards presence. So the title of the book was mind problems, the mind problems towards presence.
And in fact the pivotal chapter, essay, lecture in the book both in the English and the German was in the spiritual problem of modern man. And as we'll see the archetypal, spiritual problem of modern man is to become present to himself. To have an existential authenticity from which he can learn. And that this in fact is extremely difficult to have. Not only extremely difficult to have but extremely difficult to remember to have. Because this kind of spiritual presence is there before the catharsis. And it has to carry through the catharsis and develop itself. And the explanation has to carry itself through. And the education becomes expanded and then the transformation becomes completely changed. That is to say none of these stages of the process ever go away. The next stage does not then negate the previous stage. But there's an accrual. it's like adding more dimensions. So that if catharsis is a one dimensional aspect, explanation adds a second dimension to it. And education as a third dimension. And transformation adds a fourth dimension. So that it's constantly filling out the dimensionality of this. It's extremely difficult in Jung to, to get this. And probably the X the, the best description of this as a growth process is in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. Where he talks about how the, the the qualities of the spirit when the spirit grows it doesn't grow by addition. By accumulation. by aggregation. But it grows exponentially. that its powers and processes, its capacities, grow in a kind of a geometricity. So that the more you do the more you can do. And that there comes a point of spiritual liberation when you realize that you're free. In the sense that your growth becomes asymptotic.
This is different from any kind of egocentricity. Compared to that spiritual liberty, any kind of eco egocentricity is a kind of a pallid shadowy pale image. Plato says that these are the these are the cut out images which are paraded before the chained person down in the cave. And just because you think you can identify a lot of these quickly that you've got it made. It just means that you're a really effective prisoner.
So that by the time transformation comes into play the individual must be filled out enough to be able to accept this. And there's a very arcane kind of a quality to this. That the transformation is not effective unless you can accept it into this triad. This developed triad. So that it's as if the three dimensions of space had to be there before a time element could come into play.
In this, in the approach to this when we come to Modern Man in Search of the Soul, it's the most pivotal book at this stage. It's the last book before Jung directly steps into the entire chaos and morass of alchemy. And weill spend almost the rest of his life. That is to say from 1930 on until he finished Mysterium Coniunctionis. Which was published I think in German in 1954. In English in 56. All of that time. All of that quarter century he's looking at alchemy because alchemy is in every respect the way in which Western man understands transformation. But he can't even address himself to transformation until he's developed to the extent to where it occurs to him. As filling out his wholeness. Otherwise tremendous dangers and perils come from this.
Now the English translation of Modern Man in Search of a Soul has, has eleven chapters. If you're taking notes I'll read a few things to you so that you can see this structure. I've not seen it anywhere and so I developed it in writing so that you could refer to this.
Chapters 11, 9, 1 and 8 are added to the English version and are not in in the German manuscript. The German book is about 440 pages. It's quite a thick book. The English book here is less than 300 pages. But even with that chapters 11, 9, 1 and 8 are not there in the German. Chapter 6 is in fact there in the original but has a peculiar relationship here. And I'll speak about that a little bit later. Chapter 6 in here is on Freud and Jung.
The remaining chapters are in the English and in the German and they're the core of the book. So that if you're going to read Modern Man in Search of the Soul. This is the order in which they appear in the German book Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart. The second chapter in the German is also the second chapter here in modern man the search of a soul, problems of modern psychotherapy. And that's the chapter that I've outlined here for you. The first chapter was just a forword. A very short forward. and I'll, I'll read you in a moment of pertinent paragraph from that forward. So that for all intents and purposes this diagram represents the beginning of what Jung had to say.
One observation, that the book was put together. It wasn't written as a book. It was a series of lectures but that it was put together by Jung so that there was a progression. He'd been working on a spread of problems. And had given all these chapters as lectures. Then had selected the lectures from the whole range that he had given. And then arranged that selection so that this book, The Mind Problems Towards Presence is the only concerted effort between Psychological Types and Psychology and Alchemy by Jung. All of his other books are rather short things that are put together or redone. And between Psychological Types in Psychology and Alchemy. Psychological Types is about 1920 or something and Psychology Alchemy 1944. So this is the most important book in the development of Jung's thought in the sense that it is the turning point. It is the preparation for all of the alchemical studies. And the pattern of the original German book shows that Jung was straightening out for himself. Arranging his notes for this tremendous effort. For this tremendous plunge. It's like a hero who is getting his tools together. Who is counting his equipment. Who's making sure that he's prepared to go. He's got the ropes and the picks and the food and he's got everything. And he's ready now to commit himself completely to the unknown. And it was a commitment to the unknown on a vast scale. The commitment to the unknown that happened in 1916 which resulted in Seven Sermons to the Dead. Falling into his unconscious. It's one thing to do that when it's a part of the life process. And one finds that this has happened to one. It's a whole other order, it's a heroic order to know consciously roughly what you're in for and to still go and do it.
And he had a very good idea by 1930 that this was going to tax him completely. It was going to require everything of him and it did. After he wrote Psychology and Alchemy he was ready for death and died. But was called back. Was brought back because of unfinished work. He had earned the right to finish a work which had not been finished in antiquity. And so when Jung came back after 1945 all of his work leads up to Mysterium Coniunctionis. Which is a completion of a kind of a work, a psychological work of consciousness, which had been left undone some 2,000 years before. Actually about 1,700 years before. And Jung finished that work like a true hero.
But in this work then, the the forward if you're interested is in collected works 18, the symbolic life. And it's only a couple of paragraphs. so it's a forword in the first edition which came out early in 1931. He writes in here, "But the most beautiful truth as history has shown a thousand times over is of no use at all unless it has become the innermost experience and possession of the individual. Every unequivocal so-called clear answer always remains stuck in the head and seldom penetrates to the heart. The needful thing is not to know the truth but to experience it." And he italicizes know. And he means by this no sense. But to experience it. That it is say this triad produces knowledge on a massive scale. But only this **inaudible word** which is called forth by this triad produces experience. And experience changes us. Not only does experience change us as we will see, but anyone involved with us also changes. So that the more you are savvy about this the more circumspect you are about getting into it. doing it. So that the resistance that's here is not so much a resistance of no but a resistance of maybe. And that kind of limbo of so many maybes because one gets very sophisticated about this. And all of these maybes are true in the sense that they all make that sense. But to go ahead and do it anyway is the very trigger of life.
This particular stage this, this stage, this is stage that the Bhagavad-Gita addresses itself to. It's like Arjuna when he's in dialogue with Krishna, his charioteer, gives any number of reasons why he should not go into battle. And they are all good reasons. And Krishna leaning on the spear says they are all good reasons but that is not going into battle. Because the real reason that you're not going into battle is that you fear death. And Arjuna has to get to the point to where the hairs stand on end. and he has to face that. And then he goes into battle. but notice that the Gita no one directly, except Krishna and Arjuna participate in this. The only way that we have the Gita is all is that it's a reported conversation. It's a reported dialogue. The blind sage Sanjaya sees it in his inner mind in a vision. And he tells the vision to the King Dhritarashtra. And Dhritarashtra because he's the king and he sees that this, this is the greatest battle of all time. The Mahabharata. And that this is the key to the battle and so he has the dictation taken down by the sage Vyasa. And that's why there is anything at all.
But the existential eeriness of it is that the only way that this can be seen at all is in the visioning quality of the sage Sanjaya. The blind sage, archetypal. like Homer is blind. It's an archetype. justice is blind.
Which brings us to what we were talking about last week about the vision seminars. In how last week in The Vision Seminars it's a development beyond dream analysis. Which was itself a development beyond word association. Beyond the associative level is the dreaming syntax. But beyond the dreaming syntax is the imagination. Or the active imagination if you like. The visioning. And It's that thrice greatest power that gives us access to the real process that's going on. Which we can only see from our sagliness within. In other words we don't ever become to grasping it in any kind of convenient way. It's never there in that form. It's always only there in this envisioning form. So that a lot of this development here is developing on the basis so that one can't see within. Because it's only by that kind of arcane participation that the transformative powers that come from beyond oneself come into play in such a way that they integrate into the structure. If there were anything short of that the tidal wave would eclipse one. And it has happened.
"The needful thing," writes Jung in the introduction to the German Edition. Which is not put here in the English. "The needful thing is not to know the truth but to experience it." That's to say one should yes know the truth but to experience it.
And those who are coming to the to my Saturday series will understand that an effective archetypal form here. That truth is distinct from meaning is always an accepting confirmation. It's never part of the generated meaning but is that accepted meaning. That kind of a confirmation. That's what makes it true. And so that gnosis without that acceptance is a value. It is a meaning. But it doesn't connect. If one did not have the life connection between one's individuated character and one's developed visionary capacity, when the visionary capacity confirms the meaning is truth it would seem like a dream. Like an illusion. Like a momentary flash to the unintegrated ego. And of course this happens a lot of times. One has a flash. One has a deja vu feeling. One has an intuition. But that's all. You can't remember anything. Nothing happens. nothing develops. There's no change. so that the alchemical point in this is that there is a transformation. As the alchemists will say the tincture penetrates through so that then when one projects this one projects the power completely.
Jung then writes completing the forward, "Not to have an intellectual conception of things but to find our way to the inner and perhaps wordless, perhaps irrational experience. That is the great problem. Nothing is more fruitless than talking of how things must be. Or should be. And nothing is more important than finding the way to these far-off goals. Most people know very well how things should be but who can point the way to get there." And the whole reason for investigating alchemy in the last third of his life was because this is the great archetypal process. East and West. Of getting there. of doing it.
We're gonna take a break in a moment but I want to bring to two aspects to you. One from a quotation from The Vision Seminars. And the second one just a little indication about what Jung was like to an observer at the time of writing this preface. Of writing theses, these lectures and chapters of this book.
On page 41 of The Vision Seminars the naech...nature of these visions. And just this sentence. "You see," says Jung, "You see this vision is very much like a dream but not quite. If you did not know whether it was a dream or a vision what would you say? What is the difference? What is the criterion? Well there is not one thing in this vision or in this series of pictures which the dreamer could have met with in ordinary life.
Please turn your cassette now and I'll commence playing again on the other side after a brief pause.
END OF SIDE 1
Well there is not one thing in this vision or in this series of pictures which the dreamer could have met with in ordinary life. If it were a dream it would be what primitive peoples call a great great, a visional dream. A dream of far-reaching importance. now that is a criterion. If a series of pictures does not contain the ordinary stuff of life. Say automobiles, relatives, aunts and so on, then it is at all events very unusual and therefore is quite probable that it is a visionary dream. But we have other criteria besides the absence of the stuff of everyday life. you see there is something very peculiar about vision. Your dream will probably find more emotional interference. It would be less clear in its sequence. The sequence here is peculiarly objective. And it excludes the personal participation. While in a dream the person is not so much excluded. One is there even if it is only as an onlooker.
The import here is that one has crossed over some kind of a watershed from dream to vision. And yes they flow together. But it's like, it's like a picking apex. And, but only certain dreams are like great dreams in the beginnings of vision but then after a while one only has maybe one great dream like this. But then one has the visionary capacity. And in using that it comes more and more and what one sees. And what one sees with the visionary capacity is that the ordering, the sequence, the pattern which comes in a vision is extremely precise. But precise in a way that doesn't include ones self. It is not precise in your terms. It is precise in terms other than oneself. And so it has a peculiar flavor. First of all that it's, that's that exact. And second of all that is intelligible to oneself. But is so exact that one has to learn why its, it is intelligible. And this is part of the development here.
Now one more thing then we'll take a little break. this is a description of Jung at the time. This is Barbra Hanna's description of him at the time he, he was putting these together. And you can see what he was like. He was 55. "I was frankly terrified when I first arrived at the tower, Bollingen Tower. It was very cold weather. And when he was cooking in his original round kitchen in a long Oriental robe which he often wore in cold weather." The kitchen had a fireplace as big as these window banks. Take a little pans hanging down. Kind of a brick stone flooring. "He looked like a picture I had once seen of an old alchemist at work among his retorts. He looked more whole than ever but different from the way I had seen him in the seminars in and in the two analytical hours which were all that I had with him up until then. I seemed to be back in the Middle Ages." Do you understand that what she sees, she's seeing a vision. But it's not through her envisioning power which isn't activated yet. She's seen, she's seeing it because Jung is existing visionairily. If you never experience that it's unintelligible. If you have it's indelible.
"I seem to be back in the Middle Ages with the lamp and firelight making a small eliminated circle. And what struck me that evening is a huge circular circumference of darkness." And that is the archetypal form. The circle of light within the circle of darkness. How do they know the darkness is circular? "Tony Wolf who is also staying here just gave me some tea and told me to take a chair by the fire and watch Jung cook. Jung was entirely engrossed in some absorbing cooking and in watching the fire. He was a most unusually good cook. And used to in those days cook the most complicated dishes. I remember one sauce with no fewer than 16 ingredients. And though I learned only later how many of his ideas came to him while working on such things. I felt instinctively that I had better seen nothing. I did not yet know him well enough to feel it as a compinionable silence. Which I learned later to enjoy more than anything. So that after two or three hours I took an opportunity when he did not seem so engrossed to murmur, 'I am scared stiff.' While only even faint amused smile indicated that he did had even heard my remark. The ice was broken and I began to feel at home. And after a bit he gave me an aperitif. All this marvelous food and wine. He saw me eating not saying word all this time and then he finally looked at me and said, 'Oh well you already know how to enjoy your food. That's one thing I shall not have to teach you.
Take a break.
**inaudible question/comment from the room**
I have a few **inaudible few sentences**...last week in America. You really are putting on a congressional thing. It's worthwhile right now. Moving toward transformation. The transformation could be the **inaudible word**. Right through the United States and Russia. It could be. It's compromising their destiny. So...synchoronicity....scary.
I'll give you the rest of the outline here of the German Edition. Where it appear, where it appears in the collective works. So that you can reconstruct for yourself. All of the book has been translated but hasn't been, the translations have not been put together as the book. And what I'm trying to say to you is that it's important if you're going to understand Jung. First of all to understand that Jung did not always know everything that he knew. He developed. And that there was a, there was a turning point in his life when he developed the sense for his own capacity. And the document for that is The Seven Sermons to the Dead. And the discovery of the mandala as the symbol of the self. And that all of his life's work then was dedicated to amplifying, exfoliating that. And that happened around 1916.
But there was a second turning point in his life. And the turning point came in the late 1920's and was consolidated by this book in 1930. And the second turning point was that it wasn't just his own experience which he was trying to understand. But that on the depth and on the amplification of the experience that he was working with that it was a universal phenomena. And the first confirmation that came to him was from The Secret of the Golden Flower. And realizing that the Chinese a thousand years ago were very close to him psychologically. And it shocked him. But it made him realize that he was dealing then with aspects that had a universal worldwide quality.
So The Seven Sermons to the Dead begins Jung in the sense that he realizes that he has the hidden deep self that can communicate with him. Symbolize it as Philemon if you want. But he understood that it was intelligible and he could learn. And that comes as a real impressive experience when one realizes that you can learn from your inner self. It's not just a grab bag of things. But is someone who with, who with great background can communicate to you. And then it's another turning point to realize that all human beings have this. It, the first experience creates tremendous need for privacy. Tremendous need to shepherd this almost like a baby. Care for that and it's very special. And the second experience opens oneself up to other people. They're important. What they'll experience is important to you. And so it's like this turning inside out and then turning back again. One is returned back to the concourse of life. Other people are quite real and their experiences. And people from other times are quite real. And so there's this kind of equality. So this book is extremely important. Because it's this book then that forms a triangle out of these three capacities for Jung. So that he can in effect use that triangle like a prism to, to see into alchemy. It's that, that process, that dynamics which plays itself through. Not only the process in the laboratory. Not only the individual in their psyche. But it plays itself through history, though time, through civilization. And that that energiya itself is life. Alchemy is a life process. It is life.
So that the forward, which would be the first chapters in The Symbolic Life Volume 18, page 558. The second was in Modern Man in Search of a Soul and also in Collected Works 16, The Problem of Modern Psychotherapy. So if you go The Collected Works it'll be in Volume 16, pages 53 to 75.
The third that which was on The Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry is not in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. But instead is in collected works 15, pages 65 to 83. It was extremely important. But the translators into English, Carrie(sp?) Baynes especially whose husband at this time was H.G. Baynes. Peter Baynes. These are the, this is the Baynes who worked on the I-ching from Wilhem Holmes German into English. Decided that instead of putting this essay on The Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry into Modern Man in Search of a Soul they decided to put an essay, they put a lecture which is called Psychology in Literature. They substituted. And Psychology and Literature is extremely important. Makes in fact the, the structure of that particular lecture is around the distinction between the artist and the work of art. But this lecture on the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry is not so much about the relationship of and the difference between the artist and the work of art, but it's about the process. That analytical psychology is a process. Is able to understand and not understand certain aspects of poetry. And most of you are far enough along that I can use the Greek term for this instead of poetry, poesis. Which means creativity. This process as it gains momentum creates the person. They actually come in to being. They become more and more quote real. Until like someone like Jung. He's like a walking vision just cooking. Because human beings become substantially real in this universe. Their presence is remarkable. I don't want to get too flamboyant but man is more than angel in this capacity. The traditional name for the aura at that stage is the glory. the glory. William Blake's Glad Day
So the third essay is included with 15 on The Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry. The fourth is in Collected Works 4 and this is about Jung. And that's on Freud and Jung. The contrast. Collected Works 4, pages 333 to 340.
The fifth essay in the German is also in Modern Man in Search of Soul. And is the second or is the third chapter there called The Aims of Psychotherapy. The Aims of Psychotherapy. If we went for instance to the last couple of paragraphs, The Aims of Psychotherapy. Jung writes here, "The truth is that we are here on perfectly new ground. The ripening of experience is the first requisite. That is to say when you get to the affective dimensions of psychotherapy it is always new ground. It always has this creative aspect. It's always fresh. It's always unknown. It's always because no one has been you in that fullness ever. And so it is new. It is new ground. And you have to be willing to go into the unknown. You have to be willing to, to develop and to cognise aspects of yourself that never were. They're just now coming out and who knows what's going to happen. The forms of things unknown.
"The truth is," he writes "we're here on perfectly new ground and a ripening of experiences is the first prerequisite. For very important reasons I should like to avoid over hasty conclusions. We are dealing with a region of psychic life outside consciousness. And our way of observing it is indirect. As yet we do not know what depths we're trying to plumb. As I indicated above it seems to me to be a question of some kind of centering persons. For me it pictures which patients feel to be decisive point in this direction." That is to say that by 1930 the most that he's willing to say is that the archetypal design that seems to want to come out in this unknown is a centering process. That no matter what it is that comes out, it tends to want to point towards a focus. And that all of the material for any one person tends to want the point to the same focus.
What's a peril here of jumping the gun. Of wanting to dispense with the experience and get to the point. That's a real peril. Because the real point is an experience. And if you aren't experiencing it it won't occur. They won't, it will not be there. And if you jump the gun and you're impatient already if it's not there, and not there, and not there not impatience then works against you. Lots of suicides. Where is it well it's all allies(?). There is nothing happens.
The sixth essay in the German follows and is the fourth in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. It's A Psychological Theory of Types and as the title would indicate it's also in Psychological Types Volume Six. So The Collected Works pages 524 to 521.
Then a couple of them, seven and eight are not in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. The seven is The Structure of the Psyche. And eight is Mind and Earth. In the beginning of Mind and Earth Jung says what a phrase is mind and earth. Something primordial about it. It's like the tooka, two commencerites, mind and earth. Fire and steel. Or fire and iron.
Seven, The Structure of the Psyche is in Volume 8, pages 139 to 158. The mind and earth which belongs with it has been put in Volume 10, Civilization and Transition pages 29 to 49. In other words if you didn't know there's no way...if you didn't have a strategic sense which I'm trying to develop for you here, that these two essays which are the center of the book. There's 14 essays so number seven is the end of the first half the book number. Eight is the beginning of the second half. When those two lectures were first given they were a single lecture when the published. Because Jung insisted on it. That they go together. But in The Collected Works they're in different volumes. And you have to leave a lot of footnotes and introductions to figure out that wait these things belong together. They go together. The Structure of the Psyche Mind and Earth go together. And they're also the pivotal core of the whole book. Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart, Mind Problems Towards Presence. Presence.
Then the ninth essay in the book is the seventh in Modern Man in Search of a Soul called Archaic Man. And it's in Collected Works 10 pages 50 to 74. So that in an odd way eight and nine are printed together in the same volume. but seven and eight, which belong together, are in totally different volumes. How does this happen? Editors and committees are interested in getting things out in a scholarly way. And the highest scholarship it doesn't even touch the beginnings of personal experience. That somebody who lives through something like this knows that they go together because that's the way it is.
There are incidentally mistakes on these particular works in volume 19 of the Collected Works. And the only typos I found are in the Collected Works are exactly about the references on some of these essays from this book.
So Archaic Man. Archaic. In the essay Jung says that this means original man. Not, not caveman but the original, which man originally. He says there's, there's something very peculiar and strange about original man. Its as if that the planet that he lived on was a different planet than where we're living. That his world is so different. And that the peculiar thing about his world is that he assumed that nature was always working and was intelligible. He did not have any idea of causation, causality. He didn't have any, any idea like that at. All but we noticed with infinitesimal exceptions in nature. And always pointed to those exceptions as being due to invisible powers. Invisible forces. And that archaic man, original man, looked out for those exceptions. They're like pitfalls. They're like traps with briar patches. Stay away from them, from that.
And a lot of primitive man is based then on the concept which we get because it was doing so much by Fraser and Freud, Taboo. But the operating idea in taboo is that as a negative **inaudible word.** There's a very powerful presentation of this an English book on taboo. I'll get the author. I think his name was like, like a Fritz Steiner. A man who died in his thirties but an excellent book on it negative mana.
What was of interest to our archiac man was to find a way to deal with negative mana. But what is charismatic to modern man is how to deal with the mana. And Jung says that especially in our time you never find a time where people are constantly working within. Constantly. Constantly to find out how it works. How does it work? How does it work? How do I do this? How do we do this? So there's that kind of an obverse working. So archaic man.
The tenth essay is transposed. Its number five in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. But in the German it's it follows Archaic Man. It's The Stages of Life. And in the Collected Works that's in volume 8 pages 387 to 403. The Stages of Life. That is to say there that what the life process has definite stages. Just like there are definite stages here. And that at each stage at any given stage where one is one feels it. that's it. This is real. This is, this is what there is. And it takes a tremendous openness to go beyond that. Because in each case it's as if there's nothing to go to. Why would anyone go? You're here and you're real here, that's nothing yet. And so there's that that kind of tremulousness. So 10 is The Stages of Life.
And then the last three do not appear in Modern Man in Search of a Soul and are scattered throughout The Collected Works. But were in original German. 11 was extremely important. It's in Collected Works 17 pages 189 to 201. And we'll talk about that next week a little bit. That lecture was Marriage as a Psychological Relationship. And it's like the seed of what Mysterium Coniunctionis will be. So that Marriage as a Psychological Relationship in volume 17. First published in 1925 in a volume edited by Count Hermann Von Keyserling who had a wisdom school. A wisdom academy which included people like Richard Wilhelm. And cousin Keyserling was a world traveler and so forth. And Jung took part in some of the seminars. not many but some of them at Keyserling's Wisdom Academy. And has, had been included in 1930 into this work. It was a translated again by H.G. and C.F. Baynes and contributions to analytical psychology. And I won't go into it right now except that he says, "Regarded as a psychological relationship marriage is a highly complex structure made up of the whole series of subjective and objective factors. Mostly of the very, very heterogeneous. Nature as I wish to confine myself here to the purely psychological problems of marriage I must disregard in the main the objective factors of a legal and social nature. Although these cannot fail to have a **inaudible word** influence on a psychological relationship between the marriage partners."
Notice again and again when all of these chapters, all of these lectures, address themselves to problems. The title of the book was Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart and Jung specifically says in no way are any of these solutions. Is he not capable at age 55 of speaking out? Yes he is. But he's preparing himself to go into the unknown. And one least thing that you can take into the unknown is a conviction that you know. It's the one thing you've got to remember to not know. You've got to tell yourself you don't know man. So when you go in there walk softly.
That's why I'm saying this book is indispensable. It's a watershed in Jung's life. It's the way in which he showed that he was ready to go into alchemy. He was already an alchemist, right? You have to be able to do that before you can go in and then try to understand what is that you do it. See that's how it is. You don't try to break flight records until you learn how to fly. It's like that.
So 11 was Marriage as a Psychological Relationship. Its in The Development of Personality volume 17 of The Collected Works. A underestimated volume.
12 is in The Collected Works volume 8 page 358 to 381. And its title was Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung. From the German term Weltanschauung
13 Collected Works 8, page 319 to 337, Spirit and Life.
And then the last essay, both in the German and The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, the Sixth and Spiritual Problem of Modern Man. That's in Collected Works 10 pages 74 to 96. So that when you're reading, if you're reading the English translation Modern Man in Search of a Soul. By the time you get to The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man, which is the 10th chapter in the book, page 226. This is a watershed. This is a combination of what the German book was all about. All of the problems which he talked about. All of the various areas in these lectures, which were put together in a series, lead up to this problem as the problem of problems. It's like the first 13 chapters are all problems in the series and then you put a parentheses around and this is the expotential of that series of problems. I don't know how to explain this except I have to go into a little bit of mathematical talk for just a second. This essay is not a part of the series. This essay makes the previous series no longer just a series but a matrix. So that every element in the matrix is affected by the exponential power of this particular problem. And the problem is the spiritual problem of modern man. Spiritual.
The spiritual problem of modern man is one of those questions which belong so intimately to the present. And which we are living that we cannot judge of them fully. So it's just like you have little question marks 13 in a row and then you put a parenthesis around and then you put a big capital question mark. He's getting ready to go into the unknown so he is covering all of the aspects. All of his bases. And not only do I not know a lot of things but I don't even know if I don't know. There's a kind of a self-reflective consciousness here in Jung. We're dealing with somebody who is really first-rate mind. Somebody who's, who's understanding that those processes not only occur in some kind of a sequence but that after a while that sequence has a pattern and a life of its own. And has its own context in which it occurs which may not necessarily be you. And that you have to prepare yourself for that eventuality. You may not be who you think you are. And if you're carrying some stereotype conviction of who you are into the unknown you will never find that out. There would be no way that you could find that out. So this is very, very sophisticated on Jung's part. It's a way an alchemists would work.
He writes, "To begin at once with an example of such apparent lack of caution. I must say that the man we call modern. The man who is aware of the immediate present is by no means the average man. He is rather the man who stands upon a peak. Or edge of the world. The abyss of the future before him. Above him the heavens. Below him the whole of mankind with a history that disappears into primeval mists." Do you get the picture? He's standing on the rim of nowhere. But it's, there has a peculiar quality to it. He can stand on the rim of nowhere. The very peculiar situation.
"The modern man well let us say again the man of the immediate present." See the phrase again. The whole title of the whole thing is towards presence. Mind problems. The mind problems towards presence. "The modern man let us say again the man of the immediate present is rarely met with. There are few who live up to the name for they must be conscious to a superlative degree." Let us now. Not even the comparative. Not even better but best. Thrice greatest. Superlative. Even his syntax has a triadic base to it and pointing to a fourth level beyond it. But that fourth level down is not just a fourth level but is in fact going to involve a recreation of all of these to something new. This is what the transformation forms. The transformation doesn't stay here. And its not any level, the level of
this by itself is not going to remain. But its very nature is to change. It's going to be **inaudible 1-2 words** It's going to be different. Even if you **inaudible word** you're going to be diffrenet. For there must be conscious to a superlative degree. Since to be whole of the present means to be fully conscious of one's existence as a man. It requires the most intensive and extensive consciousness with a minimum of unconsciousness. It must be clearly understood that the mere fact of living in the present does not make a man modern. For in that case everyone at present alive would be so. He alone is modern who is fully conscious of the present. The man who maketh(?) with justice core modern is solitary. He is so of necessity and at all times. For every step towards a fair consciousness of the present removes him further from his original participation mystique with the mass of men. From subversion in a common unconsciousness. Every step forward means an act of tearing himself loose from that all-embracing pristine unconsciousness which claims the bulk of mankind almost entirely. Even in all civilizations, the people who form psychologically speaking. The lowest stratum live almost as unconsciously as primitive **inaudible word.** Those of the succeeding strata manifest a level of consciousness which corresponds to the beginnings of human culture. While those are the highest stratum have the consciousness capable of keeping step with the life of the last few centuries. Only the man who is modern in our meaning of the term really lives in the present moment.
You can see that there is a **inaudible few words** As goes further into the depths, further into the past. Further into the amplification the reciprcity is that you become more and more present now. And as your moving into the back, into the past out of the amplification what's condensing in there is that existential reality. And that there is a point where that emerges. Comes through.
What does he find? He finds that the ways of life which correspond to older levels paw upon him. Revulsion. Absolute revulsion. The values and strivings of those past worlds no longer interest him. Save from the historical standpoint. Thus he, he has become in that moment unhistorical in the deepest sense. And has estranged himself from the massive men who live entirely within the bounds of tradition. He becomes an alien. Indeed he is completely modern only one he has come to the very edge of the world. Leaving behind him all that has been discarded in our realm and acknowledging that he stands before a void out of which all things may grow.
This is extremely powerful. And you can see why this particular collection, this particular chapter is different from all the other ones. But if you just picked up the book and try to read it, it's just pages near the end. It's not even near the end. There's another chapter after it and so on and so forth.
But I'm trying to say that there's no way to understand Jung without a structural introspection. Everything about the man is analytical. And almost all of the commentators in present....(audio cuts off)
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