Jung notes that medical psychologists are concerned with natural rather than cultural symbols. The former can be found within the unconscious contents of the psyche. The latter however are those that express "eternal" truths and have religious connotations, yet experience many transformations as they are constructed. Cultural symbols evoke deep emotional responses and function like prejudices. They may be considered absurd and irrelevant, but remain important constituents or our make up. They cannot be eradicated without serious loss. The loss of cultural symbols can intensify that which is foremost in the unconscious - tendencies that have not yet been permitted existence within the conscious mind. Jung considers that these tendencies form a potentially destructive shadow of the conscious mind; and notes that even beneficial tendencies can become daemons when repressed. Jung notes that many are afraid of the unconscious and with good cause. It is possible to see what it is to open the gates of hell when considering Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.
Jung notes that modern man's rationalism has destroyed his capacity to respond to symbols and ideas. As such he is disorientated and dissociated from himself. Anthropologists have discovered that as people groups loose meaning social order declines resulting in moral decay. Yet modern man does not even realize what he has lost given his spiritual leaders preoccupation with saving institutions rather than the mystery that the symbol presents. Jung notes that faith and thought are not mutually exclusive; many believers are so afraid of science they turn a blind eye to the numinosity that forever directs man's fate. Jung explains that as instinctive concepts well up in the mind of primitive man he would integrate these into a coherent psychic pattern. Yet modern man is deprived of the means in which instinct can be assimilated by virtue of his "advanced" consciousness. For example "mother earth" is a profoundly emotive description of all we see around us yet modern man employs the term "matter". Modern man has become disconnected from natural phenomena as they loose their symbolic implications, and feels isolated in the cosmos as he withdraws from nature [the sublimation of the imagination; the universe looses it's magic as one comes of age]. No rivers contain spirits, no caves a daemon; he has lost a significant emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.
Jung notes that Dreams express their contents in the language of nature which is intelligible to us, as we have discarded all superstition [or have we?]. Jung notes man retains certain infantile prejudices such as the number 13 or touching wood and this confusion is the man and his symbols for the clinician to scrutinize. Man is a synthesis of critical thought, scientific conviction, prejudice and remnant habits of thought. Jung explains the clinician must discover if such prejudice relate to personal experience or are chosen for a purpose. One can speak of Archetypes when both mythological images and emotions are simultaneous; the image becomes numinous and consequence flows from it. Jung explains this is because Archetypes are pieces of life; images connected to the individual by threads of emotion. To miss the emotional tone then, is to assemble a jumble of mythological concepts that are meaningless.
Jung notes that the symbol-producing function of dreams draws the original mind of man to consciousness. This mind, he asserts, has never been subject to critical self reflection; consciousness has never known this mind discarded in the process of evolution. The unconscious has preserved primitive characteristics of the original mind to which dream symbols reference; illusion, fantasies, thought forms and instincts. These are not neutral relics but highly charged and emotive; they can evoke fear and are often repressed. Jung explains the search for such memories are a symptom of the greater search for the primitive self. Dreams aid recollection and such recollection can have remarkable healing effects. Jung explains the infantile memory gap represents a positive loss and recovery can promote wellbeing. Much of the infantile mind is based on prehistoric psyche and in infantile amnesia highly numinous mythological fragments appear. Recollection in adults can cause profound disturbance, miracles of healing or religious conversion; often bringing back a piece of life that was missing.
Recollection alone however is insufficient but requires appropriation. Integration of such recollections into the conscious mind will modify the personality and broaden horizons. The patient may brush off symbols yet this re-establishes neurotic conditions inhibiting synthesis. Disregarding the emotional energy as mere words has similar negative effects. A patient will glide from Archetype to Archetype in their limitless permutations and attain nothing. The numinosity of the types remains a fact representing the value of the Archetypal event. Numinosity must be acknowledged throughout and it is easy to stray for this given the diametric distinction between thought and feeling. Jung asserts that Psychology is the only science that must account for value, because it is the link between physical events and life. This is often perceived as a criticism but Jung notes that critics fail to recognize the practical necessity of the due consideration of feeling.
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